The Connectivity Standards Alliance (CSA), an industry group spearheaded by Amazon, Apple, Comcast, Google and SmartThings and focused on the Internet of Things (IoT), has debuted Matter, an interoperable, secure connectivity standard for the future smart home. Formerly known as the Zigbee Alliance, CSA came together with those key Big Tech companies in 2019 to develop and promote an open IoT standard. Matter is a royalty-free unified IP-based connectivity protocol built specifically for IoT systems that enable communication among smart devices. Read more

During its Think conference this week, IBM debuted Project CodeNet, an open-source dataset for benchmarking around AI for code. Project CodeNet consists of 14 million code examples, which makes it about 10 times larger than the most similar dataset, which has 52,000 examples. Project CodeNet also offers 500 million lines of code and 55 programming languages including C++, Java, Python, Go, COBOL, Pascal and Fortran, making it a Rosetta Stone for AI systems to automatically translate code into other programming languages. Read more

In Europe, TikTok is working with streetwear label Hype and other brands to test in-app sales, a first step towards competing with Facebook in the e-commerce arena. Parent company ByteDance’s China-only app Douyin did $26 billion in e-commerce in its first year of operation. Sources reported that TikTok is already working with vendors in various European markets including the United Kingdom. TikTok is also working on another pilot program to connect people hunting for jobs with companies looking for employees. Read more

In its first Brand Protection Report, Amazon revealed that it “seized and destroyed” 2+ million counterfeit products sent to Amazon warehouses in 2020 and “blocked more than 10 billion suspected bad listings before they were published in our store.” The products were destroyed so they would not be “resold elsewhere in the supply chain.” This number, however, only represents products from sellers that used Amazon fulfillment services. Amazon also removed tech accessory brands linked to fake review schemes. Read more

Wireless bandwidth emitted by our Amazon and Apple devices is being used by other nearby devices to supplement existing Wi-Fi. Now, Amazon and Apple are expanding those programs. Amazon Sidewalk is adding post-2018 Echo devices including Echo speakers, Echo Dot, Echo Show, Echo Plus and Echo Spot devices and newer Ring Video Doorbell Pro models to communicate on the Sidewalk network via Bluetooth. Apple’s new AirTag device also sends out a wireless signal that can be used by iPhones, iPads and Macs in the area. Read more