This week in search marketing [12/03/18]

Welcome once again to our weekly roundup of everything search marketing, including Google’s latest delivery project, new chrome features and more… 

Amazon and Google roll out latest drone tech with delivery system

In their latest update Amazon and Google have announced that they are both pushing ahead with plans to develop their own air traffic control network for low-level altitudes, so that their drones can make deliveries.

The plans which were outlined at a conference earlier in the week and have the backing of  some of the major players in the US tech market including Amazon, General Electric, Boeing and Google, will create a privately funded commercial drone industry and revolutionary  air-traffic control network, entirely separate from the current federal system. This means that early adopters are able to have total control of the project.

According to the Wall Street Journal, the system would use automated cellular and web applications to track and prevent collisions among swarms of small unmanned aircraft flying a few hundred feet above the ground.

The move would create a sort of ‘drone superhighway’ and would be the next step in Amazon’s ambitious plans to deliver packages via drone within 30 minutes.

Dave Vos, who heads Google’s Project Wing division, said that different companies could develop drone air-traffic systems.

‘We think the airspace side of this picture is really not a place where any one entity or any one organisation can think of taking charge,’ he said.

‘The idea being that it’s not ‘Google is going to go out and build a solution and everyone else has to subscribe to it’.

‘The idea really is anyone should be free to build a solution.’

Google update brings new ‘Mute Site’ feature to Chrome

An update to Google’s internet browser, Chrome,  has brought users plenty of new features including the option to mute certain websites permanently.

In January, Google Chrome — the search giant’s extremely popular web browser — started rolling out an update with a lot of new features, including the ability to permanently mute sites that auto-play videos every time a user visited.

Google Chrome updates usually consist of bug fixes and other necessary security-related adjustments that make a minimal difference in day-to-day browsing but this is seen as something of a win for user experience (UX).

Google Chrome users can now right-click on a tab and select ‘Mute Site’ to make sure that the site never plays sound. You can also click on the padlock on the left end of the address bar, scroll down to ‘Sound,’ and select ‘Block.’ I found sites would remain muted even when visiting them in an incognito tab, which means only clearing out your cache would undo the site-wide mute.

Of course, this means if you do want to hear a video from of your muted sites, you’ll have to ‘Unmute Site,’ done in the same manner.

Reuters work on new AI platform to produce stories

Reuters is advancing its embrace of artificial intelligence a stage further with the development of a new tool capable of writing sentences and suggesting story ideas as well as data analysis.

Accordine to an artice on The Drum, Lynx Insight has been conceived to better differentiate between tasks suited to automation and those which remain the preserve of humans, who will be able to dedicate more time to high value tasks such as interviewing, assessing importance and understanding context.

Already a pioneer in the field, Reuters is keen to furnish its journalists with new tools designed to augment their work and boost productivity in a ‘cybernetic newsroom’– rather than an out and out replacement of its workforce with bots.

Reg Chua, executive editor of editorial operations, data and innovation at Reuters, said: “The real value is using machines to do what they’re good at and then presenting that to humans — that’s the best of both worlds.”

Keep up with the latest news by subscribing to the blog – or for actionable advice on all things search, check out our resources. Or contact us to see how we can help your brand take the next step.