Daily Tech Headlines – August 26, 2016
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| Daily Tech Headlines – August 26, 2016 | |
| Number | 57 |
| Broadcast Date | AUGUST 26, 2016 |
| Episode Length | 7:47 |
| Hosts | Tom Merritt |
Three zero-day iPhone flaws found and fixed, Uber losing a lot of money, Alphabet cuts its fiber staff down.
Headlines
- On August 10 and 11th Activist Ahmed Mansoor received suspicious text messages and forwarded them to researchers at Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto. Working with Lookout, Citizen Lab determined the messages contained links to malware exploiting three previously unknown flaws in iOS, collectively being called Trident. The malware was traced back to Israeli technology company NSO. The two companies alerted Apple which issued a security update Thursday, iOS 9.3.5, fixing the flaws. The researchers believe the malware has been in use for years. NSO says it sells its tools only to governments. An NSO Group spokesman told the Washington Post it had no knowledge of the incidents.
- Sources told Mark Gurman and Gareth Allan at Bloomberg that Apple plans to add Sony's FeliCa chip to a future iPhone. FeliCa is a tap-to-pay tech similar to NFC used widely in Japan in mass transit cards like Suica and Pasmo as well as at vending machines, convenience stores and cafes. Apple is supposedly prepared to add FeliCa on the next iPhone but could delay transit support if negotiations with payment networks stall.
- According to Bloomberg's sources Uber told private investors it lost more than $750 million in Q2 on revenue of $1.1 billion. Uber's head of finance Gautam Gupta said most of these losses came from subsidies to Uber drivers. Losses also stemmed from the companies aggressive push into China, which the company has now withdrawn from as part of a deal with rival Didi Chuxing earlier this month. Bookings were up 30% from Q1, to more than $5 billion in Q2. Bloomberg's Eric Newcomer points out Amazon, known for high losses in its earlier days peaked at $1.4 billion lost in 2000. Uber exceeded that number in 2015 and will likely do it again this year.
- Sources tell the Information that Alphabet CEO Larry Page ordered Fiber CEO Craig Barratt to cut staffing by half, down to 500. Page further wants the Access division of Alphabet to cut costs of delivering internet to homes down to a tenth of its current rate. Fiber's acquisition of wireless broadband provider Webpass in July could be part of a strategy to reduce the cost of delivery, previous reports indicated that expansions to new markets were costing Fiber roughly $1 billion per market.
- Dropbox reset passwords for users who have not changed them since 2012. The action seems to be related to the 117 million account credentials from LinkedIn circa 2012. Dropbox's security team noticed hashed and salted passwords. Dropbox does not believe any accounts have been accessed as a result, but is reseting old passwords as a precaution.
- Drone maker DJI announced a new model of its stabilized action camera called the Osmo+. The new model features a 3.5x optical zoom, and 2x digital zoom, that gives the device an effective focal length of 22mm to 77mm when shooting at 1080p. Overall the device can shoot at 30fps at 4K, 100fps at 1080p, and shoot 12 megapixel photos. DJI is also offering an extended warranty for the device called Osmo Shield, which doubles the warranty for 2 years and allows a one time accidental hardware damage repair. The Osmo+ is available now for $649.
- Private equity firm Apollo Global has agreed to buy Rackspace in a $4.3 billion deal or $32 per share in cash. The Rackspace board has approved the deal which now requires regulatory approval in the US, Europe and Israel. It's expected to close by Q4 after which Rackspace would no longer be a publicly-traded company.
- Belgian primary school headmaster Aveline Gregoire has developed a Facebook group called "Chasseurs de livres" or "Book hunters". The group emulates Pokémon Go. Players hide books and post pictures on Facebook. Other players hunt them down and read them then release them back into the wild. After a few weeks 40,000 people are signed up. Gregoire is considering making an app for the game.
- Business Insider got a look at Baidu's latest self-driving car. It's a modified Chery EQ, a full electric minicar from Chinese carmaker Chery. Baidu previously used the BMW 3 series. The company is testing the new cars in China. It also runs tests out of US offices in Sunnyvale, California. Baidu plans to have vehicles ready for a public shared shuttle service in China by 2018.
- The Wall Street Journal reports China's Cybersecurity Administration group known as Technical Committee 260 allowed foreign companies Microsoft, Intel, Cisco and IBM to take part in drafting rules rather than simply observing. The committee has seven working groups for encryption, big data and other issues. China's government is trying to insure technology is "secure and controllable" in the wake of the Snowden revelations, while balancing that with business needs.
- The Wall Street Journal reports US banks have been quietly revamping its Venmo competitor ClearExchange. The mobile payment service will supposedly relaunch as Zelle in October with wider availability of person to person payments and new features like third-party support from merchants.
- Bloomberg reports Twitter is developing a tool that will let users block posts by keyword in an effort to combat harassment.
- Nikkei reports Panasonic and Sony will partner with NHK to develop 8K broadcast technology in time for the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo. Limited tests were conducted during the Rio games earlier this month at public viewing stations. Sony plans to sell 8K TVs in 2020 and NHK aims to start full-scale 8K broadcasts in 2018.
- The Economic Times reports India's third-largest smartphone vendor, Intex has lost 200 employees as sales have fallen. A company Insider told Economic Times Intex handset sales have been cut in half from the norm. The report claims there is no clear product map for the festival season as well as supply-side issues. IDC shows Lenovo became number 3 in India last quarter dropping Intex to fourth. Intex CFO Rajeev Jain says a new professional management team has been brought on board and sales rose 36% last quarter.
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| Preceded by: "Daily Tech Headlines – August 25, 2016" |
Daily Tech Headlines – August 26, 2016 |
Followed by: "Daily Tech Headlines – August 29, 2016" |