Daily Tech Headlines – July 2, 2018
Jump to navigation
Jump to search
| Daily Tech Headlines – July 2, 2018 | |
| Number | 536 |
| Broadcast Date | JULY 2, 2018 |
| Episode Length | 4:18 |
| Hosts | Tom Merritt |
HTC lays off 22% of the company, 500px shuts down Creative Commons photos, new LTE vulnerability discovered and it can’t be patched.
Headlines
- HTC announced it will lay off 1,500 employees from its Taiwanese manufacturing division, about 22% of the company. The company will reorganize for efficiency in an attempt to be profitable. HTC laid off employees and reorganized earlier this year as well.
- Photo-sharing site 500px has removed the option for photographers to share photos under the Creative Commons license and has closed its stock photo platform, 500px marketplace. Visual China Group bought the company in February and is replacing the Marketplace with Visual China Group and Getty Images partnerships. Royalty rates for photographers will not change. While the million or so Creative Commons-licensed images have been removed from download and search, 500px said it may integrate Creative Commons into the platform in the future. 500px gave no warning of the removal but Archive.org was able to retrieve 3 terabytes of photos thanks to volunteers.
- Security researchers from Ruhr-Universität Bochum & New York University Abu Dhabi have revealed a vulnerability in LTE they call aLTEr. An attacker in proximity of the target with around $4,000 worth of sniffing equipment could use timing and data amounts to identify what sites are being visited despite encryption. The attackers could also direct traffic to malicious DNS servers because of lack of integrity checks in LTE's lower layers. The vulnerability is not able to be patched.
- Facebook gave the US Congress a 750-page document Friday in response to questions it received during committee hearings in April. The document lists 52 companies that use its older API that allowed access to a user's friend's information in order to replicate Facebook services outside of a Facebook app. The companies include chipmakers, carriers and security software makers. Facebook is still in the process of ending the older API access for 10 of the companies with 7 set to shut down by end of July and one by end of October. Facebook says it will continue the partnerships with Amazon, Apple and accessibility app Tobii.
- Tesla confirmed it was able to manufacture 5,031 Model 3s in seven days, meeting a ,milestone it had hoped to achieve in December. Tesla created a new production line in a tent to help meet the goal. Tesla now hopes to produce 6,000 Model3s a week by the end of August.
- Bethesda says multiplayer game Fallout 76 will not allow cross-platform play when it launches in November. Bethesda's Todd Howard told GameStar.de that cross-platform play is not possible because Sony is, "not as helpful as everyone would like."
- Dell, which owns 80% of VMWare, says it will buy back the VMWare tracking stock it issued in 2016, in order to simplify its ownership structure. Dell will offer $109 per share or 1.3665 shares of Class C Dell common stock. Dell says it will the list its Class C shares on the New York Stock Exchange following the completion of the buyback, making Dell a public company again.
- NASA plans to conduct a series of public tests of quieter supersonic technology near Galveston, Texas in November. An F/A-18 Hornet will perform dive maneuvers and at least 500 local volunteers will gauge the thumps it makes for acceptable noise levels. This will help the X-59 supersonic jet team calibrate the tech for its test flights expected in 2021.
- OpenPhone is launching an app for Android and iOS that lets small business owners operate a business line without needing to get a second phone. For $9.99 a month users get a local or toll-free number in the US or Canada and can port existing numbers in if they want. The app handles calls, text messages and voicemail transcription.
Links
| Preceded by: "Daily Tech Headlines – June 29, 2018" |
Daily Tech Headlines – July 2, 2018 |
Followed by: "Daily Tech Headlines – July 3, 2018" |