Daily Tech Headlines – October 10, 2016
Jump to navigation
Jump to search
| Daily Tech Headlines – October 10, 2016 | |
| Number | 89 |
| Broadcast Date | OCTOBER 10, 2016 |
| Episode Length | 6:50 |
| Hosts | Rich Stroffolino |
The US accuses Russia in the DNC email hack, Hangouts is replaced by Duo on Android, and part of Salesforce REALLY doesn’t want to buy Twitter.
Headlines
- CNET passes along a report from the Yonhap News Agency that Samsung has temporarily halted production of the Galaxy Note 7, and is reportedly being done in concert with consumer safety regulators from South Korea, the United States and China. In a statement to Android Central, a Samsung rep advised they were "adjusting the Galaxy Note7 production schedule" to address quality and safety concerns. The move comes after 5 reported instances of the recall replacement Note 7s catching fire within the last week in the US.
- Following Sprint's lead, Verizon, AT&T, and T-Mobile confirmed they will allow the return of any Galaxy Note 7. In addition, AT&T, T-Mobile, and Verizon have all ceased sales and exchanges of the Note 7, offering customers another smartphone model as a replacement, with T-Mobile overriding their usual 14-day return period for all Note 7 models.
- In a statement from director of national intelligence James R. Clapper Jr. and the Department of Homeland Security, the Obama administration officially accused the Russian government in the email hack of the Democratic National Committee. Mr. Clapper also commented on unauthorized access to election rolls in several states, stating that most of the probes originated from servers operated by a Russian company, but did not accuse the Russian government of involvement.
- According to regulatory filings, Walmart doubled its stake in JD.com, China's 2nd largest e-commerce site behind Alibaba. Walmart now owns 10.8% of the company, and plans to be a passive investor. This is the second recent e-commerce investment by the company, following their acquisition of Jet.com in September.
- In an email to Google Mobile Service partners, Google announced as of December 1st, Hangouts would be an optional component of the GMS package for Android smartphones. Google's video calling app Duo will replace Hangouts as a mandatory app in the package. The company confirmed they will continue to support Hangouts for Android, and users could install it from the Google Play Store.
- The New York Times reports that significant investors at Salesforce have been discouraging the company's potential acquisition of Twitter. The effort was lead by the company's largest shareholder, Fidelity Investments. Other hedge fund investors advised Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff that they would selloff shares if such an acquisition was going to go forward. The company currently has roughly $1 billion in cash reserves, which would require the company to finance any large acquisition, such as Twitter, largely with stock.
- Turkey reportedly began blocking various cloud storage services Saturday, including Google Drive, Dropbox, and Github. Censorship monitoring group Turkey Blocks notes that Google Drive appears to have had the block removed as of Sunday night. The block follows a leak of over 57,000 emails belonging to Minister of Energy and Natural Resources Berat Albayrak, the son-in-law of Turkish President Erdogan.
- Google released the new typeface Noto, developed over a 5 year collaboration with Monotype. Noto was developed to eliminate the blank boxes shown when a browser can't render text, and supports more than 800 languages and 100 writing scripts with a total 110,000 characters. Google will update it with new Unicode characters, including emojis.
- Snapchat updated the stories page in their app, putting stories of friends at the very top, with Discovery publishing partners below. The app will also no longer automatically transition into another friend's story automatically when viewing. Users who wish to watch multiple stories can use the new Story Playlist to customize which ones they want to watch together.
- Verizon announced it would soon offer data plans for drones. Initially this would be used for direct streaming of video content, but could possibly be used for remote piloting in the future. Data starts at $25 for 1GB and goes up to $80 for 10GBs. The company also plans to use drones as mobile cellular towers to fill holes in coverage during emergencies.
- Brian Krebs notes that the source code for Mirai malware used to run the DDoS against him has been released online for anyone to use. Mirai spreads by scanning for devices that use factory default usernames and passwords. In addition, Bruce Schneier has a column on Motherboard calling for the regulation of the Internet of Things. He refers to the DDoS against Krebs that used CCTV cameras, home routers and other such devices to amplify the attack. He points out that these kinds of devices sometimes cannot be updated and often are not replaced for decades. And the owners don't care because it doesn't affect their use, so there's no market pressure.
- Duolingo has added a chatbot to its iOS language learning app. You can now chat in Spanish, French and German. The bots are in the conversation tab and ask you questions about different topics like driving, food and so on.
- Microsoft has sent a message that asks attendees to join them at 10 AM Eastern time October 26th for “what’s next for Windows 10,” and a large, backwards tagline says “Imagine what you’ll do.”
Links
| Preceded by: "Daily Tech Headlines – October 7, 2016" |
Daily Tech Headlines – October 10, 2016 |
Followed by: "Daily Tech Headlines – October 11, 2016" |