Daily Tech Headlines – October 12, 2016
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| Daily Tech Headlines – October 12, 2016 | |
| Number | 91 |
| Broadcast Date | OCTOBER 12, 2016 |
| Episode Length | 8:01 |
| Hosts | Tom Merritt |
Amazon’s new music service, Apple expands in china, Microsoft Hololens comes to Europe.
Headlines
- Amazon launched their rumored Music Unlimited streaming service. The service will cost $9.99 per month or $7.99 a month if you are an Amazon Prime subscriber. You can also get it for a single Amazon Echo device for $3.99 a month. The Echo will have improved search integration with Music Unlimited, allowing users to ask for new and popular songs by artist, genre, and lyrics. The Amazon Music app will now pre-cache recommendations for offline listenings, as well as feature artist commentaries on tracks, called "Side-by-Sides."
- Pandora Plus launched Wednesday as well. Pandora’s free ad-supported tier remains the same but Pandora Plus is now the paid tier Pandora One. It takes away ads and allows more skips, more replays and offline listening. A true on-demand streaming service launches later this year. Pandora also redesigned its P logo getting rid of the white part in the middle of the P.
- Apple announced Wednesday it will setup a research and development center in Shenzhen, China. This follows the August announcement of a hardware R&D center being built in Beijing. An Apple spokesperson said the Shenzhen center will let researchers work closer with manufacturing partners in the city.
- Microsoft announced its augmented reality Hololens headset will go on sale in Australia, France, Germany, Ireland, New Zealand and the United Kingdom. Developers can pre-order the headsets starting Wednesday, with shipment expected by late November. You can order a Development Edition for $3,000 or the Commercial Suite for $5,000 that includes better support, device management and enterprise features.
- Samsung slashes profit forecast by a third following Galaxy Note 7 debacle
- Samsung will 'dispose of' recalled Note 7 phones, won't repair or refurbish them
- Samsung released revised earnings guidance for investors, taking into account the end of sales and production of the Galaxy Note 7. Q3 2016 projected operating profit was reduced 33% from prior guidance to 5.2 trillion won ($4.6 billion). This would represent a year-over-year decrease of 30%. And the first decline in a year. Overall revenue projection was reduced by 2 trillion won, down 4% to 47 trillion won ($41.8 billion). Meanwhile the New York Times reports that Samsung has not been able to reproduce the Note 7 problem and therefore cannot determine what has been causing it. It's possible the problem was not the battery as previously suspected. Samsung confirmed to Motherboard that Note 7 phones will not be repaired, refurbished, or resold.
- Atari co-founder Nolan Bushnell is launching Modal VR, to produce high-end hardware and software. The prototype is wireless with 10 millisecond latency, can accommodate multiple users in areas as large as 900,000 square feet and includes full body tracking suits. Targets include entertainment businesses like arcades or enterprises that need life-size 3D modeling. Beta developer kits will ship soon.
- Apple and Samsung made their oral arguments in front of the US Supreme Court Tuesday about a $399 million judgement against Samsung. While justices' questions cannot determine how they rule, questions seemed to indicate doubts that Samsung should be forced to pay damages based on all profits of a phone. Samsung argues they should only pay based on a portion of profits proportional to the infringing patents. Justices seemed sympathetic to that argument but Justice Anthony Kennedy among others seemed unsure how jurors would be expected to compute that number.
- The ACLU released information yesterday showing that a company called Geofeedia was using its API access to Facebook, Twitter and Instagram to enable more than 500 US law enforcement agencies to track protesters. Tracking including location information and post content based on public posts in most cases. All three tech companies have cut off or limited Geofeedia's access to their APIs for violating terms of service.
- Russia's Yandex has launched a partnership program with handset makers to offer an Android launcher and browser powered by the Yandex Zen AI engine. The bundle would replace Google's Android products. ZTE and Wileyfox are among the handset makers who have signed on to use the service. Yandex says it has deals to offer handsets that use Yandex's suite in Europe, India, Latin America and Africa. The default search engine will not be Yandex in all markets, for instance in Brazil it will be Google, as Yandex aims to monetize unobtrusive ads within content feeds it provides, targeted based on AI observation of browsing and scrolling habits.
- HP announced the Envy 13, the Spectre x360 13.3 and the 27-inch Envy All-In-One and display are all getting refreshed with thiner form factors newer processors and improved battery lives. The Spectre x360 is out today, starting at $1,050. The Envy 13 comes out October 26 starting at $850. And The Envy All-In-One 27 is expected later this month starting at $1,300.
- Nokia's Alcatel Submarine Networks (ASN) Unit said Wednesday it has set a new record for cable transmission capacity for communications traffic. Nokia Bell Labs demonstrated 65 terabit-per-second transmission using dual-band fiber amplifiers. Undersea cable is booming. three networks were deployed in 2015. 33 are expected within the next three years.
- Western Digital introduced its first line of consumer Solid State drives. The high end Blue line starts at $79.99 for a 250GB drive, with capacity going up to 1TB. Lower power Green drives will be available later this year at 120 and 240GB. Western Digital bought SanDisk for $19 billion in May to get into the SSD market, but these are the first SSDs to carry WD branding.
- Signal released an update to its mobile and desktop app, introducing disappearing messages. Messages can be set to disappear anywhere from 5 seconds to 1 week after being read. The release also includes support for Signal Protocol's numeric fingerprint format, which allows two users to confirm their conversation is encrypted end-to-end by either comparing a string of numbers, or scanning a QR code.
- Sprint announced it will work with EveryoneOn and the My Brother’s Keeper Alliance to distribute one million mobile devices with free accounts to underprivileged high school students over the next 5 years. Devices will include 3GB of data per month. Depending on need, students will receive smartphones, tablets, laptops, or Wi-Fi hotspots. The program will begin by early 2017 in 7-10 cities, with plans to go nationwide the by 2017-2018 school year.
- Sony will begin shipping its PlayStation VR headset Thursday. The headset costs $399 on its own though customers need a PlayStation 4 and PlayStation Camera in order to use it.
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| Preceded by: "Daily Tech Headlines – October 11, 2016" |
Daily Tech Headlines – October 12, 2016 |
Followed by: "Daily Tech Headlines – October 13, 2016" |