Daily Tech Headlines – October 6, 2016
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| Daily Tech Headlines – October 6, 2016 | |
| Number | 87 |
| Broadcast Date | OCTOBER 6, 2016 |
| Episode Length | 6:06 |
| Hosts | Tom Merritt |
Nobody wants to buy Twitter, Samsung buys Viv from Siri inventors, a new Note burns up on an airplane.
Headlines
- Reuters sources say Twitter informed potential buyers that it will conclude sale negotiations by October 27th, the day the company reports third quarter earnings. Sources told Recode that Google, Apple, and Disney have decided not to bid for the company, leaving Salesforce as the last company rumored to still consider purchasing Twitter. Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff told CNBC "The reality is we have to look at everything, but we're going to pass on most things."
- Samsung acquired Viv makers of AI software powering a virtual assistant. Viv was founded in 2012 by Dag Kittlaus, Adam Cheyer and Chris Brigham who also developed Siri and sold it to Apple. Unlike Siri, Viv will continue to operate as an independent company after Samsung acquires it. Viv aims to support better interconnectivity between apps and have the ability to dynamically write new code to accomplish tasks set by users. Kittlaus says he is committed to keeping the platform open, though the millions of Samsung devices will certainly be the main platform.
- Brian Green was boarding Southwest Airlines flight 944 from Louisville to Baltimore Wednesday, when his newly-replaced Samsung Galaxy Note 7 began smoking. Green told the Verge had powered down the phone as requested by the flight crew and put it in his pocket when a "thick grey-green angry smoke" started coming out of the device. Green dropped it on the floor where it burned through the carpet. All passengers and crew were exited and were uninjured. Green said he had received his replacement phone September 21st at an AT&T store. Samsung is facing several challenges including angry Chinese customers who felt ignored by Samsung's recall efforts and pressure from hedge fund Elliott Management, to split the company and pay out $27 billion in a special dividend.
- The New York Times reports two government sources and a third person familiar with the matter say Yahoo adapted malware scanning software to comply with a US government request to scan incoming emails. The request was supposedly approved by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. Investigators knew agents of a foreign terrorist organization were using Yahoo email and identified a highly unique identifier they could scan for to learn what email addresses were being used. The sources told the Times the scanning is no longer taking place. If such a court order was issued Yahoo would be prohibited by law from acknowledging it.
- LinkedIn (still in the process of being acquired by Microsoft) announced a new feature called Open Candidates. The feature lets users signal to recruiters who pay for $8,000 premium service that they are open to changing jobs. It will only be visible to recruiters from outside the users current place of employment. The new feature rolls out first in Canada, Australia, the US and UK with more markets to follow this year.
- Apple began showing search ads in it US App store Wednesday. Ads appear at the top of search results if they are related to search keywords, similar to Google AdSense. The ads appear in a different background shade to differentiate them from normal search results.
- The Washington state gambling commission in the US has ordered Valve to cease and desist allowing betting with virtual currency on video games. Users can buy virtual items in game and then sell them or bet with them. As such Valve is seen as in control of the currency and able to punish misuse of the items. Valve sent cease and desist letters of its own to 23. However that has not satisfied the commission and Commission director David Trujillo said Valve didn’t respond to requests for more information following a meeting in February.
- Udacity founder Sebastian Thrun announced that the online education company will build its own autonomous car as part of its self-driving car nanodegree program. Udacity has open sourced a total of 223GB of driving data and footage.
- Apple's first App Development Center is scheduled to open at the University of Naples Thursday. The center will offer a free 9-month English-based course designed around app creation for iOS. Roughly 4000 people applied to be part of the initial course, with 200 accepted. Students will receive a free iPhone, iPad, and Macbook, and be organized into competing groups.
- Bethesda Studios posted that player-made game modifications support will be coming to both Skyrim: Special Edition and Fallout 4 for the PS4. Mods will rollout to Skyrim Special Edition first with its October 28th launch, but neither game mods will support external game assets. The company also revealed both games will support the upcoming Playstation 4 Pro, with native 4K rendering.
- In a move that is neither a trick nor a treat, Google announced it will shutdown the mobile app development platform Pixate on October 31st. Acquired in July 2015, the shutdown will discontinue all official support for their products, it will keep community service operational going forward. Users have until the shutdown date to backup any app files and prototypes saved on Pixate servers.
Links
| Preceded by: "Daily Tech Headlines – October 5, 2016" |
Daily Tech Headlines – October 6, 2016 |
Followed by: "Daily Tech Headlines – October 7, 2016" |