Daily Tech Headlines – September 14, 2016

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Daily Tech Headlines – September 14, 2016
Number 70
Broadcast Date SEPTEMBER 14, 2016
Episode Length 7:10
Hosts Tom Merritt

Uber goes autonomous Twitter brings live video to Apple TV, Amazon Echo turns white launches in UK and Germany.

Headlines

Uber gave reporters rides in its autonomous Ford Fusion cars earlier this week in advance of announcing today the beginning of its research program. A subset of riders will be emailed an opportunity to opt-in to the program. If they hail a ride within the test area they may, at random, be picked up by an autonomous car. An engineer will sit in the driver’s seat and occasionally take over to do things like change lanes to pass a stopped vehicle. The area begins in a few neighborhoods and within a few weeks will expand to the airport and a northern suburb.
Twitter announced the launch of apps for Apple TV, Xbox One and FireTV Wednesday that will let users watch live video content like NFL games. On Apple TV live tweets and the video stream will be viewable side by side. Users will not need to be logged in to view content.
Amazon announced the Amazon Echo will be available for preorder in the next couple days for £149.99 in the UK and 179.99 Euro in Germany and £50 / 50 Euro less for Prime customers. In addition there's now a white version of the Echo that will also arrive in the US. All of this ships in the autumn. Amazon also has a new version of the Echo Dot that ships in the US and UK October 20 and Germany October 26th. It's $50 £50 or €60. You can get discounts if you buy packs of 6 or 12. The new Dots can detect multiple instances so not every Echo or Dot in a home responds to your voice.
YouTube launched a limited beta Community tab on some channels. The tab can be populated by channel hosts with text updates, live videos, images like Gifs and more. Posts will show up in subscriber feeds and subscribers can choose to receive notifications of new posts as well. The tab will eventually roll out to all.
ZDNet's Mary Jo Foley reports that Microsoft told her it will continue to invest and innovate in the Microsoft Health platform and continue to sell the Microsoft Band 2. Reading between the lines there, it seems to indicate no Microsoft Band 3 is planned which fits with info Foley has heard that Microsoft disbanded the group trying to get Windows 10 to run on Band and has no plans to launch a new version this year.
Samsung plans to issue a software update September 20th in South Korea that will limit existing Note 7 devices to 60% charging in order to prevent overheating and fire. Samsung is still in the midst of a recall of Note 7s for fire risk in its battery. It recommends keeping all unreplaced Note 7s off and uncharged.
Bruce Schneier wrote a column to alert people that some organization has been conducting calibrated denial of service attacks against key pieces of Internet infrastructure in a pattern that looks like probing defense capabilities. In other words someone is trying to learn how to take down the Internet. The full post is available at lawfareblog.com.
Spotify announced Wednesday it has 40 million paid subscribers and its chief revenue officer, Jeff Levick will leave the company after five years. “Working hard is hard work," Levick explained in a Medium post about his departure. Spotify's ad sales team will now report to CFO Barry McCarthy.
Tim Cook told the US TV program Good Morning America that he thinks Augmented Reality is bigger than Virtual Reality. Cook said AR "gives the capability for both of us to sit and be very present talking to each other, but also have other things visually for both of us to see." Cook added, "Virtual reality sort of encloses and immerses the person into an experience that can be really cool but probably has a lower commercial interest over time."
Facebook and Twitter have joined Google's First Draft Coalition meant to help verify stories circulating online. Reuters reports the First Draft Coalition will launch a platform by the end of October where members can identify fakes and hoaxes.
The European Commission released a draft of rules that would require online services like Google News to pay newspapers for links to their articles. In addition Video-upload sites would have to take "appropriate and proportionate measures to ensure protection" of copyrighted works." Google shut down Google News in Spain after a similar law was passed there. Google said the proposal would require every post on the Internet to be cleared by lawyers before it could become public. The draft rules need the approval of governments and the EU parliament.
The European Commission also announced plans for free public WiFi in public spaces within the next four years. EU President Jean-Claude Juncker also added he wants at least once city in each EU country to have a 5G mobile network deployed by 2020.
Alibaba's Ant Financial has acquired Kansas City, Missouri's EyeVerify, an optical recognition technology used by many banks and credit unions. EyeVerify examines the blood vessels with accuracy on par with fingerprint sensors. Banks use EyeVerify to let people log into mobile apps. EyeVerify will likely be added to Alipay's peer-to-peer payment network. EyeVerify does not store any biometric information with the entire authentication process taking place on the user's device.
SpaceX plans to resume launches in November after an explosion of an unmanned Falcon 9 rocket during testing September 1st. Gwynne Shotwell, president of SpaceX made the statement at an industry conference in Paris. A second launch site in Florida at NASA's Kennedy Space Center is due for completion in November. NASA told Reuters Tuesday it had no reservations about SpaceX flying at Kennedy Space Center.

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Preceded by:
"Daily Tech Headlines – September 13, 2016"
Daily Tech Headlines – September 14, 2016
Followed by:
"Daily Tech Headlines – September 15, 2016"