Daily Tech Headlines – September 9, 2016
Jump to navigation
Jump to search
| Daily Tech Headlines – September 9, 2016 | |
| Number | 67 |
| Broadcast Date | SEPTEMBER 9, 2016 |
| Episode Length | 7:23 |
| Hosts | Rich Stroffolino |
Airbnb makes changes to address discrimination, the FCC is all about apps, and burrito drones.
Headlines
- Airbnb introduced policy changes to short term rentals in response to allegations and criticisms of discrimination by hosts. Starting Nov 1st it will ask all users to agree to a “community commitment” to works with others ““regardless of race, religion, national origin, disability, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation or age.” The company will also experiment with reducing the prominence of users photos and accelerate the use of instant bookings.
- The Whitehouse announced the appointment of the first federal chief information security officer yesterday. Gregory Touhill is a former Air Force General and Homeland Security official, and will lead the federal government in planning policy to make infrastructure and government agencies more secure. The CISO position was created as part of President Obama’s Cybersecurity National Action Plan, announced in February.
- Twitter now acts more like a messaging app with read receipts, typing indicators & web link previews
- Twitter giveth and Twitter taketh away. The social media company enabled live video notifications from individual accounts. The subscribe button appears on the an accounts profile page. Subscribers will receive alerts when a Periscope stream goes live. However according to Buzzfeed as of yesterday Twitter is killing the button, at least for now. But at least... Twitter also rolled out new features for Direct Messages to make it comparable to dedicated messaging apps, adding read receipts, showing who in a direct message has read and responded to it, typing indicators, and web link previews.
- Google announced plans to acquire API management firm Apigee for $625 million. Google obtains Apigee's tools to help secure, develop, test, and publish APIs, which allow back-end systems to communicate with apps. The acquisition would pay Apigee shareholders $17.40 in cash per share, and is subject to regulatory and shareholder approval.
- Beginning in January 2017 with the release of Chrome 56, HTTP sites that send passwords or credit card information will be marked as non-secure by the browser. Google said the decision is part of a plan to eventually mark all HTTP sites as non-secure, citing studies that found users did not view the lack of a "secure" icon as a warning.
- The Federal Communications Commission announced an update to their proposal to overhaul cables boxes. The new plan focuses heavily on apps, requiring large cable providers to create apps able to access all content on their network, requiring them to be available on "all widely deployed platforms,", which the FCC defines as having shipped 5 million devices in the previous year. Providers would also have to open up their content to universal searches. The idea being that subscribers could have a choice to buy a streaming box rather than be forced to buy or rent a cable box. The FCC will vote on the plan on September 29th.
- Amazon announced an update to its Fire HD 8 tablet. The updated device features a larger 4750 mAh battery, 50% increase to 1.5GB of RAM and doubles the base storage to 16GB. The tablet also has access to Amazon's voice assistant Alexa. Alexa will also come to existing Fire HD 8, Fire HD 10 and the $50 Fire tablet in a software update later this fall. The updated tablet will be available for $89, and ships September 21st.
- Google announced updates to its Photos and Maps apps yesterday. The Photos updates integrates the Live photo stablization seen in the company's Motion Stills app, and allows the results to be exported as a video file for easier sharing. The update to Maps adds 2 new riding sharing services integrated into the Directions section, Lyft and Gett. Lyft will appear in directions results across the US, while Gett will operate in New York City.
- NASA confirmed the successful launch of its Osiris-Rex spacecraft, which lifted off from Cape Canaveral on Thursday night. The spacecraft will meet up with a 1600 foot diameter asteroid in orbit around the sun called Bennu in 2018, eventually moving in to gather a sample of the asteroid before returning the samples to earth in 2023.
- ZDNet’s Mary Jo Foley reports that Microsoft will launch a new Surface branded All-In-One-PC this October. According to her contacts the product is being called “Cardinal” and is being positioned as a machine that can turn your desk into a studio. Foley speculates the All-In-One may ship in different screen sizes from 21” - 27”.
- In a statement Thursday, the Federal Aviation Administration advised passengers not to turn on or charge Samsung's recalled Galaxy Note 7 during flights, specifically citing them as a potential fire hazard. The FAA also recommended not to stow them in any checked bags. The FAA has previous issued similar warnings of the dangers of checking devices with lithium-ion batteries in general, but a warning targeting a specific brand or device is unusual.
- Bloomberg reports that according to sources, after its completed merger with EMC Corp, the newly created Dell Technologies will cut 2,000-3,000 jobs out of the companies 140,000 employees. The jobs cuts will come from US positions in supply chain and administrative positions. Dell Technologies hopes to create costs savings of $1.8 billion in the first 18 months after the merger.
- Alphabet’s Project Wing unit and Chipotle have teamed up to deliver burritos by drone to the students of Virginia Tech. The FAA approved experimental service starts this month and will run just a few weeks. The drones are self-guided hybrid aircraft that will fly like planes but covert to hover like helicopters and use a winch to make their delivery. Human pilots will be on standby to take control to satisfy FAA requirements.
Links
| Preceded by: "Daily Tech Headlines – September 8, 2016" |
Daily Tech Headlines – September 9, 2016 |
Followed by: "Daily Tech Headlines – September 12, 2016" |