Daily Tech Headlines – August 22, 2016
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| Daily Tech Headlines – August 22, 2016 | |
| Number | 53 |
| Broadcast Date | AUGUST 22, 2016 |
| Episode Length | 6:49 |
| Hosts | Tom Merritt |
Apple acquires health startup, Samsung to sell reforms, PS4 may slim down.
Headlines
- Fast Company reports Apple has acquired health data company Gliimpse which puts medical records and health details into a secure bundle customers can choose to share with doctors, caregivers and researchers, if they wish. Gliimpse was founded in 2013 by Anil Sethi, a former Apple systems engineer.
- Reuters reports its sources say Samsung plans to start selling refurbished smartphones as early as next year. The phones will come from returns by customers who signed up for one-year upgrade programs. No other details of the plan were reported.
- The Wall Street Journal has sources who appear to confirm the legitimacy of a leaked picture of a new smaller version of the PlayStation 4. Sony has a press announcement scheduled for September 7th in New York where it is expected to announce a 4K-capable PlayStation previously referred to as Neo. The Journal says the new slimmer PS4 is likely to replace the original PS4.
- Microsoft announced it has acquired scheduling tool Genee and will integrate it into Office 365. Genee launched a year ago and uses natural language processing to interpret email and automatically create calendar invites. The existing Genee service will shut down September 1.
- Netgear is the latest to market a multiple router solution to WiFi coverage. The Netgear Orbi system combines one router and one range extender to provide coverage of up to 4,000 square feet. In addition to 2.4 and 5 GHZ radios for WiFi Orbi uses a third 5GHz radio to let the two units communicate with each other directly. The base two-pack costs $399.99 and single add-on units will be sold for $249.99.
- NBA star Kobe Bryant is partnering with investor Jeff Stibel to launch a $100 million tech and media fund. Bryant believes he has a knack for identifying good bets and Stibel emphasizes this won't be about Bryant endorsing products. Bryant's former teammate Shaquille O'Neal also is involved in financing startups. It's possible Kobe might learn to pass opportunities to Shaq.
- Barbara Streisand was frustrated that Apple's Siri was mispronouncing her last name so she called Tim Cook. Streisand told NPR's Scott Simon, "he delightfully agreed to have Siri change the pronunciation of my name finally with the next update on September 30th." That led to many wondering if September 30 will be the release date for iOS 10.
- Friday, Facebook launched a standalone iOS app directed at high school students, called Lifestage. The app has users setup a video profile at launch, which records your happy face, sad face, likes, and dislikes. Anyone can download the app, but only those 21 and younger can view other profiles, based on their school. The app does not require a Facebook account. A school must have 20 users before profiles become visible to others. The app was designed by 19-year old Facebook Product Manager Michael Sayman, citing Facebook's early profile focused design as an inspiration.
- Brad Sams at Thurott.com notes that many people report their webcams stopped working with the Windows 10 anniversary update. Apparently Windows stops allowing MJPEG or H264 encoded streams and only allows YUY2 encoding. Microsoft did this to stop duplication of encoding streams in some new scenarios. If a webcam tries to use MJPEG or H264 it freezes after a bout a minute. Mike M of Windows Camera team says a fix is coming in September. If you're comfortable editing the registry Rafael Rivera has a workaround on his twitter feed at @WithinRafael.
- Samsung announced it is shutting down its inexplicably named music streaming service, Milk Music on September 22nd. The personalized radio-like service was originally launched in 2014 along side the already shuttered video aggregation service Milk Video as exclusive services for Samsung devices. Samsung directed users to migrate to Slacker, which powered Milk Music since launch.
- Sony introduced its new in-dash car unit the XAV-AX100 that supports both Apple CarPlay AND Android Auto and connects by Bluetooth. It has a 6.4-inch display, supports a rear camera and costs $499 when it arrives in November. Honda and Ford are supporting both Android and Apple but Sony has the solution for upgrading your existing car.
- Google announced on the Chrome blog Friday that support for Chrome apps will end over the next two years. By the end of 2016, newly published Chrome apps will only be available on Chrome OS, although existing apps will remain available on all platforms. By the 2nd half of 2017, the Chrome Webstore will no longer show Chrome apps on Linux, Windows and Mac OS, and by early 2018 users of those platform will no longer to able to load Chrome apps. Google encouraged developers to shift existing Chrome apps to web apps, citing powerful new APIs would make this process possible.
- ARM Holdings introduced a new architecture license, ARM v8-A with Scalable Vector Extensions, designed for high-performance computing in data centers and supercomputers. Scalable Vector Extensions will be an addition to the instruction set architecture that allows code to be run whether it calls for 128-bit, 512-bit or 2048-bit without needing to be rewritten or recompiled. ARM will submit patches for the GCC and LLVM compilers to support auto-vectorization. Fujitsu is the first public licensee, and will implement the new architecture in its successor to the K Supercomputer, set for completion in 2020.
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| Preceded by: "Daily Tech Headlines – August 19, 2016" |
Daily Tech Headlines – August 22, 2016 |
Followed by: "Daily Tech Headlines – August 23, 2016" |