Daily Tech Headlines – July 11, 2016
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| Daily Tech Headlines – July 11, 2016 | |
| Number | 23 |
| Broadcast Date | JULY 11, 2016 |
| Episode Length | 6:33 |
| Hosts | Tom Merritt |
Pokémon Go is huge The Galaxy S7 Active isn’t as waterproof as it should be, Line gets a top value.
Headlines
- Analytics company SimilarWeb estimates Pokémon Go is installed on more US Android devices than Tinder and is approaching Twitter in daily active users. And it's got the markets attention. Nintendo's share price rose 24.52 percent on Monday to ¥20,260 ($193) its highest one-day jump since 1983. Nintendo is an investor in Niantic and The Pokémon Company who collaborated on the app. Morgan Stanley's Mia Nagasaka told CNBC that Pokémon Go is estimated to have made $3.9 million to $4.9 million on its first day. The game is out in Australia, New Zealand and the US.
- Consumer Reports released their results testing the Samsung Galaxy S7 Active’s water resistance. The S7 is rated at IP68 meaning it should survive 30 minutes of submersion in up to five feet of water. In a tank of water pressurized to 2.12 pounds, the same as five feet, one phone’s touchscreen died and showed green lines and had bubbles infiltrate the cameras. A second phone’s screen turned on and off every few seconds and had water in the camera lenses and SIM card slot. The phones would turn on after drying out but the screens could not be read. The regular S7 and S7 Edge passed the test.
- Elon Musk knows how to play to hopes and dreams and tweeted Sunday morning “Working on Top Secret Tesla Masterplan, Part 2. Hoping to publish later this week” Tesla is working with the US NHTSA investigating a death related to Tesla’s Autopilot and is also attempting a takeover of Musk’s company SolarCity.
- Twitter has reached a deal with CBS to stream the network's coverage of the US Democrat and Republican Conventions. The Republican National Convention takes place in Cleveland July 18-21. The Democrats convene in Philadelphia July 25-28.
- Messaging app company Line set its IPO price at 3300 yen per share at the top of its range putting it set to raise as much as $1.3 billion. Naver Corp will issue stock for Line in New York on Thursday and Tokyo on the following day. The IPO pricing values the company at 693 billion yen ($6.9 billion).
- The code for Apollo 11's guidance computer was released in 2003 but now it has been posted to GitHub meaning the community can suggest changes and file issues. One developer submitted an issue that read, “A customer has had a fairly serious problem with stirring the cryogenic tanks with a circuit fault present,” listing steps to reproduce the problem.
- Verizon said Monday it has determined the radio specifications for deployment of its 5G service. Setting its own specs for network infrastructure, processors and devices, makes things easier for Verizon's vendors, but could also influence the standards expected to be set globally by 2020. Verizon worked to make its 5G specs line up with Korea's KT which wants to be ready for the 2018 Olympics in Pyeongchang. Verizon hopes to begin commercial deployment of 5G next year.
- Meanwhile 20 telcos including BT, Deutsche Telekom, Ericsson, Nokia, Orange, and Vodafone issued a 3,000 word document detailing their requirements from European governments regarding 5G. The document notes current rules on open Internet create uncertainties around 5G investment. The telcos aim to start large-scale 5G demonstrations by 2018 and have 5G commercially available in one city in each EU country by 2020.
- Qualcomm announced its 6 month spec bump to its flagship Snapdragon mobile processor. Qualcomm says the Snapdragon 821 will have a 10% performance increase over the 820. It will have the same LTE modem as the 820 and no details were given on the GPU. The 2.4GHz chip will debut in smartphones later this year.
- Every four years the number of bitcoins that can be mined in 10 minutes is cut and half. July 9th the number went down from 25 bitcoins per 10 minutes to 12.5. The measure is intended to combat a growing number of miners and the expected development of faster computers. The next cut will come in 2020.
- Bloomberg reports Russian President Vladimir Putin pledged support for Hyperloop development during talks with Hyperloop One co-founder Shervin Pishevar at a forum in St. Petersburg last month. Presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov told Bloomberg the President, "promised state backing for implementing it." Russian freight tycoon Ziyavudin Magomedov and the state's Russian Direct Investment Fund are investors in Hyperloop One. Russia is involved in study of several projects including one in China and several around Moscow.
- Dongxu Optoelectronics showed off a graphene battery Friday in Beijing claiming a recharge time of 13-15 minutes and longevity of 2500 charging cycles both better than current lithium-ion batteries. Graphene batteries potentially can discharge power faster too so could power larger things like vehicles and drones with much lighter batteries. The G-King showed Friday has 4800mAh but no details on commercial availability.
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| Preceded by: "Daily Tech Headlines – July 8, 2016" |
Daily Tech Headlines – July 11, 2016 |
Followed by: "Daily Tech Headlines – July 12, 2016" |