Daily Tech Headlines – July 20, 2016
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| Daily Tech Headlines – July 20, 2016 | |
| Number | 30 |
| Broadcast Date | JULY 20, 2016 |
| Episode Length | 8:25 |
| Hosts | Tom Merritt |
Twitter bans more users, Microsoft’s cloud boost revenues, and Pokémon Go stimulates battery sales.
Headlines
- Twitter has reintroduced a form for people to apply to have verified accounts, indicated by a blue checkmark. Applicants will need to provide personal information and be “determined to be of public interest.” Separately Twitter said Tuesday it had permanently suspended a number of accounts after seeing an uptick in the number of accounts violating policies against targeted abuse and harassment.
- Microsoft reported revenue of $20.6 billion and earnings of 39 cents per share, well above expectations. That's compared to revenue of $22.2 billion and a loss of 40 cents a share a year ago, dragged down by losses connected to its acquisition of Nokia. Revenue in its "intelligent cloud" business including Azure rose 102% year over year at $6.7 billion. Productivity and business grew from $6.3 billion last year to $7 billion. Personal computing revenue clocked in at $12.7 billion with phone revenue down 71% but Surface revenue up 9 percent over Q3. Windows and search revenue were up and Xbox Live reports 49 million monthly active users.
- Niantic delayed the launch date for Pokemon Go in Japan yesterday. The cancellation came after emails from McDonalds Japan leaked on internet in places like the forum 2ch and the photo hosting service Imgur, detailing the launch time and date. Niantic feared launching the game as planned would overload servers and crash the game. Jon Russell at TechCrunch reports that sources say the revised launch, it is "imminent". Meanwhile Reuters reports AT&T, GameStop and RadioShack all report a rise in sales of mobile chargers since Pokémon Go went live on July 6th. GameStop has also seen a 115 percent increase in sales of Pokemon related collectables.
- Duolingo launched an iOS app Tuesday called Tinycards. The app delivers educational materials in a flash card like form. It relies largely on its language lessons but also offers lessons in history, science, and a few other topics from partners. The lessons use Duolingo's algorithms to adapt to the learner's progress. Users of Duolingo's existing language lessons can bring their progress over to the corresponding Tinycards lessons as well.
- Tuesday a judge in Brazil's Rio de Janeiro state ordered WhatsApp blocked for failing to turn over data in a criminal case. WhatsApp insists it does not have the data because of how its encryption works. Hours later the chief justice of Brazil's supreme court Ricardo Lewandowski overturned the decision saying the ban “apparently violates the fundamental right of freedom of expression and communication." This is the third time WhatsApp has been banned and had the ban overturned on appeal. Justice Minister Alexandre de Moraes said the government is drafting a bill regulating judicial access to digital data in criminal investigations.
- Unilever has agreed to buy subscription razor service Dollar Shave Club for $1 billion in cash. Michael Dubin will remain in place as CEO of Dollar Shave Club, and the business will continue to be run as an independent entity. No word yet if the company plans to change its name to Billion Dollar Shave Club.
- Facebook announced Wednesday that its Messenger app has reached more than 1 billion users. More than 1 billion messages are sent each month more than double the amount at this time last year. Facebook also noted 18,000 chatbots have launched on Messenger though we have not seen a number as to what percentage of messages are between the bots. Facebook's main app has 1.5 billion users and Facebook-owned whatsApp also has a billion users. Instagram has 500 million.
- Commercial UAV company Teal launched Wednesday. It bills itself as the maker of the world's fastest production drone capable of70 mph. It's camera-equipped aerial vehicle comes with built-in apps for command and control, follow-me mode and gaming. and costs $1,299. It's available for preorder today for shipping in early 2017. Owner George Matus graduated high school in May.
- Facebook's Connectivity Lab has published a research paper describing a detector that could use lasers to deliver wireless Internet. It uses fluorescent optical fibers to collect the light rather than traditional optical sensors. The fibers don't emit the same color they absorb allowing a 2 nanosecond turnaround time. The lightbulb shaped sensors means it work with moving mobile devices. Using orthagonal frequency-division multiplexing the team was able to transmit data at 2 Gbps. The team hopes optimized materials could raise that to 10 Gbps.
- China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology said it’s working with police on rules for the testing of autonomous cars. Bloomberg reports automakers have been warned not to test such cars on highways until the regulations are released. Chongqing Changan Automobile Co. completed a 1,200-mile trip in April with a self-driving car.
- Turkey blocked access to Wikileaks on Wednesday. The move came after the site published 300,000 emails sent from the ruling AKP party. The email dump goes as far back as 2010 through July 6 2016. Wikileaks maintains the source of the leak is not from a rival political party or connected with the country's recently failed military coup. Turkey's Telecommunications Communications Board called the block an "administrative measure" taken against the site.
- Ars Technica passes on a report from French site NextInpact that a Paris court denied a request to censor search results using the word "torrent". The request came from the French music producers association "Syndicat national de l’édition phonographique" (SNEP), and specifically called for Google and Microsoft to censor searches with particular artists names followed by "torrent", claiming these led users to pirate sites. The Tribunal de grande instance de Paris denied the request, specifically pointing out that the word "torrent" is not indicative exclusively of piracy, but rather "means a neutral communication protocol developed by the company Bittorrent, which provides access to files that can be downloaded lawfully."
- General Electric announced Wednesday it will partner with Huawei to develop smart machines to boost productivity. GE also launched an $11 million digital space in Shanghai to help startups and developers as apart of its industrial Internet program. GE hopes to connect machines and develop analytics that can lower maintenance costs, reduce pollution and improve safety. Huawei will adopt GE's Predix operating system and co-create applications with GE.
- Google has used a machine-learning algorithms from its DeepMind division to cut energy consumption in its data centers by 15%. It's real-time adaptive system also cut the cost of cooling by 40%. A white Paper on the system will come from DeepMind in six weeks. Google believe it could also work well in large manufacturing facilities or even energy grids. Google intends to roll the system out to all its own data centers by the end of the year.
- Uber will begin using high-res satellite images from DigitalGlobe to help drivers identify and improve pickup and dropoff locations. DigitalGlobe operates the WorldView-3 satellites capable of detecting images as small as 30 cm and using short-wave infrared to see through smoke.
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| Preceded by: "Daily Tech Headlines – July 19, 2016" |
Daily Tech Headlines – July 20, 2016 |
Followed by: "Daily Tech Headlines – July 21, 2016" |