Daily Tech Headlines – September 26, 2016
Jump to navigation
Jump to search
| Daily Tech Headlines – September 26, 2016 | |
| Number | 78 |
| Broadcast Date | SEPTEMBER 26, 2016 |
| Episode Length | 8:08 |
| Hosts | Tom Merritt |
Snapchat sunglasses, Adobe partners with Microsoft, a call for IoT security.
Headlines
- Snapchat renamed itself Snap Inc, and released its first hardware product over the weekend. CEO Evan Spiegel unveiled Spectacles, a $129 pair of sunglasses with an embedded 115-degree lens. Users can record up to 10-seconds of rounded video, which is transferred via Bluetooth or Wi-fi to the Snapchat app. Spectacles will be available this fall in black, teal or coral on a limited basis.
- Microsoft is touting more AI services for Office 365. QuickStarter for PowerPoint and Sway will be able to give you outlines for any topic. Excel will let you to transform geographic data into Bing-powered maps and Tap for Word and Outlook will find existing content inside your company relevant to your document. A built-in tool from Microsoft MyAnalytics will compare your personal productivity stats to other team members without your manager being able to see. Dynamics 365 will use intelligent assistants to help sales teams find the next best action to close a sale. The new features will roll out throughout the year to Office 365 members.
- After a withering denial of service attack on his website, security researcher Brian Krebs posted about the democratization of censorship. He points out that the tools to bring a site offline are not only in the hands of governments. His site is back up under Google's Project Shield which protects journalists from censorship. Krebs also noted that lax security on IP-connected devices like internet cameras and DVRs provide a platform for the bots that conduct denial of service attacks and called for stronger security implementation on all connected devices.
- Bank of America, Santander and the Royal Bank of Canada announced they will create a global blockchain payments network using Ripple’s distributed ledger technology. CINC, UniCredit, Standard Chartered and the Westpac Banking Corporation will also join the network. Ripple's technology is meant to replace Swift, the current way money is moved across borders. The Swift service was manipulated for the theft of $81 million from the central bank of Bangladesh with similar thefts at banks in Vietnam, the Philippines and Ecuador. The banks will start by working out terms and conditions for the new system before moving on to a functional standards document.
- Microsoft and Adobe announced a partnership to use each other's cloud services. Adobe will take advantage of Azure for its Marketing Cloud, Document Cloud and Creative Cloud services. Microsoft will use Adobe's Marketing Cloud for Dynamics 365 Enterprise edition. That along with newly-integrated Power Bi and Cortana Intelligence Suite will give Dynamics users more analytic power. Peter Bright points out that Microsoft is strengthening its Salesforce competitor at its Ignite Conference which Salesforce is a Diamond-level sponsor of. Salesforce is also integrating Office 365 and Power Bi.
- The world's largest radio telescope FAST went into operation Sunday in China. The 500 meter diameter telescope in Guizhou province took five years and $180 million to build. It passes the 300-meter telescope in Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico as the largest. FAST stands for 500-meter Aperture Spherical Radio Telescope and is nicknamed Eye of Heaven.
- Roku announced a new line of players. The Roku Express costs $30 with a faster processor than the previous streaming stick or Roku 1. The Roku Express+ is $40 and includes composite cable inputs. Both have the stick form factor. The Roku Premiere is $80 with 4K support at 60fps, faster quad-core processors and dual-band 802.11ac WiFi. The Premiere+ is $100 and supports HDR, ethernet and microSD. It also has the headphone jack on its remote. The Roku Ultra is $130 with 4K HDR plus optical audio, USB, voice search and a lost remote button on the box. Roku's universal search works across 100 services now. The models are available for preorder and ship October 9th.
- Samsung has delayed sales of new Galaxy Note 7s in Korea from September 28 to October 1st at the earliest. Reuters says Australia and Singapore will be the first to see the phone go back on sale in October.
- A Google autonomous car was in an accident that caused significant damage Friday. The crash occurred in Mountain View California. All airbags deployed but no one was hurt. Google said a car ran a red light and collided with the Google autonomous car. Google says the autonomous car's light had been green for 6 seconds.
- Uber is rolling out something called Real-Time ID Check Friday in order to prevent Uber driver account sharing or theft. The system periodically requires drivers to take a picture of themselves and submit it before accepting rides. Uber then uses Microsoft's Cognitive Services to match the photo to one on file. If they don't match the account is temporarily blocked. In a test of the program more than 99% of drivers were ultimately verified. Some mismatches occurred due to unclear profile photos.
- Android Police report that sources tell it Google will release a router at their upcoming October 4th event. Simply called Google Wifi, the router will supposedly cost $129 and will reportedly use mesh networking to link multiple access points into a single network, similar to eero. Android Police's sources could not confirm that the mesh networking feature would be available at launch however. The publication also reported that the previously announced Google Home will debut at the same event for $129, as well as the 4K-capable Chromecast Ultra for $69.
- Square has announced a new faster credit card scanner that reduces transaction speed to 4.2 seconds from 5.7 seconds. Chip cards have been slower to read and average anywhere from 8 to 13 seconds according to Square. Square's card reader also accepts wireless payments like Android Pay.
- A source told Financial Times that Yahoo began investigating a security breach in July but found no evidence. A deeper probe was conducted which led to the discovery of the alleged state-sponsored attack and access of 500 million accounts.
- WeChat began sending out developer beta invites for Miniapps, essentially web-apps embedded in chat. WeChat has API's to allow developers to embed videos, GPS directions, data, and WeChat pay. Users would not have to install or delete the apps.
- A new podcast offering called "Spoken Editions" appeared temporarily in Apple's iTunes store on Friday. Spoken Editions are audio versions of published articles, and TechCrunch noted offerings from Time, Mic, Forbes, Playboy, OZY, and TechCrunch itself. Many of the offerings were done in partnership with SpokenLayer, which specializes in creating and distributing audio content with media partners. Spoken Editions will be monetized by audio ads. The new feature will officially roll out in early October.
Links
| Preceded by: "Daily Tech Headlines – September 23, 2016" |
Daily Tech Headlines – September 26, 2016 |
Followed by: "Daily Tech Headlines – September 27, 2016" |