Spotify Sets Its Anchor
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| Spotify Sets Its Anchor | |
| Number | 3463 |
| Broadcast Date | FEBRUARY 6, 2019 |
| Episode Length | 31:02 |
| Hosts | Tom Merritt, Sarah Lane, Roger Chang |
| Guests | Scott Johnson |
Spotify acquires podcasters Gimlet Media and Anchor in a bid to become the premiere podcasting network. But where does the company go from here and what does it mean for the podcasting landscape?
Guest
Quick Hits
- HP is creating what it calls a comfortable, high-resolution headset featuring a resolution of 2160 × 2160 pixels per eye, codenamed "Copper" for Microsoft’s Mixed Reality VR platform. No official price or release date at this time. Road to VR published a preview photo and says Copper feels close to a finished product and that it’s a “strong bet” it will launch sometime this year.
- Microsoft announced its BUILD developers conference will take place May 6 to the 8th at the Washington State Convention Center in Seattle. Registration opens February 27. Oh and if those dates sound familiar, Google announced last month that its I/O developer conference will happen May 7 through the 9.
- Reuters reports its sources say German Ministers and telecom operators discussed Wednesday whether to keep Huawei out of the market to build 5G service in Germany. The sources say no consensus has been reached but a decision could come next week. Huawei operates information security labs in Germany and the UK to help reassure clients of the security of its equipment. Wednesday, Huawei proposed building a new security center in Poland, which is set to exclude Huawei equipment from 5G networks. Meanwhile, the French Senate rejected proposed legislation that would have required telecoms to get formal approval for certain kinds of telecom equipment, in a move thought to target Huawei.
Top Stories
- Fortnite is ruining the stock market for game companies. For instance, Take Two Interactive beat analysts estimates thanks to Red Dead Redemption 2, but its forecast for coming quarters was well below expectations, in part because of worries about Fortnite. EA reported revenue of $1.61 billion for the quarter missing an estimate of $1.75 billion. EA attributed the decline to three things; a million fewer sales of Battlefield V than expected, a drop in mobile gaming revenue, and... Fortnite. Activision Blizzard's stock even took a hit and it didn't announce any earnings. EA confirmed that Battlefield V's battle royale mode called Firestorm will launch in March and Respawn's free-to-play battle royale game, Apex Legends launched for PC, Xbox One and PS4 and unlike many things associated with EA, people seem to like it. Even if the name is a bit on the nose. Like "Free Tech Newsletter" or "Daily Tech News Show."
- Disney CEO Bob Iger confirmed that Captain Marvel will be the first Marvel movie to come to Disney+ exclusively instead of to another streaming service. Disney has ordered ten episodes of "Diary of a Female President" from Crazy Ex-Girlfriend writer Ilana Peña. It will be produced by CBS TV Studios for Disney+. Iger also said Disney intends to take Hulu international once it becomes the majority owner after its acquisition of the majority of Fox is complete. Iger said FX will output content to Hulu.
- 18-year-old Linus Henze posted a demo video of an exploit called KeySteal which can copy passwords from macOS's login and system keychains without needing admin privileges. It works even if System Integrity Protection or Access Control Lists are configured, although it does not affect iCloud keychain. Usually this is a good news story where a researcher discovers a vulnerability before the bad folks do and the company patches it. Except Henze is not sharing details of the exploit with Apple, in protest over the company's bug bounty policies. Specifically Apple only pays for bugs found in iOS, not macOS.
- The New York Times reported net income of $55.2 million driven by revenue of $709 million from its digital business. The Times reports it employed an all-time high 1,600 journalists. Digital ad revenue increased 22.8 percent while print ad revenue declined 10.2 percent. Digital ads made up 53.9 percent of ad revenue.
- Claire Atkinson, senior editor of media at NBC News tweeted, "The #NYTimes added 265,000 new digital subscribers in Q4. A stunning, 93,000 of those, signed up for Crossword and Cooking and other digital-only non-news products."
- The Unicode Consortium finalized Emoji version 12.0 adding 59 new emoji types to the standard making up 230 new emojis when you include skin tones and genders. It includes accessibility emojis like an ear with a hearing aid, people in wheelchairs and prosthetic limbs. New animals include a sloth, an otter and a skunk. And new food items include waffles, garlic and a juice box. Axe, chair and swimwear are also new. This brings the emoji set up to 3,053 total glyphs.
Discussion
- Spotify Makes Major Podcast Push With Gimlet Media and Anchor Acquisitions
- Spotify reports 29% rise in MAUs to 207M but misses on Q4 revenues of $1.702B
- Spotify's quest to become the king of podcasts
Mailbag
- Frank (Cervantez47) wrote in about our kinetic energy discussion yesterday and how it could replace batteries in devices like pacemakers:
That hits close to home because back in 2007 I had a implantable cardiac defibrillator implanted under my left shoulder to help manage a irregular heart beat that could cause an arrhythmia. The device has a 10 year battery - unless it discharges which happened to me due to a incorrect configuration setting (I moved a mattress and the ICD thought my heart rhythm was out of balance). The results were shocking (pun intended) and I was taken to the ER where they were able to correctly load the settings. The battery ended up only lasting 7 years and in 2014 I was facing the prospect of having another surgery to install a new lithium battery. A single discharge has taken a third of the battery's life away. Can you imagine people who have this with multiple discharges? The thought of having frequent surgery is very anxiety provoking.
It all worked out in the end. My cardiologist recommended not replacing the battery because my health improved. Now I'm just walking around with a dead device under my chest because removing it would involve another surgery. But imagine if I did not need to change the battery ever? My personal relief of not facing another surgery or even just the cost savings alone.
- Frank (Cervantez47) wrote in about our kinetic energy discussion yesterday and how it could replace batteries in devices like pacemakers:
YouTube
Links
| Preceded by: "A Fortnite to Remember!" |
Spotify Sets Its Anchor |
Followed by: "Google's Open ClusterFuzz" |