Daily Tech Headlines – September 7, 2016

Daily Tech Headlines – September 7, 2016
Number	65
Broadcast Date	SEPTEMBER 7, 2016
Episode Length	7:20
Hosts	Rich Stroffolino

ITT Tech shuts down, Microsoft gets a little Slack, and Volvo and Autoliv team up.

Headlines

• Exclusive: Microsoft working on Skype Teams, its own Slack competitor

Mehedi Hassan at MSPowerUser reports that according to people familiar with the matter, Microsoft is working on a Slack competitor. Labeled Skype Teams, the app will allow users to chat with different groups within a team, called channels, as well as direct messages it individual members. Notably, Skype Teams will also feature threaded messages, and leverage Skype's existing video call infrastructure. Office365 integration, access to Microsoft's bot framwork, and a "Fun Picker" allowing users to insert GIFs and Memes will also be included. Apps for the web, Windows, Android, iOS and Windows Phone are in development.

• ITT Tech Is Officially Closing

A week after it announced it had stopped enrolling students, for-profit college ITT Educational Services, Inc. is closing all of its 130 campuses. The announcements come after federal sanctions prohibited the company from receiving any federal aid for tuition, as well as requiring an increase in their cash reserves from $94.4 million to $247.3 million. The federal sanctions were spurred by findings of The Accrediting Council for Independent Colleges and Schools which stated ITT Tech was not in compliance for accreditation.

• Volvo and Autoliv announce new autonomous driving software company

Volvo, and car safety systems provider Autoliv Inc. announced plans to create a jointly owned company to create autonomous driving software. This venture was billed by Volvo's CEO Håkan Samuelsson as being part of the company's goal to have no one killed or seriously hurt in their vehicles by 2020. The company will be headquartered in Gothenburg Sweeden, and staffed initially by 200 engineers. Autoliv plans to sell the software developed to OEMs.

• The LG V20 rights the wrongs of the LG G5

LG officially unveiled its well-leaked flagship, the LG V20. The device features a Snapdragon 820, 4GB of RAM, a 3200mAh battery, and a 5.7-inch, 2560x1440 IPS LCD encases in an aluminum body with a removable battery and microSD card slot. The device also features a small secondary display at the top of the phone with "mini apps" for power management, music controls, or app shortcuts. The device also features dual back cameras, a 32-bit Hi-Fi Quad DAC for better sound quality, runs Android 7.0. Pricing will be announced by carriers.

• After a quiet summer, Twitter’s board will take a hard look at what comes next

Recode reports that according to sources familiar with the matter, at Twitter's board meeting scheduled for Thursday, the board members will discuss if Twitter will continue as a standalone company. This includes options for a possible sale, Recode estimates the cost of an acquisition at around $18 billion, based on the sale price of LinkedIn to Microsoft. Twitter co-founder Evan Williams stated to Bloomberg last week that Twitter needs to “consider the right options” when it comes to its future as a standalone company.

• PayPal Strikes Deal with MasterCard to Allow Payments in Stores

Paypal has entered into an agreement with payment processor MasterCard. The deal allows Paypal users to set a Mastercard credit or debit card as their default payment choice. Paypal will also get access to data made with Mastercard mobile payments. As part of the deal, Mastercard will no longer charge a digital wallet fee and allow Paypal subsidiary Venmo to make instant money transfers via MasterCard send, previous these transactions could take days to be deposited.

• Google wants you to buy clothes straight from search results

Google launched an ad program called "Shop the Look", allowing users to search for specific clothing outfits with photos and purchase links directly in search. The company is partnering with Polyvore and LiketoKnow.it, and plans to open it up to big-name retailers as well.

• T-Mobile to increase its max LTE speeds to 400 Mbps

T-Mobile announced that it has increased its maximum LTE speeds, allowing up to 400 megabits per second down. The speed increase is thanks to two speed increasing backbone technologies 4x4 MIMO, available in 319 cities in the US, and 256 quadruple amplitude modulation for downloads, going nationwide in October. The max 400 megabits will only be available initially on the Samsung Galaxy S7 and S7 Edge, and only after software updates roll out in September and October that will allow them to use the new backend enhancements.

• Xiaomi’s Android set-top box to launch as soon as October for less than $100

Techcrunch reports that according to internal sources, Xiaomi will soon officially enter the US market. The company's first product will be the Mi Box, an android powered set top box, initially introduced at Google IO. The device is capable streaming 4k content at 60FPS, and features a quad-core ARM cpu, a Mali 450 GPU, 2GB of Ram and 8GB of storage. The Mi Box is expected to go on sale in the US in early Q4 2016 and cost less than $100.

• Instagram is killing photo maps

Instagram confirmed Tuesday that it is removing the Photo Map feature from its app. Geotagging will still be available to users, but user profiles will no longer have the map view option available. Instagram said this is a change to the app, not their API, so 3rd party uses of location data would not be effected.

• Amazon has launched its restaurant food delivery service in London

Amazon launched "Amazon Restaurants" in London, allowing Prime subscribers to get food delivered within an hour after ordering. 148 restaurants have committed to the service for launch. The service launched in Seatle in 2015, and currently servers 15 cities in the US.

• Fitbit leads wearables market as Apple Watch sales decline

IDC released a new report on wearables, showing total shipments of wearables increased 26% between April and June this year. The report also showed a difference between basic wearable, with no third party apps, and smart wearables. The former showed an increase of 48% year over year, while the latter declined by 27%. The report also found the sale of Apple Watch decreased 58% from the same quarter a year ago.

Links

• This episode on dailytechnewsshow.com
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• DTNS subreddit

Preceded by: "Daily Tech Headlines – September 6, 2016"

Daily Tech Headlines – September 7, 2016

Followed by: "Daily Tech Headlines – September 8, 2016"