Daily Tech Headlines – September 29, 2016
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| Daily Tech Headlines – September 29, 2016 | |
| Number | 81 |
| Broadcast Date | SEPTEMBER 29, 2016 |
| Episode Length | 7:56 |
| Hosts | Tom Merritt |
Spotify might buy Soundcloud, Big tech teams up on AI, Facebook comes to work October 10th.
Headlines
- The Financial Times reports its sources say Spotify is in advanced talks to acquire Soundcloud. Spotify supposedly looked into acquiring SoundCloud last spring, but talks broke down over price. Twitter made a $100 million investment in Soundcloud in June, valuing the company at $700 million, and talks with Spotify resumed. The company has an extensive collection of 135 million tracks, some of which Spotify could use to bolster its catalogue.
- Meanwhile Spotify has launched an invite-only beta in Japan, bringing the service to one of the world's largest music markets. A market where fans still favor CDs. Once in users will have a choice to stream free with ads or pay 980 yen a month. A feature that shows lyrics on the mobile app will also premiere in Japan.
- Amazon, Google, IBM, Facebook and Microsoft have joined to launch the Partnership on AI. The group will conduct research and promote best practices. The group hopes to expand to include not only more tech companies activists, nonprofits, ethicists and more. It plans to use a standard open license to publish research on topics like ethics, inclusivity and privacy as it relates to AI. Discussions and meeting minutes will be made available to the public.
- Facebook has sent out an invite for a launch event in London on October 10 regarding Facebook at Work. TechCrunch notes its the first Facebook product launch outside the US. Facebook At Work was developed in the London offices and includes the royal Bank of Scotland and Telenor in its closed beta test.
- Facebook also announced its F8 conference will take place April 18th and 19th 2017 in the McEnery Convention Center in San Jose. You can sign up to be notified about registration at fbf8.com.
- Earlier this month we reported that third-party ink cartridges were being rejected by certain HP printers. In a statement Wednesday, HP COO Jon Flaxman apologized for poor communication. Within the next few weeks, HP will release an optional firmware update to remove the dynamic security feature that blocks the cartridges.
- The US CSPC is investigating 21 cases of Samsung washers causing property damage. Samsung says in rare cases when washing bulky items, its washing machines may experience abnormal vibrations that pose a safety risk. Samsung recommends owners use low-speed delicate cycle when washing "bedding, bulky or water-resistant materials." Front-loading models are not affected and despite the headlines none of the machines actually exploded though they did do some dramatic damage to themselves and many walls.
- Ars Technica reports the IEEE has approved a new ethernet standard allowing 2.5 Gbps data transfer over 100 meters on typical Cat 5e cables and 5Gbps speed over 100 meters on Cat 6 cables. 10Gbps still requires Cat 6a or 7 cabling.
- Security company InfoArmor believes the 500 million Yahoo account database copied by attackers was the work of Group E not a nation-state. Group E has previously been linked to breaches at LinkedIn, Tumblr and MySpace. A US government source told Reuters there is no hard evidence yet that the attack was state sponsored. InfoArmor says the Yahoo data was sold to at least three clients including one state-sponsored group.
- Meanwhile Yahoo's Chief Security Officer Bob Lord told an audience at the Structure Security event that the recent 500 million account database attack is unrelated to a breach reported by Motherboard August 1st. It was that Motherboard report that prompted Yahoo to investigate and discover this second larger security breach. Lord also reiterated the claim that this larger breach was done by a nation-state.
- YouTube has hired former DefJam and Warner Music Group executive Lyor Cohen as its global head of music. Cohen is currently CEO and co-founder of record label 300 Entertainment which has Fetty Wap, Young Thug and Rich the Kid on its roster. Cohen will stay CEO of 300 until December 5th when he will move over to YouTube Music. Google has an investment in 300 Entertainment.
- Messaging app Line has bought 25% of Snow, a snapchat-like service. Snow is popular in Japan, Korea, China and southeast Asia. It features 30 filters and 700 stickers and is thought to have had more than 30 million downloads as of June.
- The Wall Street Journal reports Citigroup will join ClearXchange a real-time money transferring network powering a competitor to the likes of Venmo. Wells Fargo, JP Morgan Chase, Bank of America and US Bancorp are among its members. An app called Zelle will use the network to let users send money using an email address or phone number. Zelle is set to launch in 2017.
- Twitter opened its Moments feature to all users. You can create your own Moment to compile a collection of Tweets to tell a story or highlight an event. Select Create a new Moment, add the tweets you want to include, select a cover image and then publish it. Anyone who follows you will see it. The feature has launched on the Web and will come to Mobile soon.
- Apple announced the launch of Enterprise Next in partnership with consulting firm Deloitte & Touche, a service to boost mobile sales to business customers. Deloitte & Touche's network of over 5000 advisers will advise clients on implementing Apple's products and services. Apple has also developed partnerships with IBM, Cisco, and SAP.
- In the academic journal Physical Review Letters, a team of scientists from the Pierre and Marie Curie University in Paris published their successful creation of world's smallest mirror, made from about 2000 atoms of Cessium. Ordinarily, the level of reflectance achieved would require tens of millions of atoms. The atom chains were spaced at half the wavelength of a given color of light, which the team was eventually able to trap, creating an optical diode. The researches see this discovery as a way to create photonic circuits that could increase computing speeds and sound totally cool.
- The 1st US Circuit Court of Appeals overturned a New Hampshire law that barred selfies that included a voter's ballot. In the decision, the three-member panel unanimously ruled that the state could not identify any instances of such photographs being used for vote buying or voter coercion that would justify a limitation of the First Amendment. The ruling effects New Hampshire, Massachusetts, and Maine, but David Kravets at Ars Technica notes that state law about "ballot selfies" remains inconsistent.
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| Preceded by: "Daily Tech Headlines – September 28, 2016" |
Daily Tech Headlines – September 29, 2016 |
Followed by: "Daily Tech Headlines – September 30, 2016" |