Daily Tech Headlines – September 30, 2016
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| Daily Tech Headlines – September 30, 2016 | |
| Number | 82 |
| Broadcast Date | SEPTEMBER 30, 2016 |
| Episode Length | 9:10 |
| Hosts | Tom Merritt |
Google revises its enterprise suite, Waze Rider carpool service opens up, Amazon announces Twitch game tie-ins.
Headlines
- Google has renamed Google Apps for Work to G Suite and announced new features. Quick Access tries to predict what file you need in Google Drive before you even begin typing a search. Google calendar's smart scheduling comes to iOS. Explore can turn natural language into spreadsheet formulas, suggest images for docs and offer layout suggestions for Slides. And new roles for Teams called Team Drives and updated Hangout video conferencing is available in the Early Adopter Program.
- Fortune's Barb Darrow notes a war of data centers is brewing. A few days ago Microsoft Announced the opening of two data centers on Magdeburg and Frankfurt Germany. Thursday Amazon said it's adding data centers in Paris and the UK. And Google said its adding new cloud data centers in Northern Virginia, Mumbai, Singapore, Sydney, Sao Paolo, Finland, and Frankfurt. Data centers, you're all capacious and reliable. Stop fighting.
- Google's Waze Rider carpool service is now available to all users in the San Francisco area. Users are currently limited to 2 rides a day, as Google intends the service to be used for actual carpooling to work, not a replacement for taxis. Drivers are also only compensated for mileage, it's not designed to be a part-time job. As such Google does not plan to require drivers for the service to provide proof of insurance, photo identification, or pass a background check.
- Amazon Game Studios announced its first 3 titles that will feature deep Twitch integration, New World a massively multiplayer, open-ended sandbox game, Crucible which sadly is not a taut colonial legal drama about witchcraft and Breakaway a 4-on-4 mythological sport brawler. Breakaway will let streamers customize their experience with real time stat overlays, as well as let broadcasters invite followers to play, setup viewer polls, and allow match wagering of Twitch's new Stream+ game currency.
- HTC is launching Viveport in 30 countries Friday, a store for non-gaming VR content. The 60 launch titles in the store cover education, design, art, social, video, music, sports, health, fashion, travel, news, shopping and more. Some titles are on sale for $1 at launch.
- Amazon announced a new annual competition called "Alexa Prize" that will award prizes to university students who build socialbots on the Alexa platform. Applications can be submitted now with winners to be announced at the AWS re:Invent conference in November 2017. Top prize is $500,000 with an additional $1 million going to to the university of the bot can converse for 20 minutes coherently. Amazon will also give a $100,000 stipend and devices to up to ten teams.
- KGI Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo has a good track record on predicting what Apple will do. And Kuo already has a report on the NEXT iPhone. Glass front and back design like the iPhone 4. A less rounded 2.5D glass cut which is supposed to be more durable. The casing may be stainless steel for high end models and aluminum for others. Kuo also thinks it's possible there could be a 5.8-inch model thanks to a reduced bezel size.
- The US Food and Drug Administration has approved Meditronic's MiniMed 670G, the first device approved to automatically monitor glucose and provide insulin doses for people with type 1 diabetes. The MiniMed adjusts bloodsugar levels with little or no input from the user by measuring glucose every 5 minutes and adjusting insulin deliver accordingly. The system includes a sensor and an infusion patch connected to a pump. Users will only need to manually request insulin to counter carbs at meals. No price has been announced.
- Microsoft has created a new division for AI, separate from Windows, Office and Cloud. The new 5,000-person Microsoft AI and Research Group, will be led by Microsoft Research chief Harry Shum. Products like Cortana, Bing, Ambient Computing and Robotics will fall under the new division.
- The Wall Street Journal reports that Qualcomm is in talks to acquire the Dutch company NXP Semiconductors. The acquisition would make Qualcomm the biggest supplier of chips used in cars and expand the companies product lines outside mobile devices. According to sources, the deal could move forward within the next 2-3 months, financed by Qualcomms $31 billion in offshore cash and securities.
- ICANN's contract with the US Department of Commerce to operate the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority ends today. The IANA most famously operates the Domain Name System. ICANN instead will operate IANA under a model similar to other Internet organizations like the Internet Engineering Task Force. The multi-stake-holder oversight that takes over October 1st consists of a governmental advisory committee, a technical committee, industry committee, internet users and telecommunications experts who's advice to ICANN is non-binding. The .mil and .gov domains will stay under US control. Attorneys General in Arizona, Oklahoma, Nevada and Texas filed suit in the Southern District of Texas court to block the handover.
- California Governor Jerry Brown signed a bill that permits autonomous car tests in the state without a human driver. The bill applies specifically to a project headed by the Contra Costa Transportation authority. EasyMile's 12-seat shuttles will carry workers around the Bishop Ranch Business Park in San Ramon, California, outside San Francisco. The bill also includes tests by Honda and Uber-owned Otto at the mostly empty Concord Naval Weapons Station. Google and Apple have also expressed interest in testing at the Naval base. The cars are not required to have manual controls but cannot exceed 35 miles per hour.
- In a statement Thursday, Salesforce Chief Legal Officer Burke Norton said the company plans to raise anticompetitive concerns on Microsoft's acquisition of LinkedIn in the EU. Norton claims that allowing Microsoft to obtain LinkedIn's database of 450 million professionals across 200 countries would give the company an unfair competitive advantage. Microsoft expected the deal to close by the end of 2016, and has already obtained regulatory sign off in the United States, Canada, and Brazil.
- AOL has released iOS and Android versions of its Alto email manager which launched three years ago on the desktop. Alto automatically sorts email into stacks like "travel," "photos," "files," "shopping," and "personal." It's dashboard turns email into cards for upcoming events, shipments, flights and hotel bookings. Cards rise to the top based on need like a boarding pass on the day of departure.
- Apple will build a $45 million research facility in a new science park in Beijing's Wangjing district, according to the sites landlord. The facility will employ 500 researchers and focus on hardware development. During a visit to China in August, Apple CEO Tim Cook pledged to open an R&D facility in the country.
- Thursday, Google announced the release of Android Wear 2.0 is delayed until early 2017. The company announced that more developer previews will be released before then. The release of Developer Preview 3 also happened Thursday, bringing the Google Play Store to watches, adding smart replies to messaging apps using machine learning on the watch, and improving how watchface complications interact with the watch.
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| Preceded by: "Daily Tech Headlines – September 29, 2016" |
Daily Tech Headlines – September 30, 2016 |
Followed by: "Daily Tech Headlines – October 3, 2016" |