Daily Tech Headlines – February 13, 2018
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| Daily Tech Headlines – February 13, 2018 | |
| Number | 437 |
| Broadcast Date | FEBRUARY 13, 2018 |
| Episode Length | 4:33 |
| Hosts | Sarah Lane |
Google unveils AMP stories for publishers, Microsoft will support public blockchains through its Authenticator app, Snapchat redesign outrages user base.
Headlines
- Google is now offering publishers a developer preview of Accelerated Mobile Pages or AMP stories, a visual-oriented, mobile-friendly format featuring swipeable slides of text, photos, graphics and videos, like Snapchat and Instagram but in Google's case, websites. Publishers already developing for AMP stories include Vox Media, Condé Nast, and Time Warner, but can't yet incorporate advertising, though Google says ad support will be supported. AMP stories will display on Google Search, and have email functionalities as well through the Gmail Developer Preview of "AMP for Email."
- Essential started selling its flagship handset last year, and now research firm IDC shows that Essential sold just 88,000 units in its first six months on the market. The device is now $499 after some deep cost-cutting and a $399 Cyber Monday deal. The phone is still receiving camera updates, and an Android 8.1 Oreo update is coming soon.
- Microsoft announced it will support public blockchains, such as Bitcoin and Ethereum, for use in decentralized identity systems, starting with blockchain-based decentralized IDs (DIDs) through the Microsoft Authenticator app. Microsoft plans to work with DID specific standards outlined by a W3C working group, but didn't detail which specific DID methods were being integrated yet.
- ARM publicly unveiled “Project Trillium” – a group of software solutions as well as IP for object detection and machine learning. The first designs are for the ARM Machine Learning (ML) Processor, which will speed up general AI applications from machine translation to facial recognition; and the ARM Object Detection (OD) Processor, a second-generation design optimized for processing visual data and detecting people and objects. The OD processor is expected at the end of this month, and the ML processor design will be available sometime in the middle of the year. ARM will license the processor designs to third-party manufacturers.
- Starting March 1st, news publishers will be able to put up paywalls inside Facebook’s iOS app. TechCrunch reports that Apple and Facebook reached a deal to give publishers 100% of the subscription revenue on iOS without Apple taking its regular cut. Facebook started testing paywalls on Android in October. Publishers can choose to give away five free Instant Articles before asking users to pay.
- Samsung CTO Injong Rhee says he has left the company to lead Google's IoT business, and will serve as entrepreneur-in-residence under Diane Greene, chief executive of the cloud computing group. Rhee said he'll work to harmonize various projects related to the Internet of Things, or any device that accesses data online. Rhee left Samsung in December after more than six years.
- AI ethics are the new thing - in college! This semester, Harvard and MIT are jointly offering a new course on the ethics of artificial intelligence. The course has 30 students, focuses on the ethical, policy and legal implications of artificial intelligence. Meanwhile, The University of Texas at Austin has a new course called “Ethical Foundations of Computer Science” — and may eventually require it for all computer science majors. And at Stanford University, three professors and a research fellow are developing a computer science ethics course for next year.
- Snapchat's latest design update which splits the app into two sections between friends content and media content, has upset a few folks. A fake tweet claiming that Snapchat would revert back to its old design if it got enough retweets received 1.3 million retweets as of Sunday afternoon and has become the sixth most retweeted tweet of all time. A Change.org petition to “Remove the new Snapchat update” has received nearly 800,000 signatures. In other Snap news, the company opened its Marketing API for all developers to use, enabling third-party technology and creative companies to deliver ads on behalf of brands and agencies.
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| Preceded by: "Daily Tech Headlines – February 12, 2018" |
Daily Tech Headlines – February 13, 2018 |
Followed by: "Daily Tech Headlines – February 14, 2018" |