Daily Tech Headlines – May 10, 2018
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| Daily Tech Headlines – May 10, 2018 | |
| Number | 499 |
| Broadcast Date | MAY 10, 2018 |
| Episode Length | 4:58 |
| Hosts | Tom Merritt |
Apple cancels Irish data center, US FAA approves drones, Agri-tech booms in Africa.
Headlines
- Apple announced it is canceling its project to build a data center in Athenry, Ireland due to delays in the approval process. A second data center in Denmark, begun at the same time, is nearly completed. Opposition centered around strain on the power grid, though Apple argued it would use renewables and not overbuild. Apple won a court case in the Irish High Court in October but uncertainty about appeals to the Supreme Court caused the company to cancel the plan entirely.
- Valve announced Steam Link for Android and iOS will arrive May 21, letting you stream any Steam game from your PC to your mobile device, as long as they're on the same WiFi network. The Steam Link app will support the use of a Steam Controller and MFI controllers. Valve also says it will release a Steam Video app later this summer for TV shows and movies with the ability for offline viewing. (Oh, and they have support for the Nintendo Pro controller in the Steam beta client right now.)
- Bloomberg sources say Apple plans to begin selling subscriptions to certain video services directly via its TV app, rather than asking users to subscribe to them through apps individually downloaded from the App Store. This might pave the way for Apple's original content to be available as a subscription in the TV app as well.
- The US FAA approved 10 of 149 proposals for commercial drone projects there. Among the projects are one for medical deliveries by Zipline which has operated in Rwanda for years, a mosquito control plan in Florida, a partnership between the Choctaw Nation in Oklahoma and CNN, and food delivery in North Carolina. Proposals from Amazon and DJI were not accepted. Data from these projects will form the basis of a regulatory framework for future commercial uses.
- Despite lining up Taiwan's Mediatek to supply chips Monday, ZTE announced Wednesday it's ending "major operating activities" as a result of the US ban on exports to the company. ZTE says it has enough cash to survive a pause while it appeals the ban. Under the ban, US companies like Qualcomm and Dolby cannot sell parts to ZTE.
- Microsoft announced some new features for its test build of Windows that will likely arrive for everybody later this year. One is Cloud Clipboard that lets you cut and paste across Windows devices. There's also a dark theme coming for File Explorer that matches the dark theme you can apply elsewhere in windows. There's also support for Unix/Linux line endings and Macintosh line endings in Notepad. And Alt-Tab now works with Sets to let you switch between Edge Browser tabs as well as apps. Windows 10 build 17666 is available to Fast Insiders now. Redstone 5 is expected to begin rolling out to mainstream users around October 2018.
- A report from Disrupt Africa, shows the agri-tech market in Africa grew 110% this past year with more than $19 million in investments in the sector. 82 agri-tech startups were in operation across Africa by the start of 2018, 52 per cent of them launched in the past two years. Kenya and Nigeria are tied as the top two agri-tech markets with Ghana in third. E-commerce makes up 1/3 of the startups followed by infosharing and fintech.
- Researcher Amanda D. Hanford at Pennsylvania State University has created a device that can route sound waves around an object, making it invisible to techniques like sonar. Hanford and her team created a metamaterial whose unit cell is smaller than the acoustic wavelengths used to detect it. The metamaterial could deflect sound waves underwater which is more difficult.
- The US FCC said its repeal of the Open Internet Guidelines of 2015 will officially go into effect June 11. The order was published in the Federal Register on February 22, but did not go into effect until the Office of Management and Budget completed its Paperwork Reduction Act review. The US Senate is set to vote as early as next week on whether to reject the FCC repeal of the net neutrality rules.
- Ohio Governor John Kasich issued an executive order permitting self-driving car tests on public roads. Ohio joins, Arizona, California and Michigan in allowing the tests. The tests will require a human operator and registration with Drive Ohio.
- Korea Fair Trade Commission chief Kim Sang-jo told reporters that Samsung’s current ownership structure is not sustainable. Samsung Group uses circular shareholding to interlock Samsung C&T, Samsung Life Insurance, and Samsung Electronics. Kim urged Vice Chairman Jay Y. Lee to make a decision concerning the ownership structure.
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| Preceded by: "Daily Tech Headlines – May 9, 2018" |
Daily Tech Headlines – May 10, 2018 |
Followed by: "Daily Tech Headlines – May 11, 2018" |