Daily Tech Headlines – May 15, 2018
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| Daily Tech Headlines – May 15, 2018 | |
| Number | 502 |
| Broadcast Date | MAY 15, 2018 |
| Episode Length | 5:30 |
| Hosts | Sarah Lane |
Microsoft teases upcoming Surface Hub 2, Twitter will bury tweets by users for bad behavior, Google announces new storage plans under the new name Google One.
Headlines
- Microsoft has unveiled details on its Surface Hub 2 i- a 50.5-inch 4K+ display that can be rotated to a portrait screen. You can tile up to four together to create an even larger display, or spread multiple Hub 2s around a room, It features rolling cases and mounts co-developed with Steelcase, which Microsoft partnered with last year. It also has a 3 x 2 aspect ratio, unlike the standard 16x9. There's touchscreen support and support to share docs from your computer or mobile device. Microsoft will start testing the Surface Hub 2 with partners later this year, with plans to officially release the device in 2019. No word on pricing, but you might recall the original Surface Hub was $8,999.
- Netflix's chief content officer Ted Sarandos said at an event in New York the company is now putting 85% of its spending on original TV shows, films and other productions, with total content spending for 2018 around $8 billion. Netflix will have around 1,000 originals total on the service by the end of 2018, with 470 of those set to premiere between now and end of the year. Sarandos says more than 90% of Netflix’s customers regularly watch original programming.
- Tim Cook tells Bloomberg that Apple Music now has more than 50 million users between paid members and trials,up from 40 million last month. Major competitor Spotify announced earlier this month it has 75 million premium subscribers. Apple's original content plans are still somewhat shrouded in mystery, but in contrast to Netflix's plans to spend up to $8 billion on content in 2018, Apple SVP of Internet Software and Services Eddy Cue claims the strategy to go for fewer shows is intentional with Cue advising "we're not after quantity, we're after quality."
- Google announced new consumer storage plans, called Google One, including a new $2.99/month tier for 200 GB of storage and dropping the price of its 2 TB plan from $19.99/month to $9.99/month. Users can also share thier storage quota with up to five family members. 24x7 access to Google Experts, which are live people on call to help, come with every Google One plan, including the $1.99/month 100 GB plan. In the U.S., the existing free quota of 15 GB wiill remain an option to consumers as well. Google will transition all storage plans over the new few months, starting with the U. Google will upgrade all existing storage plans to Google One accounts starting in the U.S.
- AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile, and Verizon can provide your real-time location info to third-parties. The story starts with Securus, is a service that allows police officers to facilitate calls made to inmates, but also pinpoint the location of a cell phone. Securus gets this location info from the carrier, but appears to use a middle-man called "LocationSmart." which can pinpoint real-time location in about 15 seconds. The Electronic Communications Privacy Act prevents carriers from sharing user location to the United States government, but there aren't any restrictions in place on other companies. The FCC's been asked to investigate the matter by Democratic Senator Ron Wyden.
- California Department of Motor Vehicles confirmed to MacReports that Apple now has 55 self-driving car permits and 83 drivers licensed to test the technology on California roads. That puts Apple in second place, behind General Motors’ Cruise division, which has 104 vehicles and 407 drivers. Apple didn't have any permits in March of last year, and only 3 the following month. For comparison, Alphabet’s Waymo now has 51 self-driving car permits, and Tesla has 39.
- Dating app Tinder is testing a location-tracking feature for users to connect with one another in the real world. The Verge pbtained screenshots of the feature, which shows Tinder highlighingt places users have visited, just not in real time. Tinder says it’ll wait “a while” before populating a user’s map with their visited destinations. The company also says it will filter out places that don’t qualify as “social” spots, like doctor’s offices, banks, and where you work. Places are automatically deleted after 28 days. Tinder also says it’ll look for trends in users’ locations and try to match them with people that are interested in similar things.
- Twitter announced a big change to the way its conversations will work by examining content of individual tweets and the way users behave in general. Twitter says it will now use thousands of behavioral signals when filtering search, replies, and algorithmic recommendations. and anyone who seems to be gaming the system of just overall being negative will get their tweets buried. CEO Jack Dorsey said back in March that Twitter wants to create overall healthier conversations. Twitter will now look at whether you tweet at large numbers of accounts you don’t follow, how often you’re blocked by people you interact with, whether you created many accounts from a single IP address, and whether your account is closely related to others that have violated its terms of service.
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| Preceded by: "Daily Tech Headlines – May 14, 2018" |
Daily Tech Headlines – May 15, 2018 |
Followed by: "Daily Tech Headlines – May 16, 2018" |