Daily Tech Headlines – May 25, 2018
Jump to navigation
Jump to search
| Daily Tech Headlines – May 25, 2018 | |
| Number | 510 |
| Broadcast Date | MAY 25, 2018 |
| Episode Length | 4:59 |
| Hosts | Sarah Lane |
GDPR law is live! Essential may sell itself off! Google beats Amazon in smart speaker sales!
Headlines
- Europe’s new data privacy rules, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) came into effect Friday. A non-profit organization called None Of Your Business has already made data protection complaints about Google, Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram, arguing that users are being forced to give consent to keep using the service, even though the law prohibits that. Another group in the U.K. called Privacy International has launched a separate investigation into companies that do behind-the-scenes trading of personal data, like Axciom, Criteo, and Quantcast. The GDPR posing fines of up to €20 million or 4% of global revenues, to breaking its rules.
- Some news sites were temporarily unavailable in the EU following the GDPR deadline Tronc, which publishes the New York Daily News, Chicago Tribune, LA Times, Orlando Sentinel and Baltimore Sun posted a message explaining "Unfortunately, our website is currently unavailable in most European countries. We are engaged on the issue and committed to looking at options that support our full range of digital offerings to the EU market." Lee Enterprises, which publishes 46 daily newspapers across 21 states, gave a similar statement: "We're sorry. This site is temporarily unavailable. We recognise you are attempting to access this website from a country belonging to the European Economic Area (EEA) including the EU which enforces the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and therefore cannot grant you access at this time."
- Sources tell Bloomberg Essential Products Inc., a startup co-founded by Android creator Andy Rubin, is considering selling itself and has canceled development of a new Essential smartphone. Essential is reportedly considering a sale of the entire company, its patent portfolio, and hardware products like the smartphone, a smart home device in the works, and a camera attachment for the phone. Essential’s engineering talent may be part of a deal as well. Last November, Rubin took a short leave of absence from Essential amid reports about workplace misconduct during his time at Google.
- A retrial in a 6-year battle between Apple and Samsung over how much Samsung should pay Apple for infringing on Apple's intellectual properties has reached a verdict. A jury modified the damages figure Samsung must pay to $538,641,656 to cover five design and utility patents. Apple was originally awarded $1B in damages but the case has been tied up in various courts, including the Supreme Court, over what the payment should actually be. Samsung had asked that the number be dropped to $28 million in the retrial.
- Tesla settled a class action lawsuit Thursday with buyers of its Model S and Model X cars who alleged Tesla's assisted-driving Autopilot system was “essentially unusable and demonstrably dangerous.” Tesla agreed to compensate car owners who purchased the 2.0 version of Autopilot and had to wait longer than expected for the driving features to become active. Class members, who paid an extra $5,000 to get the Autopilot upgrade between 2016 and 2017, will receive between $20 and $280 in compensation. Tesla has agreed to place more than $5 million into a settlement fund, which will also cover attorney costs and other fees.
- According to new sales data from Canalys, Google took the first spot in smart speaker sales in Q1 2018, beating Amazon for the first time. Google shipped 3.2 million Google Home and Home Mini devices in the quarter, compared to 2.5 million Echo devices. Chinese manufacturers Alibaba and Xiaomi took 3rd and 4th place, both beating Apple's HomePod sales.
- Sources tell Bloomberg Pinterest sales jumped 58% to $473 million last year after marketers spent more on its digital ads. Pinterest sells photo and video ads that show up in searches, and suggests items for purchase that a user might like. After it reportedly missed internal revenue goals for the first half of 2017. Pinterest beat expectations in the second half, and is on track to meet or beat targets for the first half of this year. Pinterest's business model and sales numbers are especially important if it chooses to seek an initial public offering.
- Valve says Apple denied approval its Steam Link app for iOS —which lets users stream PC games from a computer on the same home network. Apple initially approved the app on May 7th, but revoked it two days later, citing business conflicts with app guidelines. Valve says it appealed that decision because "the Steam Link app simply functions as a LAN-based remote desktop similar to numerous remote desktop applications already available on the App Store." The app has been available on Android since May 17.
Links
| Preceded by: "Daily Tech Headlines – May 24, 2018" |
Daily Tech Headlines – May 25, 2018 |
Followed by: "Daily Tech Headlines – May 28, 2018" |