Amazon Echo Gets New EQ Controls
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| Amazon Echo Gets New EQ Controls | |
| Number | 552 |
| Broadcast Date | JULY 24, 2018 |
| Episode Length | 4:23 |
| Hosts | Sarah Lane |
Tencent teams up with WebMD, Microsoft may introduce a new streaming console, Ford doubles down on autonomous unit.
Headlines
- The Wall Street Journal reported Monday that a US DHS report claims Russian groups called Dragonfly or Energetic Bear used spear-phishing attacks on US energy suppliers to gained network credentials for US utilities. Robert M. Lee, CEO of security company Dragos, tweeted that many of the reports are misleading and says the intrusions involved adversaries taking screenshots of interface panels, most likely in preparation for further actions later. Gaining any access to utility networks like the US power grid is serious, but it does not immediately lead to the capability for blackouts or other measures.
- Brad Sams at thurrott.com's sources tell him Microsoft is planning two different pieces of Xbox hardware - a traditional next-gen console and a streaming box designed to work with a Microsoft game streaming platform, codenamed Scarlett Cloud. The console would locally handle things like controller input, image processing, and collision detection. Combined with Microsoft Azure's extensive worldwide data centers it could reduce latency significantly. Both consoles might arrive in 2020.
- Verizon reported better-than-expected quarterly profit and revenue on Tuesday. Verizon added 398,000 monthly subscribers in the querter and says it expects full-year revenue growth from equipment revenue trends. Verizon plans to roll out 5G networks in three to five U.S. markets in 2018. Verizon lost 37,000 Fios video subscribers during the quarter, up from losses of 15,000 a year earlier. The company added 43,000 Fios internet customers, but growth fell short of the previous year by 12 percent.
- Speaking of 5G, sources tell Bloomberg Verizon wants to partner with Google or Apple for a TV service when it rolls out its 5G service Los Angeles and Sacramento later this year. Last month, Verizon folded its go90 streaming app. As for potential partnerships, Google’s YouTube TV offers more than 60 channels of live TV for $40 a month. Apple doesn’t offer a live TV streaming service, but is expected to announce something eventually.
- Tencent and WebMD have struck a content deal to provide WedMD health-care information on the WeChat platform, which has over 1 billion users.. The deal includes WebMD articles, videos and slideshows covering medical and health topics. WebMD is owned by private-equity firm KKR. The content is due for rolled out by year’s end and will also be available on Tencent’s QQ messaging app.
- Google announced at the Google Cloud Next conference in San Francisco that it added nearly 300 new capabilities to G Suite's 4 million users. New AI-powered features focus on reading, writing and meetings, Smart Reply attempts to help send messages in Hangouts Chats, and Grammar Suggestions in Google Docs uses a machine translation-based approach to recognize grammatical errors and offer corrections.
- Ford announced it'll invest $4 billion through 2023 in its new autonomous vehicle unit, Ford Autonomous Vehicles LLC. The new unit includes self-driving systems integration, autonomous research, and advanced engineering. The unit will be based at Ford’s Corktown campus in Detroit and will hold Ford’s ownership stake in Argo AI - Ford's partner for self-driving system development.
- Amazon Echo users can now adjust the treble, mid-range or bass on their smart speaker inside the Alexa app, or by voice control. The new settings work with the Amazon Echo (1st and 2nd-gen), Echo Dot (1st and 2nd-gen), Echo Plus, Echo Show and Echo Spot smart speakers. Amazon made the new EQ controls available to third-party devs too, so for example Sonos could include new EQ settings as well. Voice control is limited to English speakers in the US in the initial rollout with other regions and languages still "coming soon."
Links
| Preceded by: "Fast 5G Antennas" |
Amazon Echo Gets New EQ Controls |
Followed by: "Google Selling 2FA Keys" |