Amazon Scraps NYC HQ Plans
Jump to navigation
Jump to search
| Amazon Scraps NYC HQ Plans | |
| Number | 751 |
| Broadcast Date | FEBRUARY 14, 2019 |
| Episode Length | 5:00 |
| Hosts | Sarah Lane |
Google may launch lower-cost phone this year, Apple reportedly bundling news and video subscription service announcements in March, EU Copyright Directive nears final vote.
Headlines
- Yesterday, Buzzfeed reported that Apple will hold an event on its campus March 25 to introduce a subscription news service, and sources told CNBC that Apple is aiming to launch its TV service in April or early May. Today, Bloomberg reports its sources say that Apple is planning to unveil both its video and news subscription offerings at next month's event. The video service is reportedly similar to Amazon Prime Video and Netflix, including TV shows and movies either acquired or funded by Apple. The news service is said to be integrated into the Apple News app, bundling subscriptions into a single monthly fee.
- On the hardware front, Apple said Thursday it will start selling older iPhone models in its stores in Germany again, where they were banned last year due to a patent infringement ruling in favor of Qualcomm. In order to comply with the ruling, Apple said it had “no choice” but to stop using some chips from Intel in iPhones headed to Germany.
- Sources tell Nikkei that Google plans to release a lower-priced smartphone this year, and moving quickly to take advantage of disappointing iPhone sales. Google's new phone is said to be priced lower than Apple's iPhone XR, which starts at $749. Google's latest Pixel line, released last October, started at $799. Other products planned for this year include smart speakers, wearables and web cameras, sources say, plus a new premium phone in its Pixel lineup.
- The European Union’s Copyright Directive is nearing a final full vote by the European Parliament in order to become law. The directive's text has been in closed-door negotiations for the last few months, which include Articles 11 and 13, commonly known as the “link tax” and “upload filter.” Opponents of the Copyright Directive still have a chance if the European Parliament's 751 MEPs vote against it sometime in March or April. Notably, EU elections take place in May.
- Amazon is canceling plans to build a corporate campus in New York City. The campus was set for Long Island City, Queens and Amazon claimed it would create more than 25,000 jobs in the area, in exchange for nearly $3 billion in state and city incentives. But several local lawmakers criticized providing subsidies to such a large corporation, and ultimately Amazon said in a statement Thursday, "We do not intend to re-open the HQ2 search at this time. We will proceed as planned in Northern Virginia and Nashville, and we will continue to hire and grow across our 17 corporate offices and tech hubs in the U.S. and Canada."
- Reports filed with the Federal Trade Commission show that Americans lost $143 million to scammers last year, which is only 1.5 percent of all fraud tracked by the agency, but of that total, the majority of scams were related to online dating. This is a big jump from 2015, when Americans reported just $33 million in romance scams, according to the agency. People ages 40 to 69 reported the majority of dating scams, but people over 70 had the biggest losses, with the median around $10,000. By contrast, those aged 20 to 29 reported a median loss of about $1,000.
- Twitter announced it's testing a way to preview profiles in its iOS app without having to visit account pages themselves by adding pop-up menus that show bios, profile pics, and other info. The feature helps from having to leave your own timeline mid-thread and having to go back and find it again. No word on how many folks will be part of the test or when the feature will roll out fully.
- Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai said in a press release Wednesday that phone companies need to implement caller ID authentication systems to combat illegal robocalls and spoofing. Back in November, Pai sent letters to AT&T, Comcast, T-Mobile, Sprint, Google and other phone companies, urging them to adopt a unified call authentication system in 2019. The release claims some carriers have committed to rolling out the caller ID authentication system in the upcoming months, but others haven't. Pai says the FCC will consider "regulatory intervention," if necessary.
- Apple told members of its Developer Program in an email that they must enable two-factor authentication on their account by February 27th. This rule already applies to new members, but now is targeting existing developers who haven't yet enabled 2FA. The general public can still skip setting up two-factor authentication, but some app features won't work if you don’t have it enabled.
Links
| Preceded by: "Apple May Launch Subscription News Service" |
Amazon Scraps NYC HQ Plans |
Followed by: "Facebook and FTC Negotiating Record Privacy Fine" |