Week in Review for the Week of 4/1/19
Jump to navigation
Jump to search
| Week in Review for the Week of 4/1/19 | |
| Number | 805 |
| Broadcast Date | APRIL 6, 2019 |
| Episode Length | 5:46 |
| Hosts | Rich Stroffolino |
The EU cracks down on geo-blocking by game publishers, the SEC issues guidelines on crypto tokens, and Verizon technically beats South Korean carriers to 5G service.
Headlines
- The European Commission sent “Statements of Objections” to Valve, Bandai Namco, Capcom, Focus Home, Koch Media and ZeniMax, issuing a prelimary view that bi-lateral agreements that prevent users from buying and using PC games outside of their country of residence goes against EU antitrust rules. This would infringe on the EU's Article 101, as it denies European consumers the benefits of the EU's Digital Single Market, as this geo-blocking prevents crossborder sales in some EU member countries. If sufficient evidence of infringement is found, the European Commission can ban the behavior, and issue fines up to 10% of the publisher's annual worldwide turnover.
- The US Securities and Exchange Commission issued guidelines this week for companies that want to sell digital tokens. The SEC considers most cryptocurrencies an investment contract. That means they should be considered securities, and registered with the SEC before being offered to the public. The SEC guidelines do say Bitcoin and Ethereum are not securities because they are decentralized. In a separate letter this week, TurnKey Jet was also allowed to offer unregistered tokens because the proceeds would not be used to build the token network and the tokens would not trade outside TurnKey's platform.
- The Australian parliament passed a new law on Thursday called The Sharing of Abhorrent Violent Material, which creates new offenses for content service providers and hosting services that fail to notify the Australian federal police about, or fail to swiftly remove videos depicting terrorist acts, murders, attempted murders, and so on. The Digital Industry Group, which represents Google, Facebook, Twitter, Amazon and Verizon Media in Australia, argued that the bill was passed without enough consultation and threatens penalties against tech companies for content created by users.
- The US Department of Justice has warned the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences that changing its rules to limit the eligibility of Netflix for Oscar awards could diminish sales for the excluded films and potentially violate Section 1 of the Sherman Act that “prohibits anticompetitive agreements among competitors.” Steven Spielberg has been advocating to eliminate movies that premiere on streaming too close to their theatrical premieres. Currently a movie just has to have a theatrical run to qualify.
- Facebook announced the "why am I seeing this" feature for the news feed, providing details into how its algorithm sorts non-ad content for the first time. The explanation will also feature shortcuts to See First, Unfollow, News Feed Preferences and Privacy settings to allow for further news feed customization. The feature is rolling out to all users and will be available across Facebook on May 2nd.
- South Korea was set to become the first country to launch commercial 5G mobile service Friday, but Verizon flipped the switch early on its service in Chicago and Minnesota. The Motorola Z3 is the only phone currently available in the US that can take advantage of the service and customers will pay an extra $10 a month to access it. Multiple Carriers launched in South Korea Friday. SK Telecom expects 1 million 5G customers by the end of the year and KT Corp is offering its 5G plans with unlimited data at a lower price than its LTE plans. The Samsung Galaxy S10 5G can be used on the services there and LG will release its 5G-capable phone in Korea later this month.
- WhatsApp has introduced a tip line to send forwards, rumors, and suspicious-sounding messages and have them verified. It's an effort ahead of the Indian elections, when misinformation campaigns tend to spike across the country. When a message reaches the tip line, the submitter will receive a response informing whether the information is true, false, misleading, disputed, or presently unverifiable. The system accepts text, pictures, links, and video in English, as well as in Hindi, Telugu, Bengali, and Malayalam.
- Slack plans to list on the New York Stock Exchange in June or July, a source tells Bloomberg. Slack is reportedly looking to take Spotify's approach and opting for a direct stock listing instead of raising capital through an initial public offering. Slack was valued at $7.1 billion by private investors last year, and in February the company said it had confidentially filed paperwork with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission for its offering.
- Walmart is taking on Amazon by letting customers order groceries by voice through Google’s smart-home assistant. Shoppers can add items directly to their online shopping carts starting this month by saying “Hey Google, talk to Walmart.” Information from prior purchases will help the system to choose correct brands and sizes. The voice-shopping service is the latest partnership between Walmart and Google that began in August 2017.
- Adobe announced it is bringing content-aware fill to After Effects. Content-aware fill in Photoshop fills in deleted objects in a photo with appropriate pixels based on what's around it. In After Effects it will do the same but with video, powered by Adobe Sensei, its AI platform. To fine tune to results you can create a reference frame in Photoshop.
- Amazon wants to provide broadband internet access via thousands of satellites, 3,236 to be precise, in low Earth orbit. The effort is code-named Project Kuiper. Amazon made three sets of filings with the International Telecommunications Union last month by the Federal Communications Commission on behalf of Kuiper Systems LLC, which is based in Washington DC. The ITU oversees global telecom satellite operations and will have to sign off on the effort. Amazon confirmed to GeekWire the project existed, but didn’t provide a timeline for deployment or give details on pricing.
Links
| Preceded by: "Amazon Developing Wireless Earbuds with Alexa" |
Week in Review for the Week of 4/1/19 |
Followed by: "Netflix Removes AirPlay Support" |