Daily Tech Headlines – July 13, 2016
Jump to navigation
Jump to search
| Daily Tech Headlines – July 13, 2016 | |
| Number | 25 |
| Broadcast Date | JULY 13, 2016 |
| Episode Length | 8:17 |
| Hosts | Tom Merritt |
Pokémon Go hits Germany and one town in Korea, Google isn’t giving up on Spaces, and SheepView comes to the Faroe Islands.
Headlines
- Pokémon Go arrives in Europe with German launch
- New test for Nintendo? North Korea an obstacle for South Korean Pokemon hunters
- Pokemon Go catches 15 million users
- Pokemon Go Could Soon Be More Popular Than Snapchat
- Mobile users spent more time on Pokemon Go than Facebook
- 'Pokémon Go' sponsored locations will let brands in on the fun
- You can play Pokémon Go without leaving the safety of your home – but you probably shouldn’t
- There's lots more Pokémon News today but we'll try to keep it manageable. The augmented reality game launched in it's 4th country Germany, though many players are spoofing locations or sideloading. In South Korea, side loaders have been heading to the border town of Sokcho because Google Maps works there while it is restricted in the rest of the country. SensorTower estimates the game gets 33 minutes of average daily use, better than Facebook and Snapchat, and has 15 million downloads. Yet Survey Monkey estimates 21 million daily active users in the US making it the most popular mobile game in US history. Meanwhile the game's maker Niantic announced it will offer sponsored locations in the game. And YouTuber Travis D has figured out how to use Android emulator BlueStacks and GPS spoofing to play the game without leaving your house.
- Google acquired the team behind Kifi, a startup building extensions to collect, search, and ultimately recommend content links shared on social platforms. In a Google+ post, Google's engineering director Eddie Kessler announced the team will work on the company's recently launched group chat app, Spaces. Kifi's existing app will remain online for a few weeks, and be will available for data exports for several weeks beyond that. Terms of the acquisition were not disclosed.
- Xbox's Major Nelson posted Wednesday that Xbox Live will now support high quality Twitch Streaming. Users will need to link their Xbox Live and Twitch accounts, but will be able to process their Xbox streams through capture cards or boxes. Previously the only way to get access to Xbox Live's network via Twitch was using the Xbox One app, which limited quality and did not allow any overlays or custom features.
- Oculus announced it has filled all its preorders and now can ship new Rift orders within 2-4 business days. It's in stock at Amazon, and coming to Microsoft and Best Buy as well. No news on the Oculus Touch controller other than it is still expected this year. Oculus also announced its developers conference, Oculus Connect, will take place October 5th through 7th in San Jose, California. Applications for the conference will open August 2nd at oculusconnect.com.
- Google announced new small business plans for its Google Fiber customers. 100 Mbps costs $70 a month, 250 costs $100 a month and Gigabyte service costs $250 a month. Each account can support up to 13 static IP addresses. The new offerings come along with the launch of Google Fiber in Charlotte, North Carolina. Google Fiber also operates in Kansas City, Provo, Austin, and Nashville, where businesses have until July 31 to sign up for the new plans at a discount.
- Tesla announced the Model X 60D for $74,000, a reduction of $6,000 over the original Model X SUV. The Model X 60D has a 200-mile range and can hit zero to 60 miles per hour in six-seconds flat with a top speed of 130 mph.
- ZTE announced the 5.5-inch Axon 7 is open for preorders today for $399.98 with delivery starting July 27th. The Axon 7 is compatible with Google’s Daydream VR system, has a quad HD AMOLED display, Snapdragon 820 processor and 4GB of RAM.
- Nissan launched ProPilot Wednesday, a suite of semi-autonomous driving functions meant to assist not replace drivers. ProPilot's main feature is keeping a car a fixed distance from the vehicle in front of it. The feature will appear first on the Serena minivan on sale in Japan in August. Reuters reports Jaguar Land Rover will create a fleet of more than 100 research vehicles over the next four years to test recognizing obstacles, automatic braking, car-to-car information sharing and recognizing emergency vehicles. And this week the UK launched an open consultation on adapting regulation to make them more compatible with driverless vehicles.
- Apple's first foray into original television content received a name and an open casting call. Planet of the Apps, is looking to cast 100 app creators for a reality competition. The show requires developers to send in information on their app, along with a 1-minute video profile. There's no air date yet but contestants must have a functioning beta ready by October 21, 2016.
- Google’s Hangouts app for Android can record and send video of up to one minute to contacts. iOS users have had the ability on their Hangouts app since February 2014. The update should arrive sometime this week.
- Fiat Chrysler will offer rewards of up to $1,500 to hackers who find and alert the company to security weaknesses in its vehicles. San Francisco’s Bugcrowd will manage the program for Fiat Chrysler. Bugcrowd also manages Tesla’s bug bounty program.
- The archipelago in the North Atlantic known as the Faroe islands has 49,188 people, around 80,000 sheep and has never been visited by Google’s Street View cameras. So of course, Durita Dahl Andreassen did what was logical and got some fellow islanders to help her strap 360-degree cameras with solar panels to sheep. The cameras send pictures and GPS coordinates back to Andreassen who uploads them to StreetView. The program is of course called SheepView.
- Microsoft has released two new Skype clients for Linux. A Skype Web Client is supported in Chrome on Linux and Chromebooks running ChromeOS, using Chrome’s WebRTC support. There’s also a standalone app. The new Linux client is a limited alpha that can only make voice calls to others using the current version of Skype.
- Fortune reports Toyota has joined the Open Invention Network. The OIN was formed in 2005 to encourage collaborative development of open-source software and provide protection against patent suits. Toyota has been a top participant in Automotive Grade Linux. OIN counts Red Hat, IBM and Sony among its members. It’s last new member was Google which joined in 2013.
- Nokia announced plans to expand their patent cross license agreement with Samsung. Nokia expects the expansion, begun originally in February, to generate 950 million euros in revenue by the end of 2016. The actual patent portfolio licensed were not disclosed.
Links
| Preceded by: "Daily Tech Headlines – July 12, 2016" |
Daily Tech Headlines – July 13, 2016 |
Followed by: "Daily Tech Headlines – July 14, 2016" |