FCC DDoS Attack Never Happened, Says Inspector General
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| FCC DDoS Attack Never Happened, Says Inspector General | |
| Number | 602 |
| Broadcast Date | AUGUST 7, 2018 |
| Episode Length | 4:44 |
| Hosts | Sarah Lane |
West Virginia plans to allow mobile voting, Alexa users rarely shop via voice, Google releases Android 9 Pie to consumers.
Headlines
- A report from the FCC's Inspector General is set to reveal that there's no evidence of a DDoS attack against its comment system when it was soliciting net neutrality comments in May of last year. FCC Chairman Ajit Pai says the false DDoS reports are the fault of "the prior Administration" and former Chief Information Officer David Bray. Pai also claimed that the report "debunks the conspiracy theory" that he and his office knew the DDoS claims were unfounded. Instead, he argued, the FCC should focus on revamping the struggling commenting system.
- Airbnb announced that bookings made through its Airbnb for Work program, which was recently rebranded from Airbnb for Business, tripled between 2016 and 2017. Airbnb also says 700,000 companies are now using Airbnb for Work, up from the 250,000 it reported in April last year.
- West Virginians serving overseas will be able to cast upcoming federal election ballots using a smartphone app. But the state's decision to allow mobile voting has drawn criticism from security experts who claim the method is insecure. West Virginia Secretary of State Mac Warner and Voatz, the Boston company that developed the app, insist the technology is secure. Anyone using it must first register by taking a photo of their government-issued identification and a video of their face, then upload both via the app. Voatz says its facial recognition software will ensure the photo and video show the same person. State officials will leave a final decision on using the app in November to each county.
- Jeffrey Katzenberg and Meg Whitman's “NewTV” announced a new round of funding, $1 billion in fact, backed by Disney, 21st Century Fox, NBCUniversal, Sony Pictures Entertainment, Viacom, AT&T’s WarnerMedia (formerly Time Warner Inc.), Lionsgate, MGM, ITV, Entertainment One, and Alibaba. NewTV plans to launch by the end of 2019, with a premium lineup of original, short-form series around 10 minutes each. The service will have two subscription tiers: an advertising-free plan and an “advertising-light” option, according to Whitman.
- The Information repoprts those who own Amazon's assistant-enabled smart devices rarely use voice for shopping. Of about 50 million Alexa users, only about 100,000 reportedly bought something via voice interface more than once. The Echo and similar devices are mostly for listening to music, asking about the weather, and setting timers. The Information notes that while a million people have tried buying things via voice, only 100,000 continued through with their purchase.
- Google has released Android 9 Pie. Yes Android P stands for Pie, and it's rolling out to Pixel phones first. Pie includes an updated material design look, new notification panel, reworked recent apps screen and support for gesture controls and devices with notches. Android's Digital Wellbeing features now go into beta for Android 9 Pie users. Google says that devices that were part of the Android P beta program (including Sony, Xiaomi, HMD Global, Oppo, Vivo, OnePlus, and Essential) and "qualifying" Android One devices should have the update by the end of autumn.
- Google announced new updates to its Google for Education suite. Classroom — a web service that connects teachers with other teachers and students - now has its own dedicated Classwork page. A new People tab is designed to give teachers a “unified place to manage students, co-teachers and guardians." Course Kit is a toolkit for teachers to use Google Docs and Drive to collect assignments and provide better feedback to students. Starting this fall, Google’s ARCore software development kit (SDK) will support the Acer Chromebook Tab 10, the first Chrome OS tablet and the first non-smartphone to use ARCore.
- Instapaper is reintroducing its Instapaper Premium subscription service, and is back in the European Union after months of being offline for EU users due to GDPR compliance issues. Last month the developers of Instapaper announced they were taking the service independent from Pinterest. The core bookmarking and parsing features of Instapaper will continue to be available for free. Instapaper Premium will be available for free for six months for EU users that experienced downtime due to GDPR issues.
Links
| Preceded by: "TSMC Suffers Delays Due to Virus" |
FCC DDoS Attack Never Happened, Says Inspector General |
Followed by: "Magic Leap is Real" |