Tech News Weekly (Video)

Facebook is running full-page ads in British newspapers in an attempt to educate the public in advance of the June 8 parliamentary election in Britain. Facebook also announced the removal of tens of thousands of accounts it believes were spreading false news across the network.

The Associated Press says that the FBI paid a private company $900,000 to hack the iPhone of the San Bernadino killer last year. Despite the Freedom of Information Act, James Comey had claimed that the total would remain classified.

Citymapper, a mapping, and transportation app is broadening its business by getting into the bus business. The Citymapper Smartbus, or the CMX1, will hit the streets of London on a fixed route on May 9th, armed with intelligence from the Citymapper app.

There's a battle brewing among digital assistants in the home and rumors are swirling that Microsoft, Amazon, and Apple all have new devices on the way. Plus, drones for farmers and Liz Gannes from 60 DB is here to discuss the politics of augmented reality.

Hosts: Megan Morrone and Jason Howell

Guest: Liz Gannes

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The Feds are launching a probe into Uber's Greyball system. Greyball was the codename the ride-hailing company used to evade authorities in places where Uber was outlawed or not yet approved. According to the New York Times, the Justice department is trying to determine the legality of the program.

Alphabet is expected to announce its investment of hundreds of millions of dollars in more than 40 original movies and shows starring well-known stars and artists like Ellen DeGeneres and Katy Perry. These will appear on YouTube for free, and be supported by ads.

Microsoft just announced a Surface event on May 23rd in Shanghai. We're guessing it's a Surface Pro update with Kaby Lake processors inside.

Plus, Amazon might be close to finally bringing its video app to AppleTV, Microsoft Hololens is dabbling with spine surgery in its spare time, a new Echo with a touchscreen could be around the corner, and Sam Machkovech from Ars Technica talks about a whole lotta VR, including the new release by Bethesda called Prey.

Hosts: Megan Morrone and Jason Howell

Guest: Sam Machkovech

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Apple announced last month that it would bring graphic chip development in house, giving its deal with Imagination Technologies only two more years. Now, Imagination announced plans to sell off two of its businesses, as well as starting a dispute process with Apple to keep the deal alive.

Iain Thomson at the Register says that over the past few months, hackers have used vulnerabilities in the Signaling System Number Seven Protocol or SS7 to empty the bank accounts of some Germans. And before you say, "they should have turned on 2-factor!" They did. SS7 is part of how cell phones communicate with each other and the hole allows very sophisticated cyber criminals to grab the 2-factor codes in transit.

SpaceX has a plans to send internet-beaming satellites into orbit starting in 2019 ahead of lighting up its network in 2024. The plan would put 4,425 satellites into low-earth orbit by way of Falcon 9 rockets and would provide high-speed low latency internet to earth without costly infrastructure build-out.

Our guest today is Patrick Tucker, tech editor at Defense One, who talks about what email metadata has to do with last year's presidential election in the United States. We also look at what Apple's billion dollar US manufacturing fund means for people and for robots. Plus, why Snapchat might have better luck at original content than YouTube.

Hosts: Megan Morrone and Jason Howell

Guest: Patrick Tucker

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Facebook plans to hire 3,000 additional people to review reports of people publicly hurting themselves (and others) and then posting it on Facebook. The community operations team around the world already includes 4,500 reviewers of the millions of reports the company gets every week. It was unclear from Zuckerberg's post whether the reviewers would be Facebook employees or contract workers.

Hulu is getting into the Live content game with Hulu Live TV, a new paid service tier that brings 60 live channels for $39.99 per month with 50 hours of cloud DVR, with the option to add premium channels like Showtime for an extra monthly fee of $8.99. An additional monthly fee of $19.99 adds 200 hours of cloud DVR storage, commercial skipping, and unlimited screens when connected at the home.

Ars Technica says that Microsoft's Edge browser and Bing search are set as unchangeable defaults in Microsoft's new Windows 10 S operating system. According to the official FAQ for Windows 10 S, you are more than welcome to download another browser that might be available from the Windows Store, but you can never make it your default.

Plus, a phishing email that looks and acts like a Google Doc invite tricked many folks online, Slack is rolling out new features to improve its cross-channel search capabilities, Augmented Reality glasses that can map the path for bikers is coming soon, and Dave Gershgorn from Quartz takes a closer look at Microsoft's new Head of Research, Eric Horvitz.

Hosts: Megan Morrone and Jason Howell

Guest: Dave Gershgorn

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Microsoft held its anticipated Education event this morning, where they showed off a new streamlined version of their OS, Windows 10 S for education. Microsoft also revealed the Surface Laptop, a $999 touchscreen laptop with a striking design, and Windows 10 S pre-installed.

Other Microsoft announcements today include an update to Teams, also designed for students with emoji, stickers, and GIFs. Plus, the Minecraft Education Edition will now include Code Builder that works with existing education platforms like Tynker and ScratchX.

T-mobile was the big winner in last month's spectrum auction, and has now unveiled what it plans to do with it. T-mobile plans to use that spectrum to become the first major nationwide 5G network, with a focus on improving its reach as opposed to faster speeds.

We also discuss Apple's earnings, the humans who make Google's machine magic work, and more partners for Twitter's new media network. Plus, a new gadget for those of you who still haven't thrown away your mixtapes.

Hosts: Megan Morrone and Jason Howell

Guest: Annalee Newitz

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In a newly signed executive order, President Donald Trump says he plans to establish and American Technology Council to transform and modernize information technology, but it was unclear how he planned to do this.

Twitter struck a deal with Bloomberg to put together a new service that will bring original news to Twitter, streamed 24/7 starting this Fall. It will feature original content brought in from Bloomberg's worldwide bureaus, mixed with curated video content from Twitter users.

Samsung is getting into the self-driving car business. According to the Verge, the South Korean giant is testing its driverless car tech in Hyundais. Like Apple and perhaps Google, Samsung isn't expected to build its own cars, just the autonomous tech inside them.

Plus, Amazon announces the end of Underground Actually Free, someone scraped Tinder profiles for facial recognition, someone leaked the next season of Orange is the New Black and it won't hurt Netflix one bit, and Sam Machkovech from Ars Technica discusses a leaked document that shows how Facebook is analyzing the emotions of its teen users and passing that information on to advertisers.

Hosts: Megan Morrone and Jason Howell

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The National Security Agency is ending its warrant-less wiretapping program that targeted American communications that in any way mentioned the names of foreigners currently under surveillance. The NSA issued a statement saying it will end the program, as well as delete the majority of upstream data generated from it.

The voice of the Amazon Echo is getting more human. The company says new Speech Synthesis Markup Language or SSLM will allow developers to create skills that feature whispering, bleeping out swear words, spelling out words, speaking at different volumes or rates, and more. So, it's only a matter of time before the robot steals our jobs.

Facebook is riddled with video content that has been lifted and republished from the original sources. New updates to Facebook's Rights Manager will now allows rights holders to "claim ad earnings" from those videos, routing revenue generated from a video to them instead of into the pockets of the pirater.

Our Sorry Not Sorry segment is back, this time we discuss whether Wired magazine still has cultural relevance.

Plus we'll tell you more about the self-driving Lexus that Apple is using to test its self-driving software and a robot that can build a house out of spray foam. And finally, Sam Machkovech from Ars Technica joins us to chat about Einstein, Mario Kart, and big budget VR.

Hosts: Megan Morrone and Jason Howell

Guest: Sam Machkovech

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The newly launched Google Assistant SDK will let developers tap into the AI power of Google Assistant from their own prototype hardware. It's currently a Developer Preview though, so anyone interested in commercializing hardware based on the SDK will still need to arrange that with Google first.

Recode reports that Apple might be creating its own Venmo competitor, that will let iPhone users transfer or pay money directly to other people from the phone. There's no word yet on when exactly this feature might come to the iPhone.

Anthony Levandowski, the head of the self driving group at Uber, is stepping aside as the Waymo lawsuit alleging his theft of 14,000 files comes barreling toward him. Eric Meyhofer will lead the team, and Levandoswki told his employees to avoid including him on any communications related to Lidar ahead of the hearing next week.

Plus Microsoft, Amazon, Alphabet, and Samsung reporting their earnings and we'll tell you what you need to know. Plus, the eternal question -- why aren't more smart watches built with flashlights?

Hosts: Megan Morrone and Jason Howell

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Changes are coming to government oversight of net neutrality rules that were approved two years ago. FCC Chairman Ajit Pai announced a new plan that signals a move away from those rules, and towards self regulation by the industry itself.

Instagram now has 700 million active monthly users, gaining 100 million in the last quarter. The photo sharing site is experiencing meteoric growth having doubled its user base in the last year.

Twitter may be showing signs of new life. The company announced its quarterly earnings and revealed its best quarter for user growth in two years, with nine million new users in Q1.

We also investigate robot rage, Amazon's new camera that will take photos of you while you're getting dressed, and whether or not you can own a color. Plus, Alex Kantrowitz from Buzzfeed is here to tell us why we should fear the AI winter.

Hosts: Megan Morrone and Jason Howell

Guest: Alex Kantrowitz

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If you live in the Phoenix area you can now apply to be part of a self-driving car testing program from Waymo, which was formerly Google's driverless car program and is now under the Alphabet umbrella. Testers have access to a driverless car with a test driver whenever they want, wherever they are within an area twice the size of San Francisco.

Jimmy Wales, the co-founder of Wikipedia, is tackling that pesky thing called fake news by creating Wikitribune, a crowdfunded news publication with content chosen, fact checked, and written up by unpaid community members and journalists Uber says they'll be taking ride-hailing to the skies by 2020. That's when the company says they'll have their first public demo of a fleet of electric planes that you can hail with an app.

We also discuss how Netflix is getting its content to China and how the TED conference is being overrun by robots. Plus, Danny Sullivan from Search Engine Land joins us to talk about Google's Project Owl that aims to clean up problematic search results.

Hosts: Megan Morrone and Jason Howell

Guest: Danny Sullivan

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