Tech News Weekly (Video LO)

LeakedSource, a site that housed a database of more than 3.1 billion account passwords from many of the largest data breaches made public this past year, has allegedly been raided by law enforcement. LeakedSource was a for-profit site, charging users to gain access to all of the raw data, including passwords.A week into Trump's Presidency and some tech leaders are beginning to either speak out against or try to woo the Trump administration. Facebook CEO and COO Mark Zuckerberg and Sherly Sandberg questioned Trump's policies on global health care and immigration on Facebook today. Meanwhile, the New York Times says Google is aggressively trying to woo republicans.During Seagate's earnings call, the company announced that 14 and 16 terabyte hard drives will hit the market sometime in the next 18 months, with a 12 terabyte version also in the works that should release even sooner.After releasing earnings, Microsoft's value is as high as it's been in the past 17 years. The company's market capitalization crossed the half-trillion-dollar threshold and Wall Street says the fact that Microsoft is equally serving the consumer and the Enterprise is what makes them so successful.A new app called FaceApp allows you to take any photo of a face, and process it in ways that will make that person older, younger, reverse the gender, and smile when the subject wasn't smiling at all, and it's rather convincing. Fun to play around with for five minutes, but you'll probably get bored of it. Sam Machkovech from Ars Technica talks about the newest games coming out in February including Halo Wars 2, Night in the Woods, For Honor, and more. Hosts: Megan Morrone and Jason Howell Guest: Sam Machkovech Download or subscribe to this show at https://twit.tv/shows/tech-news-today.Thanks to CacheFly for the bandwidth for this show.

Alphabet posted Q4 earnings today, with profits a little smaller than expected for the company formerly known as Google. They beat revenue expectations, and had strong ad sales. Its Other Bets group, which includes everything other than Google and YouTube, managed to reduce losses.Microsoft reported its earnings today for Q2 and it beat both expectations and surpassed the same quarter last year with revenue of $26.1 billion. The company's Azure cloud business saw a 93 percent increase in revenue but Windows, Gaming, Search, and Devices saw a decline of five percent in revenue. VentureBeat has published leaked photos of Samsung's Galaxy S8, which they say is set to launch on March 29th. The photos show two models with 5.8-inch and 6.2-inch QHD Super AMOLED screens.VentureBeat also says the new phone will include Bixby, which is Samsung's smart assistant. Mark Zuckerberg announced that Hugo Barra, former Google and Xiaomi Exec, will become Facebook's VP of VR, heading up the Oculus team. Barra says he is looking ahead to building the future of immersive technology with the Oculus team.Bloomberg says Apple is joining the Partnership on AI, an industry group focused on best practices to help prevent the robot apocalypse. Google, Amazon, and Facebook are already members of the consortium and Apple could announce its involvement this week. Alex Kantrowitz from Buzzfeed discussed how the Trump presidency is using the Twitter platform, and what that could mean for Twitter's bottom line. Hosts: Megan Morrone and Jason Howell Guest: Alex Kantrowitz Download or subscribe to this show at https://twit.tv/shows/tech-news-today.Thanks to CacheFly for the bandwidth for this show.

Google released its Bad Ads report for 2016, showing that it eliminated 1.7 billion ads from its network. Those ads came in direct violation of its policies, more than doubling 2015's number. Google cracked down on deceptive ads, trick to click scams, and ads that pointed to fake news.HP is recalling 101,000 laptop batteries over fire concerns in addition to the 41,000 batteries that were recalled last June. The Consumer Product Safety Commission says the batteries can overheat, posing fire and burn hazards.Facebook is changing its Trending News section to help combat the proliferation of fake news on the platform. Changes include only showing stories that can be verified by multiple outlets, as well as removing personalized topics so that everyone sees the same thing.The Wall Street Journal reports that Amazon will now control ocean shipments from Chinese manufacturers to US warehouses. They won't own ships or employ the crews, but they will manage the logistics end of container shipping, a job which they previously outsourced.A team out of the University of Utah is working on creating smart glasses with glycerin-filled lenses that will allow the wearer to automatically shift their focus based on the proximity of whatever their eyes are pointed at. An on-board meter would measure the distance of the object and actuators would curve the lenses to bring it into focus.Sharon Profis from CNET is here to give us a step by step guide on how and why to quit Facebook. Hosts: Megan Morrone and Jason Howell Guest: Sharon Profis Download or subscribe to this show at https://twit.tv/shows/tech-news-today.Thanks to CacheFly for the bandwidth for this show.

Google introduced new convertible Chromebooks from Asus and Acer that are designed with the classroom in mind, including pressure sensitive stylus capabilities, USB-C for charging, and full Android app support.Microsoft also announced Intune for Education, a new device and cloud based app management service targeting the classroom to facilitate device setup, configuration and management for teachers and businesses.Apple is seeding the first beta for iOS 10.3, that includes new features like Find My AirPods, which tracks the last location that the wireless headphones were connected to the phone, as well as allowing developers to reply to reviews publicly in the App Store and the Mac App Store.Samsung released its fourth quarter earnings and despite the Note 7 debacle, still posted record profits of around $7.93 billion dollars, thanks to its all-time high earnings for its chip business that offset its mobile difficulties.Samsung apparently has dibs on most of Qualcomm's Snapdragon 835 mobile processor, keeping competitors from using the next big chip in their devices. Sources say the LG G6 will still be running last year's Snapdragon 821 as a result. Jeremy Burge from Emojipedia discusses new developments in the world of Emoji as well as the important role Emoji plays in the world of digital communication. Hosts: Jason Howell and Ron Richards Guest: Jeremy Burge Download or subscribe to this show at https://twit.tv/shows/tech-news-today.Thanks to CacheFly for the bandwidth for this show.

Samsung spills the beans on why its batteries exploded, Google Voice gets a MUCH needed update, Yahoo is under the SEC spotlight for its history of hacks, The many challenges of funding a documentary on Kickstarter, and the FCC gets a new chairman. What does that mean for Net Neutrality? Host: Jason Howell Download or subscribe to this show at https://twit.tv/shows/tech-news-today.Thanks to CacheFly for the bandwidth for this show.

Meitu, the Chinese selfie app that asks for an insane amount of permissions, issued a statement to CNET saying that China requires them to implement alternative tracking methods for user identification purposes. Meitu developers insist that they are not selling that data to anyone.Samsung appears to be ready to share its Note 7 findings during a press conference this Sunday evening, but a report from the Wall Street Journal reveals that the cause is related to "irregularly sized" batteries as well as manufacturing inconsistencies.A report out of Norway says that Tidal has over-reported its numbers repeatedly, including in a March 2016 press release, when TIDAL claimed to have 3 million subscribers, not including trial members. Internally, it reported having around 1.2 million subscribers, yet only made payments to labels for 850,000 subscribers.Qualcomm is having a bad week. Apple filed a $1 billion lawsuit claiming that Qualcomm has charged royalties "for technologies they have nothing to do with." And earlier this week, the Federal Trade Commission also filed a suit against Qualcomm over exclusionary tactics in how it licenses its patents.Amazon is doubling down on the Dash, its push-button system for quick one-tap purchasing of products from the e-commerce site by showing virtual versions of those buttons on the Amazon homepage. The buttons will be customized based on user's buying activity. Hosts: Jason Howell and Sam Machkovech Download or subscribe to this show at https://twit.tv/shows/tech-news-today.Thanks to CacheFly for the bandwidth for this show.

Google is coming under fire for surfacing its own products at the top of search results that are related to hardware the company actually sells. The Wall Street Journal worked with SEMrush to analyse 25,000 total searches on 25 terms like laptops and speakers. 91 percent of the time, Google's own products were offered up at the top in place of competitors' products.The US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has closed its six month inquiry into the May 7th crash of a Tesla that killed the driver, Joshua Brown, while the car was in semi-autonomous Autopilot mode. NHTSA says Tesla was not at fault.Uber is settling a complaint by the Federal Trade Commission and will pay $20 million dollars as a result. The complaint said that Uber misled its drivers about the amount of money that drivers were able to earn in 20 cities, including New York City and San Francisco.Netflix announced Q4 earnings and they are crushing it. Subscriber growth appears unstoppable with the addition of 7.05 million new customers in this quarter alone. While Business Insider points out that the company is currently experiencing a free cash flow deficit, that's because they're creating and producing so much of their own original content like Stranger Things - which is cheaper, but only in the long run.Twitter released its 2016 diversity report showing the company's largest gains since the report began in 2014. Women represented 37 percent of the workforce, up from 34 percent in 2015, and African Americans jumped from 2 to 3 percent in that time. Twitter also set its goals for 2017 which include increasing the hiring of underrepresented minorities in non-technical positions. Hosts: Megan Morrone and Jason Howell Guest: Kerry Davis Download or subscribe to this show at https://twit.tv/shows/tech-news-today.Thanks to CacheFly for the bandwidth for this show.

The Information says Google's cheap Android One phones could come to the US by the end of this year. Sources did not know for sure who would make the phone, but suggest LG could be a partner.A South Korean court reached a decision to dismiss the arrest warrant it held for Jay Y. Lee, head of Samsung, on bribery charges. After being held overnight at a detention center, Lee was set free with the judge saying an arrest was unnecessary at this point.The CIA has released 13 million pages of declassified documents online, going back decades. Now you too can search the database for information on Aliens, state-funded mind-control, pre-cognition, and telepathy, just to name a few.Slack is rolling out a new feature that brings Message threads to chat windows, which allows for extended comments to be attached to individual topics within the thread. Those threads can be collapsed and expanded as needed.A class-action lawsuit in LA alleges that Apple has the ability to block iPhone users from texting while driving, but they don't use it...and that is causing accidents and deaths on the road. A California man who brought the lawsuit is seeking to halt all iPhone sales until they lock out iPhones to prevent texting and driving. Matt Weinberger from Business Insider talks about Google buying Twitter's Fabric Hosts: Megan Morrone and Jason Howell Guest: Matt Weinberger Download or subscribe to this show at https://twit.tv/shows/tech-news-today.Thanks to CacheFly for the bandwidth for this show.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg is part of a courtroom battle between Oculus and ZeniMax Media, a videogame publisher that accused Oculus of the theft of critical technology that made its way into the finalized Oculus Rift headset. Zuckerberg is confident that Oculus products were not based in any way on ZeniMax's technology.According to a note to developers spotted by The Guardian, prices for apps in the Apple store are going up in the UK, India, and Turkey. The price hikes will affect apps for iPhone, iPad, and Mac. Google and LG are gearing up for a big wearable announcement event on February 9, according to VentureBeat sources. Android Wear 2.0 is expected along with a duo of new smartwatches created in a partnership with LG and Google.We'll finally have our self-flying cars by the end of this year, at least according to attention seekers at AirBus. At a tech conference in Munich an executive at the European aircraft maker says they will test a single-seat flying taxi prototype in Oregon by the end of 2017.Today is the final day for the 6-second Vine video service. Users can snag all of their Vines from the site for posterity. The Vine app will turn into Vine Camera allowing users to continue shooting 6-second masterpieces for upload to any service they choose including Twitter. Hosts: Megan Morrone and Jason Howell Guest: Elise Hu Download or subscribe to this show at https://twit.tv/shows/tech-news-today.Thanks to CacheFly for the bandwidth for this show.

Microsoft says the Windows 10 anniversary update protects you from exploits even before they get patched. Thanks to exploit mitigation controls, Microsoft's security researchers say systems running Windows 10 anniversary update are more secure against future attacks.In other Windows news, Joshua Burge from Emojipedia says the newest Windows 10 Insiders build adds emoji for interracial couples, making it the first major platform to do so.Google is using machine learning to make it easier to store high res images using less data, but only if you use Google +. A new technology called RAISR, which stands for Rapid and Accurate Image Super-Resolution can reduce data costs up to 75 percent per image.Jay Y. Lee, the acting head of Samsung, could face formal corruption charges. South Korean officials accuse Lee of bribery, embezzlement, and perjury. Lee is the son of Lee Kun-hee, who is the official head of Samsung and is currently incapacitated. Court will convene Wednesday.Jimmy Iovine confirms rumors that Apple plans to get into the original TV content arena. Iovene says the new content does not have to be music or about music. They're going to do whatever hits pop culture smack on the nose.Elon Musk's SpaceX is back in flight. Over the weekend the company launched a Falcon 9 into space to release ten Iridium communication satellites into earth's orbit. This is the first SpaceX flight since the rocket exploded on the launchpad last September. Hosts: Megan Morrone and Owen JJ Stone Download or subscribe to this show at https://twit.tv/shows/tech-news-today.Thanks to CacheFly for the bandwidth for this show.

We start with the story that is captivating Nintendo fans: The Switch. That's the name of the much-anticipated 6.2 inch multi-touch screen portable gaming system from Nintendo. The Verge says with true portability, combined with the ability to stream high-res to your television, the Switch already gets right what that Wii U got wrong. It'll cost $300 and be available on March 3.Consumer Reports says they will now give Apple's new MacBooks their coveted Recommended rating. Back in December the magazine said they could not recommend the laptops due to inconsistent battery life. Apple fixed the bug on January 9th.Facebook-owned Messaging tool WhatsApp is under the privacy microscope again, this time for what The Guardian is calling a backdoor that allows snooping, even on encrypted messages. Sources call the flaw a threat to privacy and a potential tool for government agency spying. However, security experts say the Guardian report is hyperbolic and this backdoor is really a design decision by Facebook.Microsoft just acquired a Toronto-based AI startup called Maluuba. In a blog post on their site, the creators of Maluuba say their focus is artificial general intelligence, or creating literate machines that could think. Microsoft's Artificial Intelligence head executive Harry Shum says Microsoft will share their plans for Maluuba in the coming months, but it will most likely include some kind of AI for the enterprise.Harrison Weber from VentureBeat on the rise and fall of ATAP's Project Ara module phone. Hosts: Megan Morrone and Georgia Dow Guest: Harrison Weber Download or subscribe to this show at https://twit.tv/shows/tech-news-today.Thanks to CacheFly for the bandwidth for this show.

Jeff Bezos says Amazon will hire one hundred thousand full-time workers, with jobs at all skill levels from engineering to factory building. A spokesperson for the company says the openings will be for employment across the US, and not just in Seattle or Silicon Valley. Amazon plans to fill the positions over the next 18 months, giving us a hint at the speed at which they plan to open physical stores, more warehouses, and build out their cloud computing business.According to the Wall Street Journal's sources, Apple representatives have been looking to buy original content from Hollywood creators. The content might then be available to people who pay the $10/month Apple music subscription fee.If you pre-ordered the throw-and-go Lily Robotics personal drone, I've got some bad news for you. It's been delayed. Forever. After $34 million dollars in pre-orders, Lily is shutting down, saying they don't have the funds to produce it.The European Parliament released a draft report proposing a kill switch for robots to limit the amount of damage they do when they turn on us. The proposal on robot governance includes general principals about what to do when or if robots become self-aware, including liability issues and a classification system for the registration of advanced robots.Pandora is laying off 7 percent of employees, according to a letter to shareholders by CEO Tim Westegren. He also said they'd exceeded growth, due in large part to lucrative advertising deals. Pandora still plans to release its $10/month streaming service later this quarter. Hosts: Megan Morrone and Scott Johnson Download or subscribe to this show at https://twit.tv/shows/tech-news-today.Thanks to CacheFly for the bandwidth for this show.

Alphabet continues to pare down its many moonshot efforts by shuttering Project Titan, its solar powered drone program. And according to Bloomberg, Alphabet is also in the process of trying to sell its Skybox Imaging Satellite business, which it renamed Terra Bella last year.Verizon has confirmed that it will kick grandfathered unlimited users off its networks, if they are data hogs. If you use 200 gigabytes a month, you'll be required to switch to a capped plan or Verizon will show you the door.Samsung says that more than 96 percent of its Galaxy Note 7 devices have been returned thanks to its recall after a number of exploding battery incidents. Thanks to the high number of returns, the Federal Aviation Administration has lifted its requirement that airlines issue pre-boarding messages warning against bringing the device onto flights.Instagram is adding full-screen ads to your stories, but you can skip them. Copying Snapchat's stories has been a successful move for Instagram. Since launching Stories five months ago, Instagram has gone from 100 million daily users to 150 million daily users.Pre-orders for Nintendo's new console, The Switch, will begin on Friday morning at 9AM eastern, snagging gamers a place in line to get the system when it officially launches sometime in March.Matt McFarland from CNN discusses how taxi and truck drivers in upstate New York are pushing for severe restrictions to keep self driving cars out for up to 50 years. Hosts: Megan Morrone and Jason Howell Guest: Matt McFarland Download or subscribe to this show at https://twit.tv/shows/tech-news-today.Thanks to CacheFly for the bandwidth for this show.

Apple says they've fixed a bug that caused wild fluctuations in battery performance during the Consumer Reports testing of the new Macbook Pro. Consumer Reports is reportedly considering retesting the device.John MacFarlane, CEO and co-founder of Sonos, has resigned from his role with the company after 15 years at the top. Patrick Spense, currently the Sonos President, will take over in the lead role. Macfarlane says he didn't want Spense to always feel like a founder was looking over his shoulder.Greenpeace released its renewable energy report and says that Google, Apple, and Facebook get good marks in renewable energy efforts, but Amazon lags behind. HBO, Netflix, and Hulu all received Fs for the amount of energy they use from all your binge watching.LG has had a bad year. Its flagship LG G5 didn't move the needle throughout 2016, and part of the reason could have been its bold but ultimately unsuccessful trial of modular functionality with LG Friends. 2017 will be different. LG announced the G6 which will have a larger 5.7" QHD display with an unprecedented 18:9 aspect ratio. LG says consumers want larger displays, so this is one way that LG is attempting to right the wrongs of its last flagship device.Tesla Motors has poached another Apple employee. Chris Lattner, creator of the Swift programming language, is joining the electric car company as VP of autopilot software. Hosts: Megan Morrone and Jason Howell Guest: Molly McHugh Download or subscribe to this show at https://twit.tv/shows/tech-news-today.Thanks to CacheFly for the bandwidth for this show.

Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer will resign from Yahoo's board of Directors along with cofounder David Filo and four other board members when and if the sale to Verizon goes through. Also, as Verizon will be purchasing Yahoo's core business, the remaining investment company that won't be going to Verizon will be renamed "Altaba."Leading up to the opening of the North American Auto Show in Detroit, John Krafcik from Google's Waymo showed off an entirely new sensor suite for its self-driving minivans that are set to hit the streets for test drives this month.This week Volkswagen showed off the VW ID Buzz concept to bring its microbus into the 21st century with a fully electric version that includes full self-driving capabilities. The bus can accelerate from 0-60 mph in 5 seconds, with a range of 270 miles.Razer CEO Min-Liang Tan says thieves stole two prototypes of the project Valerie three-screen laptop from CES. Razer will offer 25,000 reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the thieves.Sources say that Facebook will soon begin testing mid-roll video ads. Facebook will sell the ads and then share the revenue with publishers, giving them 55 percent of the take.Stephen Hacket from 512pixels discusses the ten year anniversary of the announcement of the original iPhone. Hosts: Megan Morrone and Jason Howell Guest: Stephen Hackett Download or subscribe to this show at https://twit.tv/shows/tech-news-today.Thanks to CacheFly for the bandwidth for this show.