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Tech News Today for February 9, 2017

Tech News for Thursday February 9, 2017

Early this morning Twitter announced fourth quarter and fiscal year 2016 results. And the fact that every newscast you hear seems to start with the phrase "President Trump tweeted..." has seemed to have very little effect on the company's bottom line. User growth slowed, revenue slowed, and as a result shares of the stock plummeted. This is normally the biggest quarter for advertising and Twitter's ad revenue still sunk. And as for people signing up, Re/Code points out this shocking comparison, during last year's heated election season, Twitter only grew by two million users, whereas Facebook grew by 72 million. Read more at prnewswire.com.

Microsoft is keeping you honest. At least, that’s one result of a new feature rolling out to Cortana that will remind you that you’ve made a promise to someone in an email, when the time is right. Cortana will keep tabs on your emails and automatically set reminders for commitments made inside those emails with initial support for Outlook and Office 365 accounts and opening to more email services later. Read more at businessinsider.com.

In other news coming out of Redmond, Microsoft has convinced a Federal Judge to allow the company to sue the Department of Justice to protect the privacy of its customers. When the government asks Microsoft to turn over email, the request also includes an indefinite gag order that says Microsoft isn't allowed to tell its customers that they're being watched. Microsoft wants to take the DOJ to court to claim that the gag order itself is in violation of the First Amendments. The court also ruled that what the government was doing in terms of surveillance wasn't in violation of the 4th amendment. Read more at bloomberg.com.

Google is taking a big stab at cleaning outdated, potentially insecure apps from the Play Store by requiring developers to add or update their app’s privacy policy by March 15. Its meant to force developers of zombie apps that violate Google’s User Data policy to disclose to users why their apps need sensitive permissions. Google says it will limit visibility or remove them altogether from the Play Store if nothing is done by the deadline. Read more at tomsguide.com.

According to Quartz, the largest maker of police body cameras will use artificial intelligence to analyze the petabytes of video caught on the cameras. A startup called Dextro analyzes video to make it discoverable, searchable, and curatable. Twitter has used the service to organize the countless hours of Periscope livestream footage, and now Taser International, the military hardware company that makes most police body cams, has acquired Dextro in an effort to understand what's happening in police videos where the perpective is always quickly moving and the action is often off camera. Read more at qz.com.

Tech News Today with Megan Morrone and Jason Howell streams live weekdays at 4PM Pacific, 7PM Eastern at twit.tv/live. You can subscribe to the show and watch it on-demand at twit.tv/tnt.

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