Tech News Today for November 29, 2016
Tech News for Tuesday November 29, 2016
The UK's Snooper's Charter will officially pass into law in 2017. The Investigatory Powers Act 2016 requires web and phone companies to store customers' Internet Connection Records for a year and today it officially received the Royal Assent from the Queen. This, despite widespread disdain for the bill and a petition which has received 130,000 signatures. The only amendment to the bill requires that politicians conversations not be spied on. Read more at theguardian.com.
Messaging apps like Facebook Messenger, once upon a time, were all about chatting with your contacts. The bots arrived to the party, convinced that people wanted to chat with them, and buy things through them. Now Facebook is adding in a bunch of Instant Games into Messenger, 17 games built on the HTML5 standard, meaning they don’t need to be downloaded to play. The games are a mixture of old school classics like Pac-Man and Space Invaders, along with new titles from studios like Zynga and King. Read more at techcrunch.com.
As early as the first quarter of next year you might be able to buy an Amazon Echo with a touch screen on it. Sources at Bloomberg say the device will have updated speakers and a tiltable 7 inch screen. Read more at bloomberg.com.
Uber has seen tremendous growth around the world, and one of its most important markets is Europe. However, a case in the European Court of Justice is challenging how Uber operates within the market, seeking to determine whether Uber is in fact a transportation company and thereby beholden to national rules around transport, or a technology company that simply acts as an intermediary, connecting drivers with passengers. Read more at nytimes.com.
Electrolux is introducing a new service that's like AirBNB, but for washing your dirty clothes. Because who wouldn't want to let complete strangers share their washing machines when they're not using them? According to Engadget, Swedish washing machine maker Electrolux wants to create the Laundry Uber where you pay to have your clothes washed in someone else's machine. That way you can buy a new fancy smart connected washing machine and make the money back while you're not using it for most of the week. Read more at engadget.com.
Megan Morrone and Jason Howell are joined today by Stephen Hackett from 512pixels to talk about Apple's "Designed by Apple in California" coffee table book. Tech News Today 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.
