Tech News Today for October 12, 2016
Tech News for Wednesday October 12, 2016
Facebook’s move to using algorithms to drive its trending topics has resulted in some speed bumps along the way, as fake news has been spotted and portrayed as real news. The Washington Post ran an experiment to check in on the accuracy of Trending Topics six weeks after the transition to algorithmic selection. The experiment tracked all topics shown in the section for nine consecutive days and found five trending stories that were completely fake, as well as three that were highly inaccurate. The Washington Post claims Facebook’s goal of providing the days most important news items in this section is failing at higher than expected rates, with the user on the other side of the screen uncertain of the validity of the story. Read more at washingtonpost.com.
Apple has made its intentions to crack the Chinese market no secret, and now the company is announcing that it will be deploying a research and development center in Shenzhen to spur Apple’s growth in the country. The move will bring Apple’s engineering team closer to the company’s manufacturing partners, which they hope will solidify relationships and support the proliferation of talent software developers throughout the city. This announcement follows a similar plan to open an R&D facility in Beijing which was announced back in August. Read more at reuters.com.
Google’s marketing for its upcoming Pixel phones said all along that one key selling point was that updates would come directly from Google. Once they announced an exclusive arrangement with Verizon, it seemed likely that those updates would in fact be delivered by the carrier, slowing down the process as history has shown time and time again. Google confirmed as much, saying that security updates would arrive from Google itself, but Verizon would deliver major OS updates. Now some good news: A Verizon spokesperson and soon after, Google told Ars Technica that in fact all updates will happen direct from Google itself, putting its updatability on par with what iOS users have come to enjoy since the iPhone launched years ago. Read more at arstechnica.com.
Samsung had released its earnings guidance last week, prior to the days old re-recall of all Note 7s, and back then, had said there would be minimal impact on the bottom line for the company. Samsung has now released a follow-up statement that corrects the forecast significantly, projecting a 33 percent drop in operating profit for the third quarter of 2016. That amounts to $5.2 trillion won, or around $4.6 billion dollars. After Samsung’s awesome report earlier this year due to impressive sales of the Galaxy S7 that saw the company report its best profit in two years, Samsung expects that it will again see a year over year profit decline, signaling the expectation that its movement in the space will slow down considerably as a result of the Note 7 debacle. Read more at theverge.com.
Intel isn’t just making parts for drones, it’s making its own drone called the Falcon 8+, designed for industrial job sites to help aid in things like field inspections that can result in hours of walking otherwise. The octo-copter travels fast at around 35 miles per hour and weighs only six pounds. The Falcon 8+ is equipped with Intel’s own RealSense 3D Camera for collision detection, which Intel has licensed to a few other drone makers for use in their own drones. By targeting the commercial drone space, Intel has the potential to become more dominant in a space doesn’t yet have a clear leader when compared to the hobbyist space where DJI is dominant. Read more at recode.net.
Tech News Today with Megan Morrone and Jason Howell streams live weekdays at 4PM Pacific, 7PM Eastern at twit.tv/live. Subscribe to the show and get it on-demand at twit.tv/tnt.