Tech

Tech News Today for September 20, 2016

Tech News for September 20, 2016

The event we all knew was coming was finally announced by Google for Tuesday October 4 at 9am Pacific. Google is taking a very different approach this time around by blasting its teasers all over the place: On its site at google.com/tenfour, ad spots during the Big Bang Theory on TV, and billboards in Times Square to name a few. Strange to be making this so public-facing, considering this is merely a product announcement event… or is it? Read more at venturebeat.com.

Government transparency group "Sunlight Foundation" is shutting itself down and looking to combine assets with another group, according to a rather wordy post on its website today. The Sunlight Foundation created OpenGov which allows anyone to easily search for congressional bills and find out who supports them. They're also behind Politwoops, which lets you see tweets that people in politics have deleted. Its unclear from the post exactly what will happen next. Read more at sunlightfoundation.com/blog.

macOS Sierra is out today. The update brings Siri to the desktop, the ability to use Apple Pay on Websites, and a more efficient iCloud. To get Sierra, you need a MacBook (late 2009 and later), an iMac (late 2009 and later), a MacBook Air (2010 and later), a MacBook Pro (2010 and later), a Mac Mini (2010 and later), or Mac Pro (2010 and later). Read more at apple.com/macos/sierra.

It’s been almost two decades since Napster came along and redefined the music industry, and through all that time, the record industry has been relatively ineffective at recapturing its money making glory. Last year was the first time in that period that sales in the industry actually grew, and now a midyear report from the Recording Industry Association of America shows that the trend might actually continue for the second straight year, something that hasn’t happened since the peak of CD sales in 1998 and 1999. For the first half of 2016, recorded music retail sales grew 8.1 percent to $3.4 billion dollars. And they can thank streaming for that, with $1.6 billion in revenue, up 57 percent and accounting for nearly half of all industry sales. Read more at bloomberg.com.

Megan Morrone and Jason Howell are joined today by Sam Abuelsamid of Navigant Research to talk about the Federal Automated Vehicles Policy rulebook released by the US Federal Government. Tech News Today streams live weekdays at 4PM Pacific, 7PM Eastern at twit.tv/live. You can subscribe to the show and get it on-demand at twit.tv/tnt.

All Tech posts