Consumers buying smart home and other Internet of Things devices don’t often understand the wider implications of their purchases. The tech companies building these devices are creating ecosystems that could, among other things, determine the future of retail. For example, buying a smart speaker to play music will likely become the consumer’s “access point” for a range of services, including shopping options. Consumers opting into one company’s products may be unknowingly opting out of other companies’ offerings. Continue reading Smart Speakers Could Become Centers of Retail Ecosystems

In an interview with CNBC, Hulu CEO Randy Freer revealed that his company’s $40 per month Internet streaming service, Hulu with Live TV, which launched a little more than one year ago, has surpassed 800,000 subscribers. Dish Network’s Sling TV reached 2.3 million customers at the end of Q1, and AT&T’s DirecTV Now has about 1.46 million subscribers. Other competitors in this space include Google’s YouTube TV, PlayStation Vue from Sony, and the sports-focused fuboTV. In total, Hulu has more than 20 million paying customers (half subscribe to the ad-free $11.99 monthly package). Continue reading Hulu Draws 800,000+ Subscribers to its New Live TV Service

FCC commissioner Michael O’Rielly is urging Amazon and eBay to pull listings from their sites for “rogue” set-top boxes that enable consumers to watch pirated TV shows. On Friday, the commissioner sent a letter to Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos and eBay CEO Devin Wenig noting that the STBs in question often falsely feature the FCC logo, and are responsible for encouraging “intellectual property theft and consumer fraud.” O’Rielly recognized that the companies have been working to address the problem, but wrote “despite your good work in this area, devices continue to make it to consumers through your websites.” Continue reading FCC’s O’Rielly Asks Amazon, eBay to Remove ‘Rogue’ STBs

During Display Week in Los Angeles, several VR headset displays were showcased by companies including Google, LG, Japan Display and Samsung. Google and LG developed a display panel with 18.1 megapixels of detail per eye, which was similar to those from Japan Display and Samsung. The Google/LG panel, at 18.1 megapixels, goes up against Oculus Rift’s 1.3 megapixel per eye and HTC Vive Pro’s 2.2 megapixel per eye. Facebook was also at Display Week, but wasn’t quite ready to show off its Half Dome varifocal prototype. Continue reading Manufacturers Show Higher-Res VR Headset Display Panels

Facebook has used Intel CPUs for many of its artificial intelligence services, but the company is changing course to adapt to the pressing need to better filter live video content. At the Viva Technology industry conference in Paris, Facebook chief AI scientist Yann LeCun stated that the company plans to make its own chips for filtering video content, because more conventional methods suck up too much energy and compute power. Last month, Bloomberg reported that the company is building its own semiconductors. Continue reading Facebook to Develop Live Video Filtering Chips for Faster AI

Android creator Andy Rubin’s startup, Essential Products, born out of his incubator Playground Global, may be on the sales block. The startup, which raised about $300 million from Amazon, Tencent Holdings, Redpoint Ventures and Hon Hai Precision Industry (Foxconn), ceased development of a new smartphone, say sources, and hired Credit Suisse Group to advise on its sale. Reportedly, Essence has already piqued the interest of one potential buyer. The original Essential smartphone, manufactured by Foxconn, debuted last August. Continue reading Essential Kills Next Smarthone and Is Reportedly Up for Sale

With the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation going into effect, technology companies are flooding email inboxes with updates to privacy policies. Though GDPR currently touts the strictest privacy regulations, Brazil, Japan and South Korea plan to enact their own strict laws. The EU is encouraging such regulations by tying them to some trade deals and promoting a global approach. The EU and its 28 member countries are also planning to enact stricter enforcement of antitrust laws and tougher tax policies for giant tech companies. Continue reading Aftermath of EU’s Data Privacy Law is Far-Reaching, Profound

The Intel AI Lab, which open-sourced a library for natural language processing, plans to open-source more such libraries, to help developers and researchers speed up the process of giving virtual assistants and chatbots functions such as name entity recognition, intent extraction and semantic parsing. With new libraries, these developers can also publish research, train and deploy artificial intelligence and reproduce the latest innovations in the AI community. Intel’s first conference for AI developers was held May 23-24 in San Francisco. Continue reading Intel AI Lab Reveals Plans to Open-Source More NLP Libraries

Samsung has committed to integrating artificial intelligence and Internet connectivity into all its products by 2020, even as Google and Amazon beat the South Korean company to market with their AI-powered smart speakers. Samsung’s goal is to have every device from televisions to refrigerators synch with each other and drive demand for its smartphones. Samsung eventually plans to centralize these devices with its SmartThings app, acquired in 2014. It also will include its own virtual assistant Bixby, which debuted last year on its flagship Galaxy S8 smartphone. Continue reading Samsung Zeroes In on AI to Meet 2020 Goal for Smart Devices

Smart speakers continue their popularity, with nine million units shipped in Q1 2018, representing a 210 percent jump over Q1 2017, according to Canalys. In a first, global shipments of Google Home speakers surpassed those of Amazon’s popular Echo speakers. “Google shipped 3.2 million Home and Home Mini devices, versus 2.5 million Echo devices shipped by Amazon,” reports VentureBeat. “Google held an estimated 36.2 percent share for the quarter over Amazon’s 27.7 percent — a profound reversal from a year earlier, when Amazon had 79.6 percent of shipments to Google’s 19.3 percent.” Continue reading Google and Amazon Remain Leaders in Smart Speaker Market

According to Cisco’s threat intelligence division Talos, an estimated 500,000 routers in 54 countries have been infected by malware that the FBI and cybersecurity experts refer to as VPNFilter. The Justice Department has warned that routers are already under control of the Sofacy Group, which is reportedly directed by Russia’s military intelligence agency. Devices from Linksys, MikroTik, Netgear, QNAP and TP-Link are believed to be among the affected equipment. The FBI has requested that owners of home and office routers turn them off and turn them back on. Rebooting the routers will disrupt the malware if present. Users are also encouraged to upgrade firmware, disable remote-management settings, and select a new password. Continue reading FBI Requests That We Reboot All Routers to Disrupt Malware

The Trump administration has reportedly reached an agreement that would keep Chinese telecom equipment manufacturer ZTE in business. The deal requires that ZTE pay a major fine, make management changes, and place U.S. compliance officers at the company. ZTE had earlier announced it would cease operations after the White House banned it from buying U.S. tech components in response to ZTE violating U.S. sanctions against North Korea and Iran. The new agreement would permit ZTE to resume its business with Qualcomm and other U.S. companies. Continue reading Federal Government Makes Deal to Put ZTE Back in Business

Rather than comply with the European Union’s new data privacy rules, some American news outlets have opted to block access to their online content in Europe. The EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) limits what info can be collected about users. This impacts companies that provide free content but share user data in order to sell targeted ads. Newspapers that have opted for a blackout or restricted access include the Arizona Daily Star, New York Daily News, St. Louis Post Dispatch, and Tronc-owned Chicago Tribune, Los Angeles Times, Orlando Sentinel and The Baltimore Sun. Continue reading U.S. Newspapers Block Online Access for European Audience

In the latest ruling of an ongoing seven-year patent battle over smartphone technology, a federal court in San Jose, California awarded Apple $539 million in its lawsuit against Samsung Electronics. “Apple sought about $1 billion in a retrial of a case that originally produced a verdict of that amount in 2012,” reports Bloomberg, “while Samsung argued it should pay only $28 million this time.” Following the 2012 verdict and 2013 retrial, the case went to the Supreme Court in 2016 before returning to U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh to determine damages. Continue reading Apple Awarded $539 Million in Smartphone Tech Patent Ruling

Cisco Systems and U.S. and Ukrainian authorities have warned that a network of half a million routers and storage devices has been hacked and is capable of a massive cyberattack. Security researchers said that the attack could take place during soccer’s UEFA Champions League’s final match on Saturday in Kiev. The devices, in 54 countries, are infected with VPNFilter malware that can shut them down, said Cisco security researcher Craig Williams. The U.S. government is working to reclaim control of the infected servers. Continue reading Cisco Warns of Huge Hacked Network Primed for Cyberattacks