As part of its ongoing rivalry with Amazon, Google has begun highlighting low prices in some of its product search results. The company is testing a feature designed to provide users with access to special deals and helpful pricing info. Some searches steer users toward merchants that list products considerably lower than others. “For a recent search for a KitchenAid mixer, for example, Google highlighted that Macy’s $299.99 price was 14 percent lower than average,” notes The Wall Street Journal. “The notations are added to items in so-called Product Listing Ads that typically include pictures.” While merchants bid to include products in these ads, Google adds the price notations independently, free of charge.

Sony has launched its own crowdfunding platform called First Flight that plans to help finance projects developed by the company’s employees and promote new business ideas. The platform also provides backers with the opportunity to directly purchase and pre-order new products. “First Flight currently offers pre-orders for two Sony-affiliated projects — the MESH Smart DIY kit, and the FES e-ink watch,” reports The Verge. “A third, a sleek all-in-one remote called the HUIS Remote Controller, is already 20 percent of the way to its 5 million yen (about $40,820) crowdfunding goal.” First Flight is initially available to Japanese consumers only.

Uber plans to purchase assets from Microsoft Bing, including about 100 employees presently involved with image collection activities. The deal, confirmed by both companies, is expected to help Uber bolster its mapping efforts. “A firm doesn’t hire 100 specific-focus engineers in a single move if it doesn’t have large product aspirations,” suggests TechCrunch, also speculating that Microsoft is selling some of its image collection with plans to retain licensing rights. “The new Uber kids are the folks who worked to get image data into Bing, meaning that the search engine’s 3D, aerial and street footage is in large part their doing. You can therefore start to presume what Uber has in mind.”

More than 21 million gaming fans tuned in to Twitch during the Electronic Entertainment Expo, nearly twice as many viewers as the year before. Concurrent viewership peaked at 840,000, according to Amazon-owned Twitch. The streaming site’s coverage included live press events and action from the Los Angeles Convention Center showroom floor. Roughly 1,800 streamers provided their own commentary, the first time Twitch allowed them to do so from its E3 channel. “Last year, Twitch became the fourth-largest source of U.S. Internet traffic, trailing Netflix, Google and Apple, according to research firm DeepField,” The Wall Street Journal reports.

Nintendo plans to continue developing games for its Wii U and 3DS consoles as the company preps the release of its secretive “NX” platform. The company “will start from zero” with the new hardware, Nintendo President Satoru Iwata said during the company’s annual meeting, also noting that the platform will be separate from plans to develop mobile games with DeNA. According to Nintendo, details on the NX platform will not be made available until sometime next year. Due to an overall negative response regarding the quality of its E3 announcements, the company “has been forced to offer up more information to satisfy fans and investors,” suggests Wired UK.

Facebook has added Snapchat-like photo filter features to its iOS app that allow users to customize images with text, filters and stickers on their Facebook profiles. “A Facebook spokesperson told The Verge that the company was rolling out the features as ‘a new place to house photo-editing tools,’ accessed by pressing the new icon in the lower left-hand corner of your chosen photo.” After Facebook failed to acquire Snapchat in 2013 for $3 billion, the social giant attempted to duplicate the popular service with Poke and Slingshot, but they proved less than popular. The new photo uploader, also being tested on Android, aims to leverage the growing popularity of editing features available on social media.

Sonos connected speaker systems will feature Apple Music integration by the end of this year, the companies confirmed. However, Apple Music will not be included with the speakers when the streaming music service launches today. The speaker company already has deals with Apple-owned Beats Music, Pandora, SoundCloud and Spotify. “Beats was working on a ‘Sonos killer’ — a $750 home speaker that connected to music streaming services via Wi-Fi — before Apple acquired the company in May, and subsequently shut the project down,” reports Business Insider. “Beats is thought to have run into problems with the device during development and ended up switching chip supplier.”

Satellite radio provider SiriusXM announced on Friday that it would settle a lawsuit over copyright issues by paying $210 million to record companies Sony, Universal, Warner and indie label Abkco for broadcasting songs produced prior to 1972. The ongoing lawsuit has been watched carefully by the music industry. Since federal copyright protection was not extended to recordings until 1972, a number of digital radio services have not been paying royalties when they play older songs. “The settlement may open the door to millions of dollars in new royalty payments for older performers, who in many cases have not been paid from Internet and satellite radio,” suggests The New York Times.

Google announced the launch of News Lab, an online tool designed to help journalists with their reporting efforts by connecting them with various programs, data and resources. “The site will feature a number of tools for newsrooms, including tutorials and best practices on how to use Google products in reporting, as well as provide access to the recently updated Google Trends service, and more,” TechCrunch explains. “It will also showcase Google’s numerous efforts surrounding new media partnerships and citizen reporting.” Google recently announced the launch of YouTube Newswire with social news agency Storyful and a series of initiatives created to support and verify news posted on YouTube.

Electrical engineers at the University of California, San Diego have announced a new method to extend the range that laser light beams can travel in fiber-optic glass wires. The development “could double the capacity of fiber-optic circuits, potentially opening the way for networks to carry more data over long distances while significantly reducing their cost,” reports The New York Times. The researchers “predistort” the data transmitted via laser beams by creating a frequency comb using precise and evenly spaced signals in order to encode the data prior to sending. This reportedly helps the information travel more efficiently over great distances, one of the current challenges for networks that carry increasing amounts of data.

The passwords and login credentials of 47 U.S. federal agencies have reportedly been leaked online. The NSA and departments of Defense, Energy and Treasury are among the agencies affected and now potentially at risk of cyberattack. A CIA-backed data-mining startup called Recorded Future discovered the data breach. “Two-factor authentication is an option offered by various online services, including Facebook, Gmail and PayPal, to heighten individual security and provide a second layer of defense,” reports ZDNet. “However, as of early 2015, 12 of the U.S. agencies — including the Departments of State and Energy — which have lost credentials online do not stipulate the use of two-factor authentication when users access their systems.”

Last week, Amazon rolled out its new Treasure Truck, which carries discounted products ranging from paddleboards to steaks. Consumers can order the items online and accept deliveries when the Treasure Truck is in their area. The idea is to attract shoppers with special deals available only for a short window and make deliveries as soon as possible. “Amazon’s mobile application will tell shoppers what’s on the truck each day and list pickup times and locations in Seattle, where the company is based,” notes Bloomberg. “While Amazon has daily deals and flash sales on its website and has experimented with temporary physical stores, the marketing stunt effectively merges them.”

BuzzFeed CEO Jonah Peretti told a crowd at the Cannes Lions advertising festival this week that his company is experimenting with ways to bring the BuzzFeed brand to TV and possibly movies. “We want to do TV, but we want to do it in a different way,” he said. “We resisted for a long time. People kept pitching us TV shows but we didn’t know anything about TV, and our special powers came from having a closer relationship with our audience.” BuzzFeed may begin testing initial concepts on platforms such as YouTube and Facebook before making the transition to TV, suggests The Wall Street Journal. “If you could figure out a way to say people are really connecting… why can’t you make a TV show that’s informed by that?” Peretti asked.

Thousands of independent record companies that rely on Apple as a source of income have agreed to licensing terms for the tech giant’s new music service. “We are now delighted to say that we are happy to endorse the deal with Apple Music as it now stands, and look forward to being a big part of a very exciting future,” said Martin Mills, founder of Beggars Group, whose acts include Vampire Weekend and Adele. Merlin, an organization that negotiates digital rights for small labels, also backs the agreement. “For independents, the negotiations with Apple are seen as a victory, allowing thousands of small labels to be part of Apple Music and earn money when people listen to their songs,” notes The New York Times.

LG has officially unveiled a new smartphone designed specifically for music fans interested in prioritizing their listening experience. While the overall specs are not comparatively of the highest order, the phone features 1-watt speakers, a pair of premium earphones, and a Focus Mode setting for temporarily turning off calls and texts. The LG Band Play phone also includes “a 5-inch 720p HD display, a Qualcomm Snapdragon 410 processor, 13MP camera, a 5MP front-facing camera, 2GB of RAM, and a 2,300mAh battery,” reports Ubergizmo. The new phone will launch this week in South Korea for about $355. Availability in the U.S. has yet to be announced.