Tech News Today for June 26, 2017

Tech News for Monday June 26, 2017

Alphabet's Waymo has an unlikely new partner in the self-driving car race. Avis Budget Group will help Waymo manages its self-driving car fleet of Chrystler minivans in Phoenix, where it started offering rides back in April. Avis Budget owns the two traditional rental car companies, plus on demand rental car company ZipCar. The deal will offer them ideal locations where cars are needed, plus a management and maintenance infrastructure. In other news, Apple has leased 6 cars from Hertz. That's right 6. Read more at axios.com.

Nintendo may have been surprised by the sales it generated around last Christmas’s breakout hit, the NES Classic, but now it knows its sitting on a pile of money. Nintendo unveiled the SNES Classic, an $80 mini console of the Super Nintendo with 20 classic games from the era. But Nintendo has a trick up its sleeve as its releasing for the first time, Star Fox 2, the sequel to the hit original title. The package will include two controllers and will be available on September 29. Read more at theverge.com.

Pandora CEO Tim Westergren is stepping down. ReCode reports that sources familiar with the matter say Westergren, who founded the company 17 years ago will stay on until Pandora names a successor. The music streaming company has been struggling for years and many investors agree that even though Pandora was one of the first of its kind, it needs to be part of a larger company in order to compete with Apple and Google. Read more at recode.net.

HMD, the holding company that’s now producing new Nokia phones running Android, had a big reveal earlier this year at Mobile World Congress with the Nokia 6. Now, that device is getting an official US release early next month for $229. HMD is aiming at the higher end market with the Nokia 6, but for the money, this low to mid tier device has a lot going for it. Read more at prnewswire.com.

Goodbye Gchat. Today marks the end of an era, the closing of a chapter, the last lap for the once storied communications platform, Google Talk, which most of us just called Gchat and which has been around for 12 years. Google will now force you to use Hangouts instead. Read more at theverge.com.

Megan Morrone and Jason Howell are joined today by Mark Gurman of Bloomberg to talk about the Echo Show. Tech News Today 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.