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Tech News Today for May 8, 2017

Tech News for Monday May 8, 2017

Facebook is running full page ads in British newspapers in an attempt to educate the public in advance of the June 8 parliamentary election in Britain. Facebook urged users to be skeptical of potential misinformation online as well as announced the removal of tens of thousands of accounts it believes were spreading false news across the network. Facebook says its systems are now monitoring and flagging accounts that match certain patterns and duplicate false news posts from other offending accounts. Read more at bbc.com.

The Associated Press says that the FBI paid a private company $900,000 to hack the iPhone of the San Bernardino killer last year. Despite the Freedom of Information Act, James Comey had claimed that the total would remain classified. But during Comey's Senate Judiciary Committee meeting last week, Senator Diane Feinstein confirmed that the FBI had to pay $900,000 to open it. The total isn't a complete surprise, but it is a little less than what we guessed. Last year Comey said that they paid more than the total of his salary for his remaining seven years on the job, which would be over a million dollars. It's unclear whether Comey is nauseous about this or not, but he was quoted as saying it was "Worth It." Read more at businessinsider.com.

Citymapper, a mapping and transportation app, is broadening its business in a major way by announcing that its getting into the bus business. The Citymapper Smartbus, or the CMX1, will hit the streets of London on a fixed route with stops along the way, and aims to reinvent how a bus operates in the confines of public transportation. The new busses begin running tomorrow, May 9th, in a circular route in downtown London. Read more at venturebeat.com.

Eagle-eyed friend of the show Brad Sams from Thurrott.com has spotted a new Harmon Karden Amazon Echo clone powered by Cortana. Microsoft is calling the device The Invoke. It's slim and stylish and probably boasts a better speaker than my Alexa. The photos were leaked, maybe on purpose, but Microsoft and Harmon Karden have confirmed that the home assistant will go on sale this Fall and it could include Skype calling. Read more at theverge.com.

Parrot, the french drone company that had a bit of a rough year in 2016, announced a new division that will be focused on creating drones for the prosumer market. Parrot Professional will release drones in the $1-5k range, and is positioning them toward specialized uses in small business. The company plans to release three new models starting this Summer. Read more at recode.net.

Megan Morrone and Jason Howell are joined today by Liz Gannes from 60DB to talk about John Oliver's segment on net neutrality urging viewers to provide feedback to the FCC about it. 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.

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