Tech News Today for April 13, 2017
Tech News for Thursday April 13, 2017
According to the Information, Uber used secret software to track Lyft drivers' location and to determine what drivers were working for both Uber and Lyft in order to give them bonuses and to convince them to work only for Uber. In case you're still under the impression that this software was not used for nefarious purposes, you should know that it was codenamed "Hell." The software allowed Uber to track Lyft drivers because each driver has a static ID, whereas Uber changes their drivers ID every time. According to the Information's sources the software was only known about by a few employees, including CEO Travis Kalanick and it was created by the competitive intelligence team. Read more at theinformation.com.
T-Mobile has had a major achilles heal for years: Its network’s inability to penetrate dense obstacles like building walls, resulting in a weak or nonexistant signal for subscribers in certain areas. T-Mobile came out ahead in today’s 600 MHz spectrum auction by paying $7.99 billion for 45 percent of the available spectrum being sold that will ultimately boost its LTE network throughout the US. T-Mobile says this will ultimately quadruple their low-band coverage which will strengthen its coverage in those circumstances, as well as providing better coverage in rural areas. Read more at arstechnica.com.
If you've been itching to see that zero-emissions electric Tesla truck that Elon Musk has been promising, we have good news. Musk says you'll get to take a look in September at their new Semi Truck, and a pickup will be available in 18-24 months. Of course that's Elon time, so you could have to wait much longer and we could all be living in a simulation. The news of the trucks was first revealed in Musk's Master Plan Part Deux, and in fact these updates didn't even come from a company press release. Instead Musk took to Twitter to make these announcements and to say that its next generation roadster will be convertible. And if you put money down for a Model 3, you can now see what it looks like. Although lots of spy pictures have been circulating the internet for a while. Read more at businessinsider.com.
Good things don’t always last forever, as evidenced by Nintendo pulling the plug on its NES Classic Edition systems, the tiny NES console with a library of 30 retro titles built into the box. Nintendo says it never intended for this to be more than short-term product, though high-demand pushed them to add shipments to their original plan. The Classic struggled to stay in stock thanks to a shortage of units and high demand. The final units will ship to retailers through the end of April. Read more at ign.com.
The place where podcasts were born and where many still acquire their podcasts has been changed. iTunes Podcasts is now Apple Podcasts. And Jason Snell from Six Colors as well as others are wondering if this is the beginning of the end of iTunes as a whole. Apple made no other changes to their podcast directory or the app for iOS. Back in February at Recode's Code conference Eddy Cue said Apple was working on new features for podcasts, but we've yet to see anything beyond this re-branding. Read more at sixcolors.com.
Megan Morrone and Jason Howell are joined today by Mark Gurman of Bloomberg to talk about his new show Gadgets with Gurman. Tech News Today streams live weekdays at 4PM Pacific, 7PM Eastern at twit.tv/live. You can download the show and get it on-demand at twit.tv/tnt.