Tech News
Tech News and Analysis from around the web
Abner Li / 9to5Google:
YouTube Music rolling out “Discover Mix”, a personalized playlist mostly focused on evergreen tunes and artists that the user might not have heard before — From the beginning, YouTube Music has relied on playlists from the service's curators to automated creations based on your listening history.
Dr. Ian Cutress / AnandTech:
AMD says it is delaying release of its Ryzen 9 3950X until November due to high demand and the time needed to ensure sufficient stock availability — In a shock email late on Friday, AMD has released a statement to clarify the situation it is in with the manufacturing of its latest Ryzen processors.
Patrick Flanary / Quartz:
How Neil Young's reluctance to embrace streaming doomed his company PonoMusic, even as the company helped the industry to adapt high-resolution music — Toward the end of music legend Neil Young's recent memoir, he makes an admission: “I was wrong.” — The book, To Feel the Music …
Emily Stewart / Vox:
Polling of US adults shows that most, across party lines, support breaking up Big Tech, such as reversing Facebook's Instagram purchase, to improve competition — One hundred cardboard cutouts of Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg stand outside the US Capitol in Washington, DC …
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Chris Welch / The Verge:
TiVo confirms it is planning to place pre-roll video ads before DVR recordings for all customers, even those with a lifetime subscription plan — Rolling out to TiVo's current devices over the next 90 days — So much for it being an early, experimental test.
Erin Griffith / New York Times:
Sources: many Airbnb employees are frustrated they can't sell company stock; to compensate, management has offered more perks to keep longtime employees happy — Tension has grown among a 6,000-person work force as it waits to sell company shares, people with knowledge of the situation said.
Joanna Stern / Wall Street Journal:
A look at Sign in with Apple, which is available for users with iOS 13 for a small number of apps including Nike, Instacart, Bird, and Kayak at launch — Apple wants its new password killer to cut your dependency on Facebook and Google—if you can find it in the apps you use most
Dina Temple-Raston / NPR:
Profile of Adrian Lamo, a famous hacker in the early 2000s who died mysteriously in 2018 and was decried by the hacking community for turning in Chelsea Manning — Toggle more options — Debbie Scroggin and her husband live at the end of a series of gravel roads in a lonesome part of Kansas.
Henry Chu / Variety:
Netflix CEO warns of a “whole new world” when streaming services from Disney and Apple drop in November, reiterates that Netflix isn't in “acquisition business” — After dominating the subscription streaming scene for so long, Netflix is girding for a new phase …
Financial Times:
Amid rising competition and a dramatic fall in US subscribers during Q2, doubts arise over the sustainability of Netflix's debt-driven business model — On a sunny midsummer weekend in Los Angeles, Netflix turned the Santa Monica Pier — one of the city's busiest tourist destinations …
Julia Lee / Polygon:
Minecraft's latest beta update introduces a character creator that allows players to change body types and wear accessories — You can be a mermaid — Minecraft's latest update has added a character creator to the game. After years of only using skins over the same model …
Mike Butcher / TechCrunch:
Lookiero, a Paris-based personal clothing and accessory shopping service, raises $19M, bringing its total raised to $23M — Lookiero, the online personal shopping service for clothes and accessories, has closed a $19 million funding round led by London-based VC MMC Ventures with support …
Jason Schott / Fox Business:
Roku study: 2M people in the US moved from traditional pay TV to streaming in 2019; up to 60M US households will exclusively use streaming in the next 5 years — Television viewing has gradually expanded into streaming, and a new study from Roku makes a dramatic prediction about how people will consume video in the years to come.
Janko Roettgers / Variety:
YouTube reverses course, says channels with verification badges will keep them without appeal and channels that reach 100k subs can still apply for verification — A day after announcing significant changes to its verification program, YouTube announced Friday afternoon that it won't be de-verifying existing creators after all.
Chaim Gartenberg / The Verge:
Apple's implementation of STIR/SHAKEN protocol in iOS 13 doesn't display “Caller Verified” notice on call screen, making it useless for identifying robocalls — STIR/SHAKEN comes to iPhones, but not in a useful way — Robocalls are a scourge, but cellular networks …
This is what the Scripting News home page looks like this morning.
Yes, I screwed up, I can see what the problem is, hopefully will have a fix shortly. Still diggin. 🍌
BTW, it's not as bad as it appears, despite what the screen says.
10:22AM Eastern -- fixed.
- Somehow a right curly brace got turned into a 7.
- Cosmic rays.
Most of my orders with Amazon are uneventful. The product arrives when it was supposed to and it works and that's that. But sometimes something goes wrong.
On July 26, I ordered an outdoor thermometer. Not expensive, $10. But it was broken when I opened the package, and I cut my finger, it bled.
I went to the Order page and reported that it arrived broken. I just wanted to throw it out, not wanting to handle the broken glass, possibly injuring myself again, or someone who had to handle it at UPS or at Amazon. That was the right thing to do. The Amazon rep said OK, they would credit me for the thermometer. Honestly I was surprised it was that easy. I ordered another one (which arrived unbroken and I'm using it).
Well, about a week ago, I got an email saying I needed to send the thermometer back or I'd be charged for it. There was no way to respond. I got another notice a few days later saying they had charged me for it.
Okay $10 isn't going to make a difference to me, but it would make even less of a difference to Amazon. And they agreed to the arrangement, and it was the right thing to do.
So I thought I'd write it up here on my blog. Maybe someone in an executive role at Amazon will see it, and will change their system so it's easier for customers to talk to them, and make sure when they agree to something, they stick to it.