| Intel makes a big move into autonomous driving technology with the biggest Israeli tech acquisition in history. Plus, Pandora finally offers a real alternative to Spotify. All that and more in The Daily Crunch. 1. Intel buys Mobileye in $15.3B deal, moves its automotive unit to Israel Intel has confirmed that it's acquiring Mobileye, a leader in computer vision for autonomous driving. The price is $15.3 billion, making it the biggest-ever acquisition of an Israeli tech company. Mobileye has developed a range of technology and services, including sensor fusion, mapping, front- and rear-facing camera tech and, beginning in 2018, crowdsourcing data for high-definition maps. Mobileye's CTO and co-founder, Prof. Amnon Shashua, will lead Intel's autonomous driving division, which will be based in Israel. 
2. Pandora's on-demand music service finally arrives Pandora's long-awaited alternative to Spotify has arrived. The company announced the debut of a new paid tier to its streaming service, called Pandora Premium. It will offer a combination of radio-like listening, as well as the option to search and play any track and create your own playlists. The new service is priced similarly to other on-demand music subscriptions, at $9.99 per month. 3. YouTube launches Uptime, an experimental app for watching videos with friends A team from Google's internal incubator, Area 120, has launched Uptime, an app that lets you watch videos together with your friends. When you're watching a video, your profile icon floats across the screen, and you can comment on the video or post emojis. These reactions will be displayed to anyone who watches the video, even if they're watching at a later time. 4. Viber is the latest messaging app to clone Snapchat with new 'Secret Chat' feature Everyone seems to be cloning Snap right now, but messaging app Viber has gone back to the beginning by copying Snapchat's core ephemeral messaging feature. The app now enables its users to set a timer for their messages, after which they will self-destruct. The new feature also alerts a user if the person they are messaging takes a screenshot. 5. Omidyar Network and the Anti-Defamation League are launching a center to combat cyberhate With hate crimes reportedly on the rise across the country and online, the Anti-Defamation League is setting up a new outpost in Silicon Valley, backed by the Omidyar Network, to look at ways to use technology to fight back. Although the ADL has already established a presence in San Francisco, its new Silicon Valley office will serve as a command center from which the organization hopes to combat all kinds of cyberthreats. 6. Can your smart home be used against you in court? TechCrunch's Brian Heater looks at an Arkansas murder case where Amazon resisted handing over data from an Echo device. While that particular legal fight is over, the bigger questions around what our smart home devices are actually recording, and what kinds of privacy we can still expect, remain unresolved. | 
No comments:
Post a Comment