Tech News Today for January 26, 2017
Tech News for Thursday January 26, 2017
Alphabet posted Q4 earnings today, with profits a little smaller than expected for the company formerly known as Google. They beat revenue expectations, and had strong ad sales. Its Other Bets group, which includes everything other than Google and YouTube, managed to reduce losses. Read more at businessinsider.com.
Microsoft reported its earnings today for Q2 and it beat expectations as well as surpassed the same quarter last year with a revenue of $26.1 billion. Analysts had expected $25.3 billion in revenue. The company’s Azure cloud business was a big reason for the positive results, with a 93 percent increase in revenue for the quarter. Microsoft did note that its More Personal Computing category that covers Windows, Gaming, Search and Devices, saw a decline of five percent in revenue to $11.8 billion. Read more at businessinsider.com.
VentureBeat has published leaked photos of Samsung's Galaxy S8, which they say is set to launch on March 29th. The photos show two models with 5.8- and 6.2-inch QHD Super AMOLED screens. VentureBeat also says the new phone will include Bixby, which is Samsung's smart assistant. Leaked photos of new cases show the phone will include the S pen. Read more at venturebeat.com.
Earlier this week, we discussed Hugo Barra, Xiaomi’s VP of International, who had announced that he was leaving the company to move back home to the Bay Area from China, and now we know why. Mark Zuckerberg announced that Barra will become Facebook’s VP of VR, heading up the Oculus team. Barra says he is looking ahead to building the future of immersive technology with the Oculus team. Read more at arstechnica.com.
Bloomberg says Apple is joining the Partnership on AI, an industry group focused on best practices to help prevent the robot apolocalypse. Google, Amazon, and Facebook are already members of the consortium and Apple could announce its involvement this week. We believe Apple's change of heart on joining the partnership is due in large part to the hiring of Russ Salakhutdinov from Carnegie Melon University. Read more at bloomberg.com.
Tech News Today with Megan Morrone and Jason Howell 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.
