Tech News 2Night 107 (Transcript)

[Top TN2 Animation ] Tonight! Google is looking towards Space again, Facebook will use your browsing history for ads, and European cabbies block traffic over Uber Tech News 2Night is Next! [TWiT Open] [Main TN2 Open] This is Tech News 2Night Episode #107, for THURSDAY, JUNE 12, 2014 I'm Sarah Lane, Let's get right to the Tech Feed! Sky News is reporting that Google is in talks with Virgin Galactic on a deal that would give the search giant access to satellite-launch technology and an equity stake in Virgin's $2bn space tourism venture. Sky News sources tell the network this is part of Google's goal to put hundreds of satellites in low-Earth orbit and extend internet access to billions of people. On Tuesday, Google announced it was buying Skybox Imaging, a start-up satellite venture, for $500m. Skybox has developed small, comparatively cheap satellites which are capable of taking high-quality photographs and videos of the Earth. Virgin Galactic's passenger spacecraft, SpaceShipTwo, completed its first rocket-powered flight last year. Both companies declined to comment, so file this under rumor for now, but Virgin Galactic's Sir Richard Branson and Google co-founder Larry Page have registered the name Virgle for use on potential future business collaborations. / Facebook's changing the way it targets you for ads. The company already allow advertisers to use tracking software to know when you're visited specific websites and apps. But going forward, Facebook won't honor the do-not-track setting on web browsers, which will allow advertisers to target you based on your interests, which is based on your browsing history. The company will honor the settings to limit ad tracking on iOS and Android devices, though. Now, while Facebook calls this “interest-based advertising,” and says that this is common throughout the Web, It’s also something Facebook said two years ago it would not do. A new "ad preferences" tool will start rolling out to U.S. Facebook users in two weeks, which will allow users to tell Facebook not to show them ads based on their activity in certain categories, or select categories they ARE interested in. No specific date for when the new targeting will be turned on, though. / "The National Security Agency is facing a number of lawsuits over its surveillance programs, many launched after former NSA contractor Edward Snowden leaked information on the agency's efforts last year. In a hearing last Friday, U.S. District court judge reversed an emergency order he had issued earlier the same week barring the government from destroying data that the Electronic Frontier Foundation had asked be preserved for that case. The NSA argued that ""A requirement to preserve all data acquired under section 702 presents significant operational problems, only one of which is that the NSA may have to shut down all systems and databases that contain Section 702 information,"" wrote NSA Deputy Director Richard Ledgett in a court filing submitted to the court. In other words, we can't preserve that data and still run our agency. The debate over preserving data for the lawsuit actually has the EFF arguing that the government should retain data the group actually wants destroyed. In a brief filed with the court in May, EFF said there was ""no doubt"" that the government had already destroyed evidence related to the claims. " / Ali Rowghani, COO of Twitter, has resigned from his job, appropriately announcing the move via a tweet. According to a company filing, he is staying as a “strategic advisor” to CEO Dick Costolo, though it's unclear what that role would entail. Twitter says it “does not intend to hire a replacement for the COO role, and all of Mr. Rowghani’s operating responsibilities will be assumed by other members of the Twitter management team.” / Yesterday the New York Times reported that Amazon would turn on its rumored music-streaming service this week, and today they did! The company has officially launched Amazon Prime Music for Amazon Prime subscribers that promises over 1 million songs ready for streaming, on top of the downloading service that Amazon already offered. Amazon has also relaunched its mobile app on iOS as Amazon Music instead of Amazon Cloud Player, which now also features access to Amazon Prime Music. As rumored, the service does not have most new relesaes offered on competing streaming services, many of the tracks are six months old, or anything from artists represented by Universal Music. Coming up, ever wondered what you are drinking? Introducing the 'smart-cup" that analyes what you guzzle [Segment #2] "But first I am joined by Lisa Fleisher, reporter withThe Wall Street Journal who is on the line from London. You've written extensively about Uber and this protests in London and now Europe against the US company. The protest is actually helping Uber app sign ups. They've jumped 850% since the protest started. Cabbies are different in Europe than in the U.S. they’ve gone through years of training, Uber drivers do not. -Bring us up to speed on where these protest are happening and why? - Walk us through what did the cab drivers want. - The cab drivers say they are not protesting Uber itself, what are they protesting? - Is this a battle between technology and the way things have been?" [Kicker!] What does the term "smart cup" mean to you? Vessyl, a new product from San Francisco-based startup Mark One, announced today Their smart cup which wiil identify and track what you drink and how much of it, and can do so on the fly as it senses the liquid type and breaks it down to components as soon as it interacts with the cup's sensor-filled interior. The company says it wants to transform how we consume every ounce of liquid throughout the day. such as? Caffeine and sugar amounts, calorie count and a proprietary metric for hydration Mark One is calling Pryme. It's all tracked through an app on your phone, and bits of that information are also displayed on a screen embedded within the cup itself. Mark One will sell the Vessyl through its website, with a pre-order campaign seeks to raise $50,000 and will deliver the first batch by early 2015. The initial pre-order price will be $99, but the cup will retail for $199. [good bye] That's it for this edition of Tech News 2Night. Subscribe to this show at Twit.tv/tn2, and write us at tn2@twit.tv Don't miss our morning news program, Tech News Today, tomorrow and every weekday at 10am Pacific, 1 pm Eastern. I'm Sarah Lane, thanks for watching. [Close, Cache Fly BB, Credits]