Tech News 2Night 168 (Transcript)

[Top TN2 Animation ] Tonight! Apple announces two new phones and two watches, Microsoft is close to buying Minecraft, and Facebook video is catching up to YouTube. Tech News 2Night is Next! [TWiT Open] [Main TN2 Open] This is Tech News 2Night Episode #168, for Tuesday September 9th, 2014 This episode of Tech News 2Night is brought to you by Personal Capital. With Personal Capital, you’ll finally have all your financial life in one place and get a clear view of everything you own. BEST OF ALL IT’S FREE. To sign up go to personalcapital.com/tn2. I'm Sarah Lane, Let's get right to tonight's top story. Mark Gurman Senior Editor 9to5Mac - iPhone6 & iPhone 6 Plus two sizes ordering starts Sept 12 with delivery on 19th prices - Apple Watch delivery sometime in 2015 prices // Thanks Mark Gurman [AD] Today I want to share with you a FREE and SECURE tool, called Personal Capital that solves 2 barriers to growing your wealth. The first barrier is that it’s hard to keep track of: stocks, 401k, bank accounts, etc... all on different sites with different usernames and passwords. The second is that you pay someone to manage it and you’re probably paying too much. Personal Capital brings all your accounts and assets on ONE SINGLE SCREEN on your computer, phone or tablet with real-time and intuitive graphs. Personal Capital has an award-winning watch app that you can download in Google Play that seamlessly integrates with Personal Capital on other Android devices and provides users with relevant and timely updates on their finances whenever and wherever they need it. Personal Capital shows how much you’re overpaying in fees AND how to reduce those fees. You also get tailored advice on optimizing your investment. So why wait? Signing up takes just a minute and it’ll pay BIG dividends. Personal Capital gives you total clarity and transparency to make better investment decisions RIGHT AWAY. [[OFFER]] To set up your free account go to personalcapital.com/tn2. Personal Capital is FREE and the smart way to grow your money. And we thank Personal Capital for their support of Tech News 2Night. [Segment #2] And now for other news in tonight's tech feed. The Wall Street Journal is reporting that Microsoft is in serious discussions to buy Mojang AB, the Swedish company that makes the videogame "Minecraft", citing an anonymous person with knowledge of the matter who also said the deal was worth $2 billion and could be signed as early as this week. Both Microsoft and Mojang declined to comment. Mojang CEO Markus Persson has turned down outside investment in the past, and known for his stance against big corporations including... Microsoft. But Minecraft would be potential big money as a Microsoft property.. the game has sold more than 50 million copies since its 2009 release, and earned more than $100 million in profits last year. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella has said that Microsoft views videogames as a way to expand the company's footholds in PCs and mobile phones, and in July called gaming the "single biggest digital life category, measured in both time and money spent, in a mobile-first world." Mojang employs around 40 people in Stockholm. By comparison, Zynga, which has around 3,000 employees, had a $37 million dollar loss last year on $873 million in revenue. / Facebook is getting serious about autoplaying videos.. videos that users pass along, and videos that advertisers are paying to be seen. The company has set up a system to encourage video distribution to its giant user base, and Re/Code reports that if successful, it could be a true YouTube competitor. Facebook reports that “Organic” video views, those are videos your friends share — have been growing 50% from May through July, and the company says it's now doing a billion video views per day. Part of that is autoplaying videos which Facebook finally started rolling out, and also changed its algorithm to start showing more videos to people who "like" videos. And just watching a portion of the clip — Facebook won’t say how long you need to watch - constitutes a like. Facebook says it'll be offering more advertisers autoplay abilities, and will put more emphasis on view counts. / Snapchat announced today that it had settled out of court with Reggie Brown, the Snapchat founders' college friend who claimed to have invented the app's trademark disappearing messages.Snapchat wouldn't disclose exactly how large the settlement was, but Brown's lawyers previously said they were hoping for one third of the company — which is now over a billion dollars in value. Of note, Snapchat published its release of this news at exactly 1:00 PM ET today — the same moment Apple started broadcasting its iPhone event. Way to bury the news, Snapchat team. [Kicker!] Finally, we have a death in the family, as the iPod classic has finally been put to rest, and removed from apple's website. The last time the iPod Classic was updated was in 2008, when storage capacities were adjusted. The design of the iPod Classic dates back to 2004. Apple shed the iPad 2 earlier this year, the iPhone 4S today, and now with the removal of the iPod classic, 30-pin devices from Apple are so over! Like shell art. [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.