Techlife News #340

Amazon unveiled plans for a major expansion in Boston’s Seaport District, promising 2,000 new technology jobs even as the city remains in contention for the company’s coveted second headquarters. Seattle-based Amazon announced it would move into a 430,000-square-foot “Tech Hub” in 2021, and said the new jobs would be created in fields including machine learning, speech science, cloud computing, and robotics. The company currently has about 1,200 workers in the city, according to Rohit Prasad, a Boston-based vice president and head scientist of Amazon Alexa. In 2016, the company opened a fulfillment center in Fall River, Massachusetts, that employs more than one thousand workers. The Seaport district fell largely into decay and disuse in the middle part of the 20th century before being transforming in recent decades into a center for cutting-edge technology…

THE EVER-CHANGING WORLD OF APPLE As Apple nears a $1 trillion dollar marketvalue , many critics are wondering what its next innovative product will be. Last year’s iPhone X has certainly made waves and added millions to the company’s value, but it’s new products and services like its HomePod, Apple Watch, Apple Music and Apple TV that is getting people talking. Subscriptions are all-in at Apple, what with plans for a new Netflix streaming rivaljust around the corner. However, as Apple continues to expand its portfolio of products, older technology has to give way. The firm’s innovative hardware and software has, undoubtedly, changed the way we communicate, compute and work, but not every product can stand the test of time. Today, we’re delving deeper into Apple’s discontinued hardware, and explain why each…

Facebook is adding a “sleep” mode to its Messenger Kids service to let parents limit when their kids can use it. It’s the latest concession that tech companies are making as critics question whether they should be targeting kids at all. Among their chief concerns: The effects on kids are not yet known, and companies might not have children’s best interests at heart when tech for kids is such a lucrative market. Rather than kill the services completely, as some critics want, Facebook, Amazon and Google are mostly tinkering at the edges. That leaves open the underlying questions of whether their products truly serve a need for the youngest set and if they are good for them. Here’s a look at the changes announced: FACEBOOK’S MESSENGER KIDS In December, Facebook created a kids-friendly version of…

THE WRITING WASN’T QUITE ON THE WALL STREET It would be fair to say that Wall Street was feeling the jitters in the run-up to Apple’s latest quarterly earnings announcement on Tuesday. Persistent reports of unexpectedly weak iPhone X sales were a factor when, in mid-March, the NYSE FANG+ Index – which monitors 10 leading tech companies, including Apple – saw its largest ever one-day drop. However, the release of the actual earnings results, and many pledges made by Apple in the aftermath, have given much cause for optimism. GLOOMY PREDICTIONS, BUT WITH TINGES OF OPTIMISM The week before, GBH analyst Daniel Ives admitted that “the Street has gone into ‘full panic mode’ as supply chain checks out of Asia indicate that June iPhone shipments are trending well below expectations.” One of Apple’s…

Jan Koum, the CEO of WhatsApp, is leaving the company and Facebook. Koum confirmed on his Facebook page on Monday that he’s leaving, saying it is time for him to “move on.” His messaging app is known for protecting the privacy of its users using strong encryption. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg commented that he will “miss working closely” with Koum. Facebook is reckoning with the worst privacy crisis in its history, not to mention questions over how it handles user data and, broadly speaking, whether it is good for the world. Facebook bought WhatsApp for $19 billion in 2014. Back then, Koum wrote that the deal wouldn’t have happened if WhatsApp “had to compromise on the core principles that will always define our company, our vision and our product.”…

With a smile that suggested the hard part of an “intense year”may be behind him, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg addressed developers Tuesday and pledged the company will build its way out of its worst-ever privacy debacle. It was a clear and deliberate turning point for a company that’s been hunkered down since mid-March. For first time in several weeks, Zuckerberg went before a public audience and didn’t apologize for the Cambridge Analytica scandal, in which a political data-mining firm accessed data from as many as 87 million Facebook accounts for the purpose of influencing elections. Or for a deluge of fake news and Russian election interference. Instead, Zuckerberg sought to project a “we’re all in this together” mood that was markedly different from his demeanor during 10 hours of congressional testimony just…