By Tian DuBelko
We round up the trending stories every week so you can catch up on the top tech news. This week, Apple decided to invest $1 billion in developing original content, Amazon donated 1600 Alexa-powered Echo Dots to ASU, Google bought a Seattle-based health monitoring startup, and Facebook announced it will remove video clickbait posts users’ News Feed. Get your weekly recap here, then head over to our blog for more stories.
Apple to put $1B towards acquiring original content
Apple is putting more than $1 billion US dollars toward acquiring and developing original programming for both tv and film. Apple’s current Apple TV lineup has mostly been underwhelming, and this move is an effort by the tech giant to improve its entertainment lineup. Recently, Apple hired away two leading Sony executives, Zach Van Amburg and Jamie Erlicht, in what it hopes will be a major step toward launching its new content programming.
Amazon to put 1,600 Echo Dots in ASU dorms
Engineering students at Arizona State University will have the opportunity to live in college dorms with Echo Dots this year. The 1,600 donated Echo Dots are a part of a program that encourages students to “practice voice user interface development skills on consumer hardware.” Through Alexa Skills Kits (ASK), Amazon hopes that students will develop Alexa skills outside of the classroom and eventually solve problems in the local community.
Google buys Senosis, a Seattle health monitoring startup
The University of Washington computer scientist, Shwetak Patel, has just sold Senosis Health, his newest Seattle startup company, to Google. This isn’t the first startup that Patel has sold as his past startup ventures have been acquired by companies like Sears and Belkin International. Through Senosis, Patel and his team attempted to turn smartphones into health monitoring devices. The smartphones would collect health metrics to diagnose some critical factors, such as hemoglobin counts and to diagnose pulmonary function. The Senosis acquisition is evident of Google’s continued interest in the field of digital health.
Facebook to scrub video clickbait from your News Feed
Video clickbait posts will no longer appear in the News Feed, Facebook announced. Spammers had been exploiting Facebook’s algorithm and tricking users into clicking links to low-quality websites, often with malicious ads. Users began noticing static images disguised as videos some time back, and this is a continuation of Facebook’s mroe aggressive approach to moderating content on its site. If you recall, Facebook had been criticized for not doing enough to fight fake news spreading on its platform.
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