Just a few quick things that I found interesting over the last few days.
SiriusXM Announces Deal to Buy Stitcher
On Monday morning SiriusXM announced an agreement to buy podcast company Stitcher. Stitcher is best known for streaming of radio stations focusing on news and information, as well as podcasts. My guess is that SiriusXM is keenly interested on Stitcher’s podcasting platform, as that seems to be the new landgrab for media companies.
Pokemon Go in a Pandemic
A really good read about how Niantic, the company behind Pokemon Go, had to make several big changes to the game in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Instead of a game designed to get players outside, exercising, and gathering, Niantic had to pivot the game to be more playable for people staying at home.
Google Pixel Buds Available in Canada
Several months after Google released the Pixel Buds headphones in the US, the company is making the headphones available in new markets, including Canada. These look like a good alternative to my current go to wireless ear buds, the Samsung Galaxy Buds+.
Google Pixel 4a Photo Leaked…. By Google
I usually don’t put rumours, speculation, or leak posts in these roundups, but last Friday there was a leak of a Google speaker that Google then confirmed, and today’s is even more amusing. The Pixel 4a has been rumoured and leaked for months, but this morning Google accidentally posted a picture of the Pixel 4a on the Canadian version of the Google Online store on the Nest Wifi page.
An Email Sent To Amazon Employees Requiring Tik Tok Be Uninstalled From Phones Was “Sent in Error”
Weird one in that Friday afternoon Amazon sent an email to all Employees requiring them to stop using Tik Tok on company owned devices. A couple hours later, Amazon said that email was sent in error, and no such directive was being issued.
However on Monday Wells Fargo sent a directive to employees requiring them to uninstall Tik Tok on company owned devices.
There’s a lot here. There is a fear that Tik Tok is being used for unnecessary data collection and that data is being sent to China. That itself is debatable. Tik Tok is owned by a company that is a subsidiary of a Chinese company, and the company claims that no Tik Tok data is stored in China. There are many, many smartphone apps that collect much more data than what Tik Tok collects, but there is a fear because it is believed that Tik Tok is controlled by the Chinese government, of which there is no evidence to be true.
There is a much larger discussion to be had about data collection, but Tik Tok is being used as the current poster child of the fear, uncertainty, and doubt being propagated in the world.