10 things in tech you need to know today, August 14

Noah
Berger / AP Photo

Good morning! This is the tech news you need to know this
Tuesday.

1.
Tesla CEO Elon
Musk revealed new details about taking the car company private,
saying that he thought tweeting the announcement was ‘the right
and fair thing to do.’ In a blog
post on Tesla’s website posted on Monday, Musk said he
used the phrase “funding secured” because he believed there was
“no question” Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund would provide
funding for a deal to convert Tesla into a private company.

2.
Experts have slammed Elon Musk’s confusing defense of why he
tweeted ‘funding secured’ about taking Tesla
private. One expert told Business Insider
that: “It was, at best, hasty and naive, and, at
worst, manipulative.”

3.
An Associated Press investigation found that many Google services
on Android devices and iPhones store users’ location data even
when users have explicitly switched that off in privacy
settings. AP found that some Google apps
automatically store time-stamped location data without
asking.

4.
Apple is strongly encouraging developers to transition to a
subscription, software-as-a-service model, and held an
invitation-only meeting in the spring of 2017 to convince
developers to lean in to the new business
model. Developers, Apple said, needed to
realize the business model of apps was changing and that
successful apps tended to focus on long-term engagement instead
of upfront cost. 

5.
Google’s artificial intelligence company DeepMind published
“really significant” research showing its algorithm can identify
around 50 eye diseases by looking at retinal eye
scans. The company plans to hand the technology
over for free to NHS hospitals for five years, provided it passes
the next phase of research.

6.
British driverless car startup FiveAI is about to start the next
major phase in its push to bring autonomous vehicles to London by
putting human-controlled data-gathering cars on the streets to
record information about traffic flow and road
layout. FiveAI CEO Stan Boland thinks his startup
has a strong chance of beating US firms like Waymo and Uber in
Europe.

7.
Facebook vehemently denied a report that its head of news told
publishers that without its help, ‘I’ll be holding your hands
with your dying ­business like in a
hospice’. A report from
The Australian alleged that Campbell Brown made the remarks in a
recent off-the-record meeting with media executives.

8.
Congress is likely to grill the FCC’s chairman for falsely
claiming his agency was hit with a cyberattack.
Ajit Pai will testify before a Senate oversight
committee and will almost certainly have to answer questions
about false statements he and others made about the FCC’s
computer systems getting overwhelmed.

9.
A major Wall Street effort to dethrone Bloomberg’s trading
terminals, called Symphony, has taken almost $300 million in
investment but may not be achieving its goal. A
Business Insider investigation found that some partners are
unhappy, and that people aren’t using the features that would
generate revenue.

10.
MoviePass is enrolling some subscribers who had previously
canceled the service into its new plan, which is expected to be
implemented this week. Some subscribers
received an email that they had “confirmed” their new MoviePass
plan, even after canceling, with a note at the bottom of the
email that said their “opt-in to the new plan will take priority”
over the cancellation.

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