The Comunicano Communique for Monday May 16th, 2016

The Comunicano Communique     It's Google I/O Week in Silicon Valley so the fun game to watch is how Facebook and its related entities are playing "games" with Google in the news with announcements. Watching the news flow last week and this week the gamesmanship is at an all time high, while Microsoft, Twitter and Apple all stay off to the side. In other news, the hot topics remain chat, messaging and bots, that and Yahoo getting ready to be carved up and sold off...but who will be the buyer and what are their plans? Personally, I'm more intrigued and impressed with the Amazon Private Label move. That and it's own air fleet, plus drones means money on money....Check out today's melange of news...all found in today's Comunicano Communique. By the way, don't miss the API event of the summer in Las Vegas. "All About The API"......     Amazon is about to launch in a new $80 billion market It looks like Amazon is getting into the food business. A new report from The Wall Street Journal claims that the online retail giant is gearing up to launch its own own-brand foodstuffs for the first time "as soon as the end of the month."     [continue...]     BBC set to launch Britflix rival to Netflix after John Whittingdale approves subscription streaming The paragraphs were widely interpreted as an assault on the corporation's traditional funding model, with some suggesting that it marked the "beginning of the end" for the licence fee. However, John Whittingdale, the culture secretary, as well as senior BBC sources, said it was the corporation that had requested new powers to levy subscriptions.     [continue...]     The Slack generation STEWART BUTTERFIELD, the boss of Slack, a messaging company, has been wonderfully unlucky in certain ventures. In 2002 he and a band of colleagues created an online-video game called "Game Neverending". It never took off, but the tools they used to design it turned into Flickr, the web's first popular photo-sharing website.     [continue...]     Nintendo is serious about making movies Nintendo's fortunes are fading fast. In order to survive, it's heading to the multiplex. In an interview with Japan's Asahi Shimbun (link in Japanese) published today (May 16), Nintendo president Tatsumi Kimishima revealed that the company will enter the movie business.     [continue...]     Warren Buffett and Dan Gilbert Unite in Bid to Acquire Yahoo Yahoo appears to be making progress in efforts to sell itself, despite some initial skepticism. The latest piece of evidence: Among those vying for the company is the unusual combination of the investor Warren E. Buffett and Dan Gilbert, the founder of Quicken Loans and owner of the Cleveland Cavaliers.     [continue...]     Google Plans to Map the Interior World in 3-D Google already maps the world, but the internet giant has bigger plans for its next location-based technology. The Alphabet Inc. unit wants to digitally map the interiors of buildings in 3-D down to a resolution of a few inches, and make money in virtual reality along the way, through a project named Tango.     [continue...]     Android VR Placeholder Pops Up In The Google Play Developer Console Yesterday we reported on a rumor that Google would unveil a new "Android VR" platform at Google I/O next week, along with a standalone headset. Today we're seeing what looks like additional evidence. Folks who sign into the Google Play Developer Console are seeing Android VR alongside Android Wear, Android TV, and Android Auto.     [continue...]     Oculus to Devs: "Now is the time to be thinking about VR" Oculus VR has issued the statement to developers that "now is the time to be thinking about VR" at its talk at Digital Dragons 2016.     [continue...]     WhatsApp Desktop Apps For Mac And Windows Launched To Take On Skype With over 1 billion users, it is already the world's most popular messaging service, but WhatsApp is now seeking to extend its reach by offering its users access to most of its features on Windows and Mac computers.     [continue...]     WhatsApp preparing to roll out video calling to beta users A beta version of WhatsApp for Android included the option to initiate a video call. The feature was not active for most users, and it was removed with a later update, but it's a sign that the full release of the feature is approaching.Video calling for WhatsApp has been in the works for at least six months - back in December, screenshots of the iOS version of the app leaked showing a basic video calling interface.     [continue...]     Telegram now lets you edit messages after you've sent them " TODAY.ng Telegram has released an update to its communication app that now lets you edit your messages after they've been sent. This feature works across all chat types including with groups and individual conversations. Other features that have been added include being able to mention anyone in group chats, finding people faster with a new search list, and having a better way to add bots to conversations.     [continue...]     As app growth slows, tech companies bet 'bots' will be next big thing It's a strange thing to be interviewed for a job by a robot on your phone. The robot in question in this case is Wirk'n, a chat "bot" found within the popular messaging app Kik. Bots are quasi-intelligent automated programs you "talk" to by text, the same way you might with a friend or relative.     [continue...]     AT&T Employees Automate Repetitive Tasks with Software Bots Over the past year, some workers at AT&T Inc. have begun to automate the boring, repetitive parts of their jobs by using software bots. AT&T is just one of many companies beginning to use software bots to free workers from mundane tasks such as entering information into legacy systems. Sales people at AT&T, for example, now have a bot that automatically pulls sales leads from multiple systems, freeing up hours tospend instead with customers.     [continue...]     Social Media Finds New Roles as News and Entertainment Curators By the end of last week, Mark Zuckerberg said that Facebook would conduct "a full investigation" into accusations that editors at the company prevented news stories from conservative outlets from appearing in a section of the social network's service.     [continue...]     Chinese airlines begin to install Wi-Fi beyond trial basis - Runway Girl As airlines based in the United States are wrapping up their inflight Wi-Fi rollouts - and eyeing nextgen upgrades - and many European airlines have finally decided on equipage plans, there's one massive country with a booming aviation industry that remains largely disconnected.     [continue...]     Wall Street unconvinced by Softbank's optimism about Sprint Sprint's owner, Softbank of Japan, is standing by its troubled US child, with founder Masayoshi Son saying that Sprint's radical capex cuts helped boost its parent's operating margins by 8.8% in its just-finished fiscal year. "Cost cutting is going smoothly at Sprint," said Son during an analyst call.     [continue...]     6 Questions for Every Brand to Consider After YouTube Brandcast Every NewFronts season, the major players in digital content pitch their programming to advertisers. With those pitches comes a dizzying amount of new research and data. Below are six questions to help you gauge if you're making the most of your online video strategy, along with the newest YouTube data announced at the sixth annual Brandcast event.     [continue...]   We hope you are enjoying The Comunicano Daily. If you want to share it with friends, colleagues and co-workers, or even your wife, child or even someone you don't like, please do. They can join by visiting The Comunicano Daily signup page: http://eepurl.com/BFXkD