GeekWire
Microsoft is rolling out a tool to help business managers track their teams' daily schedules. “Alym Rayani, a director at Microsoft Office 365, described the new program as something like Fitbit for work productivity,” GeekWire reports. “It uses metadata that comes out of other Office 365 programs like Outlook and measures things like time spent in email, meeting time, and how often people work after-hours.”
The Wall Street Journal
Dish Network and Amazon have reportedly talked about forming a wireless business. In fact, sources tell The Wall Street Journal that Dish CEO Charlie Ergen has discussed the idea directly with Amazon’s Jeff Bezos. “The two men … have gotten to know each other better over the past year and have discussed a partnership to enter the wireless business,” it writes.
Bloomberg
SoundCloud is shedding 173 staffers -- or about 40% of its workforce -- the digital music service announced this week. In addition, “The company’s operations will be consolidated at its headquarters in Berlin and another office in New York,” Bloomberg reports. Regarding the decision, Alex Ljung, the company’s co-founder and CEO, said: “We need to ensure our path to long-term, independent success.”
Fortune
Fortune’s Erin Griffith considers various proposals to reduce sexual harassment in the tech and investment industries. For starters, she writes, “Susan Fowler advocated that tech companies end forced arbitration, end the practice of buying their employees’ silence with severance packages and non-disparagement agreements, end unnecessarily strict confidentiality agreements, institute training and enforce zero-tolerance policies.”
StateScoop
Comcast has donated more than $116,000 to politicians in Illinois this year -- apparently in hopes of killing the pending Right to Know act, which would require Web companies that collect personally identifiable information to disclose their data-sharing practices to users. At least two state lawmakers who received donations from Comcast (or an affiliate) have recently rescinded their support for the measure. Comcast isn't the only Web company to contribute to Illinois politicians this year: Verizon Wireless has donated around $6,500 to politicians in the state while …
TechCrunch
Baidu has acquired the natural language and chatbot specialists at Kitt.ai. As TechCrunch reports, the Seattle-based startup “has developed a framework to build and power chatbots and voice-based applications across multiple platforms and devices.” As for Baidu, the Chinese tech titans continues its “push into artificial intelligence, and specifically to help it carve out a place for itself as a platform for developers who want to create chatbots.”
Venture Beat
Ticketmaster has enlisted data-over-audio startup Lisnr to admit and track attendees of live events. Combined with consumers’ smartphones, “Lisnr’s technology will be used to power attendee verification for hundreds of millions of tickets,” Venture Beat reports. “Though the rollout has already begun in some venues, Lisnr said it will take around four years to complete the process globally.”
The Wall Street Journal
Samsung is reportedly readying a smart speaker, which will be synced with its voice-activated assistant Bixby. That said, “The timing is far from determined,” The Wall Street Journal reports, citing sources. Among other issues, “The English-language version of Bixby has been delayed and they said many of the speaker’s features and other specifications are yet to be decided.”
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