Wondering how fast your internet performance is on your smartphone or tablet? Netflix has launched a mobile speed test app to answer that question. Rolled out on Tuesday for both Apple iOS and Android users, Netflix’s Fast Speed Test estimates your present internet download speed. To determine your speed, the app runs a series of …
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August, 2016
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10 August
Facebook is shoving ads down your throat (The 3:59, Ep. 93)
Facebook is kicking up the battle over ad blockers. The social media juggernaut said it will circumvent ad-blocking technology designed to strip commercial messages from websites, helping it serve more ads and make more money. The millions of consumers who use ad blockers may not be too pleased. We also hit on Sling TV adding NFL content to its streaming …
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9 August
#PhelpsFace meme claims early gold at Rio Olympics
How can we ever have an Olympics in the future without Michael Phelps? He’s either winning enough medals to knock himself over if he ever wore them all, or he’s naming his son Boomer. And now comes #PhelpsFace. Phelps pulled the now-infamous expression on Monday night at the Rio Games, as his South African rival Chad Le Clos danced around …
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9 August
Brits must get better banking apps, watchdog decrees
UK residents must have access to better banking apps, a regulatory body has said. In a new report published today, the Competition and Market’s Authority says that big UK banks aren’t doing enough to compete for customers’ business, and orders a “revolution” in banking mobile tech. That would see new apps released by early 2018, with banks forced to share …
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9 August
The iPhone 7 isn’t here yet, but we are already bored with it (The 3:59, Ep. 92)
We’re about a month away from Apple’s expected unveiling of its newest iPhone, so we used this episode to discuss many of the rumors circulating about new versions of the phone, Apple Watch and MacBook Pro. There are a few hardware tweaks expected for the iPhone 7, including Apple cutting out the headphone jack to make the phone slimmer and …
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9 August
SoundCloud Go brings 125 million songs to Sonos speakers
Add SoundCloud Go to the long list of music streaming services you can access on the Sonos multiroom wireless speaker system. The company announced an update on Tuesday that adds support for the monthly subscription service that many call the “YouTube for audio.” The premium Go tier began in March and kills the ads found on the free version of …
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9 August
Google Fiber gets put on hold in San Jose
Google Fiber announced more than a year ago that it was exploring ways to bring its super-speedy internet service to San Jose, California. Now, months after city officials approved the major construction needed to make it happen, the subsidiary of Google parent company Alphabet is hesitating. According to a report Tuesday in the San Jose Mercury News, officials with Google …
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9 August
Congrats, Walmart! You just realized e
Walmart is ponying up $3.3 billion to buy Jet.com so it can strengthen its online shopping muscle. This means we’ll all be racing to Walmart.com, right? Eh, maybe. The world’s largest retailer has been getting a lot more aggressive in e-commerce over the past year, introducing an Amazon Prime-like unlimited shipping service called ShippingPass, expanding its online inventory and setting …
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9 August
Disney buy a stake in MLB’s video
The Walt Disney Company is buying a big stake in Major League Baseball’s BAMTech streaming-media unit, clearing the way for sports network ESPN to soon launch a new “multi-sport subscription service.” Potentially changing the way we will watch sports, Disney is paying $1 billion for a 33 percent interest in BAMTech, the company said Tuesday during its quarterly earnings report. …
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9 August
Name that tune: Contestants battle Shazam app in upcoming TV show
What’s the longest amount of time you’ve spent looking for a song you heard in the wild? No joke, I heard a track at a party once and it took me almost a decade humming the harmony to record store clerks to identify it. Of course, that could’ve been a 10-second inquiry if Shazam had been around back then, which …
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