TWTW: May 13th – May 19th, 2018 (Corrected Audio)

byRaj Deut
3 minute read
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The week that was (TWTW) takes a look back at the week’s most prominent tech stories from around the world.

Members of our Patreon campaign get their recap hand delivered on Sunday at 5pm, for everyone else don’t worry you wont be left out, you’ll just have to wait until Monday for your fix.

Video versions of TWTW appear on our website as well as our YouTube channel and Facebook page.

For those that prefer an audio only version, you can subscribe to the TWTW podcast feed on iTunes or by add this feed (https://feedpress.me/reckonerau-twtw) to your favourite podcast app.

Lastly you can find a full transcript of this week’s episode below.

In the week that was May 13th to May 19th, 2018:

Intro

Hey everyone, my name’s Raj Deut and unfortunately I’m not too well this week so it’s an audio only look back at the tech news in the week that was:

May 13th to May 19th, 2018.

Stories

Google officially announced a change to their YouTube-slash-Music offering, splitting YouTube Red into two products, YouTube Music and YouTube Premium.

The new YouTube Music will also absorb Google Play Music, with playlists and uploaded music being migrated under the new banner. YouTube Music will be offered free of charge with ads or ad-free with added features like background play for US$9.99/month.

YouTube Premium is essentially the old YouTube Red but now more expensive at US$11.99/month.

Existing users of YouTube Red will grandfathered into the older cheaper pricing providing you have an active account ahead of next Tuesday, May 22nd.

On the back of a new release of arguably the best Twitter client on the Mac, Twitterific 3, Twitter has re-iterated the looming doomsday for 3rd party clients coming August 16th.

Streaming APIs will be turned off meaning third party apps will no longer received pushed info in real time, crippling their functionality.

The date has been changed and shifted but it looks like this could be it.

HTC is jumping on that blockchain train announcing they’ll be baking it right into their next mobile phone: Exodus.

What does putting blockchain into a phone do? Well that’s a very good question. HTC is hoping that the Exodus will strike deals with digital currencies and the phone will become your digital “universal” wallet. It’s also supposed to offer more secure hardware and another buzzword in decentralised apps.

Remember back in 2016 when those Mini NES consoles sold like bananas and then people were selling their first born trying to get one. Well guess what, they’re back on sale next month come June 29th and you can preorder one now from EB Games.

It’s not just the NES either, the Mini SNES is also returning although details on its final release date are still forthcoming.

To finish things off this week, it’s pre-E3 madness time with a bunch of announcements already hitting a month out from the event.

None bigger, for the time being, than Activision’s Call of Duty twists and turns in dropping single player entirely and introducing a new…. wait for it…. battle royale mode. Called “Blackout” the new mode is scarce on details with no mention of player limits as yet but what we do know is that the new Blackout map will be over 1500 times the size of one of the most popular maps in Call of Duty history, Nuketown.

And speaking of battle royale, we’ve got a competition running for one of the originals. We’re giving away 5 copies of Player Unknown’s Battleground for Xbox One. You can enter by liking and commenting our competition Instagram post with more information on the website.

Outro

And that’s it for another week! A huge thank you and shout out to our patrons who’ve had the show delivered early. For everyone else I hope you’ve enjoyed it and don’t forget you can always join the Patreon campaign for this and other benefits like the Patreon exclusive new podcast “I don’t quite know”. Find out more at reckoner.com.au/patreon

Have a great week and bye for now.

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