Wednesday, January 11, 2017

What's an 'Altaba?' It's The Daily Crunch.

THE DAILY CRUNCH
TUESDAY, JANUARY 10 2017 By Darrell Etherington

Altaba! It's something! Apple's greenery, AI for good and drone depression, plus plenty more in The Daily Crunch for January 10, 2017. And if you're a company still focused on making smartwatches please cash out now because it's only going to go downhill from here.

1. Altaba?

You may have seen the name "Altaba" floating around everywhere yesterday, and wondered what the heck it was. Basically it's a throwaway name used to identify the holding company that will remain of Yahoo once Yahoo's brand and assets are successfully sold to Verizon. It's not actually complicated, just dumb.

Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer resigned from the Yahoo board as part of the preparatory arrangements for the transfer of assets to Verizon. That actually doesn't mean much for her future plans once the Verizon acquisition is complete, though we don't know what's going to happen with her role once the deal is done.

2. Apple comes out on top of Greenpeace rankings

In what has become an annual tradition, Apple topped Greenpeace's report card for the tech companies doing the best in terms of green energy consumption. Facebook and Google were also near the top, but Apple earned top marks and special praise for also encouraging greener practices among its suppliers and IT partners.

3. Pierre Omidyar and Reid Hoffman announce fund for AI

AI doing good? Impossible! But eBay founder Pierre Omidyar and LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman want to try anyway. They've created a new $27 million fund to help promote the ethical use of AI in service of the public good. Elon Musk's Open AI has similar goals, but a different approach to making it happen.

4. Parrot lays off a bunch of its drone team

Drones are dead? Well the entry-level consumer market may be feeling the hit, at least. French company Parrot has laid off 35 percent of its drone-focused workforce, with represents just under 300 employees. Other drone-makers like DJI are doing well, but it's probably because they're playing more to the professional photography and videography demographic, whereas Parrot was aiming a bit more down market at entry-level consumers.

5. Fitbit buys another failed smartwatch company

Fitbit is on a veritable feeding frenzy of smartwatch makers, with a new acquisition of Vector, a small European startup that launched last March. There's very little doubt that Vector either failed or was on the way to failure, just like other recent Fitbit acquisition Pebble, which was arguably the most successful standalone smartwatch company of all time. Which says something about the industry. Specifically, it says: "This category will never work and Fitbit is chasing its own tail picking up the leftover bits of companies that tried to prove it would work and did not succeed in doing so."

6. Some nostalgia for iPhone at 10

The iPhone turned 10 yesterday, and the best way to celebrate the occasion is probably to watch its original launch, which was a very different affair compared to Apple launches today. "A breakthrough Internet communication device" indeed.

7. Sleep well, sweet Windows 10 users

Blue light begone! That could be the tagline for a rash of recent OS updates, which tune down the blue light on digital displays for various devices during evening hours. Windows 10 is the latest to jump on board, with an update to its Insider preview build that adds blue light control during scheduled hours. I'm getting sleepy just thinking about it.

Get more stories at techcrunch.com 

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