Samsung and others look to create a single e-SIM card for all carriers
Tech Industry
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Googlicious
What's happening Brian Tong here with all your Googliciousness, everything Google that we can pack inside of a show.
Now, it's not the biggest news week this week but we start off with an update on Google's self driving cars after its first accident that involved injuries.
Now it was nothing serious other than some minor whiplash, but a post by director of the project, Chris Urmson talks about how the cars were being hit surprisingly often, but not because of errors by their own cars, but because of human error by other drivers.
Now since 2009 Google's self-driving cars have been involved in 14 accidents, with a 25 car fleet, that is driven over 1.9 million miles.
There's never really been a real number based on accidents per miles driven, because over half of all car crashes are never even reported.
So they're really hoping their driverless car project can also give them some more accurate information.
All right, Google continues to make moves to do really anything and everything.
A recode report says the big G is hiring the technical team That Homejoy, a service that matches people with professional home cleaners.
Now a report from earlier this year, said that Google was looking to launch a tool for people looking to compare local home repair services.
For plumpers, electricians, roofers and other handyman jobs.
The brain power behind Homejoy.
Will most likely be building this out.
Now we don't know if it will be a stand-alone service or integrated into search, but one thing is certain, coming soon you'll be seeing a lot more of this.
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Thanks Google.
All right, according to Bloomberg the Googs is on track to launch their paid YouTube service by the end of this year.
Content always drive these things, and their top partners, that account for 90% of its' views are onboard.
But the major TV networks are still holding out, like Fox, NBC, and CBS.
According to YouTube's terms, YouTube stars can't make their videos public or monetize them unless they agree to be part of this service.
So, for them, it's a no-brainer.
But the challenge of getting original content that's worth paying for, Netflix has done it, and it's now up to YouTube to figure that out.
All right, some pretty sweet developments on the smart phone front.
Samsung, Apple and other phone manufacturers, are in talks with cell carriers to create a sim card similar to the one that Apple's iPad, That lets a user sign up for a service plan of their choice, on a single model of hardware.
Now this would make life easier for everyone.
Instead of manufacturing different phone models that support each different cell carrier.
The idea would be an embedded universal SIM card that's build into the phone.
And not user accessible.
You would be able to sign up for any service, but also switch them at any time as well.
The goal is to start rolling this out sometime in 2016.
Samsung is also announced its super slim Galaxy Tab S2.
Measuring in at 5.6 millimeters, that's half a millimeter thinner than the current iPad Air, the Tab S2 will come in either 9.7 inch or 8 inch screen sizes, with a 2084 x 1536 resolution Super Amoled display, that's newly optimized, as they say, for better contrast and natural colors.
And, we'll also give Samsung's improved fingerprint scanner An 8 megapixel rear camera, 3 GB of ram, expandable memory storage, and LTE and wi-fi models.
Now, there's no release date or pricing that's been revealed just yet.
[SOUND] And if you're an experienced Z3 owner that lives in Sweden and owns a Windows PC and also must be willing to completely wipe your phone of its personal setting, data, and content.
If this sounds like you You are in luck.
So that narrows it down to like five people.
Sony is looking for people to test their new Android concept software between mid July and September.
But will not reveal any specifics or even a hint at what it will look like.
Now no other device will work, and customers from other countries will not be able to join either.
But I think a word of advice would be to get As close to stock Android as possible.
All right, that's gonna do it for this week's show.
You can always email us at googilicious@cnet.com or tweet me @briantong.
Thanks for watching, we'll see you next time for some more of that Googilicious.
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Googilicious.