5 things to know today…
1. Verizon Wireless’ Go90 will not be the company’s only mobile video service. Yahoo, which Verizon Communications is buying for $4.83 billion, has launched Yahoo View in partnership with Hulu. Yahoo View is currently only available on personal computers, but will be launched as a mobile app soon, according to Yahoo. The service will offer recently aired TV shows for free. Hulu has been offering free shows for years, but is planning to move to a subscription model, leaving Yahoo View as the primary way to watch Hulu shows for free.
2. AT&T’s “internet of things” business has won a high-profile health care customer. Biotricity, a publicly traded maker of wearable technology for medical diagnostics, has chosen AT&T as its network provider. The company is preparing to launch a product called bioflux, which will enable physicians to remotely monitor patients’ heart health in real time. The solution uses a small cellular radio to transmit data.
3. Huawei and China Telecom are teaming up to turn Shenzhen, China, into a smart city. The two companies have signed a cooperation framework agreement with the goal of delivering gigabit-per-second speeds over fiber networks within the next five years. Huawei said the interest in citywide high-speed broadband services is being driven by 4K video, virtual reality, smart home applications, the internet of things and cloud services. The companies hope their work in Shenzhen, where Huawei is headquartered, will help define smart city standards for other companies and future deployments.
4. Apple is under fire in Russia. According to The Wall Street Journal, Russian regulators are investigating claims that Apple and its resellers cooperated to fix prices starting last October. The regulators noticed that the resellers were charging very similar prices for the iPhone 6 and 6s, and said they suspect the similarities may have been the result of coordination rather than coincidence.
5. Verizon will reportedly carry Google’s upcoming ‘Wi-Fi first’ Nexus smartphones. Google’s current Nexus phones rely on the cellular networks of Sprint, T-Mobile US and U.S. Cellular when Wi-Fi is not available. Google sells these phones directly to consumers instead of relying on carriers, but in the past the company has hedged its bets by including radio support for all the nationwide carriers.
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