World Tech Update - EU targets Google, Turing manuscript sells, drone shoots 4K

The European Commission is accusing Google of abusing its dominant position in the search market.

Thanks for joining us here on World Tech Update. I'm Nick Barber. We'll start in Europe where the European Commission has charged Google with abusing its dominant position in Internet search services by systematically favoring its own comparison shopping product. It also opened an antitrust investigation into Google's Android mobile operating system.

Google responded to the charges with a blog post saying it believes there is thriving competition and innovation in Euorpe's online search market.

A Space X Flacon 9 rocket lifted off this week en route to the International Space Station to deliver experiments and supplies to the one-year crew. The real news here is about the rocket booster, which came incredibly close to surviving a landing on a platform at sea. The reason is so that the booster could be reused on future missions, something that's not done right now. As the rocket came down to land on the platform it had excess lateral velocity which made it tip over and explode. Elon Musk said that he believes there's an 80% chance of success before the end of the year.

Alan Turing's manuscript sold this week for more than a million dollars at auction. Turing was an English mathematician widely considered to be the father of modern computer science. He was depicted in the popular movie Imitation Game.
The 56 page book contained notes from Turing as he created the enigma code cracking machine during WWII. The person who bought the manuscript wished to remain anonymous. In the manuscript Turing examines the work of mathematicians and logicians in order to lay the foundation for a universal language for computers. An original, fully functional code-generating Enigma machine, made in Berlin in 1944, was also auctioned off for $269,000.

This week I was in Las Vegas for NAB, a broadcasting conference where mobile video, 4K and drones were big themes. If you watch a lot of online video you're probably familiar with buffering. Akamai wants to solve that problem with a technology called predictive video over cellular. In effect, your phone figures out what video content you like and then downloads it to your device so that it can play instantly. The SDK will be out in September and companies can integrate it into their existing app or player. Akamai sees another potential use with 4K, where file sizes are enormous. Akamai didn't see which companies have expressed an interest in the technology.

DJI updated its lineup of drones and introduced one that can shoot 4K video. The Phantom 3 professional which can record 4K video will cost about 1300 dollars when it starts shipping in the next few weeks. The Phantom 3 advanced which can capture 1080p video at 60 frames per second will cost one-thousand dollars. The drones use DJI's camera and not a GoPro. The camera has a 94 degree field of view which means you won't get that fish eye distortion. It can also stream video back to a tablet from up to 1.2 miles away and then that video can be livestreamed to YouTube. We'll take a look at another drone on next week's show.

Segway, the company that makes two wheeled, self balancing scooters is now a Chinese company. Ninebot, a Chinese startup has purchased the company which includes its strong patetn portfolio and market presences. With the acquisition, Ninebot's payroll will grow from 400 to 500. The deal will pave the way for Ninebot's international expansion in the personal transporter market. The companies began negotiating the acquisition in October. They didn't reveal the terms of the deal,