By Zoya Sheftalovich | @zoyashef | send tips to zsheftalovich@politico.eu | subscribe for this daily column: http://politico.eu/registration/ | if you prefer to read this on your desktop click here
GOOD MORNING and welcome to Morning Tech, your parental guide in the music video of EU tech politics and policy.
— WHAT’S HAPPENING
BRUSSELS TAXI STRIKES: The Belgian taxi union will vote Thursday whether to strike in Brussels in response to news of ride-sharing app Uber’s upcoming expansion and potential legalization in the city. Similar strikes over the last year have brought traffic to a standstill, with hundreds of drivers taking to the streets. http://politi.co/1IXzzRG
UK RATES VIDEOS: The U.K. government is working with the country’s music industry and online video streaming sites Vevo and YouTube to screen and rate online music videos for adult content. The project has been operating as a pilot since October last year, but the government announced today that it will be made permanent. Thus far, 132 music videos have been submitted to the British Board of Film Classification for rating. Vevo is also looking at ways to block access to adult-rated online music videos. YouTube already has this option — when record labels upload a U.K.-produced music video rated 18 and older, they can restrict it to users who are signed in and older than 18: http://bit.ly/1MtHKaU
PIRATE PLAN SLAMMED: A plan by the U.K. to increase the maximum jail sentence for large-scale copyright infringement to 10 years has been slammed by the British and Irish Law Education and Technology Association. In its submission to the government’s consultation on the plain, the association labels the idea “not acceptable,” “not feasible,” and “not affordable.” http://bit.ly/1TMvzGK. The consultation period expired last night http://bit.ly/1CHRf4s, and the results of the consultation should be out some time soon.
MILLION € BABY: The average cost of subtitling a film or creative work is between €600 and €1,000, which can be prohibitive and deter creators and distributors from releasing movies in languages spoken by a small number of people. Now the European Commission wants to crowd-source a solution for the problem, launching a €1 million hunt to find a way to reduce subtitling costs. Applications are open until September 25 for projects to run next year. http://bit.ly/1IenQ42
TELECOMS USE SUPERCOOKIES: Telefónica de España and Vodafone affiliates in Spain and the Netherlands are using controversial supercookies, essentially undeletable codes that track mobile users’ browsing habits, privacy group Access Now says. Privacy advocates say supercookies are easily exploited and can make it very difficult for users to opt out. http://on.wsj.com/1LftTn4
SNCF CEO PROFILE: Guillaume Pepy, CEO of French train company SNCF, wants to bring the company into the 21st century by encouraging growth and change at the strike-prone group, which has more than 250,000 employees. “I want to transform a French monopolistic train company into an international transport group, and I want to do it quickly,” Pepy told the FT. http://on.ft.com/1NAGSzV
FACEBOOK NOTES REVAMP: Facebook Notes is getting a makeover. The update of the long-overlooked feature of the social networking site will include a number of blogging features to compete with Medium, WordPress and their ilk. A spokesperson told The Next Web that Notes is currently in testing “to make it easier for people to create and read longer-form stories on Facebook.” http://bit.ly/1K1RJUr
HEAT ON DATA: Data centers around Europe are struggling to cope with a heatwave that has hit much of the continent (though obviously not Brussels). With temperature control costs soaring and blackouts a possibility, ZDNet looks at what centers in Poland and the Czech Republic are doing to help keep things cool. http://zd.net/1DYrZaG
BITCOIN FORKING: Bitcoin may be on the brink of civil war, with two developers announcing that they plan to split the code the network relies on. A new version of the currency, Bitcoin XT, would allow for more transactions per hour, but would require much more memory. There is plenty of opposition to the move. http://bit.ly/1IYKhFi
DATING APPS NOT HOT: Even though early stage funding for dating startups has multiplied sixfold during the past four years, many venture capitalists don’t consider them an attractive investment, reports The Telegraph. One reason they might be seen as less lucrative is the fact that users who are willing to pay are more likely to choose dating websites over an app. Plus, there is an inherent paradox of the match-making business: its success leads to a loss of users. http://bit.ly/1K1Vb1p
GOOGLE AFTER ALPHABET: Has anything changed on Google’s (or should it be Alphabet’s) campus after the restructure announced last week? El Pais went to the tech giant’s Moutain View HQ to check it out. “In appearance, no one could tell that Google just launched the biggest plan of its history to remain eternally young,” writes journalist Rosa Jiménez Cano, in Spanish. http://bit.ly/1IYsoXe
MICROSOFT HARD ON PIRATES: Microsoft is taking piracy into its own hands. The company’s new, unified services agreement allows it to block users from playing counterfeit games or using pirated software. A clause in the contract states: “We may automatically check your version of the software and download software updates or configuration changes, including those that prevent you from accessing the services, playing counterfeit games, or using unauthorized hardware peripheral devices.” http://zd.net/1E0ItyL
TECH FIDELITY: Most Apple and Samsung customers are loyal to their favored brand and wouldn’t consider switching, a Samsung exec has said, meaning the companies are battling for the 20 percent of non-monogamous owners in the U.K. Andy Griffiths, Samsung’s president of U.K. and Ireland, also spoke about the tech company’s slowdown now that most customers who would have wanted a smartphone have bought one already. That throws some light on the troubles being faced by mobile handset manufacturers of late. http://bit.ly/1fkkO0F
NEXUS 5 LEAK: On the topic of mobiles, here’s a little something for gadget fans: photos of Google’s upcoming Nexus 5 smartphone have leaked online. The phone, which is likely to be released in the the fall, looks like it will be manufactured by LG, will feature a rear-facing fingerprint sensor and an LED-flash camera. http://bit.ly/1KrKL75
LG INVESTS IN OLED: Responding to the changing environment in the mobile handset manufacturing game, LG Display, one of Apple’s suppliers, plans to invest $8.5 billion (€7.7 billion) over the next three years to develop next-generation phone screens. It will shift its investment focus to organic light-emitting diodes, or OLEDs. The display-maker is trying to regain ground lost to Chinese manufacturers and to react to slowing demand. http://bloom.bg/1IYtan0
EU TAKES ON TECH: What is the European Commission doing to help European tech companies take on their U.S. rivals? It is reining in transatlantic competitors through regulatory intervention and improving conditions for the local tech scene, Fast Company reckons. http://bit.ly/1ExFFUO
KASPERSKY DENIALS: Antivirus company Kaspersky Lab has reiterated its denial of allegations that it intentionally misled rivals into flagging safe files as malicious, made by two anonymous ex-employees in a Reuters exclusive. And it has found support in some unlikely places: even some of the company’s rivals doubt the false positive claim: http://bit.ly/1TLjXsO
CAR CITIES: The Guardian takes a behind-the-scenes look at two facilities that cater to companies wanting to test autonomous vehicles. They feature accurate replicas of the chaos of real streets, but without the danger of unpredictable school kids. http://bit.ly/1hhCETQ
APPLE DRIVES ON: Speaking of self-driving cars, Apple is one of the companies shopping around for a secure testing facility. That means the company has moved further along with its autonomous car project than had been suspected, The Guardian reports: http://bit.ly/1gP2Ggp. But don’t count on seeing an Apple car zooming around town any time soon, cautions The Verge, engineers could just be working on a platform: http://bit.ly/1DWuqds
H/T YESWEARELATE: Google’s Project Ara is now not expected to start testing “modular” smartphones until next year. The phones will have components that can be replaced and upgraded through a hardware marketplace similar to an app store. The Wall Street Journal reported Google was having trouble taking the prototype to higher-volume production. Plans for a test run in Puerto Rico this year have been trashed. http://on.wsj.com/1Jnz1rF
WELCOME TO THE JUNGLE: The New York Times published a damning report into the work culture at Amazon over the weekend. Some of the lowlights: employees being encouraged to tattle on each other, encouragement of an adversarial approach to meetings and emails sent after midnight followed by texts demanding replies. In response: Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos sent an all-staff email denying many of the claims made in the article (http://bit.ly/1WytDpl) and Jay Carney, Amazon senior vice president, said in a TV interview that the company has “managed to keep the best talent in the industry because they like it so much.” Several of Amazon’s Silicon Valley friends have also jumped to defend the company on social media. Former Twitter CEO Dick Costolo said “it has ‘taken out of context’ stamped all over it,” (http://bit.ly/1PgnCYT). A current Amazon employee also posted a lengthy rebuttal on Linked-In (http://bit.ly/1PglL6x).
WHO IS BEZOS? Speaking of Amazon’s chief, who is the man behind the culture? Here’s a well-timed profile from The Telegraph. In it, Bezos talks Amazon’s best bets (Prime and Marketplace) and biggest failures (LivingSocial and Amazon Fire phone). He also discusses the company’s upcoming new show featuring Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond and James May. http://bit.ly/1IU9W21
TRACKING TUSKS: In a sign of how policing (and journalism) is changing as a result of new technologies, National Geographic has used a GPS device embedded in a fake elephant tusk to track the route ivory smugglers take when getting their contraband onto the black market. A long, multimedia-rich read http://on.natgeo.com/1CJjvDt
US HOLDS ONTO ICANN: The U.S. Commerce Department on Monday delayed for at least a year its plans to give up oversight the Internet Corp. for Assigned Names and Numbers. WSJ has the story http://on.wsj.com/1LhUvGO
— WHAT’S COMING
GEEK FEST: The EU’s top tech policy makers, startups, journalists and established corporations are going on exchange. The rag-tag group are meeting with a bunch of Silicon Valley stakeholders in Mountain View, September 21-25, for a week of innovation-themed events. http://bit.ly/1JcYiTy