Microsoft announces a new fancy whiteboard, Google rethinks its storage plans and Coinbase launches new products for Wall Street. All that and more in The Daily Crunch for May 15, 2018. 1. Microsoft announces the Surface Hub 2 You may not remember the first Surface Hub — an expensive digital whiteboard that could handle anything from video conferences to document collaboration — but Microsoft says there are 5,000 companies using the devices. Microsoft isn't sharing many details of the Surface Hub 2 yet, besides a 2019 launch date and a concept video, which suggests that you can hook the new Surface Hub to a wall, put it on a rolling case or create a wall of Surface Hubs. One surprising change is the removal of the video camera — now you'll need to plug in a webcam for video conferences. 2. Say hello to Google One Google is revamping its consumer storage plans by adding a new $2.99/month tier for 200 GB of storage and dropping the price of its 2 TB plan to $9.99/month. It's also rebranding these storage plans (but, confusingly, not Google Drive itself) as "Google One." 3. Coinbase goes after Wall Street with new services for institutional investors The main addition is Coinbase Custody, which provides specialist-level services for institutions to hold bitcoin and other cryptocurrency with Coinbase. 4. Tim Cook told Trump China tariffs were the wrong move "I felt that tariffs were not the right approach there, and I showed him some more analytical kinds of things to demonstrate why," Cook said in a Bloomberg interview. 5. Uber ends policy of forced arbitration for individual sexual assault claims It's also ending the requirement that victims who settle with Uber sign a confidentiality provision preventing them from speaking about the sexual assault or sexual harassment they suffered. 6. Good Eggs raises $50M and eyes West Coast expansion This looks like a big turnaround from 2015, when the company had multiple rounds of layoffs, shut down operations outside of San Francisco and brought on Bentley Hall as its new CEO. 7. Seattle passes new tax on large companies despite Amazon's howls of protest The tax on companies with more than $20 million in receipts will amount to about $275 per employee, and it's intended for use in improving conditions for the city's homeless. |