"Get ready to pack !!!"

This is how the famous ring announcer Michael Buffer could weigh on the continuous rumble – and sure to intensify – in the technological and media space, particularly "The Information" reported this week that Apple was considering an ambitious subscription offer that would encompass the company's original TV shows – remember, none other than Oprah is now in the fold – with Apple Music, magazine articles, and iCloud storage.

Should such a service come to fruition, it would put Apple on the challenge of Amazon Prime, and other competing rivals, Netflix and Hulu.

A few days ago, AT & T launched its first Time Warner-Merger video offer. called WatchTV, which you can stream to an Android or iOS smartphone or tablet app, Chrome and Safari web browsers, and Apple TV, Roku, and Google Chromecast.

This "skinny bundle" features more than 30 live streaming channels and more than 15,000 TV and on-demand movies, and is free for consumers with two new unlimited AT & T plans. For everyone, WatchTV costs $ 15 per month

AT & T, as the owner of DirecTV, already offered DirecTV Now for shoemakers who demand a wider and wider set of channels, at $ 35 per month

Consumer bundles that already exist include Sling TV from Dish Network and PlayStation Vue from Sony.

And you thought that unraveling the cord cut options would be easy.

Millions of consumers who want to leave pay TV – or choose to pay TV on the go – give you a taste of what broadcast choices will look like over the next few years.

The positive, of course, is that you will need many packages. But it's also a negative potential, because such a smorgasbord only invites confusion, especially when you're trying to research what services offer the channels and programs you want to watch, and determine what you're willing to pay for them. watch. As in any high-stakes fight, there will be winners and losers. Verizon, which announced the closure of go90, is an advertising-funded mobile video service that has never really found its mark.

Verizon can still be counted with. Under its Oath division, it controls AOL and Yahoo, and has a strong streaming presence in live mobile sports, especially through the NFL.

Our national obsession with streaming, however, brings another unfortunate disadvantage: with so many ways to make videos on the move, distracted driving seems to be reaching epidemic levels, as in October 2017 when a driver killed a motorcycle driver and injured his sister, who was with him, in central Pennsylvania, apparently because he was watching an NFL game on his phone and that he was texting to the wheel.

This is why Georgia has become the most recent state to pass a law against motorists.

In other new techniques this week

-The State of California has passed the country's most stringent privacy law, a model possible for the other 49 states. It will come into force in January 2020. The law gives consumers the right to know what personal information companies collect and why and with which companies they are shared. Consumers can ask businesses to delete their information and not sell it. Police said they were able to identify the alleged killer in the Maryland capital city shooting using facial recognition technology, an increasingly popular tool for the application of the law that has been implicated in controversy that civil liberties advocates warn against the risks of abuse. Fear, as Marco della Cava and Elizabeth Weise point out, is a potential misuse

-Google takes a tougher stance on workplace harassment following a campaign of intimidation and harassment that lasted nearly half a year. One year. Damore. The new rules, which USA TODAY must review, aim to reduce online attacks and internal conflicts, especially on the very complex issue of diversity in the business.

– Americans of African descent may face longer waiting times. According to a new study released last week by UCLA, Los Angeles is more likely to be canceled than Whites, Asians and Hispanics. Blacks also faced longer waiting times and more frequent cancellations with Lyft and Uber, but much less than with taxis.

– It's finally finished. Seven years after the start of the battle, Apple and Samsung have settled a high-stakes patent dispute in one of the most-watched legal battles in Silicon Valley, a battle that has even reached the US Supreme Court. United. Terms of settlement have not been disclosed, but only last month, a jury decided that Samsung must pay Apple $ 539 billion, in damages for the copy of the patented features of design and utility in the original iPhone.

-Apple released the public beta of iOS 12 last week, the software at the heart of the next iPhone and iPad, and if you choose to update eventually, the iPhone and / or the # IPad that you already have. You can install the software on beta.apple.com, but as we point out, doing so at this stage is risky. iOS 12 adds a variety of features to your Apple devices, ranging from screen limits for you or your kids to the promised performance hops. And if you have the Apple AirPods, you can operate a live listening feature that can turn these wireless buds into hearing aids. Google has announced its Duplex technology

– In May, Google has unveiled Duplex, artificial intelligence technology, This allows the Google Assistant to make human-sounding phone calls to make restaurant reservations and appointments for the haircut. We tried Duplex this week at a Thai restaurant in New York, and we were impressed by our inability to trick the system.

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