Amazon Building New Echo With Touch Screen

Touch Echo Amazon is working on an Echo speaker—with a screen that can be operated via touch. The screen will be about seven-inches, and the device will be able to moved up so you can see the information better. Amazon's Alexa, the voice AI that controls Echo, is in competition with Google Home and Apple's Siri. Including a screen to its popular Echo offers an additional, visual, way for consumers to engage with the Echo. The touch-screen Echo will not replace current versions, but be offered in addition to the ones on the market today. (Via Bloomberg)

Self-Driving Euro-style Ford Motor Company will be testing its autonomous cars in Germany next year. The automaker told TechCrunch that Ford will use existing sites in Aachen and Cologne. Ford recently ran a survey in Europe to see how people feel about self-driving cars, finding 16 percent would actually trust the vehicles to take their children to school.

Hacking a Hacker The hacker who attacked San Francisco's Muni rail system over the weekend got the tables turned. Plastering his email on screens across Muni's stations in a ransom demand, the hacker basically gave away his own address. A researcher was able to gain control of his email by guessing the answer to the hacker's secret question, and then uncover other times the hacker demanded, and received, ransom money from businesses The Muni system refused to this because they were able to restore their data from backups. (Via KrebsOnSecurity)

Deutsche Drone Hunters Deutsche Telekom is officially in the drone defense business. The company will launch its new system tomorrow, Thursday, meant for companies, stadiums—even data centers—that want to make sure drones aren't flying, unwanted, overhead. Starting at just under $32,000 (30,000 Euro), the service will be customized by Deutsche Telekom and use a system called DroneTracker developed by Dedrone, a San Francisco, Ca-based company that specializes in anti-drone tech.

Google Daydream We finally got one of Google's latest VR headsets, Daydream View. Get ready to be inspired.