Weekend Wrap-up: Amazon Deliveries from the Sky; Free Mobile Spotify to Come

Thanks for checking in for this edition of the Weekend Wrap-up, where we catch you up on the past week’s best tech stories. Let’s cut all the jibber jabber and get to it, shall we?

Amazon Drones are a Real Thing

In what was probably the greatest Black Friday advertising ploy ever, Amazon’s Jeff Bezos gave an interview to CBS’s 60 Minutes, going into detail about an initiative the company is working on: drone deliveries. Called Prime Air, Amazon aims to use drones to deliver Amazon orders within 10 miles of a fulfillment center, and it plans on doing so within 30 minutes. Don’t go looking for this shipping option on Amazon’s website, just yet — according to Bezos, Prime Air is at least 4 or 5 years away.

Spotify to Offer Free, Ad-Supported Mobile Access

Spotify users have always been able to use an ad-supported desktop version for free, but if those users wanted access Spotify on mobile devices, they’ve had to pay a $9.99 monthly fee. It seems Spotify is rethinking that policy and has negotiated deals with major record labels that would allow it to offer a free, ad-supported streaming option on mobile. This option would also limit access in other ways, though we don’t have any specifics at this time.

Auto-Play Videos Come to Facebook Mobile

If you’ve used Facebook’s iOS or Android apps lately, you might have noticed videos in your News Feed starting to play automatically. This isn’t a glitch in the software or some kind of programming mistake — Facebook has enabled this intentionally in order to get more people looking at videos on the social network. Now, Facebook has made this auto-play action a bit less annoying than other apps; for instance, sound is turned off by default, and if you don’t want videos to play over a cellular connection, there’s an option you can turn on to stop that. Are these auto-play videos a precursor to video ads? We shall see.

USB is Getting a Much Needed Improvement

Plugging in a USB cable is not as easy as it could be, especially when compared to the simple connection process of the reversible Apple Lightning cable. Fortunately, it looks like the new USB Type-C connector will follow Apple’s lead by adopting a reversible style. The Type-C connector will be about as small as a Micro-USB connector. Unfortunately, there’s still the issue of the plug that connects to your desktop or laptop, which to this point isn’t reversible. We’ll update you when that connector gets the same treatment.