10 things in tech you need to know today

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Uber CEO Travis Kalanick  gestures as he delivers an address to employees and drivers marking the company's five year anniversary in San Francisco, California June 3, 2015.  REUTERS/Robert Galbraith

Thomson Reuters

Uber CEO Travis Kalanick.

Good morning! Here's the tech news you need to know this Tuesday.

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1. A Netflix executive says users would be "paralyzed" if the service offered offline playback. Neil Hunt says the company wants to avoid the "paradox of choice," and that he's "[not sure] that it's worth providing that level of complexity."

2. The iPad Pro will reportedly come with at least 64GB of storage and cost around the same as a MacBook. That's according to 9to5Mac's Mark Gurman, who also says the big-screened device also won't ship with Apple's rumoured new stylus.

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3. Uber has raised $1.2 billion (£780 million) in China - but it's biggest rival has raised more than twice as much. The homegrown ridesharing service Didi Kuaidi has netted $3 billion (£1.95 billion) in new funding.

4. Apple is ramping up its hiring of artificial intelligence experts. The company wants the iPhone to know what you want before you ask it.

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5. Amazon and GoDaddy are being sued over the Ashley Madison data leak. Three anonymous users of the extramarital affairs dating site are suing the companies for allegedly hosting sites that let the public access the leaked data.

6. Scientists have figured out how to extract a crucial smartphone component from plants. Germanium is used in semi-conductors and other high-tech products.

7. There's a huge boom in sleep and relaxation albums on Spotify. More than 11% of all new "music" released on the platform last week falls into the "environmental/sleep/relaxative" category, The Guardian reports.

8. Amazon is releasing a super cheap new tablet just in time for the holidays. It'll cost just $50 (£33) - half the price of its Amazon Fire tablet.

9. A porn app secretly took photos of its users then blackmailed them. The BBC reports that Adult Player surreptitiously took photos of its users with the selfie camera, then locked the device and demanded $500 (£330).

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10. Silicon Valley seed fund and startup accelerator 500 Startups is launching a number of new funds and partners around the world. Tech.eu reports that in Europe, this includes Germany, Turkey, Israel, and Eastern Europe.

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