Welcome to Tech Brief, your weekly wrap-up on all that’s happened in the tech and startup industries this week!
This week, we’ve got stories of Spotify joining the Google Cloud, Snapchat and Facebook both trying to make your birthday even better, literal cyber-bullying, two-eyed smartphones, and more; all in this week’s Tech Brief right here on DANamic.ORG!
Spotify Goes Up, Up, and into Google Cloud
Music streaming giant Spotify has announced that it’s moving all its data centers from across Scandinavia, the US, and the UK right up into the cloud computing services operated by Google. That’s a huge paycheck for the big G.
Is Google getting too big in your opinion? How long more before they change their logo into a red and white umbrella logo?
Happy Birthday! – From Snapchat
The new lens is called “Birthday Party” and all you have to do is just make sure your birthday is added to your Snapchat account. The new update also lets you know when its one of your friends has a birthday with a little cake emoji next to someone’s name.
Happier Birthday!!! – From Facebook
Not one to be one-upped, Facebook is now encouraging you to send a more personalised message to your friends, with the new “Birthday Cam”! Just tap on a pop-up that appears when you try to write on the birthday boy/girl’s wall to record a 15-second video of inside jokes and giggling.
After “years of testing”, Facebook has rolled out FIVE new reactions, which changes the game completely. These new emotions are for all the times you felt inappropriate for “liking” posts that are sad in nature e.g. the death of someone.
Alternative title: Facebook allows people to feel other emotions now.
We Now Know Why The Robots in “Terminator” Are So Pissed Off At Humans
It’s because engineers are being total dicks to them.
The Smartphone Now Has Two Eyes. It’s Watching You.
The future of smartphones is dual cameras. That’s right – after years of boring “new” features that no one really cares about, smartphones are about to re-enter the nail-biting competition the market was known for back in the mid-2000s.
Camera tech are the hot new thing; with dual lens smartphones able to drastically improve picture quality, even under low light conditions! Creepy.
And more interesting stories…
- Taiwanese giant Foxconn delays takeover after Sharp accepted a $6.2 billion bid on Thursday morning. That’s weird.
- Altered Humans/High-Tech Wonders/Mutants/Robots/Aliens: Here’s a fun and geeky article from engadget about whether superpowers can be created. (The answer is yes, but…)
- For the startup founders: The gods at Tech In Asia have very helpfully compiled a list of venture capital firms in Singapore. Prepare your pitches.
Our Video Of The Week Is Too Bizarre/Terrifying To Describe
Did we forget to tell you to turn down your volume? Oops.
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Go back in time and read last week’s edition here.
