Amazon showed off their new echo: Echo Show, which comes with a display to augment Alexa’s voice control. Think of it as a video conference landline, which the possible potential to be MUCH more. At $320, it isn’t going to be for everyone, but if you have the right use case, it’s a great product. The rest of the stories are below.
This week Microsoft announced a new Surface Laptop and Windows 10 S. The laptop is meant to compete with the MacBook Air and Windows 10 S only allows you to download apps from their store. Personally, I think the new hardware looks cool, and as long as the app store has the apps I want, I’d welcome the extra security. The rest of the stories are below.
This week’s podcast was all about self driving and flying cars. For whatever reason Tesla, Waymo, Apple, Uber, and Kitty Hawk all felt the need to share updates. There’re all super cool (below) and it’s clear that many companies are getting closer to real products. We also touch on stock trading, social sharing and net neutrality. All the summaries are below.
Facebook held their F8 developers conference last week and they continued to build out their platform. The big focus was creating a camera effects platform where developers can create their own filters for people. They also created more bots for Messenger and showed of some new VR spaces. Facebook continues to demonstrate that they’re a technology company and not just a social media website. The rest of the stories are below.
Apple did NOT release a new Mac Pro this week, but did something they normally don’t do instead: they talked about their plans for the Mac Pro. The delay is because of four big things working against them: They are distracted by the new campus, they guessed wrong on the future of GPUs, larger products (by sales volume) keep taking precedence, and the product/manufacturing wasn’t flexible enough to easily adapt. This is why the product the languished. It also calls into question their leadership structure, and the dude at the top: Tim Cook.
See below of the rest of the stories from last week.
It’s that time of year again, where the internet loses it’s mind and get’s all weird. That’s right, it’s April Fools. SpaceX launched and landed a rocket that they had already launched and landed. Twitter made some changes that got everybody in tweeting fervor. Samsung announced the explosive sequel to their exploding phones. Congress sold our privacy to the highest bidder (kinda, but not really) and Apple rearranged all your files while you slept (don’t worry, they’re right where you left them)
DC Comics released the Justice League trailer. Apple released a new iPad. Though both seem individually cool, what they both lack is a unified vision. Still, that doesn’t stop us from thinking great things are just around the corner. For example, Apple might release some awesome new AR apps this year. And DC might live up to the hype of the trailer. Time will tell. Until then, we have a bunch of cool new products, or products in development below.
(Image: vivifychangecatalyst.wordpress.com)
The new Zelda game is a great example of parallel learning that let’s you learn at your own pace, and on the things you want to learn. This is in contrast to serial learning which requires you to follow a pre-defined path. This, is mostly likely the future of adult and college education because maximizes how much you learn.
Oh yeah! Good news: you don’t need antivirus software anymore if you promise not to visit bad sites (though, Chrome won’t let you even if you wanted to), you don’t download software from CNET, and you don’t let your kids use your computer.
The rest of this week’s stories are below.
When the movie titanic first came out, it wasn’t very popular: it took a few weeks to become the sensation we know it as today. The Nintendo Wii was the same way: people needed to play Wii Sports before realizing how fun the system was. In effect, the Wii was Nintendo’s Titanic.
The Switch, on the other hand seems much more straight forward, and therefore the initial sales are much higher. Personally, I still want to buy a Switch. :)
The rest of the stories are below.
Can you believe the iPhone was announced 10 years ago? It’s a device that changed our lives forever. It’s hard to image how something that seems so obvious today was actually risky when it was first introduced.
Speaking of introductions, Nintendo announced their next gaming platform: The Switch. It’s both a portable console and can also be played on your TV. They’re definitely no longer competing against the PS4 or Xbox. The real question remains if there’s room for Nintendo and the others.
See below for the rest of the stories.