What’s new
Yahoo closes News Digest app on June 30
This announcement came after Verizon finalized its acquisition of Yahoo for the price of $4.8 billion. Yahoo News Digest was a past winner of Apple’s software Design Award and it has been installed more than 9.5 million times onto iOS and Android devices worldwide, according to the market research firm App Annie. In its place will be Yahoo Newsroom, an app that imitates competitors like Google Play Newsstand, Flipboard, and News Republic.
You can read more here.
Youtube launches the VR180 format, a collaboration between YouTube and Google’s Daydream VR division
The VR180 format lets creators shoot videos that are immersive when viewed in a virtual reality headset, but still have a normal perspective for anyone watching on their 2D computer screen or phone. The Daydream team is apparently working with Lenovo, LG, and YI Technology to build new cameras that will record in the format, which creators will be able to edit using tools like Adobe Premiere.
More info are available here.
New products
Asus VivoBook S
The VivoBook S has a 15.6-inch Full HD display, a Intel Core i7-7500U processor and 8GB of RAM. It has a starting price of $699 and comes with SD card reader, USB Type-C, USB Type-A, USB 2.0, and HDMI ports.
More info here.
ZTE Small Fresh 5
The phone comes with a 5-inch HD display, a Qualcomm Snapdragon 425 proceesor and 3GB RAM. The ZTE Small Fresh 5 has MiFavor UI 4.2 based on Android 7.1 Nougat and a 2500mAh battery.
More info here.
You might want to know about this
Evernote’s latest beta version adds fingerprint support
The 7.12 Evernote beta adds fingerprint unlock support. It isn’t a replacement for a password since it can’t really be changed, but it is a convenient means of basic security. The new feature is easy to understand, but it isn’t the most intuitive to find. To enable fingerprint unlocking, you first have to enable a passcode lock.
You can read more here.
YouTube reaches 1.5 billion monthly viewers
YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki shared the news in a blog post. To be clear, that’s only the number of people that sign in to YouTube accounts and does not encompass everyone who watches a video on YouTube in a given month.
More info can be found here.
Fun stuff
BabelOn is trying to create a Photoshop for the voice
BabelOn wants to translate users own voice into another language, even if they don’t speak that language. The company says its combo of software and custom-built hardware that can analyze the voice and then use the info to recreate speech that sounds just like them, in a language of their choosing. Though BabelOn isn’t ready just yet, the idea behind it has existed since 2004.
You can read more here.
