Important announcements
Raspberry Pi’s Pixel released for PC and Mac
The Pi’s new PIXEL OS can now be installed on Macs and PCs, following three months of work to develop a new version of the desktop, which runs on the Linux-based Debian OS. The PIXEL is “our best guess as to what the majority of users are looking for in a desktop environment: a clean, modern user interface; a curated suite of productivity software and programming tools, both free and proprietary” says Pi founder Eben Upton.
You can read more here.
EU accuses Facebook of giving misleading information on WhatsApp purchase
The European Commission has alleged that Facebook gave misleading or untrue answers during the investigation to approve the WhatsApp acquisition by Facebook in 2014. If it decides Facebook breached EU merger-procedure rules, the commission could fine the company up to 1% of its world-wide revenue. That could work out to up to $179 million based on Facebook’s 2015 revenue.
More info are available here.
Facebook is testing group voice calls on desktop
With so many online communication tools allowing you to conduct group calls, it’s really surprising that Facebook has yet to catch up on the desktop side. Facebook has given a select number of users the option to make group audio calls straight from its desktop site. You can see if you’ve got the feature yourself, just log into Facebook on the web, open up a group chat window, and you might see a phone call icon and a notification that the new functionality is now available to you. There’s no word yet on when the feature might make it to everyone’s account.
You can read more here.
Top new products
LG launches G Pad III 10.1 tablet
The tablet comes with a full HD (1,920 x 1,200) IPS display, is powered by a Octo-core 1.5GHz processor and it has a kickstand that can bend 70 degrees allowing for comfortable multimedia viewing.It packs a 6,000 mAh battery and costs $360. The device also comes with a reader mode that can configure the blue light on the screen.
You can read more here.
Xiaomi Mi S
The Mi S is said to feature a 4.6-inch 1080p display with 600-nit brightness and 2.5D curved glass on top, the Snapdragon 821 chipset, 4GB of RAM, 128GB of storage, and a 12 MP main camera with Sony’s IMX378 sensor. The Mi S is also expected to feature a 2,600mAh battery with support for Quick Charging 3.0.
More info here.
New BlackBerry smartphones will be launched at CES 2017
TCL, the Chinese company that is now in charge with the design, manufacture and sale of BlackBerry smartphones, has just announced that it will be present at CES 2017 where it will reveal new BlackBerry-branded phones. While there are no details on what the upcoming BlackBerry handsets will bring, chances are that one of them features a QWERTY keyboard.
More info here.
Top interesting info
Google is sued by employee because of an internal “spying program”
A former product manager from Google says that internal policies and confidentiality agreements encourage Google employees to report colleagues who they suspect of leaking information to the media. The “spying program” refers to a special website created by Google where employees can report each other.
You can read more here.
France will let drones deliver mail
The project has been under testing for about 3 years and now is expected to take off as an experiment on a fixed route in an attempt to demonstrate the usefulness of drones in rural areas that are otherwise hard to reach on foot or by road. It would also be the first attempt to roll out a postal deliver service using just drones. This is still an experiment and the service will only operate on a fixed route and just once a week.
More info can be found here.
Autonomous cars are viewed smarter than human drivers
PwC, a global provider of professional services, directly surveyed 1,584 people aged 16 and older in the U.S. to ask them about the future of transportation. The results showed that 66 percent of respondents said they think autonomous cars are probably smarter than the average human driver. They found that people’s acceptance of the new technology depended more on their attitudes toward technology than their age.
You can read more here.
