Tech News Today for November 1, 2016
Tech News for Tuesday November 1, 2016
Lenovo’s long awaited Project Tango phone is finally shipping to customers. The Lenovo Phab 2 Pro is a unique device that houses a 16MP rear facing camera along with custom depth and motion tracking sensors that allow the 6.4” device to scan and track movement throughout a room or area. This allows the user to do things like visualize how a piece of furniture will look inside the room in real time and to proper scale, or even turn the surfaces of the room into playable game space. The Lenovo Phab 2 Pro is available through the Lenovo site for $499 and will eventually appear on the shelves of harware stores like Lowes in the coming weeks. Read more at theverge.com.
The much anticipated Minecraft Education Edition just launched at a cost of five dollars per user. Microsoft says they've now made the full version available in 11 languages and 50 countries with input from more than 50,000 students and educators across a diverse set of learning environments. Students, educators and administrators can get lesson plans, tutorials, starter worlds and the new version itself at education.minecraft.net. Read more at cnet.com.
President Barack Obama is basically running his victory lap at the moment, but behind the scenes, hard questions are being answered by the White House. Namely, what will happen to all of those tweets and followers of his @POTUS Twitter account when he vacates the oval office? On January 20, 2017, Twitter will shuttle all of his tweets to a new account called @POTUS44, meaning the next President of the United States will begin with a clean slate in the account. That is, of course, except for the follower count that has amassed since the account was created in 2013 of 11.1 million followers. Read more at whitehouse.gov.
Many users have been experiencing some lens flare problems with their new Pixel phones, and as it turns out, Google isn't the only company dealing with a few software or possibly hardware headaches that are leading to complaints about photos. Apple Insider reports that several iPhone 7 users are complaining about photos from the brand new 7 Plus that appear to have a watercolor effect. Users in Apple's support community say some of their photos look like a water color effect has been applied, which could be nice in the right situation, but not for every situation. Apple says there may be different reasons causing this effect and that users should contact AppleCare or go to a Genius Bar. Read more at appleinsider.com.
Finally, you may recall back in April we covered an app called Talkshow that allowed iOS users to hold public text message conversations that the world could see and follow. As good an idea as public text messaging may have seemed, it appears the founders have decided to pull the plug on the service effective December 1st. In a post on Medium, Talkshow said “We don’t see it getting big enough to have the impact we had hoped for.” Read more at macstories.net.
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