News & Reviews:   Google

NewsBytes #11 - Cupid Co. drama series, Facebook data privacy, Samsung Smart Savings and more

Google was recently reported joining the Universal Stylus Initiative (USI) as a promoting member. They join Dell, Intel and many other tech industry brands. While you can check out what USI styluses would bring to Android, we're more interested to see if the join by Google means that Android devices may all be able to use USI active styluses.

5 years ago, on 6th March 2012, Google opened its doors to their digital one stop shop for apps, games, movies, music and books across all devices running on the Android operating system, the Play Store. In five years, it had grown to more than 1 billion active users in 190 countries, whom had downloaded countless apps and movies, along with 40 millions songs and 5 millions books.

Always wondered if you get the fast-forward or rewind function on the mobile app for Android or iOS? Well, it looks like you can now do so on the updated YouTube app. And it's very straightforward too! Play the video in full-screen mode, and double tap on either the left side of the screen to rewind, or on the right side of the screen to fast-forward. Each double tap allows you to gain or rewind 10-seconds, multiple taps increases the jump in 10-second increments, which mean you could fast-forward or rewind in 10-seconds, 20-seconds, 30-seconds and so on.

The allure of having a device fold up is something that is enticing for the tech industry. Imagine a device that can be the size of a small smartphone, and unfurls into a tablet-sized Display. Well apparently LG is hard at work in making the technology more mass-market friendly, and has just signed an agreement to bring the screen to three different OEMs – Apple, Google and Microsoft.

We may be seeing Harman Kardon speakers being fitted into Samsung smartphones pretty soon – buw how about something different? Harman Kardon and Microsoft is set to collaborate in creating a new device to go against Amazon Alexa and Google Home. This new device will come built in with Cortana, Microsoft’s digital assistant as well.

We like the Motorola Moto 360 – but according to a new report, we may not see another model come anytime soon. Motorola said that they do not have any plans to release a new smartwatch to coincide with Google’s Android Wear 2.0, which is due to be released in early 2017.

The agreement is done. Nokia has announced that the talks between HMD Global, FIH Mobile and Microsoft is done. What this means is that the brand is officially off and running, and we will be seeing products from the company in the second half of 2017.

While the Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge and the Samsung Galaxy Note 7 shows what curved displays can be like to own, we are still plagued with the limitation of smartphones – both phones still have bezels around the display, albeit a very tiny one. Sharp, one of the premier manufacturers of displays, has reveal a display that is without bezels, and spans from corner to corner.

Google’s parent company Alphabet has suspended Project Ara, the ambitious project to build a modular smartphone for the masses. Instead, they will look for manufacturing partners who can licence the product instead.