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The Week in Tech

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Twitter

Twitter officially announced this week that it acquired the live-streaming app Periscope back in January, and several sources have hinted that it will shortly be launched as a separate app with the ability to watch both live and previously broadcasted mobile video streams. The move appears to be a pre-emptive strike against the Meerkat live-streaming app, which has been something of a sleeper hit in the tech community. The beta phase of the new app allows users to watch public and private live broadcasts happening at that moment or recently recorded ones. Users are also able to tweet a link to their stream to Twitter and have it show up on the Periscope home screen, or privately invite their friends to watch. It's the ability to watch content that's already been broadcast, however, that sets Periscope apart from its competitors, and Twitter have taken further steps to put down the Meerkat.

Twitter officially announced this week that it acquired the live-streaming app Periscope back in January

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It would appear that Twitter planned to hold off on releasing Periscope until it was a little more polished, but the unexpected success of Meerkat has forced their hand. Because Meerkat's system relies completely on Twitter, the social media behemoth also holds a certain amount of power, and has not wasted nay time in using that power to their advantage by cutting off Meerkat's access to Twitter's social graph. This means that whilst Meerkat users used to be able to login to Meerkat using their Twitter account and automatically have the accounts sync up, the Meerkat app will now need to be configured manually. This could be a deal breaker for many users, and considering beta testers have already praised Periscope as a far superior service to Meerkat, I'm pretty optimistic that Twitter will come out on top in this particular scrap.

 

SXSW

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At the annual SXSW (that's “South by South-West” for you non-Hitchcock fans), a small group of protesters have been causing quite a stir by holding signs and handing out t-shirts to passers by at the Austin, Texas festival warning against a grim, decidedly Terminator shaped potential future. Yes, the assembled masses (well, not so much) of the “Stop The Robot” movement were (as the name would suggest) protesting against robots, specifically the uncontrolled growth and developments around artificial intelligence, which they warned could lead to the machines rising up and overthrowing their human masters (or something to that effect). It's not as zany a concept as you might think actually. Such respected minds as Elon Musk and even Stephen Hawking (yes, THAT Stephen Hawking) have expressed similar fears, and the protesters were not against the progress of technology, they only hoped to encourage government oversight to make sure that these technologies are developed safely and under controlled growth. Which actually sounds pretty reasonable to me!

 

Google Pixel

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A clear competitor to the recently unveiled new Apple Macbook has already surfaced in the shape of Google's new Chromebook Pixel; an aspirational netbook that undercuts Apple's in price, whilst offering comparable tech and specs. At just a shade under $1000, the new Pixel offers two models; a $999 Core i5 2.2 GHz Broadwell-U version with 8GB of RAM and a 32GB SSD, and a $1,299 Core i7 “LS” (ludicrous speed) version boasting 2.4 GHz Broadwell-U with 16GB of RAM and a 64GB SSD. Both use Intel’s HD Graphics 5500 GPU and weigh in at 3.3 pounds. The LS model in particular is vastly more powerful than the new Macbook and yet is almost identically priced, but then, this has always been common with Apple products, with fans happy to pay for the quality of the machine over its raw processing power. Both models are Wi-Fi only (no LTE this time, which means no phone tethering) and are available now in the US, with a projected UK release date in about a month's time.

A clear competitor to the recently unveiled new Apple Macbook has already surfaced in the shape of Google's new Chromebook Pixel

The New Chromebook Pixel

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The design of the new Pixel looks almost identical to the old one, but that's not necessarily a bad thing, as it was certainly a handsome machine that took more than a few design queues from Apple (not the keyboard especially). According to Google's director of consumer hardware Andrew Bowers, they wanted to “Remain very honest” with what they were trying to achieve with the device, which is a powerful, but affordable netbook. That doesn't mean it's ugly though, far from it in fact, and the high-density 2560 x 1700 12.95-inch 239 ppi touchscreen display remains a thing of beauty. Battery life has also been improved to a reported 12 hours, and the laptop features USB Type-C ports on the left and right, doubling the amount available on the Macbook. These ports could revolutionise the way we charge our laptops, with Bowers insisting that the Type-C ports will eventually lead to “The idea of universal charging.” And wouldn't that be convenient!

 

Blackberry

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Haven't heard that name in a while have you? But BlackBerry is one of those brands that just refuses to die, and the company's Secusmart division has now launched a new tablet (their first in years) called SecuTablet, in partnership with IBM and Samsung. The tablet is based on the Samsung Galaxy Tab S 10.5, probably one of the most popular tablets on the market, and one of the most powerful, but whereas that device is seen very much as a tool for play, the BlackBerry version targets the lucrative global security market, and user looking for enhanced data protection.

BlackBerry has launched a new tablet (their first in years) called SecuTablet, in partnership with IBM and Samsung

IBM has provided secure app wrapping technology for the SecuTablet, which will make it one of the most secure tablets on the market by a wide margin. Secusmart will provide the tablet with the underlying security features and will handle the branding. Otherwise, there are no details about its price, availability and whether the Android operating system that powers it has been modified or not. Chances are, however, that it will run an overlay similar to that seen on HTC devices. Users will still be able to install their own applications and popular apps such, but there will be “Additional security” for some apps. What this means specifically? I haven't the foggiest!

 

Google Feud

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Sticking with Google, I'll end this week's weekly tech roundup with something a little bit silly. “Google Feud” is a game that takes all the fun of autocorrect (really) and turns it into a Family Fortunes style game. A random generator gives players a sentence that needs to be completed with a single word, if they can guess one of the top 10 most popular queries you earn points. There are four categories (Culture, People, Names and Questions) to choose from and a seemingly endless supply of questions (I wasted a solid 20 minutes myself), and whilst it's not going to win any awards, it is a fantastic way to kill a few minutes. It was also designed by Justin Hook, a writer on the wonderful animated sitcom Bob's Burgers, so is a must for fans of the Belchers!

Benjamin Hiorns is a freelance writer and struggling musician from Kidderminster in the UK.

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