Mobile
Tech Hangover: MWC, the world’s biggest mobile show, cancelled
We’re all going to die, eventually.
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We get it, you have a life. There’s no way you can read all of the day’s news in one single shot, let alone visit every web page, which is why we’re here to help. Well, sort of.
There’s a ton of tech news we weren’t able to cover throughout the day (hey, give us a break, we’re a small independent outfit), so to help you stay up to speed with everything we didn’t get to, we rounded up some of the biggest stories, which should help you keep up to date. Hence the tech hangover.
Here’s some tech news you probably missed out on today (and when we say you, we mean us, but also…you).
The world’s biggest phone show has been canceled due to coronavirus concerns
Coronavirus, it’s coming for all of us. And with every major exhibitor dropping out for fears of getting stung with the scary C-word, the folks over at GSMA decided it hang it up this year. Phones ain’t worth dying for.
The world’s biggest phone show, Mobile World Congress, is no longer taking place this year. After coronavirus threatened to throw MWC into chaos, the GSM Association (GSMA), which organizes the show, has now canceled it. It comes after more than a week of exhibitors and companies pulling out of MWC. – The Verge
Andy Rubin’s Start-Up, Essential Products, Shuts Down
For folks who don’t know, this guy is one of Android’s co-founders and CEO at one point. He’s also been accused of some pretty serious sexual harassment claims too. But, coming back to this news of his start-up shutting down, I couldn’t explain it any better than this:
guess they weren't really that… essential ? https://t.co/SfnCnjNHep
— Mike Murphy (@mcwm) February 12, 2020
Essential Products, a consumer electronics start-up founded by the former Google executive Andy Rubin, said on Wednesday that it was ceasing operations. Once considered one of Silicon Valley’s most promising hardware technology start-ups, Essential had raised $330 million in outside funding because of the track record of Mr. Rubin, who is widely credited with creating Google’s Android smartphone software. –NYT
This App Automatically Cancels and Sues Robocallers
Image: Unsplash
Seriously, whoever made this deserves a Nobel Peace Prize.
DoNotPay, the family of consumer advocacy services meant to protect people from corporate exploitation, is launching a new app aimed at helping end our long national nightmare surrounding robocalls by giving you a burner credit card to get their contact details then giving you a chatbot lawyer to automatically sue them. – Motherboard
Juul Bought Ads On Cartoon Network, Nickelodeon, And Other Kids Websites, A New Lawsuit Claims
Image: Kevin Raposo / KnowTechie
If these claims are true. Juul is going to get buried. Good Looooooord.
Juul has long said that its nicotine vaping devices are meant for adult smokers, not adolescents. But internal company documents show that the e-cigarette giant’s early advertising campaigns explicitly targeted young people, helping spark the nationwide teen vaping crisis, the Massachusetts attorney general alleged in a lawsuit filed against the company Wednesday. – BuzzFeed News
Tim Sweeney: Android is a fake open system, and iOS is worse
Image: Polygon
Well, this is alarming.
Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney opened the Dice Summit game event in Las Vegas today with a call to make the industry more open and liberate it from the monopolistic practices of platform owners such as Google and Apple. – VentureBeat
And in just case you missed some of our stuff earlier, here’s what you may have missed:
- Logitech’s new StreamCam is a webcam made for video game streamers
- Activision Blizzard pulls out from Nvidia’s GeForce Now game streaming service
- Can your iPad Pro be used as a monitor?
- Here’s how to get Apple Music on Android
- Microsoft’s Project xCloud is now on iPhone and iPad – Here’s how to get it
- Samsung and Microsoft are partnering up to tackle Xbox cloud gaming
- Amazon is blowing out a ton of heated jackets in a massive one-day sale
- Woot is blowing out refurbished 13-inch MacBook Pro’s from 9 to 9
- Get certified on Microsoft 365 with this 4-course bundle
- Nintendo’s new Switch Online games for February are a snoozefest
- Twitter to ban deepfakes and other deceptive media
Notable Mentions
Nextdoor Wants to Be a One-Stop Shop for Police
The court let T-Mobile buy Sprint because Sprint completely sucks
Inside Mark Zuckerberg’s Lost Notebook
Facebook accidentally blacked out an entire language
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