Tech that...
A ROUND-UP OF THE LATEST NEWS IN THE DIGITAL WORLD
SAMSUNG FOLDS ON NEW PHONE
SAD news reaches us this week – Samsung has delayed the launch of its revolutionary new n folding phone in indefinitely. i
In an unmitigated PR disaster, a
n nt number of the phones they sent out t to reviewers across the globe d developed serious faults with the screen. Some of these seem to have involved the reviewer trying to peel off a protective layer from the screen that wasn’t supposed to be peeled off.
Anyway, user error or not, Samsung is taking some time out to work a little bit more on the screen, which may prove costly if it has to make major changes. The phone was due to launch in the US this week, and it’s hard to imagine there are not millions sat in boxes in a warehouse somewhere.
ALEXA – GOVERNMENT AGENT
THE government website gov.uk is a masterpiece of usability and it’s about to take things a step further.
This week we learned that more than 12,000 pieces of information from the site will now be accessible via Amazon’s Alexa, pictured, and the Google Assistant.
Not everything is available, obviously, but if you want to know when the next bank holiday is, or how you might go about renewing your car tax, you can now just ask your smart speaker.
If it is popular, more information will become available over time.
SOMETHING BIG FROM GOOGLE?
GOOGLE’S big I/O developer conference is just around the corner, and the search giant is promising “something big” will be announced on the opening day – May 7. Specifically, something in the “Pixel universe”.
Speculation suggests Google may be about to unleash a cheaper version of its Pixel phone.
FACEBOOK GETS THE MESSENGER
THINGS are changing quite quickly at Facebook – and the latest rumour about the social giant suggests plans to refocus the business on secure private messaging.
It seems Facebook is planning to bring its Messenger service back into the main Facebook app. This makes sense but is a little frustrating for users. Facebook spent quite a lot of time persuading users to switch to the standalone app, before forcing them by removing Messenger functionality.