Samsung’s Galaxy takes off at Radio City: It was one of the most anticipated events on the tech calendar — the launch of a brand new Galaxy phone that is thinner, faster and lighter. (Does this remind anyone of the old PC world where feature upgrades were all that mattered?)
Samsung touted the new Galaxy S 4 smartphone as your new “life companion.” Launched at the Radio City Music Hall, it comes packed with a number of brand new software features that aren’t seen anywhere else. Touchless hand gestures are the new black (or an easy way to be mistaken as a crazy person on the NYC subway), as you can tilt, scroll, and swipe through pages without ever touching the screen. The S 4 is smart too — it’ll stop videos when you look away, track your health stats, even act as a TV remote control. Hmm, maybe I don’t need anything else in my life. Obviously the Android World is super excited!
Apple, throws an elbow: It seems like Apple decided it had had enough and that it was time to poke Samsung (and Android) in the ribs with its elbow. Apple’s Phil Schiller dissed his competitors, saying that buyers need more than flashy features to enjoy a long-term relationship with their phone — they need love. And really, don’t we all?
That said, developer/blogger Hilton Lipschultz wonders about Wall Street Journal’s agenda for Apple and aggregates what seems like a year’s worth of negative news on the company. John Gruber of Daring Fireball puts another Apple-vs-Samsung article by Reuters under the microscope. It is worth reading.
Sundar Pichai, SVP, Chrome and Apps, Google (left) and Scott Johnston, Group Product Manager, Google (right)
Tear down those walls, Mr. Pichai:Andy Rubin announced that he will be stepping down as head of Android, leaving Sundar Pichai, the man who currently heads up Chrome OS efforts, to lead both Chrome OS and Android. Though Andy has quite literally brought Android to life, this move has allowed us all to peek under Google’s skirt and see the future of the two platforms as the two will inevitably become one.
The questions to ask — was Chrome OS succeeding enough for Google to spend its energies on the platform? Or is it time for the company to put all its efforts behind Android and try to rein in the rogue Androids out there? Something to wonder about.
Reader, RIP: Google is doing its spring cleaning — in fact, it has been since 2011, killing off services that it doesn’t think are core to its overall mission. And it yanked life support for many such apps and services this week. The biggest of them is Google Reader, which has resulted in a massive hue-and-cry on the web.
If you hopped on Twitter to share your disbelief, you likely witnessed the entire seven stages of grief within minutes of the news breaking. You can thank step three — bargaining — for the petition to keep Google Reader alive, but the truth of the matter is that Reader may have had it coming. And while you’ll inevitably find a replacement RSS feed to deliver the news (step six), the real casualties are the folks in oppressed countries that will no longer have a censorship-free link to the outside world. Superfeedr has a list of some good replacement recommendations.
The location-centric app Highlight put Highlight t-shirts on some adorable dogs in Austin this weekend to promote the company. (And gather up dog fans.)
SXSW: it’s like Spring Break for tech people: Our team went to SXSW in Austin, had a great time, and found some interesting stories. But it was Eliza Kern who captured its spirit the best in her piece about being a SXSW newbie.
And now for some stories worth reading.
- With cities across the country fighting the rollout of Uber, will the FTC side with the car-on-call service?
- Does truth serum really work? Good question, but is there really a good answer?
- Harvesting energy from humans jumps from sci-fi movies to reality.
- Oh no, looks like Sistine Chapel is being bug proofed.
- Can anyone turn streaming music into a real business? Good question.
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