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Portless laptop, 500Hz+ refresh rate monitor, new Chrome logo, and more from Last Week

Sudarshan Ravichandran — Mon, 07 Feb 2022 07:53:17 +0000

The last week in tech was sort of slow. Mostly because of the Chinese New Year. But that doesn’t mean there weren’t any important stories. For instance, we witnessed the announcement of two big acquisitions, a popular battle royale game made its way to mobile phones, a laptop with no ports, and more. Like every week, we have compiled a list of the top 10 stories based on our opinion. We have listed them below in no particular order.

As you all know that everyone’s opinions differ from each other, we would like to know your top picks after going through this article. Make sure to drop them in the comment section at the end of this post.

Top Stories from Last Week

The New York Times acquires Wordle

On January 31, The New York Times announced its acquisition of popular word game Wordle for an undisclosed price in the low seven figures. The publication assured the existing and new players that the game will continue to remain free to play and there will be no changes in its gameplay.

At the same time, Josh Wardle, the developer of the game, issued a statement that he will work with NYT to transfer wins and streak of long-time players. Wordle was originally released in October but its popularity skyrocketed in January.

Craob X – A laptop without ports

An unknown company called Craob announced a portless concept laptop dubbed Craob X last Monday (January 31). We don’t think this product will ever hit the market, however, the idea is interesting.

This notebook without ports has slim bezels around the display, 7mm thickness, and 0.8kg weight. The computer charges via a magnetic charger that attaches to its back like an Apple MagSafe charger for iPhones.

Lastly, this charger also acts as a hub for ports. It includes all the essential ports, including an SD card slot and a 3.5mm headphone jack.

Apex Legends now available on smartphones

Apex Legends: Mobile finally gets a soft launch after months of beta testing. The battle royale game is now available for download on Android in countries like Argentina, Colombia, Mexico, Peru, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Australia, and New Zealand.

Whereas, interested players in other regions can pre-register the game on the Google Play Store. Unfortunately, there’s no word on iOS as of now.

The developer of the game had previously confirmed that it will be fully released for Android and iOS by 2022.

India to get 5G networks soon

On February 1, the Finance Minister of India officially confirmed that the auction of 5G airwaves in the country will begin later this year. The commercial rollout of the next-gen mobile networks is expected to start by the end of March 2023.

At the same time, the government is planning to introduce fiber internet connections across all villages by 2025.

A monitor with a 500Hz+ refresh rate

BOE is slowly growing to be an alternative to Samsung Display and LG Display. The company has announced various breakthroughs in the past. Last week, it showcased the world’s first monitor with a 500Hz+ refresh rate.

This panel has a 27-inch LCD panel with an FHD (1080p) resolution and an oxide backplane. It supports 8-bit color, 8Lane eDP output, and up to 1ms response time.

OPPO Reno7 series debut in India

The OPPO Reno7 series made its debut in India last week. The lineup consists of two models, namely OPPO Reno7 and OPPO Reno7 Pro. They are priced at ₹28,999 and ₹39,999 respectively. The handsets offer MediaTek chipsets, 65W fast charging, stunning design, capable camera system on the Pro, and more.

These smartphones were accompanied by OPPO Watch Free and OPPO Enco M32 in blue color. As far as the phones are concerned, the Pro is the same as the model sold in China, whereas the vanilla variant is totally different.

Google Chrome gets a new logo

Google Chome gets a new logo after 8 years. The new logo is slightly different for every platform. They will go live in the next few months.

First and foremost, there’s no change in color except their saturation. Secondly, the logo no longer has shadows.

As far as platform-specific changes are concerned, the new Google Chrome logo has a gradient on Windows, a 3D look on macOS, and a flat look on Chrome OS. Additionally, the Chrome Beta gets a ribbon with a ‘BETA’ tag on macOS and a blueprint-like finish on iOS.

An interesting budget smartphone from OnePlus

Key specs of a phone called OnePlus Nord CE 2 Lite leaked last week. The features of this handset are so unique for a OnePlus-branded budget smartphone, we expect it to compete against the Redmi Note 11 Pro 5G.

The device is said to come with a 6.59-inch FHD display, Qualcomm Snapdragon 695 SoC, 64MP + 2MP + 2MP triple camera setup, 16MP selfie camera, 5,000mAh battery, and 33W fast charging.

Sony is acquiring Bungie

A few days after the Microsoft-Activision Blizzard acquisition deal, Sony made an announcement of it buying Bungie on January 31. The deal is said to cost $3.6 billion for the Japanese tech giant.

Bungie will remain independent under Sony after the acquisition. The studio will continue to work with other platforms.

Realme 9 Pro series gets a launch date

On February 3, Realme disclosed that the Realme 9 Pro series will go official at 1:30 PM IST on February 16. The lineup includes two devices, namely Realme 9 Pro and Realme Pro+.

As the name suggests, the Realme 9 Pro+ will be the better of the two with features like an in-display hybrid sensor for fingerprint and heart rate, OIS-enabled 50MP Sony IMX766 primary camera, MediaTek Dimensity 920 chip, and more.

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Wordle gets acquired by The New York Times for a “low-seven figures” price

Zohaib Ahmed — Tue, 01 Feb 2022 11:11:20 +0000

Wordle has officially been acquired by The New York Times. The game, which has lately been the cause of your Twitter feed being filled with colored blocks, was purchased for “an undisclosed price in the low-seven figures.”

NYT announced the deal on Monday, saying that the game will be free to play for new and existing players and that no changes will be made to its gameplay.

Since Josh Wardle, a software engineer in Brooklyn, released the guessing game in October 2021, Wordle has grown exponentially in popularity. Only 90 people played it on November 1, but just around a couple of months later, you got millions grinding daily.

For the uninitiated, Wordle is basically a word guessing game, only that it’s limited to 5 letter words. It offers 6 tries and each wrong guess offers new clues to the right answer using a color-coded block system. Yellow letters are correct guesses in the wrong spot, while green letters match up with the solution.

Until now, the game has been completely free-to-play and isn’t bundled with ads or in-app purchases. There’s no Play Store listing either and it can only be played on the browser. This does not appear to be changing anytime soon and Wordle will only be added to the existing NYT catalog of engaging puzzle games.

Wardle pushed a statement to Twitter confirming he’ll be working with NYT to transfer player scores along with the game itself when its ownership is switched. He also admitted that the New York Times has played a big part in the game’s origin, so the acquisition feels “very natural.”

Peter Thiel Thinks The Age of Apple is Over

Habeeb Onawole — Thu, 12 Jan 2017 15:26:20 +0000

PayPal Co-Founder and Facebook board member, Peter Thiel has said in a recent interview that he thinks that the age of Apple is over.

The statement was made during a Q&A session called Confirm or Deny, a segment of the New York Times. Replying to the question of whether the age of Apple is over, Mr Thiel says “Confirm. We know what a smartphone looks like and does. It’s not the fault of Tim Cook, but it’s not an area where there will be any more innovation.”

It seems Peter Thiel is one of those who think we have reached the top of the curve when it comes to innovation with respect to smartphones. Currently, more than half of Apple’s revenue from the last two years is from the iPhone and for the first time in more than a decade, Apple’s annual profit fell in 2016 due to a fall in the sales of the iPhone.

While it is too early to say if Apple’s glory days are coming to an end or have ended, we can all agree that innovation when it comes to smartphones have been a bit stagnant. Google has abandoned Project Ara and LG and Lenovo/Motorola’ stab at modularity was not well received. Though the Moto Z did a better job but the cost of the phone and the individual cost of the mods might have contributed to it not being much of a success.

Other notable statements he made during the session include Google’s dominance during the Obama Administration and that Facebook is not a media company.

Do you think the age of Apple is over? Please drop a comment in the box below.

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