Lots of pretty significant stories over the weekend. Here is a selection of what I found most interesting.
Google Announces Pixel 4a
Google has finally announced the Pixel 4a, the replacement for the previously discontinued Pixel 3a. The 4a is a budget smartphone, priced at $480 in Canada. It is very much a mid range phone, except for the camera. Pixel phones have always had excellent cameras, and reviews for the 4a tell the same story.
This looks like a fantastic phone for the price, and on the Android side of the fence appears to be the best phone you can buy in anything close to this price range. If camera quality is important but you don’t want to spend over a thousand dollars, this is the phone to buy. Hands down. The phone is available to pre-order now for release on August 20.
https://www.androidcentral.com/google-pixel-4a-review
Tik Tok Drama
There has been some significant drama around Tik Tok over the weekend. US President Donald Trump has threatened to ban Tik Tok in the US, though it remains unclear how he can accomplish it. The President went so far as to say on Friday night that he would be signing the order on Saturday. As of this writing on Monday afternoon, no such order has been signed. His stated reasoning is the flawed belief that Tik Tok is a Chinese app. The reality is that while the parent company of the app is headquartered in China, Tik Tok itself is run by a subsidiary, and all Tik Tok’s data already lives on US servers. The company has gone so far as to make a separate, similar app for China, while Tik Tok is for the rest of the world. There is belief that the President wants to ban Tik Tok in retaliation for users of the platform scooping up tickets to his Tulsa rally where his campaign boasted they had 1 million registrants, but saw him speak to a half empty arena.
The day after the President stated he would be banning Tik Tok, it was revealed that Microsoft was in talks to buy Tik Tok and manage it’s operations in the US. These negotiations are ongoing, with Microsoft confirming they hope to buy Tik Tok in September. There is reporting that Microsoft would host the data and the service’s infrastructure on it’s Azure platform, and find a partner to run Tik Tok operationally.
The Verge - Trump Threatens to Ban Tik Tok
The Verge - Microsoft Wants Tik Tok
SpaceX’s Dragon 2 Splashes Down After 2 Months in Space
SpaceX’s Crew Dragon Demo-2 flight successfully splashed down in the Gulf of Mexico with 2 NASA astronauts on board. This marks a successful return to Earth after 2 months in space. The mission appears to be a complete success with no technical issues whatsoever, and should lead the way for SpaceX to begin operational flights to the Internaional Space Station, the first of which is scheduled to send 4 astronauts (3 from NASA and one from the Japanese space agency) to the station in September for a 6 month stay. SpaceX gives NASA the ability to send astronauts to space from US soil through a US company for the first time since the Space Shuttle was retired in 2011, the largest gap in this capability since NASA began sending humans into space in 1961.
Twitter Floats Idea of a Subscription Service
This one is curious to me. Twitter has sent out surveys to some users asking about what features they may like in a paid subscription service. Adding a paid tier to Twitter would be a significant departure for social media platforms, as there are currently no mainstream platforms that do offer paid tiers. The survey’s suggested features indicate that this could be more geared towards businesses and people who use Twitter as a platform that helps them gain an income, so it may not be very useful to an average user. It is still interesting to watch where this goes.
Run Mac OS 8… As An App
Lastly, just some fun. Someone has created an app that contains a fully functional Macintosh OS 8 operating system, along with some apps inside. Apparently the OS can even connect to the internet, though the built in browsers are so old they do not work with modern websites.
This is just fun stuff, and if you’ll excuse me I’ll be playing with it for the next hour.