There is much left on the cutting room floor again today. Summer usually isn’t very news-y, but for some reason the last week has. I didn’t even get to talk about the drone delivery pilot project at the Edmonton International Airport. Here are a few of the other stories I found interesting over the past few days.
Blue Origin Conducts Successful Sub Orbital Flight. Jeff Bezos Botches the Landing.
Blue Origin, the company funded by Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, successfully launched Jeff Bezos into space. This was a sub-orbital flight where the crew and passengers aboard the capsule experienced about 4 minutes of weightlessness before falling back to Earth.
Jeff Bezos then made some… poor… comments thanking Amazon employees and customers for getting him into space. Blue Origin stuck the landing. Jeff Bezos…. didn’t.
https://www.theverge.com/2021/7/20/22585470/jeff-bezos-blue-origin-space-amazon-customers
Samsung Announces Unpacked Event for August 11th
Samsung has officially announced its next Unpacked event, with the tagline “get ready to unfold.” The event is on August 11th and it is believed that Samsung will announce the next version of its foldable Galaxy Z series phones, the new Wear platform powered Galaxy Watches, and a new pair of wireless headphones.
The event takes place August 11th.
Netflix is Getting Into Cloud Video Games
As part of its earnings call, Netflix talked about the next frontier for the service: gaming. The company has recently hired an executive to oversee the effort, and will get into the business of game streaming. The company has said that it will focus first on mobile gaming, which makes sense as it means it can focus on experiences on touchscreen devices and not TV’s where additional hardware like controllers would be needed. It also said that these efforts will not be for an additional fee, games on the Netflix service will be part of the existing subscription. I’m skeptical but interested.
https://mobilesyrup.com/2021/07/20/netflix-video-games-expansion-mobile-focus/
Virgin Mobile Canada Rebrands to Virgin Plus
The Bell brand Virgin Mobile has rebranded to Virgin Plus. The company says this better reflects Virgin’s expanding brand reach, that Virgin Plus isn’t just a cell phone carrier. Which… sure.
https://mobilesyrup.com/2021/07/19/virgin-mobile-canada-officially-rebrands-to-virgin-plus/
Google Botches Chrome OS Update Badly, Causing Chromebooks to Cease Functioning
Google did an oops and pushed out a minor bugfix update to Chrome OS that caused some Chromebooks to fail to boot after a restart. The only options to resolve this will result in local data being lost. The bad update was apparently caused by a single typo. Yikes.
Pixel 4 XL Getting 1 Year Warranty Extension
Not much to add here. Google is extending the warranty of it’s Pixel 4 XL phone for users who have experienced power and battery issues because the phone has had widespread power and battery issues. If you have a Pixel 4 XL, this is good news.
https://support.google.com/pixelphone/answer/10169830
Really Looks Like Twitter is Going to Ruin Tweetdeck
Tweetdeck is beloved by many long time Twitter users for its multiple column view, better search options, better multi account support, and the fact that it doesn’t look like the Twitter website. Twitter has shared screenshots of its next generation of Tweetdeck… and it looks like it’s going to make Tweetdeck look a lot like the regular Twitter experience, which is the opposite of what Tweetdeck users want. So that’s cool.
https://www.theverge.com/2021/7/20/22585249/tweetdeck-redesign-twitter-column-deck
The MAGA inspired “Freedom Phone” is as Bad as it Sounds
So…. Some group has announced the Freedom Phone, a phone that it claims is free from censorship. The phone costs $500, appears to be a rebadged Chinese phone, and runs the Google Play Store. So it isn’t clear how this phone is “censorship” free.
Also the payment system was so poorly designed that initially users was able to stack coupon codes and order the phone for free. And now most of the payment processors have stopped the makers of the freedom phone from using them. As of this writing only Amazon Pay and Shopify were accepted payment methods.
I’m not sure if there’s anyone reading this who may have actually been interested in the Freedom Phone, but just… don’t.