Last Week’s Tech Trends: What You Missed
As a new week begins let’s recap some of the biggest tech stories that made waves last week starting with this one:
1. Social media being banned in Zambian government offices. This will happen in the near future in order to promote productivity in government offices due to civil servants going to work to basically browse their social media rather than do their job. This ban is not illegal, with other companies around the world known to have set limits on access to social media and only opening it up either during lunch break or after hours. Read more about that here.
2. Instagram made emojis hashtag-able: Starting last week, users of popular picture-sharing app Instagram could now use emojis with hashtags in their captions, and search for other users using the same ones. It’s not so wow reading about it so why not use it for yourself first? Instagram also introduced 3 new filters called Lark, Reyes and Juno. In its blog, Instagram said that the filters are ‘inspired by weekend adventures outdoors, Lark, Reyes and Juno are a family of modern, subtle filters that brighten and enhance your photos in refined, beautiful ways. Lark desaturates reds while punching up blues and greens to bring your landscapes to life. Reyes brings a dusty, vintage look to your moments. And finally, Juno tints cool tones green while making warm tones pop and whites glow for vibrant photos of people.’ You can read more here.
3. Facebook Messenger has video calls: Rivals Skype and Viber better be awake for this one because tech giant Facebook just decided to play ball and improve its VoIP services to include video calling. Thsi service was first rolled out to Belgium, Canada, Croatia, Denmark, France, Greece, Ireland, Laos, Lithuania, Mexico, Nigeria, Norway, Oman, Poland, Portugal, the UK, the US and Uruguay for both iOS and Android, and by now has spread to other countries as well. Read more on that here.
4. LG G4 released: As shown in the image above, the leather-backed LG G4 was released last week, with pre-orders being made available in the United Kingdom first at a price tag of around £500. However, there are other sellers on Amazon from whom you can buy the device. if you want it THAT bad. The features are quite impressive, having a better front camera than its G3 predecessor and improving on the processor for faster connections and performance. It’s even been compared to latest flagships the Samsung Galaxy S6 and iPhone 6 devices, but to see if it can beat them both will require a hands-on review. LG is really trying to keep with the tech devices being thrown at the world, huh? See more of the LG G4 story here.
