This Week In Tech – April 28, 2020

Australia makes Facebook, Google and, others pay for news content, Apple Watch turns 5 years old, Motorola Hardware Event and, the Hubble Space Telescope turns 30. Like every week there’s more in the Other News section and an update on Let’s Talk Tech.

Australia

On Monday the government of Australia passed a regulation requiring Google and Facebook to pay local publishers to show snippets of the publisher’s articles that are shown in search, The idea isn’t new, in 2014 Google stopped offering Google News in Spain because of similar legislation.

Both FB and Google released statements saying that they believe that they positively contribute to local media by prioritizing their content.

Apple Watch

This week the Apple Watch turned 5 yrs old. Since it was announced (like many other Apple devices) it has been at the forefront of innovation in smartwatches. The Apple Watch has even saved a decent number of lives with its heart rate and EEG sensors and fall detection.

Motorola

On Wednesday Motorola held a virtual hardware event and released the review embargo on the new stuff. They announced their first flagship in a few years, its called the Edge Plus.

The phone has a whoppingly huge 6.7-inch FHD OLED screen with a Snapdragon 865, 90Hz refresh rate, 12GB of RAM, 256GB of internal storage, a 5,000mAh battery and it even has a headphone jack. I want this phone!!! It also supports 5G with mmWave, that’s not realistically super important since 5G is new it isn’t supported in most places yet. It releases on May 14 for $999 US.

Hubble

This week the Hubble Space Telescope celebrates its 30th anniversary. Hubble is one of the most influential space telescopes ever its made SO many huge discoveries such as:

  • the age and the expansion of the universe
  • black holes
  • supernova reappearance
  • mass and size of the milky way
  • and much much more

Hubble also took lots of those photos of space you see. Today as I’m filming this NASA is airing a bunch of celebration and commemoration stuff on MASA TV.

Other News

In other news, Facebook launches Facebook Gaming their Twitch competitor, HBO Max will launch on May 27, Fortnite is now in the Google Play Store and Google will hold Stadia Connect stream on April 28.

Link Dump

If you want more from The Tech News Source follow the site on Twitter at @technewssoure and also follow Me on Twitter at @SamGreenwoodTNS. If yu want to support The Tech News Source on a monthly basis go to patreon.com/thetechnewssource or by making a one-time donation at paypal.me/thetechnewssource. You can also go to my website to see more that I do including my photography and the occasional movie review at samgreenwood.ca.

I plan to finally post the inaugural episode of Let’s Talk Tech this coming Saturday. But since a couple of the DM-2 mission briefings are next Friday, they are taking place when I usually film LTT next week’s episode may be a little late. I may also release a video covering the news from the briefings.