The Apple Beat: Pressure mounts on Apple to make iPhone 7 truly great

By Gadjo Cardenas Sevilla

“Skate to where the puck is going to be, not to where it has been,” that’s a quote by the Great One, Wayne Gretzky, which Steve Jobs referenced during the momentous launch of the original iPhone in 2007.

Jobs continued by saying, “we try to understand as we develop our product road map, what’s going to be exciting in the future. And that’s one of the advantages we have over our competitors. Our competitors tend to put the cross hairs on where we are now, and by the time they come up with a product that tries to match where we are now, we’re beyond them. We’re one or two generations beyond, moving faster than they are.”

That was the spirit of innovation that powered the Apple engine and that’s what made the iPhone such an audacious, brave and, in hindsight, timely invention. But the world has changed and while Apple is still the most valuable company, the pressure is on to see if it is still the most innovative.

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Mark Zuckerberg talks VR’s role in Facebook’s future

“VR [virtual reality] is the next platform, where anyone can create and experience anything they want,” Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg said at Samsung’s event at Mobile World Congress 2016 in Barcelona, Spain. VR has always been something Zuckerberg has been interested in and it’s helping guide him as he thinks about the future of his social media platform. He believes the future for Facebook will be immersive and it’ll bring people even closer together. And that this idea isn’t that far off. Facebook as we know is invested in virtual reality. They do own Oculus and they started working with Samsung to develop their own Gear VR headset, which uses technology from Oculus.

“Pretty soon, we’re going to live in a world where everyone has the power to share and experience whole scenes as if you’re just right there in person,” Zuckerberg said. And with the new 360-degree cameras from the likes of Samsung and LG, it truly can happen sooner. Facebook already supports 360-degree videos on its platform. According to Facebook’s CEO, there are already 20,000 videos of that kind on his platform but work still has to be done. “One day soon, all of us will have the power to broadcast live. To do that, we’re going to have to solve a lot of really complex engineering problems.” But he reiterates that Facebook and Oculus are committed to VR “for the long term” and new VR games are expected to come out this year.

Source: PCWorld

LG announces Stylus 2 mid-range smartphone

LG has announced the midrange Stylus 2 which boasts a 5.7-inch 720p HD display as well as a 1.2 GHZ quad-core processor, 1.5 GB of RAM, 16GB of onboard storage and a 13MP rear facing camera backed by a 8 MP front-facing camera along with a 3,000Ah battery. Expected to be fully revealed at Mobile World Congress, the LG Stylus 2 features a stylus pen, although what sort of specific apps or functionality this accessory offers is still a mystery as is pricing and availability.

Source: Phandroid

CES 2016: LG's flexible OLED display points to the future of tablets and mobile devices

LG has come up with the most impressive concept so far at CES 2016. The 18-inch flexible OLED display above is surprisingly thin and can be rolled up like a newspaper or a magazine while maintaining a high resolution image. Flexible displays are nothing new, this is just the next step to the curved displays that were all the rage a few years ago as well as smaller, fabric-like displays we've seen in the past.

Where LG has succeeded is making OLED displays that offer great potential for even thinner or flexible mobile devices, wearables and even wraparound displays. It's nice to see that displays aren't just getting thinner and offering more resolution but are now more malleable for various uses.

Source: LG