Animated Emoji wars heat up as Samsung partners with Disney on AR Emoji

By Gadjo Cardenas Sevilla

In case you missed it, animating yourself as various AR (Augmented Reality) Emoji characters is now as important as the specs, camera functionality and design of today's flagship phones.

The gauntlet was thrown down by Apple last year when it made Animoji a key feature of the iPhone X. Being able to talk and match facial expressions with various emoji animals was the sexy feature for one hot minute and led to a short deluge of TV ads and Animoji Karaoke videos.

Apple's Animoji did resonate with many users, although I'm not sure if they were a defining feature for people to consider purchasing the iPhone X.

Click to read more ...

Google rebrands Android Wear to 'Wear OS by Google'

There's been a long lull in Android Wear news, specially since smartphone companies left the platform in droves while traditional consumer watchmakers adopted the format bringing down the price and expanding the variety of connected timepieces available. No one seemed to notice.

The biggest issue with Android Wear is that it is stuck in circa 2014 hardware from Qualcomm, heavily limiting modern software features. Now rebranded as 'Wear OS by Google,' it looks like they are hoping to kickstart interest in the wearable platform. This isn't a great time for Google to mount an offensive. The Apple Watch is already the dominant smart watch (even as it is limited to iPhone use) and Fitbit has proven to be the master of fitness trackers now stepping up into the smartwatch space with more modest pricing.

Click to read more ...

Reddit will soon offer promoted posts to advertisers on its mobile apps

Similar to what Facebook has done, Reddit is gearing up to sell promoted posts to its advertisers for both Android and iOS apps. According to Marketing Land, Reddit sent out an email to its advertisers about this claiming that its mobile users account for 41 percent of the time its users spend on the site. Promoted posts have been available for the desktop since 2016. Reddit promises to get the same targeting as the desktop ones, which is by interest, community, geography, and device. These will also get upvotes, downvotes, and comments. It’s coming on Monday, March 19 to iOS users and will hit Android devices in the coming weeks.

Source: CNET

Drake breaks Twitch’s record for most-viewed, non-tournament stream while playing ‘Fortnite’

Canadian rapper Drake broke records in an unlikely place. He dropped into pro-gamer Tyler “Ninja” Blevins’s stream of the popular sandbox shooter Fortnite: Battle Royale with NFL rookie turned gamer JuJu Smith-Schuster (FaZeJuJu_19) and rapper Travis Scott (cactus_jackk92). In case you were curious, Drake’s username is TheBoyDuddus. At the peak of the stream, it hit over 635,000 concurrent viewers, which completely overtook Dr. DisRespect’s previous non-tournament stream record of 388,888. The streaming service’s all-time Twitch record goes to Eleague Major: Boston with over 1.1 concurrent viewers.

Source: Polygon