Tech

Despite the proliferation of instant messaging services, our mobile-centric culture is still dependent on good old text messages. But what if those text messages never reached their recipients or only months after they made any sense? That's the rather strange situation that many in the US just experienced when Valentine's messages they sent months ago only reached their intended targets in November in the middle of the night.

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Smartphone cameras are getting more capable but they're still limited in at least two ways. For one, most are able to do only 4K video recording max. But even those that may be able to do 8K are, by design, unable to capture 360-degree content on the fly. For that, you usually need dedicated 360-degree cameras and the new QooCam 8K from Chinese manufacturer Kandao could be the smallest, cheapest, and most capable consumer product in the market right now.

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The smartphone market has also become a market for imaging sensors with cameras becoming one of if not the primary deciding factor in purchasing a new phone. The competition among Android phones is a close and strange one, with many of them using the same sensors. Apple's iPhones, in contrast, have always been in a league of their own and the latest iPhone 11 Pro Max is even more so with its first triple-lens system. DxOmark takes the phone through its testing protocols and, while impressive, still fails to wrest the crown from Huawei.

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If Pixel phones are supposed to represent Google's vision for the perfect Android phone, the Pixel 4 is doing a rather poor job at it. In addition to some concerns about face recognition security, the wasted potential of Soli radar, and the newly-revealed durability problem, the Pixel 4's screen is also generating some disappointment among owners. Fortunately, most of these problems can be fixed through software. Unfortunately, one such fix requires users to root their phones first.

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Android tablets have nearly died out with only a few big names supporting them. These slates now usually come only in two variants, the expensive high-end tablets like Samsung's Galaxy Tab S series and ultra-cheap options, including Amazon's Fire tablets. A few months ago, Lenovo announced two new tablets to join the ranks though on the lower end of that range. Now one of those, the Lenovo Tab M7, is finally available in the US and is even cheaper than what the company announced back in August.

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ZTE was the first recipient of the US government's wrath but, unlike Huawei, ZTE was forced to quickly bend the knee. Now that nightmare is far behind it and it is back in business. It has even reinstated its partnership with US carriers, like the Verizon-owned Visible. As proof of that, the two have just announced two new phones that try to address the mobile needs of those with very constrained budgets.

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Some signs over the past couple of months had teased the potential for a Disney+ launch that wouldn't include support for Amazon's Fire TV platform. In an announcement today, the company put those rumors to rest by confirming that Fire TV will support the Disney+ streaming service when it launches in a little over a week from now. Users will be able to download the Disney+ app from the Amazon App Store.

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Adobe Creative Cloud applications will soon support live-streaming, according to the company, enabling users to share their creations with fans in real-time. The announcement was made during the company's' MAX 2019 conference, during which Adobe also introduced its Photoshop and Illustrator for iPad products. In addition to making it easier for users to connect with fans, the built-in functionality could also open the door to educational opportunities.

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YouTube is rolling out a redesigned homepage on desktop and tablets, offering what it says is a UI that makes it easier for users to discover new videos to watch. Among other things, users will note the arrival of 'richer' thumbnails, as well as longer video titles that help the user see what, exactly, they're about to watch. As well, channel icons are easier to see, some content shelves have been removed, and more.

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Wireless carriers hiking plan pricing is nothing new, but we don't often see them attempting to frame those price hikes as if they're a gift to subscribers. That's exactly what AT&T is doing though, announcing today that it's giving customers on its Mobile Share plans more data each month, but it's also raising prices in the process. Customers, unsurprisingly, have no say in whether or not they get the extra data and therefore the price hike.

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Apple has released iOS 13.2.2, promising a fix for the apparent memory management issue that had caused some iPhone and iPad users big problems with multitasking. A not-insignificant number of iOS 13 users had been reporting that background apps were being closed in a far more aggressive way than previously, which was adding up to a headache in how they were trying to use their phones.

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T-Mobile really, really wants the Sprint merger to go ahead, and it's promising an even more affordable plan if it's allowed to combine the two networks. The New T-Mobile Connect prepaid plan, revealed today, would include 5G access but at half the price of the current cheapest plan the carrier offers in the US and Puerto Rico.

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