The High Tech Society’s Tech News Recap

December 8-14th 2012

By Trish Rounsaville

This week in tech news we have seen the launch of the iPhone 5 in many different countries, a planned bank cyberattack, the Google maps release for iPhone, and a new look for Yahoo mail.In this article, we are going to give you a short recap of all of the latest tech related news for the week of December 8-14th, 2012.

Voting Closes on Facebook Policy Changes

A week long open vote on Facebook’s proposed policy changes came to a close earlier this week. In order for the results to be binding, Facebook needed more than 30% of users to participate in the vote. According to Facebook, they have over a billion users, which means more than 300 million users had to vote. Unfortunately, only 2% of that amount actually voted.
The few that did vote mostly voted to stick with the existing policies rather than change them. But Facebook must now decide whether to proceed with the updates or not. One of the proposed changes is to do away with the voting system completely.

Unmanned Blackhawk Helicopters Now Possible

Unmanned aircraft have been around for quite some time with military and scientific drone planes, and autopilot technology has alrady made automated flight possible for short distances. But for the first time ever a Black Hawk helicopter has successfully flown an unmanned flight using terrain mapping technology, which actually tracks the ground. A qualified pilot was in the copter in case of emergency but was not needed, as the chopper flew for 2 hours without any problems.

Yahoo Mail Revamped

On Tuesday, Yahoo rolled out a new suite of email apps for every major platform including the new Apple iOS and Windows 8. Yahoo also redesigned clients for both the Internet and Android. The new update is one of the production overhauls released by Yahoo’s new CEO, Marissa Mayer, who has pledged to revamp Yahoo’s languishing collection of web sites and apps.
Following Google’s redesign of Gmail and Microsoft’s new Hotmail/Outlook, Yahoo apps now have a much cleaner look, although it still looks and feels a few years behind it’s competition. Among the new apps is the iOS app  for Apple devices, this app probably has the most modern look and feel, although a lot of that comes from the built in iOS tools that are already used by Twitter, Facebook, and Google.

Google Maps for iPhone Launched

Google Maps for the iPhone is now available in the Apple store as a new app. It is expected that this new application will temporarily replace the built in Apple Maps, which users have reported as a disaster, with bad directions and distorted landscapes being only part of the problem.While users can download Google Maps from the Apple store, there is not yet a version available for the iPad. The new Google app includes features that are new for the iPhone, but have been available for Android for some time:

• Voice guided turn by turn directions
• Estimated travel time
• Indoor views of Google Street View Businesses
• 3D Building vectors.

There are many other features available, including the ability to search Google maps to find local businesses.

iPhone 5 Launches in 33 Countries

On Friday, Apple released the iPhone 5 in 33 different countries, in a global roll out that moved westward across the world. Video’s showed that the reception varied a great deal between countries. In Malaysia and Indonesia, customers lined up to purchase the device. However, in Beijing, the turnout was unexpectedly low. This could be blamed on heavy snow, but there was no snow in Shanghai, nor were there any lines for the new product.

 

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