In this episode of WRLWND Radio, Marcello Sukhdeo talks about some key things to look for in a messenger app, a bendable laptop from Lenovo, Spotify toying with sponsored songs and Dropbox planning to move away from the Internet.

Show Notes 

Messenger app

With so many messenger apps out there, like WhatsApp, Messenger, Facetime, iMessage, Telegram, Hangouts and Skype. How can you know which is the best one? So many choices and yes, all of these popular messaging apps have hundreds of thousands and even millions of users. 

Many today are selecting messaging apps based on the features that would best serve their individual needs. But there is something else to consider when choosing a messenger app. Because, not all of these messaging apps are equally reliable in ensuring your privacy and security.

To do so, here are four things to look for in a messenger app, you can even use these to see whether your favourite messenger app offers these protective measures: 

• Encryption
• Open-source
• Message deletion
• Minimum metadata storage

A bendable laptop

We’ve been hearing quite a bit about bendable phones and tablets but Lenovo wants to take us a step higher with a bendable laptop.

At Lenovo Transform event recently in New York recently, Lenovo shows off what it thinks may be the future of mobile computing: a bendable laptop. Bendable in the sense of a paper.

Lenovo's senior vice president of commercial business unveiled the concept.

The company did not disclose how the screen will be made to bend but said that the laptop will be made of "advanced materials" and "new screen technologies."

WiFi Speakers

WiFi speaker sales have taken off during the last few years and even recently we’ve heard about Apple joining the party as well with the HomePod which is expected later this December.

As we await the HomePod, a new report from Strategy Analytics gives us a look at the current state of Wi-Fi speaker sales. The report shows that Amazon with its push of Echo and other Alexa-enabled WiFi speakers was able to surpass shipments from Sonos that has mostly ruled the majority of the market since 2014.

The report notes that Apple’s HomePod, priced at $349, is expected to compete more directly with Sonos products due to Apple’s focus on sound quality and music versus Amazon and Google’s approach that tend to focus on smart assistant features. 

Tech Bytes

• Spotify is experimenting with a new form of sponsored content that’s already rubbing some users the wrong way. 

Sponsored Songs, as it’s called, is a new ad unit currently in testing that allows labels to promote singles on Spotify’s free tier. Sponsored Songs appear on playlists you follow as instantly playable and savable tracks. They are not like traditional ads and can be targeted to “fit in” with other tracks on a given playlist. 

• Last week, a working 1976 Apple-1 Personal Computer sold for $355,000 in an auction hosted by Christie's New York.

The Apple-1 PC was the company's first personal computer, hand built by Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs in the confines of Jobs' garage. Though the computer comes without a casing and power supply, it's the first to have its own motherboard, which set it apart from competitors. 

• Many internet-based companies rely on major cloud service providers to stay online, but Dropbox is going in the opposite direction. Last year it moved most of its users' data off AWS and on to its own cloud storage network. Now Dropbox wants to ditch the internet in favor of its own private network.

 

Thanks for listening.