Weekly Rewind: January 25 2019
This week's round-up of online info highlights a new angle for phones, emphasises calm as you whiz around town and sounds the warning bell for ad blockers.
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4. Xiaomi aims for a new angle on phone screens
Single fold phone screens are, like, so 2018... a number of companies, includiung Samsung, have annouced in the recent past that they're working on a phone that enables you to fold the screen in half. Well, as Tech Crunch reported this week, Chinese company Xiaomi has released footage on social media of its president and co-founder, Bin Lin, interacting with its own new devide which allows you to fold the screen from two hinged points, effectively turning the screen from a tablet-sized display to a more traditioanl phone size. It looks pretty cool but Xiaomi hasn't yet decided whether it will bring the prototype design to market yet so you'll just have to make do with boring old unfoldable phones for now!
3. Have a break... take an Uber
With hectic modern lifestyles, it can be hard to set aside time for mindfulness. So, rather than spend your Uber journey mindlessly scrolling through Instagram or checking your emails, why not use the time for meditation instead? As reported in the Evening Standard, Uber has just unveiled a new partnership with mindfulness app Calm, which will give passengers access to a series of new guided meditations and breathing exercises, accessible in the Uber app. Available in different lengths corresponding to the most common Uber journey times (three minutes, five minutes and 30 seconds, 12 minutes and 20 seconds, and 30 minutes), the sessions are designed to help you relax or improve focus whilst you're on the move. So go on, give it a go - anything that lowers your blood pressure while navigating London's dire traffic has got to be worth a shot.
2. Amazon announce home delivery device, Scout 
Amazon have just announced their new local delivery robot called, simply, Scout. This ‘last mile’ delivery vehicle will be followed by an employee at first and operate only during daylight hours. Eventually if the programme is deemed successful we may see these little guys rolled out across the world. According to CNBC the release is a challenge to start-ups already in the space like Starship, TeleRetail and Marble.
1. Google plans a polish to Chrome to unblock ads
OK, we all love ads, yeah? That’s why we work in advertising. But, let’s face it, there’s also a strong chance that we might employ a little bit of ad-blocking technology to avoid having banners, buttons and towers in our face all of the time. I mean, as James Blake so rightly said, there’s a limit to your love. Well it looks as though those clever cats at Google might just be amending their Chrome browser to make such commercial messages unblockable.
As reported on the Beeb, the tech giant said the update would mean extensions can only look at the incoming data rather than alter it, in order to improve security and privacy of users. Unsurprisingly, many ad-blocking services, such as Ghostry and uBlock Origin have been up-in-arms about the proposed change and questioning the supposed benefit. Whatever happens, just be assured that here at shots we’ll keep on delivering the best quality commercial content and Google can’t stop us from blocking the wrong-uns.
