STACK #187 May 2020

LIFE TECH NEWS

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WUKKA- WUKKA- WUKKA!

MOTOROLA SAYS, “HOLD MY BEER!”

N o, that’s not a bad Fozzie Bear impersonation, it’s a bad Pac-Man impersonation! Why? The little yellow dude is celebrating his 40th birthday this month, more specifically on May 22. Pac-Man is the biggest- selling arcade machine of all-time, a testament to its creator Toru Iwatani’s aim to create a game that would appeal to women as much as men. Originally known as ‘Puckman’ in its native Japan, but changed due to concerns about less than savoury machine defacement in the western world, the maze-set adventures of Pac-Man and his adversaries Inky, Blinky, Pinky and Clyde spawned several sequels, and became a pop culture behemoth with all manner of marketing and even more than one TV series. The character of Pac-Man is claimed to be one of the most recognisable images worldwide. Pac-Man ’s maker, Bandai Namco, have several special things planned to celebrate releases and, believe it or not, a Tamagotchi. There’s even an official anniversary theme song, Join the Pac (https://youtu.be/ nqEAQnxh6xc). So, happy birthday, Pac-Man, and thanks for all the great ghost gobbling memories. the 40-year milestone, including events, new

M otorola have adopted a higher, louder, bolder attitude with their Android- based Edge+ 5G smartphone, which is releasing this month. Pick a spec, any spec, and they’re aiming to be the best out there. They’re claiming that the new phone offers the fastest performance and 5G speeds (this one reliant, of course, on network performance), the highest resolution smartphone camera, the loudest audio and the boldest display. Much of the speed will come from what the company bills as “Fastest. Processor. Ever.” This speediness will be down to the Qualcomm Snapdragon 865 Mobile Platform processor that the Edge+ runs on. It has an AI engine that they claim can

process 15 trillion operations per second – coupled with 12GB of DDR5

memory, Candy Crush Saga will never be the same! The “louder” claim? The Edge+ houses two powerful stereo speakers, claimed to produce the most powerful output yet from a smartphone, complete with audio tuning fromWaves. Plus, there’s a headphone jack – a super-useful thing that’s becoming a rarity in today’s smartphones. Bolder? Try a 6.7" “Endless Edge” 1080p display, complete with HDR+. Those who use their phone as their camera won’t be disappointed, either, with the Edge+’s 108-megapixel,

triple-camera system allowing top photography from extreme close-ups right up to ultra-wide landscapes. Add to this a whopping wirelessly chargeable 5000mAh battery and a “more pure” take on Android that doesn’t clog your phone with junk skins and apps, and the Edge+ is definitely one sharp smartphone.

G oogle have announced a tweak to their search engine, that will essentially admit if a query has stumped it – the message: “It looks like there aren’t any great matches for your search.” So, there may be some average matches, but nothing “great”. Hmm… As always – well, unless you enter something like “shnjegsdbrfhjbrgvouicxvasd”, they’ll still offer up some possible solutions, but they don’t necessarily have faith that they’re what the user is after. Naturally, upon seeing this we had to try to get the message for ourselves. Despite coming up with all sorts of wonderful – and often rather weird – conundrums for the search engine, we were left defeated. Still, Google do say that the feature shouldn’t show up too often. Our quest continues… TAKE THE GOOGLE CHALLENGE

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MAY 2020