Weekend Wrap-Up: Google Unveils Android Wear; Mt. Gox Finds 200,000 Bitcoins
It’s Sunday, which means we’re once again filling you in on the past week’s top tech stories. That’s right — it’s Weekend Wrap-Up time. Buckle in and watch our video version below, or scroll down a bit further to read what went on last week in the tech world.
Android Wear: Google’s Take on the Smart Watch
Google is no stranger to the wearables game; after all, the company’s futuristic Glass experiment has been going on for a few years now. But the smart watch isn’t something Google has tackled yet. That’ll change in the near future, as Android Wear promises to put Google’s mobile OS on wearables from companies like LG, Motorola, Samsung and more. The big question now is, will Apple respond soon with a watch of its own?
Mt. Gox Finds 200,000 Missing Bitcoins in an Old Wallet
The headline above sounds totally ridiculous, to the point where you might wonder, is it made up? It’s not. Mt. Gox, the bitcoin exchange that filed for bankruptcy protection after losing 750,000 customer bitcoins, actually found 200,000 of them in a wallet it thought was empty. The value? Around $114 million, which isn’t chump change. There are still a lot of bitcoins unaccounted for, so the exchange isn’t out of the woods yet. My suggestion: check dirty pairs of jeans and also look under the car seat. I lose money in those places all the time.
Apple Retires the iPad 2, Replaces it with the Fourth-Gen Model
Apple is slowly but surely doing away with non-Retina devices in almost every product category. The latest casualty is the three-year-old iPad 2, which is being shoved out the door in favor of the more powerful and higher-resolution fourth-generation iPad. With the iPad 2’s exit, the $299 iPad mini is the last remaining iPad that doesn’t have a Retina display. Now, if Apple could prioritize a Retina-enhanced MacBook Air…
Amazon Could Release a Smartphone with Six Cameras
There have been Amazon smartphone rumors floating around for years, but none have been as wild as this one. It seems the company plans to release an Amazon phone this year that would tie heavily into the Amazon ecosystem, and would also have another trick up its sleeve: six cameras. An analyst believes that two of the cameras would be for photos — the traditional front and back cameras — and the other four would be used for gesture control, allowing users to manipulate the OS without actually touching the display. We’ve seen this a tiny bit in Samsung’s latest Galaxy S smartphone, but Amazon’s supposed implementation sounds way more advanced. Will it ever see the light of day, though? We’ll have to wait to find out.