Skip to Main Content

News stories that caught our eye in March

Posted by Alex Warren on 31st March 2014

The Google Box

Over the last 10 years, Google has crept its way out of our search bars and into just about every aspect of our daily lives. We’ve embraced the search giant into our mobiles, our desktops, our browsers and even our clothing. Now however, Google has its eyes set on a whole new space… our living rooms. After much talk surrounding the death of television, Google has swooped in to save the day with its new Chromecast USB. The £30 device, which was launched to the UK this month, can turn any USB enabled television into a fully functioning Smart TV. By connecting to a user’s mobile, Chromecast can stream online services such as YouTube, Netflix and iPlayer to a standard TV.

#HappyBirthday Twitter

This month saw everyone’s favourite microblogging site celebrate its eighth year of 140 character, hashtagging glory. To commemorate such a monumental occasion, the social network unveiled a nostalgic tool, which allows users to revisit their first ever tweets (You can check yours out here). In the last eight years, Twitter – or Twittr as it was originally called – has grown into one of the world’s most popular social networks with over 600 million active users.

Watch this space: Introducing the Android Wear

Despite all the fanfare surrounding wearable tech, as of yet, nobody seems to have quite managed to get it right. First we had Google Glass, which – despite being embraced by the developer community – remains largely seen as a bit of a hipster fad. Then late last year, Samsung rushed its Galaxy Gear smartwatch to market with floptastic results. Despite these initial wobbles, the newly launched Android Wear appears to have made a strong impression on the tech community. Not only will it provide a stable OS for future wearable tech, it actually looks quite nice to boot. That and it doesn’t involve attaching anything to your face.

25 years of the WWW

On 12th March 1989, Tim Berners-Lee launched a technology that would go on to revolutionise the way we share cat pictures forevermore.  Originally used as a way to distribute academic articles, the World Wide Web soon became the largest compendium of collective knowledge known to man. Now, 25 years on, it’s impossible to imagine the world without it. If it weren’t for that initial spark of an idea we would have no Google, no Facebook, and most importantly of all… no Keyboard Cat.

photo credit: campuspartybrasil via photopin cc

Alex Warren

Alex Warren is an expert in AI and marketing technologies. He has published two books, Spin Machines, and Technoutopia and is regularly quoted in PR, marketing and technology media. In his role as a Senior Account Director at Wildfire he helps tech brands build creative strategies that deliver results and cut through the marketing BS.