This Week in Tech

Google is now Alphabet 

MANILA, Philippines - Google shook the tech world after announcing that Google Inc. will now be known as Alphabet Inc. What is Alphabet? CEO Larry Page explains in a blogpost, “Alphabet is mostly a collection of companies. The largest of which, of course, is Google. This newer Google is a bit slimmed down, with the companies that are pretty far afield of our main Internet products contained in Alphabet instead.” It appears the name Google has become insufficient to cover the wide variety of things that Page and co-founder Sergey Brin are now diving into thus the need for a parent company. Sundar Pichai, former senior vice president, is now the CEO of a slightly slimmed down Google. Other companies under the Alphabet’s umbrella will also have their own CEOs. 

Cherry Mobile launches G1

Cherry Mobile, the Philippines’ largest smartphone manufacturer, just launched a new Android One powered smartphone called the G1. The phone is available in black and white and is priced at Php 5,999. Specs are pretty decent for its price point: a five-inch display, two LTE enabled SIM card slots, 2GB of RAM, and a 13 megapixel main camera. We’re pretty excited about Android One as it gives users the true experience Google had intended for Android. It’s a clean and simple interface that doesn’t have any customizations from phone manufacturers on it – which in the budget segment is almost always good news! 

Periscope hits 10M users

Just four months since it launched, live streaming app Periscope has hit 10 million registered users. The company says the amount of video streamed on the service per day has hit a whopping 40 years worth of video. Per day! If you haven’t heard about Periscope yet, it’s an iOS and Android based service that lets users to broadcast from their smartphones. Users send hearts to show love, and can interact live by sending in questions and comments.

Twitter removes 140 character limit for DMs

Twitter users are familiar with the now famous (on infamous) 140 character limit. This week the microblogging service announced it was lifting the limit – but only for Direct Messages. Twitter says it is doing this so that it can make the, “private side of Twitter even more powerful and fun.” The move is seen as part Twitter’s goals to also position itself also as a messaging tool. Recently it rolled out group direct messages, so that users could use the service like it would a messaging client like Viber or Line.