Pedes3antech Weekly (June 16-22)

Last week was another full week of tech news still dominated by new revelations about the NSA PRISM program and what will happen to the person who leaked the intel. Last week, the US government formally charged Edward Snowden with Espionage and has requested Hong Kong for his extradition. The president of the USA, Barack Obama also gave an interview defending the PRISM program and re-assuring people that their privacy is not in danger. 

There were a few significant announcements made related to the gaming industry last week- the biggest of all was Microsofts announcement cancelling the two most contentious policies it planned to implement with the Xbox One. These policies were namely i. the requirement to connect to the internet once every 24 hrs, and ii. their policy on sharing and re-selling games. The Xbox One reversal was met with mixed reactions- some people calling it a victory for the gamers while others call it the death of innovation in the gaming industry. Nvidia's project "Shield" handheld gaming console is set to hit the market on June 27 for $299 opening up another window for growth in the Android eco-system. Oculus VR Inc. has also announced it was able to secure $16 million in investments from a new group that will bring the much anticipated Oculus Rift to the masses. 

In socialmedia, the biggest shake up was Facebook's announcement that Instagram will now support Video sharing ala-Vine. What sets Instagram video apart are two things: i. Video length 15 sec. vs Vine's 6 sec and ii. Instagram filters vs Vine's no filters. The new feature was met with a lot of enthusiasm from existing Instagram users as they upload 5 million videos in just 24 hours. The noise this announcement made was good for Facebook as it muted another announcement it made this week- that a security bug has exposed millions of its users emails and phone numbers. 

Those are just the highlights of this week in tech news. You can read more about them in my Flipboard online magazine here.

If you want to stay up to date with the biggest news and trends in technology, subscribe to my Flipboard online magazine here or contribute. 

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