Technological innovations are now being introduced by the minute. You never know what is going to happen to your App following your next update or what new feature you’ll experience. When it comes to texting, we have seen trends shift from normal keypad, to QWERTY keyboard and finally to touchscreen QWERTY keyboards. WhatsApp’s latest feature might eliminate the use of a keyboard. They recently announced a new feature which will allow used to voice type their messages. So, now you can put your fingers to other use and let your mouth do the texting.
This new feature enables users to start dictating a message in the app using a new mic icon on the keyboard. Users simply need to press the mic icon above the keyboard to dictate their message. For IOS users, the icon is at the bottom right.
Sure, this feature might not be anything new for Google Assistant and Siri users, but since WhatsApp is widely used for messaging today, this feature will be received nicely by users. Just don’t dictate “full stop” as it will type full stop instead of “.”. Maybe they’ll fix that in the next upgrade.
Android gets Reverse-Chronological Feed to Android
Twitter brought its traditional reverse-chronological timeline back to iOS last month, and now the optional feature is available to Android users in a new update. It’s has been a popular choice that brings back some stability to the Twitter feed. Twitter switched to an algorithm-based timeline four years ago during a time when social networks like Facebook and Instagram were experimenting with how best to display feeds to users. The feature was long-awaited by users who preferred to use Twitter for its original function of keeping up with live events in real time, like sports and awards ceremonies. It’s still not going to remove the annoying ‘In case you missed it’ tweets, or the occasional notification that lets you know your friends liked a tweet, despite it being from accounts you don’t follow, but it’s at least a start.
The “Computer” Mouse
A YouTube user with account named “Electronic Grenade” has come up with an innovation that took creativity and functionality to a whole new level. These types of innovations should be under the category of Mad Science with absurd limits put into designing a computer mouse which is also a functional laptop. Let’s be clear, it does not have the best user interface but it does raise new questions and bring new ideas that might make this prototype a market ready product in the future. As detailed in a video published on Sunday, the computer mouse computer consists of a 3d-printed mouse, a Raspberry Pi microcontroller, a small keyboard, and a handful of components that were taken from a normal computer mouse.
“Even though the screen is attached to the mouse, the sensitivity of the mouse makes it not that hard to follow along with what is happening on the screen,” Electronic Grenade said in the video.
It is not a perfect invention but without a doubt the most creative one. So much so that it is a lot easier on the eyes than many latest laptops we see in the market and will probably win many design awards.
“Typing on the tiny keyboard isn’t as bad as it seems,” Electronic Grenade said. “But it is kind of tricky considering the keys are small and crammed together and you have to have your hand in a very uncomfortable position.”
