This Week In Tech: Farewell Jony Ive, hello Google Nest Hub

Feel the Bern, feel the Twitch

Welcome to 2019, where political candidates figure out that the best strategy to reach out to young voters is by joining a live-streaming site for video gamers. Which is what US presidential Bernie Sanders did — the 77-year-old man has his own Twitch channel now. Dude even has more than 10,000 followers already, but hopefully, they know that he’s not going to be co-streaming a Fortnite sesh with Ninja anytime soon. 

AsiaOne x WELP Tonight

Speaking of Twitch, we’ve got our own channel! Okay, not really, but we’ve officially teamed up with WELP Tonight, the gaming talk show hosted by Singapore Idol Sezairi Sezali and his wife Syaza Qistina Tan. If you’ve watched the livestreams on Twitch, Twitter, and YahooTV on Friday nights, you might have noticed AsiaOne as one of the partners. 

The new minds behind Cybermind

Remember that time when everyone thought that iconic Sim Lim Square store Cybermind Computer House would be ceasing operations permanently? It’s actually very much alive — albeit under a slightly new name and a new management team. We spoke to them to find out what really went down. 

Geeky exploits

Online purchase scams continue to be a prevalent worry here, noted the Singapore Police Force, and gizmo enthusiasts might be falling hard for them. The authorities revealed that there have been at least 445 reports (and counting) lodged between January and May this year over e-commerce scams involving mobile phones and electronic gadgets. Namely Apple AirPods, Nintendo Switch consoles, and Samsung smartphones. 

You get a job, and you get a job

Earlier this week, Minister for Communications and Information S. Iswaran announced the formation of a new government office called the Digital Industry Singapore (DISG). Modern problems require modern solutions after all, and the new office needed to be formed to handle Singapore’s modern digital ecosystem. Oh, and the promise to create 10,000 new technology sector jobs. If robots don’t wipe out the millions of jobs around the world by 2030, that is. 

Leaving the Apple tree

Say it ain’t so, Jony Ive is finally free. Apple’s famous chief design officer behind the likes of iPods, iMacs, iPhones and more will be departing the company to set up his own design firm called LoveFrom. It’s not worrying Tim Cook because LoveFrom will count Apple as one of its biggest clients — it’s just that Sir Ive will be working on a lot more things besides Apple products. 

I'm not walking Huawei

It’s tough being a Huawei faithful these days, and it’s an even tougher time for businesses to even have anything to do with the company. But are things really that bad though? We tried making a case for Huawei’s survival amidst the ongoing tech war between the US and China.

Google nestles in 

We know, we know the Google Home Hub Google Nest Hub has been out since late last year, but at least it’s finally here in an official capacity. The gizmo works best as a central dashboard for all connected smart home devices, and slapping a screen onto a Google Assistant speaker does help quite a bit in daily interactions around the house. We dropped by the Google HQ earlier this week to check out what it can do to make life easier at a glance. 

ilyas@asiaone.com