I was floored. For the past year, we've been hearing about the tens of thousands of refugees who've migrated to Greece, but it's hard to internalize that number. These stacks of life vests were a stark reminder of how big that number really is. CNET's Richard Nieva (left) with Yahya Lagbouri, a refugee from Morocco. Lagbouri said one simple way to help is to "smile at another person."We stayed for an hour or so. By the time we left, the sun was setting and dogs were howling in the distance. In the dimming light, the blazing orange of the life jackets interspersed with the grays and blacks of the tattered rafts looked like burning embers.
Covering tech in San Francisco, it's easy to get cynical, Company valuations and housing prices here are both skyrocketing, But for all the flak that tech companies iphone case for 7 plus get (rightly) over privacy snafus or diversity blunders, it's heartening to see the good they can provide, While someone I know is posting a selfie or political rant on Facebook, someone else halfway around the world is using the social network to find shelter in a strange new country, (Though refugees are posting selfies and political rants, too, Remember the boredom thing?) They're chatting with family back home on WhatsApp and Skype, And they're using the Google Translate app to talk to their new neighbors in their makeshift homes, even if they don't speak the same language..
I'm used to hearing companies boast about their user figures all the time. Facebook has 1.65 billion people on its social network. Google has six products with more than a billion users, including YouTube, search and Maps. WhatsApp has a billion, too. But I rarely ever thought about who those billion people are. Or how they're using the services. Or where they live. Now I do. Commentary: Lots of tech devices and services boast a billion users. My 10-day trip reporting on the crisis in Greece for our Road Trip special report led me to think about who those people really are.
Samsung's new Note 7, Pikachu could soon be rendered with even more visual flair if the Vulkan API takes hold of the games industry, Developed by a consortium called Khronos Group, Vulkan offers iphone case for 7 plus an updated way for games to to crunch information -- one that's more adept at dealing with the multiple cores offered on most mobile processors, and ultimately spits out better looking games, That concept of digging deeper into what modern phone chips can offer is a similar tack to that taken by Apple, which two years ago debuted Metal, the company's own-brand graphical standard..
The Vulkan API isn't unique to Samsung phones, although the South Korean phone-maker has been perhaps the technology's biggest cheerleader so far. Earlier this year at Google's developer conference, the search giant confirmed it would be making Vulkan support a feature of Andr​oid Nougat, the next version of its mobile software. The API can also be found on SteamOS, which is the operating system made by PC gaming bigwigs Valve. That cross-platform prowess could prove to be one of Vulkan's potential superpowers -- it may make it easier for developers to bring games developed on non-phone platforms to Vulkan-capable mobiles.
