Tech Recap of the Day: February 20, 2014

Everyday news breaks left right and center in the world of technology. It is pretty much impossible to capture all these stories and bring a detailed report. And not bring this news to our readers feels unfair.

Just as a disclaimer, we would not be divulging into details of the story and just give a brief outline of what the story was all about. So without any further adieu lets begin on what caught our attention on what has been a rather slow day in terms of news pouring in of February 20th, 2014.

Facebook Buys Whatsapp for $19 Billion

The biggest news of the day obviously was Facebook outrightly buying Whatapp for $19 Billion. This definitely is a huge step in the right direction for Mark Zuckerberg as he aims to own the communication space, at least virtually in the world. The acquisition will see Whatsapp operate as a separate entity, and there are no plans to merge Facebook Messenger with Whatsapp. The deal may well be overpriced, but in a way facebook has killed competition and brought on board with it a sure winner. There had been speculations earlier that Google wanted to buy Whatsapp but that deal did not go through.

Samsung starts to roll out Android 4.4 update to Samsung Galaxy S IV

A week almost after HTC started rolling out the KitKat update for HTC One, Samsung has followed the footsteps as the update begins rolling out for Galaxy S IV in Russia. The Exynos version has got the update while the LTE version with Snapdragon is still waiting for the chance. The update sees new status bar icons as well as support for emojis all across. For those, who like numbers and build numbers, the build number of the update is I9500XXUFNB3 and the firmware build is dated Thu, 13 Feb 2014 11:33:19. the update is expected to reach India soon.

LG Announces LG G2 Mini

LG has announced the LG G2 Mini and is expected to reveal the device at MWC 2014. The phone sees the exact same shape and design as that seen on the LG G2, but with specs that are totally cut down. The device has a Snapdragon 400 SoC with 1 GB of RAM and 8 GB ROM. There is 2440 mAh battery on board while the display is a miserly 4.7 inch one with qHD res. The device is expected in Asia and South America in April.

Google I/O to be held from June 24th to 26th

Sundar Pichai of Google took to his G+ profile to announce that Google I/O 2014 will be held from June 24th to 26th. He also revealed that registrations this year will be picked as a lottery after all those who are interested in attending the event fill up a web form to avoid the ruckus like last year. Pichai also remarked that there are plans in place to stream the event more extensively this year than ever before.

Sony reveals the Z1 Compact for India: Will retail for Rs. 36,990 from February 24th

The Sony Xperia Z1 Compact brings the goodness of the Sony Xperia Z1 in a compact chassis. The device was released at CES 2014 and won several accolades for being the best device at the event. The device will be available in four colors, black, white, yellow and pink. Only difference between the Xperia Z1 and the Z1 Compact is that the Compact has a 4.3 inch display which is 720P res. Everything apart from that remains the same, including the waterproof and dustproof nature, as the Xperia Z1 practically in a much cuter and handy form factor.