© 2024 Public Radio Tulsa
800 South Tucker Drive
Tulsa, OK 74104
(918) 631-2577

A listener-supported service of The University of Tulsa
classical 88.7 | public radio 89.5
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

Tech Week Ahead: Rumors Of A Facebook Phone

AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:

From NPR News, this is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED. I'm Audie Cornish.

ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:

I'm Robert Siegel, and it's time now for All Tech Considered.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

SIEGEL: This week, Facebook is expected to announce plans to team up with Google's mobile operating system, Android.

As NPR's Steve Henn tells us, the event has reignited rumors of a possible Facebook phone.

STEVE HENN, BYLINE: The Facebook phone has sort of been the tech world's version of the unicorn. Everyone is searching for it, waiting for it to show up.

SIEGEL: Well, the mythical device may finally appear on Thursday. But so far, Facebook has only said it will announce its new home on Android.

HENN: But it usually doesn't hold a press conference to unveil a new Android app, so there's been a lot of speculation that this new home on Android is actually sort of like Amazon's Kindle. It will be a version of Android that puts Facebook front and center, and deeply integrates Facebook and the Facebook experience into the phone.

SIEGEL: Or it could just turn out to be a horse wearing a horn.

CORNISH: Which makes a fitting transition to our next story: April Fool's Day jokes. Every year, Google tries to outdo itself and everyone else on the Internet. For one thing, it doesn't just do one big joke, it does many.

Among the Google gags this year...

HENN: Google Treasure Maps, Google Nose, which is their new smelling algorithm. There was an announcement that YouTube was, in fact, an eight-year contest, and they're going to announce the winner and then shut the service down.

SIEGEL: Happy April 1st, Internet. And that's our quick tech roundup with NPR's Steve Henn. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.

Steve Henn
Steve Henn is NPR's technology correspondent based in Menlo Park, California, who is currently on assignment with Planet Money. An award winning journalist, he now covers the intersection of technology and modern life - exploring how digital innovations are changing the way we interact with people we love, the institutions we depend on and the world around us. In 2012 he came frighteningly close to crashing one of the first Tesla sedans ever made. He has taken a ride in a self-driving car, and flown a drone around Stanford's campus with a legal expert on privacy and robotics.