While the smartphone market starts to level off in terms of growth, smartphone manufacturers are looking for ways to differentiate themselves from their competition. One of the biggest and most obvious ways that they are starting to differentiate is by putting a focus on photography and videography. However, photography and videography cannot simply be improved by just improving the camera sensor and the lenses as that approach has been the primary way that most OEMs have improved on photography and it has mostly been minor and incremental. At this year’s MWC 2016 in Barcelona we started to see smartphone manufacturers sink some real R&D into their smartphones’ camera systems. Handset brands like LG are starting to employ new technologies and features thanks to new processors like Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 820 to enable a broad set of features, some features that may have existed in past processors but weren’t taken advantage of and others that are entirely new.

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A number of popular influencers and brands on Instagram begged their followers on Monday to turn on notifications to alert users each time their account generates a post, citing concern that users will no longer see their posts after Instagram launches an algorithmic feed.

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“Microsoft Monday” takes a look back at the past week of news related to Microsoft. This week, “Microsoft Monday” includes details about a potential Yahoo deal, the “Holoportation” research project, the Surface Hub progress, the Tay chatbot catastrophe, the Health app update, the Visual Studio Productivity Power Tools becoming open source and the new Minecraft Story Mode Episode 5 coming tomorrow.
Microsoft To Meet With Private Equity Companies About Potential Yahoo! Deal
Microsoft executives are reportedly in talks with Yahoo! investors about potentially providing funds to acquire the Sunnyvale-based Internet company, according to sources with Reuters. The talks are in the preliminary stages. Microsoft has an interest in Yahoo! because it has search and advertising agreements with the Internet company. Yahoo! is expected to be auctioning off its core Internet businesses, including Yahoo! Search, Yahoo! Mail, Yahoo! Finance and Yahoo! News.
Recently, investment company Starboard Value LP has been soliciting support from Yahoo! shareholders to get rid of the whole board including CEO Marissa Mayer. Back in 2008, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer attempted to push for a $45 billion acquisition of Yahoo!
Microsoft Research Team Working On “Holoportation” Research Project
The Microsoft Research team is using the HoloLens to work on a research project called “Holoportation.” Microsoft Research described “Holoportation” as being a new type of 3D capture technology that allows high-quality 3D models of people to be reconstructed and transmitted anywhere in the world in real time.
Essentially, Microsoft’s research team is able to create a live hologram of a person to be placed in another room. Using mixed reality displays like the HoloLens, the “Holoportation” technology lets users “see, hear and interact with remote participants in 3D as if they are actually present in the same physical space. Communicating and interacting with remote users becomes as natural as face-to-face communication.”
Here is a video demo of “Holoportation”:

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The long-anticipated virtual reality headset will thrill both geeks and luddites.

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