The Daily Crunch 11/01/16

Mixed reality, internet dominance and more emoji – it's a big day for mobile! All that and more in The Daily Crunch for November 1, 2016. And if you're trending on Facebook, it's probably either because you're made up or you're harmless fluff.

1. Google is ready to Tango

Google's Project Tango launched in 2014, but today marks the first time it's actually available in a shipping consumer device. The Lenovo Phab2 Pro is a giant smartphone retailing for $499 that goes on sale today, with Tango's depth-sensing sensor array included. This allows it to use special mixed reality apps built for Tango that overlay virtual objects on the real world.

Tango is an interesting project, but one that could really change the way we use our devices if it gets broader OEM and consumer pickup. That's because it contains everything you need to achieve full size degrees of freedom AR, in just a smartphone. That's some transformative stuff – again, provided it gets more buy-in.

2. Watch crowdfunding projects crumble live

I kid Kickstarter: most of the projects I've backed recently have actually turned out fine. But when there is drama, creators can now choose to share it live with their new Kickstarter Live streaming feature, supported by streaming startup Huzza. Kickstarter says it's not just riding the livestream hype wave, and this does sound like a useful thing in case you want to actually ask some questions about the theoretical things you're putting down real money for.

3. Coding without screens

Teaching kids to code can be difficult when they're very young and you don't necessarily want to set them up with Github or something. But Primo's new Cubetto playlet is designed to give them a way to learn the basics without using screens, and with using block-style toys more similar to the kinds of toys they might be using for fun anyways.

4. Emoji's ever-expanding universe

The latest beta of iOS (10.2 for those keeping count) adds a whole bunch of new emoji, thanks to full Unicode 9.0 support. The new emoji are wonderful options, and I will never be against the addition of even more pictograms to our common visual language – at least, not until we can express every possible meaning via tiny cartoon images.

5. Windows 3D explained

Why does Windows care so much about 3D? Megan Saunders, a general manager at Microsoft working on Paint 3D, can explain. Basically, though, it's about unlocking latent creativity in users, and making new memories in a way that's different from anything that's come before.

6. Mobile internet > desktop internet

And in the 2016th year of the common era, mobile internet use did pass internet use on desktop, and never was the internet the same again.

7. Facebook Trends is late to another big story

I still can't tell if Facebook Trends is worse because it's so easily duped by fake stories, or because it tends to miss controversial but important big stories like the #NoDAPL Standing Rock pipeline protest which definitely should've been trending long before it actually was. Maybe it just didn't make it because humans are awful and some pop culture crisis was going on, which is again part of the problem.