Gadgetory

upgrading your smartphone hardware may soon be a snap I'm Bridget Carey and this is your cnet update google has released some details about its phone that lets you swap hardware parts Google's are a smartphone is a new concept instead of buying a new phone every two years you could just upgrade individual pieces like a screen or camera or processor by snapping parts in and out like Legos the goal is to have 20 to 30 interchangeable parts that you can choose from google will start a pilot for the arra phone in Puerto Rico and use that research data for a global launch google has a few other projects taking shape with a new app students can phone in their homework so to speak Google classroom has a new mobile app to help teachers and students track school assignments right now there are more than 40 million students teachers and staff using google apps for education the classroom mobile app is part of this and it lets students attach files to assignments or use the camera on the phone or tablet to attach photos for an assignment so if you forget to bring in your homework maybe someone at home can take a photo of it for you and turn it in with the app it's available for Android and iOS google also officially announced its update to the Google Translate app that's rolling out over the next few days for iOS and Android it can instantly translate audio and text into your native language so if you're having a conversation with someone in person that you can't understand just hold the phone between you both and it will translate each person back and forth with less lag time skype also recently rolled out a new instant translation for voice chat so we're getting closer to that world of Star Trek for the universal translator Facebook's also innovating although it's arguable if you can really call this innovation there's a new app called Facebook at work you can create a work facebook account that's separate from your personal Facebook account the things you share with a work account can only be seen by other people at your company and that means your company has to sign up for facebook at work it also takes away the fun of complaining about your co-workers on Facebook wall at work but Facebook is doing this to compete with other workplace collaboration messaging tools like Microsoft's Yammer social caste in convo but Facebook doesn't have a way to share documents with your co-workers at least not yet and speaking of new things that aren't really new things Nintendo is releasing its extra-large 3ds to the US on februari 13th for two hundred dollars but it doesn't come with an AC power adapter so that doesn't make much sense it does work with older chargers if you have one aside from the larger screens the 3ds XL has improved face tracking 3d a faster processor a second analog mini stick two extra shoulder buttons and built-in NFC to work with those amiibo game figurines that your tech news update there's always more at cnet com from our studios in New York I'm Bridget Carey