Geek News

You've likely heard of big-name musicians banning smartphones at concerts , but Kendrick Lamar is taking things one step further. The superstar isn't allowing any cameras during the European stint of his latest tour, including pro photographers. Yes, you won't even have the opportunity to share official shots, let alone record the show with your phone. Lamar had allowed some pros during his North American gigs, but that's apparently as far as he was willing to go. The reasoning remains the same as with earlier smartphone bans (such as those at Dave Chappelle's events ). It's partly about ensuring that fans are actually enjoying the concert rather than trying to record it all. And it might just drive ticket sales -- you may be more likely to attend if you can't just rely on a friend's Instagram feed to see what you missed. There's also the side benefit of keeping any missteps out of the limelight, although artists usually reserve that for warm-up ...

It's been difficult to gauge how well smart speakers are selling outside of unofficial estimates, but Google just provided a clearer picture. The search firm revealed that it has sold "more than one" Home speaker per second since the Home Mini started shipping on October 19th. If you perform some back-of-the-napkin math, that suggests Google sold at least 6.4 million speakers between the Mini's debut and the end of 2017. Google hasn't split those sales by device, but it's safe to say that many (if not most) were Minis. The company added that Google Assistant is available on more than 400 million devices, including its own products as well as third-party Android phones , smart speakers, TVs and iOS devices . Also, Home usage increased a whopping nine times year-over-year during the holidays. Google didn't explain what prompted the surge, but the uptick in sales and greater familiarity no doubt helped. As for how this compares to Amazon's Echo sal...