Your future chicken dinner is about to get its very own Fitbit-like device.

Chinese online insurance company ZhongAn Online has developed a new GPS tracker for poultry called GoGo Chicken, according to the Wall Street Journal. The device fits around the animal’s leg while sensors monitor information like the chicken’s environment, what it eats, and how much exercise it gets.

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ZhongAn refers to the product as “blockchain farming” because it utilizes the real-time public record technology popularized by cryptocurrency to store its data on the chickens.

The information GoGo Chicken collects isn’t just for those tending to the fowl. Consumers will be able to monitor the chicken’s day-to-day life via a mobile app as well.

The hope is that the GPS tracking device will help prevent food safety related problems. In the event an issue does arise, the data tracked by the devices could help find the source of the problem. However, ZhongAn does also have its own use for the technology. As an insurance company that covers the agriculture industry, it’s looking to reduce its own risk and liability with the data it collects.

In a report, NPR says that 100,000 chickens are already wearing the monitoring device. ZhongAn says the devices will be found on 2,500 farms in China by 2020. NPR also reports that the company is developing facial-recognition technology for poultry so customers can make sure that they’re eating the same chicken that they picked from the farm.

In the near future, consumers will be able to confirm their free-range organic chicken actually freely roamed around outdoors thanks to a GPS tracking device strapped to it.

Struggling phone maker LG isn’t throwing in the towel just yet. The Korean electronics giant used Mobile World Congress to announce its new flagship LG G8 ThinQ Android smartphone. 

At first glance, the G8 ThinQ looks a lot like the G7 ThinQ, but there’s more to their similar metal and glass constructions. Housed inside of the notch is a new camera sensor that recognizes hand gesture and can be used to control features like the volume, calls, and media playback.

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By all accounts, the LG G8 ThinQ is a premium phone with flagship performance. The phone’s glass and metal design is as good as any other and the specs all check out.

The G8 ThinQ has a 6.1-inch OLED screen with QHD+ (3,120 x 1,440) resolution. It’s powered by Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 855 chip and 6GB of RAM. 

There’s 128GB of internal storage and a microSD card slot for adding up to 512GB of additional storage. And the 3,500 mAh battery is reasonably large and supports QuickCharge 3.0 and wireless charging.

On the rear, there’s a dual camera system consisting of a 12-megapixel wide-angle lens with f/1.5 aperture and a secondary 16-megapixel ultra-wide lens with f/1.9 aperture. Both cameras looked pretty capable from what I could tell in my brief hands-on with the phone.

And the G8 ThinQ’s “Crystal Sound OLED” display also doubles as a receiver by vibrating sound off the glass so there’s no need to have a cutout for one at the top. Other phones like the Xiaomi Mi Mix used the same “piezoelectric” vibrating display sound technology, but few have done them well. Phone calls through the Crystal Sound OLED screen didn’t sound as tinny compared to other phones with the same tech, though.

All of these are great features that make the G8 ThinQ competitive with other 2019 flagship phones. But that special camera inside of the notch is something entirely new altogether.

Called a “Z camera,” the “time of flight” (ToF) sensor is able to capture information along a z-axis to better recognize what’s happening in 3D space. LG says the camera is a miniaturized version of the special camera used inside of devices with Google’s Tango technology used for augmented reality experiences.

With the special camera, LG’s added two features to the G8 ThinQ that it thinks helps it stand out from other phones.

The first is enhanced biometric security. You can still use the fingerprint sensor on the back of the phone to unlock the G8 ThinQ or the 2D-based face unlock from the 8-megapixel selfie camera. But with the Z camera, you can also unlock the phone with your hand.

After setup, LG says the Z camera is able to recognize your unique vein patterns by extracting images of the hemoglobin within your blood. LG says these vein patterns are incredibly difficult to forge compared to fingerprints, which can be photographed with high-resolution cameras.

The second unique feature the Z camera allows for is hand gestures or “Air Motion” as LG has branded it. When you hover your hand above the camera, the phone displays controls at the top of the screen. These can be two icons that let you switch between apps using a waving gesture to the left or right. Or they can be as simple as buttons to control playback or volume.

It’s a neat idea, except the hand gestures aren’t easy to use. The camera requires your hand be a minimum six inches away. But that’s not even the worst of things. You also need to drop your fingers down into the shape of a claw before you can wave in any direction.

And even then, the Z camera had trouble recognizing my clawed hand.

LG let a dozen or so tech journalists — geeks who eat these kinds of new innovations up — try the Air Motion out and nearly everyone including myself found the hand gestures unintuitive and cumbersome.

But again, does this even look fun to use?

At the end of my brief hands-on time with the LG G8 ThinQ, I couldn’t help but ignore the special Z camera. Maybe it’ll work better on the launch device, but from what I saw it wasn’t ready for primetime. To be honest, the feature isn’t worth the headache and you’re better off just tapping the screen.

Like foldable phones, the feature is new and different, but it doesn’t really make using your phone better. I can see it being useful in situations where you don’t want to or can’t touch the screen with your hands (like when you’re coming out of a shower or cooking in the kitchen), but wouldn’t voice controls work better?

A new “most-subscribed” channel was finally crowned on YouTube, albeit briefly.

After a nearly half-year long race, internet personality PewDiePie has finally been dethroned as YouTube’s most subscribed channel by Bollywood music video channel T-Series. The video production company surpassed the YouTuber in subscribers for the very first time on Friday, Feb. 22. 

However, the India-based T-Series’ reign as the new “most-subscribed” channel on YouTube didn’t last for very long.

“For roughly 8 minutes, as a result of a YouTube audit, T-Series was ahead of PewDiePie (by a max of about 2000 [subscribers]),” a spokesperson with the social media analytics company SocialBlade confirmed in a statement to Mashable.

YouTube routinely audits accounts to make sure stats, like video views and channel subscribers, are accurate and only reflect real, actual users. One of these automated audits hit PewDiePie’s account at an opportune moment for T-Series. The creator lost around 20,000 subscribers at once on Friday, putting the Bollywood production company ahead for a short period of time.

Felix Kjellberg aka PewDiePie had sat atop the most-subscribed YouTube rankings for more than 5 years, consecutively, since Dec. 22, 2013 before being overtaken by T-Series for a short time. The YouTuber quickly regained the lead once again and has a more than 110,000 subscriber lead over T-Series at publishing time.

The pivotal moment came and went so quickly that barely anyone seems to have noticed, aside from social media chatter from some of PewDiePie and T-Series’ most hardcore fans. A few recordings from YouTube channels that have been tracking the two channels’ subscriber counts captured real-time proof.

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PewDiePie and T-Series have been engaged in a race to the top of the YouTube subscriber rankings for months. The creator first uploaded a video warning his fans that he was about to lose his “most subscribed” YouTube channel title last summer. At the time, T-Series was projected to overtake him in October. However, PewDiePie’s galvanized fanbase propelled the YouTuber to new subscriber heights. Thanks to his rivalry with the Bollywood production company, PewDiePie went from around 66 million subscribers to his current near 90 million subscribers in just six months.

But, due to a persistent steady gain in subscribers from T-Series’ channel as well as the growth of India’s internet-using population, its only a matter of time before T-Series once again surpasses PewDiePie. Eventually, the channel will even pass PewDiePie for good.

Mashable has reached out to YouTube for comment and will update this post when we hear back.

Mobile World Congress is a show primarily for phone announcements, but Microsoft used it to unveil its brand new augmented reality headset: the HoloLens 2.

The new headset is sleeker-looking, more comfortable, and more powerful than the first generation Hololens that debuted in 2016. But most importantly, HoloLens 2 has a much wider field of view (FOV) — more than double the original HoloLens — to enable more immersive mixed reality experiences. 

SEE ALSO: Huawei’s Mate X is the most promising foldable phone yet

Without a doubt, the extremely limited FOV was the HoloLens’ biggest weakness. And it looks like Microsoft’s listened to all of our complaints.

Alex Kipman, Microsoft’s technical fellow for cloud and AI, said, “[It’s] like going from two 720p [resolution screens] to 2K resolution in each eye.”

In addition to having a much wider field of view, the headset has also been designed to be “more than 3x” more comfortable to wear. 

HoloLens 2 achieves this improved comfort with a new carbon fiber construction that’s lighter to wear for long periods of time. Furthermore, the headset’s band has been calibrated to better balance the weight of all the computer parts and distribute it across a user’s head.

Beyond hardware improvements, Microsoft says it’s also made a number of significant improvements to the “holograms” within the HoloLens platform.

A new “instinctual interaction” design language was created to make holograms more touchable. For example, Microsoft invented new virtual buttons and sliders that simulate tactile feeling with audio. 

You still can’t feel virtual objects, but with audio, your brain’s tricked into thinking it’s actually pressed a button or flipped a switch.

In one demo, Microsoft showed holographic buttons being tapped and sliders moving on a rail as if they were physical objects in real space:

Below, you can see how a holographic piano can be played just like you would on a real piano. Microsoft says HoloLens 2 supports full 10-finger touch.

Another cool feature on HoloLens 2 is built-in eye-tracking, which can be used for things like scrolling down a holographic website as you look up and down the page.

HoloLens 2’s form factor is also customizable. Microsoft showed how the headset could be adapted to fit a variety of different fields.

Trimble is the first company to customize the new mixed reality headset to fit into hardhats for frontline field workers.

Other noteworthy announcements include Microsoft’s open app store for HoloLens development. Kipman said developers will of course be able to sell their holographic apps in the Windows Store, but they’ll also be able to create their own app stores.

“We believe in an open app store model,” Kipman said. “Developers will have the freedom to create their own stores as first class citizens in our experience.”

This “first-class citizenship” was echoed for open web browsers for HoloLens. Microsoft Edge will still be supported, but Firefox will also be coming to the holographic platform. 

HoloLens 2 will be available as an “enterprise edition” for $3,500. Kipman downplayed the price by reminding everyone of the $5,000 cost of the original HoloLens. Developers will also be able to purchase HoloLens 2 for $125 per month.

This story is developing…