Weekend Wrap-up: Instagram Breaks its Upload Record, Motorola Moto G Goes Up for Preorder

Thanks for dropping by for another Weekend Wrap-up, where we summarize the week’s top tech stories so you can get caught up.

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Instagram Has its Busiest Day on Thanksgiving — Again

Last year on Thanksgiving Day, Instagram jubilantly proclaimed that it had hit a big milestone — 10 million photos processed in one day, by far its busiest day ever. People apparently love taking photos of family and food, as Instagram was again able to make that claim this year for Thanksgiving 2013. No specific numbers were doled out, but anything that surpasses the numbers put up last year is pretty impressive. I’m not sure what drives people to take more photos on Thanksgiving over a holiday like, say, Christmas, but that’s been the trend thus far. We’ll have to wait and see if Thanksgiving 2014 raises the bar again.

Motorola Starts Taking Preorders for its Moto G Smartphone

The Moto G is an interesting device. It’s not as high end as a Samsung Galaxy S4, an HTC One or a Moto X, but it’s high enough to not be considered a budget Android smartphone. Yet its price places it exactly in that category — the Moto G costs $179 for the 8 GB model and $199 for the 16 GB model, and that’s unsubsidized. That phone went up for preorder this past week, with many orders expecting to ship by December 2. You can mosey on over to the Motorola Store to nab yours.

Intel Pops a Store Up in New York City

The Intel Experience Store is a pop-up location with some interesting ideas. The focus isn’t on selling product right then and there, but instead letting consumers see the types of gizmos and gadgets that are powered by Intel. And in an innovative move, Intel will even let you borrow a product for 24 hours, provided you leave your credit card on file. Our own Jeff Weisbein checked the store out and recorded video using his Cyclops vision — err — Google Glass. Check out the video and get a first-person view of the store.

Apple’s PrimeSense Acquisition — Is it All About the Maps?

When Apple snatched up PrimeSense, the company behind Microsoft’s original Kinect, most thought Apple was getting into the motion sensing game. While that isn’t a bad assumption to make by any stretch, our own Brian Rubin reports on some speculation that the PrimeSense buy was really about mapping — more specifically, 3D mapping. Adding a legitimate third dimension to Apple Maps would give it a desperately needed killer feature, which it lacks currently. The product is already behind Google Maps in features and reliability, so Apple needs to make moves to ensure Maps becomes a better product. This could be one.