Google Pixel 2: Which storage size should you buy?

64GB or 128GB of storage? That is the question.

Google’s Pixel 2 and Pixel 2 XL are both great phones ready to deliver an excellent Android experience. When it comes to figuring out which storage size is the right one for you, though, there are a few questions to ask yourself. What will you be storing on your phone? How long will you be using your new phone?

You’ve got two options for the storage on your new Pixel 2 or Pixel 2 XL, and we’re here to help you pick the right one!

Two options: 64GB and 128GB

Whether you’ve been eyeing up the Pixel 2 or the Pixel 2 XL, you’ve got the same options for storage size on your phone. You’ll be able to choose between a 64GB model or a 128GB model. While both of these are solid options, there are definitely some differences.

While 64GB is the smaller of the two options, it definitely isn’t a size that is going to fill up in a few short weeks. It’ll give you plenty of space to store your apps, photos, videos, and schedules without having to worry about anything. Of course, the 128GB option gives you access to nearly twice as much space for everything that you store on your phone.

It is important to keep in mind one of the big perks of having a Pixel 2 is that sweet, sweet, photo storage with Google Photos. Unlike with most phones, Pixel owners get to upload an unlimited number of full-resolution photos — at least until December 2020. This means that considering how much space your photos are going to take up on your phone is less of an issue since you can back all of them up automatically.

Choose wisely

The Pixel 2 and Pixel 2 XL maintain a few controversial design decisions from the last Pixels, namely a lack of microSD expansion. This means that once you have purchased a phone you’re locked into the size that you pick up.

Features like unlimited photo storage can help, but knowing what kind of space you’ll be needing in the future. If you’re one of those folks who tend to update their phone every year when a shiny new device is announced, then the 64GB model should be solid. However, if you prefer to stretch out the life of your phone for as long as possible, then picking up the 128GB storage size is the better option in the long-term.

It’s also worth keeping in mind that even the 64GB model will only have around 54GB free out of the box, since Android itself takes up a fair amount of space.

Which size are you considering?

Both the 64GB and the 128GB models of the Pixel 2 and Pixel 2 XL deliver tons of storage space. Neither of these storage sizes is going to do a bad job of having space to store everything that you need to get through the day.

In the end, this is a personal decision that nobody else can make for you. Does storage size make a big difference when you are considering a phone? Let us know about it in the comments below!

Google Pixel 2 and Pixel 2 XL

• Pixel 2 FAQ: Everything you need to know!
• Google Pixel 2 and 2 XL hands-on preview
• Google Pixel 2 specs
• Google Pixel 2 vs. Pixel 2 XL: What’s the difference?
• Join our Pixel 2 forums

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Will Google Pixel and Pixel XL cases fit on the Pixel 2 and 2 XL?

A simple question with a simple answer.

There are some striking similarities in design between last year’s Pixel and Pixel XL and the new Pixel 2 and Pixel 2 XL. With the names as they are, you wouldn’t expect the hardware dimensions or quality to change much — and in general, they haven’t. That immediately leads to questions of whether or not they’re actually close enough to use the same cases.

The answer, in short, is “no” you can’t use your old Pixel or Pixel XL cases on the Pixel 2 or Pixel 2 XL. Even though their dimensions are very similar — we’re talking about fractions of millimeters in some cases — and in the case of the Pixel 2 even the aspect ratio of the screen is the same, there are big enough differences to require full new cases for the latest pixels.

Best Google Pixel 2 Accessories

Unfortunately we didn’t luck out the same way that iPhone 7 and 7 Plus owners did with some of their cases working just fine on the iPhone 8 and 8 Plus. A tough break, for sure, but this also gives you a chance to start fresh with a new case for your new phone if you choose to upgrade!

Google Pixel 2 and Pixel 2 XL

• Pixel 2 FAQ: Everything you need to know!
• Google Pixel 2 and 2 XL hands-on preview
• Google Pixel 2 specs
• Google Pixel 2 vs. Pixel 2 XL: What’s the difference?
• Join our Pixel 2 forums

Google Store
Project Fi
Verizon

‘Until Dawn’ headlines this month’s horrific PS Now additions

Two years later and Sony finally got the timing right for PlayStation 4’s choose-your-own-horror adventure Until Dawn. The Hayden-Panettiere-starring interactive movie is perfect for Halloween frights, and if you’re a PlayStation Now subscriber, you can play it, well, now. It isn’t the only fright fest being added to the service, either. Frictional Games’ sub-aquatic tale of terror, SOMA, is on offer as well as the macabre mystery The Vanishing of Ethan Carter. Don’t feel like getting scared? There’s always David Cage’s Beyond: Two Souls and, umm, Agatha Christie: The ABC Murders.

Until Dawn, like many of the indie-horror movies it takes for inspiration, isn’t perfect. The cinematic camera angles can make navigating some scenes tricky and there’s some backtracking in the last act. But if you’re hosting a pumpkin carving party at your place, once everyone cleans the seeds and guts from their fingers it’s your best bet for some festive controller-passing fun. The PS Blog post is for Europe, but these things tend to make their way to the US service as well, it just takes a few days.

Source: PS Blog (EU)

Palette’s Lego-like controls made me a faster video editor

Until robots take over video editing, you’ll still have to fiddle with cuts, colors and sound levels. A keyboard is not always the best tool for that, and many control surfaces, like Loupedeck, are strictly targeted at Lightroom users. So what’s a video editor to do? One of the more interesting controllers on the market is Palette Gear — it’s expandable, flexible, programmable and looks cool. As I discovered, if you’re willing to spend some timing learning and programming, it can make you a faster and better editor, too.

As with other niche products, Palette Gear began on Kickstarter. It was a decent success, earning $150,000 or so, but most important, the company actually followed through and shipped it to buyers. It’s now a commercial product that you can buy at B&H Electronics and elsewhere, and the company has consistently added more functionality. For video editors, Palette recently unveiled advanced integration with Adobe Premiere Pro CC.

With video-editing control surfaces, the choices are narrower than for Lightroom. Blackmagic Design makes very powerful control surfaces for its DaVinci Resolve video-editing software, but the cheapest — the Micro Panel — is $995. You can also go with the Behringer BCF-2000, a motorized $299 audio mixer that can be programmed for video. For the $300 price, Palette’s Expert Kit is ready to go and is one of the most, if not the most, cost-effective options.

The folks at Palette shipped me the “Expert Kit,” complete with three dials, two sliders, two buttons and a central “brain” controller. The company advised me to try it with Lightroom as well as Premiere, saying that “we’ve still got some ways to go before [Photoshop and Premiere] are as complete of an integration.” The company needn’t have worried — I found the Premiere app covered just about every function I needed, and I didn’t experience any major problems or bugs with it.

The system works like electronic Lego, snapping together magnetically and using pogo pins to link the modules. All are controlled by a central “Core” brain that displays the current profile on a nifty LCD screen and attaches to your computer (Mac or PC) via a USB cable. Modules include a button, dial and slider, and you can chain together as many as you want, adding more modules at $50 each.

The $300 Expert Kit had enough functionality for me, but if I ever went back to doing video editing, I’d opt for the $500 Professional Kit, with six dials, four sliders and four buttons. There’s also a starter kit, with two buttons, a slider and a dial, priced at $200.

The software setup instructions were a bit vague, not telling me whether to install the app or hardware first. So I installed the software to start with, and after arranging the modules in a square as shown above, plugged them in afterward. That seemed to work just fine.

Next up, I launched the main app. Palette is set up with a number of “Quick Start” profiles based on your kit: Edit Starter, Professional and Expert, along with Grade, Vignette and Motion. It requires Adobe Premiere Pro CC 2015.3 or later, and I used the latest 2017 version. You need to first load the profiles you want to use, then stack them in tabs on the app. Once you launch Premiere Pro CC, you need to make sure that the Palette controller is enabled in the preferences.

Then, I was all set. After using the quick-start “Edit Expert Kit” profile for a bit, I quickly changed it to suit my own style. I used the dials for jogging, next or previous edit and zoom in/out on the timeline; the sliders for volume and mixer active track volume; and the buttons for start/stop playback and switching between Palette’s Premiere Pro modes (Edit, Grade, Vignette and Motion).

The quality of the hardware is good for a consumer product, but not at the same level as an expensive control surface from BlackMagic, for instance. I found the dials worked great, operating smoothly and allowing a press to reset. The sliders felt similarly good, but because they’re not motorized or mechanical, they could really use a button-like “reset” option like the dial — motorization would be ideal, though. The arcade-like buttons were fine, but one of mine had a quality-control issue, activating the control with just a slight touch instead of a full click.

I set up the “Grade” profile with the dials targeted to exposure, white, and blacks, the sliders set to temperature and saturation, and the buttons set to “next edit point” and, again, next profile. I left the “Motion” setting, which I primarily use to add pans and zooms to still images, on the default profile, and did the same with “Vignette.” If you use other functions often, you can create, save and export custom profiles. For folks who do a lot of audio editing in Premiere Pro CC, I could easily see setting up a profile for that.

Programming your own style is essential to making Palette useful. Every editor has his or her own workflow, so you have to figure out whether to use the keyboard, mouse or Palette for specific functions to be as efficient, precise or speedy as possible. If you can’t figure out how to create a decent profile for yourself, other users have created and uploaded them for Premiere, Lightroom and other apps.

For editing, I chose functions that I absolutely hate doing with a mouse or keyboard, like moving between edits, jogging and tweaking volume levels. I also tried to eliminate the keyboard as much as possible, as I’ve never been a keyboard person. After some practice, I believe that the Palette controller made my editing around 10-20 percent more efficient.

Because it was conceived for Lightroom, the Palette Gear really shines for Premiere Pro color-grading. With version 2015, Adobe overhauled the video app’s color controls with Lumetri, which is like a mashup of its Speed Grade color-correction app and Lightroom.

I can get a shot about 90 percent right with just a few controls (exposure, whites, blacks, color temperature and saturation), so I programmed those into the Palette “Grading” profile. One suggestion for the Palette folks: It would be nice if the “switch profile” button could also change the corresponding profile in Premiere Pro CC, selecting “Color” or “Effects” for Grading and Motion.

The Palette Gear’s other main Premiere profile, Motion, is also dramatically better than just using the keyboard and mouse. That’s because Premiere’s interface for Motion is pretty crappy, requiring lots of fiddling with the mouse. Using Palette, you can adjust X and Y position, along with scaling, and then easily set a keyframe.

What’s nice about the Palette controller is that it can also be used for other apps, and I found it to be just as effective as the Loupedeck for Lightroom, once you get the hang of it. As with Premiere, you must create profiles customized to your workflow for each app, and program a button to switch between them.

As for downsides? Professionals will find the hardware a bit cheap, but it’s actually not bad for a consumer-level product, and comparable to the Loupedeck. The company needs to do something about the sliders, though, and either add a reset clicking option or motorization. Software-wise, the new Premiere Pro advanced app was solid and bug-free while I used it, though the company could make the installation process a bit clearer.

Overall, I found that the Palette Gear Expert Kit made me a better editor, and actually made Premiere Pro CC a lot more fun — especially color correction. The fact that it’s programmable, works with different apps and can be snapped together in whatever configuration you want makes it particularly useful for do-it-all graphics pros. Don’t expect it to do everything out of the box, though — you have to put in some time to learn and program it.

Tap your phone to withdraw cash from Wells Fargo ATMs

Wells Fargo enabled smartphone-only ATM withdrawals back in March, but the need to punch in both an app-specific code and your PIN partly defeated the convenience of the feature. As of now, though, it’s decidedly easier: the bank has enabled NFC access at more than 5,000 of its ATMs across the country. As with Chase, you just have to tap your phone (using Apple Pay, Android Pay or Samsung Pay) and enter a PIN code to start a transaction at a supporting machine. Suffice it to say this is considerably faster than entering two codes just to withdraw some cash.

The main catch at this point is simply availability. Wells Fargo touts NFC support at over 40 percent of its ATMs, but that still leaves most of its machines working the ‘old-fashioned’ way. Tap-based access at every ATM is expected to come by 2019. Even so, it’s a big step toward a day when you can ditch plastic cards as long as there’s a phone in your pocket.

Via: 9to5Mac

Source: Wells Fargo (1), (2)

Snapchat just made tagging places a lot more useful

More and more places are getting their own Snapchat location filters, but what good are they? Well, now they link to further information about where your pals are sending evaporating updates from. The ephemeral photo app is calling them Context Cards. The video filled with very attractive twentysomethings below shows restaurant reviews from TripAdvisor, how much it’ll take to get to a destination either in your own car or via Lyft or Uber and will add your location to a map, Foursquare style. It looks like you can even make hotel reservations without leaving Snapchat, too — all based on the location filter you pick.

Additionally, you can link with OpenTable to book a restaurant reservation, and there will be more location-based stories and snaps listed as well. While the app started out as a way for sending risky photos, Context Cards are the latest step into turning Snapchat into a full-blown social network. It’s only a matter of time before Instagram tries something similar.

Source: Snapchat (YouTube)

Samsung’s new robot vacuums banish Darth Vader to cleaning duty

If you’ve lamented the lack of Star Wars-themed home cleaning appliances, then Samsung has just the robot vacuums for you. Today they announced limited editions of their POWERbot VR7000 vacuum cleaner inspired by the iconic sci-fi franchise. There are two different designs: Darth Vader retails for $799, while his Stormtrooper counterpart retails for $699. You can preorder both now at the Samsung website; the estimated ship date is November 5th at the time of writing.

Both robot vacuums feature 10-Watt suction power, CycloneForce technology and the ability to clean close to walls and edges. It uses mapping tech to remember your home and discover the fastest cleaning routes. A sensor ensures that the robot vacuum will clean around personal items as small as 10 mm. They both also have onboard Star Wars sound effects. The Darth Vader unit comes equipped with Wi-Fi and a remote control, hence the higher price.

The merchandising for Star Wars is a bit out of control, from Ubtech’s Stormtrooper bot that will yell at intruders, to flash drives, USB car chargers, bluetooth speakers and much, much more. (R2-D2 screwdriver, anyone?) But hey, if you’re a Star Wars fan who’s in the market for a robot vacuum, why wouldn’t you want Darth Vader cleaning your carpet?

Source: Samsung

Uber’s app will stop UK drivers working excessive hours

Earlier today, executives from Uber, Deliveroo and courier company Hermes addressed the UK government’s Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Committee, which is investigating how it might be possible to balance the flexible “gig economy” working model with fair pay and appropriate benefits. While discussing employment practices, Uber’s Andrew Byrne was quizzed on passenger safety, at which point he revealed the ride-sharing company is testing a system that automatically logs off drivers deemed to be working excessive hours.

Uber already tracks the hours of UK drivers, who are called directly and reminded of safe driving practices if they are clocking up serious hours over short periods. The feature in development sets a strict logged-on limit, expected to be between 10 and 12 hours within any one, rolling 24-hour period. This would be impossible to breach, as drivers would be booted off the app for a mandatory rest period — that doesn’t stop them working for a different private hire operator in between, of course. A similar system was introduced in New York City early last year, stopping drivers from working more than 12 hours per day.

When asked about the pressure drivers may face to log on when poorly, Byrne mentioned the subsidised illness and injury insurance policies Uber offers drivers through the Association of Independent Professionals and the Self Employed (IPSE). While the government committee is looking at the gig economy as a whole, news of in-testing safety measures could have a direct impact on Uber’s current issues with Transport for London (TfL), which recently decided not to renew the ride-hailing company’s private hire licence in the capital.

In the shock announcement, TfL noted several safety concerns among a broader criticism of Uber’s business practices. The service is still allowed to operate beyond the expiry of its current licence while it exhausts the appeals process, expected to take several months at least. Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi has already flown over to meet with TfL, and it’s likely a strict limit on driver hours will form one of many concessions Uber will make to show it’s a “fit and proper” operator worthy of a renewed private hire licence.

Via: Huffington Post

Source: The Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Committee

NVIDIA opens up its Holodeck VR design suite

Hardware makers have figured out that enterprises are the best way to make money off of VR and AR, not consumers. NVIDIA, a company that does both things well but has been particularly strong on the business side lately, has just opened up its Holodeck “intelligent” VR platform to select designers and developers. First unveiled in May, it allows for photorealistic graphics, haptics, real-world physics and multi-user collaboration.

That helps engineers and designers build and interact with photorealistic people, objects and robots in a fully simulated environment. The idea is to get new hardware prototyped in as much detail as possible before building real-world models. It also allows manufacturers to start training personnel well before hardware is market-ready. For instance, NVIDIA showed how the engineers that built the Koenigsegg supercar could explore the car “at scale and in full visual fidelity” and consult in real time on design changes.

Holodeck is built on a bespoke version of Epic Games’ Unreal Engine 4 and uses NVIDIA’s VRWorks, DesignWorks and GameWorks. It requires some significant hardware, either an NVIDIA 1080, Quadro P600, NVIDIA 1080 Ti or Titan XP GPU, but the firm says it will eventually lower the bar. It’s not clear what kind of headsets are supported, but both of the major PC models (the HTC Vive and Oculus Rift) will likely work.

NVIDIA is already using its Holodeck as a way to train AI agents in its Isaac Simulator, a photorealistic machine-learning environment. With Holodeck, NVIDIA is taking on Microsoft and its Hololens in the enterprise and design arena — though the latter AR system is more about letting engineers interact with real and virtual objects at the same time. Another player in the simulation scene is Google with Glass Enterprise, a product aimed more at training and manufacturing than design.

All of this doesn’t seem like it’s going to help you game or be entertained, but there is a silver lining. Much of this very advanced tech is bound to trickle down to consumers, hopefully making VR and AR good enough to actually become popular.

Source: NVIDIA

Apple Music’s latest short stars Niall Horan from One Direction

Niall Horan might be a member of the celebrated boy band One Direction, but he’s ready to strike out on his own with the release of his first solo album Flicker. Now, Billboard reports that thanks to Apple Music, Horan will debut a short film called On the Record: Flicker, which will take viewers behind the scenes of recording the album. It will feature both footage of rehearsals, as well as interviews and a look into Horan’s creative process. The film and album both debut on October 20th. You can see the trailer below.

This isn’t the first venture Apple Music has made into short film documentaries featuring musicians. Megastar Pink is releasing her seventh studio album Beautiful Trauma this week, on October 13th. Apple Music will also release On the Record: Pink — Beautiful Trauma, a short documentary about the making of the album. Apple Music is doing well with these documentary exclusives, and it will be interesting to see if these give them an edge in the music streaming wars.

Source: Billboard, Facebook