Google is opening pop-up stores in New York and Los Angeles

Why it matters to you

If you’re in New York or LA beginning October 19, you may want to check out the Google pop-up store.

Start the countdown, friends, because in 10 days, you’ll be able to walk into a storefront hosted by Google. Reprising its successful pop-up concept from last year, Google is once again hosting two pop-up stores to sell its new Made by Google products. Slated to open on both the east and west coasts of the United States, these transient stores just may be a reason to mark your calendars.

Google’s not sharing much information about the pop-ups as of yet — currently, a landing page notes only that the New York City store will be located at 110 Fifth Avenue and will be open from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. for the duration of the popup; and that the Los Angeles store will be located at 8552 Melrose Avenue and will keep the same hours as its New York counterpart. While the tech giant hasn’t confirmed how long the stores will remain open, if history is any indication, we can expect to be able to walk into a physical Google store through the holiday season.

It’s likely that the products to be found at the pop-up will be those that made their debut at the October 4 Google event. That suggests that you could buy the new Pixel 2 smartphones from the store, as well as the premium Chromebook known as the Pixelbook, alongside its compatible Pixelbook Pen stylus. We might also see the Pixel Buds, which are Bluetooth headphones capable of translating among 40 languages thanks to Google Assistant and Google Translate. On the smart home side, the pop-up might feature the Google Home Mini and Google Home Max.

Other recently launched products that could be found at the pop-ups include the Google Clips (an A.I.-enhanced mini camera) and the Daydream View VR headset. Of course, the vast majority of this is speculation, and Google has made no confirmation of what it might be selling at its short-lived stores. That said, on its landing page, Google is offering eager buyers the opportunity to sign up for updates about devices, news, tips, and offers from Google.

So if you’ll be in LA or New York in a week and a half, you might just want to pop by the Google pop-up.

Pixel 2 XL vs. Galaxy Note 8: One phablet to rule them all

The Pixel 2 XL, the larger of Google’s two new smartphones, is a testament to the company’s hardware expertise. It has a 6-inch P-OLED screen that can display more than 16 million colors, a zippy Qualcomm processor, and one of the best cameras on the market. Even better? It retails for potentially hundreds of dollars less than the high-end iPhone X.

The Pixel 2 XL has a formidable competitor in the Galaxy Note 8. Samsung’s 6.3-inch phablet has a curved edge-to-edge screen, a massive amount of memory, and support for wireless charging. But those perks don’t come cheap — the Note 8 starts at over $900.

Suffice to say that even if money’s no object, it’s not an easy decision. Here’s how the two compare.

Specs

Galaxy Note 8

Pixel 2 XL
Size
162.5 × 74.8 × 8.6 mm (6.40 × 2.95 × 0.34 inches)
157.9 x 76.7 x 7.9 mm (6.22 x 3.02 x 0.31 inches)
Weight
195 grams (6.88 ounces)
175 grams (6.17 ounces)
Screen
6.3-inch Super AMOLED
6-inch P-OLED display
Resolution
2960 × 1440 pixels (522 ppi)
2880 x 1440 pixels (538 ppi)
OS
Android 7.1.1 Nougat
Android 8.0
Storage
64GB, 128GB, 256GB
64GB, 128GB
MicroSD card slot
Yes
No
NFC support
Yes
Yes
Processor
Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 (U.S.), Samsung Exynos 8895 (international)
Snapdragon 835, with Adreno 540
RAM
6GB
4GB
Connectivity
LTE, GSM, CDMA, HSPA, EVDO, 802.11a/b/g/n/ac Wi-Fi
GSM, CDMA, HSPA, EVDO, LTE, 802.11a/b/g/n/ac Wi-Fi
Camera
Dual 12 MP rear (both with OIS), 8MP front
12.2 MP rear, 8 MP HD front
Video
Up to 4K at 30 fps, 1080p at 60 fps, 720p at 240 fps
Up to 4K at 30 fps, 1080p at 120 fps, 720p at 240 fps
Bluetooth
Yes, version 5.0
Yes, version 5.0
Fingerprint sensor
Yes
Yes
Other sensors
Accelerometer, barometer, gyro, geomagnetic, heart rate, proximity, iris, pressure
Gyroscope, accelerometer, compass, proximity sensor, barometer
Water resistant
Yes, IP68 rated
Yes, IP67 rated
Battery
3,300mAh

22 hours of talk time, 13 hours of internet, 16 hours of video playback, and up to 74 hours of audio playback

Fast charging, wireless charging (Qi standard)

3,520mAh

Fast-charging

Charging port
USB-C
USB-C
Marketplace
Google Play Store
Google Play Store
Colors
Midnight Black, Orchid Gray
Just Black, Black & White
Availability

AT&T, Verizon, Sprint, T-Mobile, Unlocked

Google Store, Verizon, Best Buy

Price
$930
$849
DT review
4 out of 5 stars
Hands-on review

When it comes to internals, the Pixel 2 XL and Galaxy Note 8 have a lot in common.

The Note 8 and Pixel 2 XL pack Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 835 system-on-chip, the same chip in flagships like the LG V30 and HTC U11. (Qualcomm says it has a 27-percent performance advantage over the Snapdragon 821, the first-gen Pixel’s processor.) But the Note 8 has an advantage in the RAM department: 6GB of RAM compared to the Pixel 2 XL’s 4GB. The jury’s out on whether or not that will make a noticeable day-to-day difference, but on paper, the Note 8 is theoretically capable of juggling more apps, Chrome tabs, and tasks in the background than the Pixel 2 XL.

In terms of storage space, the Pixel 2 XL can’t beat the Galaxy Note 8’s sheer flexibility. The Note 8’s top-end model boasts 256GB, and every model has a MicroSD card slot than can fit a removable card. The Pixel 2 XL, on the other hand, doesn’t support MicroSD cards and maxes out at 128GB.

Things are a bit more evenly matched on the audio side of the equation. Both phones support Bluetooth 5.0, the latest standard, and high-quality audio codecs like Qualcomm’s aptX.  The Galaxy Note 8 has a 3.5mm headphone jack, unlike the Pixel 2 XL, but the Pixel 2 XL has stereo front-facing speakers.

In our book, though, the Galaxy Note 8 wins on overall hardware. Its extra RAM, storage options, and 3.5mm port put it ahead of the Pixel 2 XL.

Winner: Galaxy Note 8 

Design and display

Julian Chokkattu / Digital Trends

You’d be hard-pressed to find two phones that look less alike than the Note 8 and Pixel 2 XL.

The Note 8’s exterior is a mix of aluminum, water-resistant plastic, and shatter-resistant Gorilla Glass 5. It has an edge-to-edge screen that curves around the phone’s bezels, as opposed to the Pixel 2 XL’s flat screen. The Pixel 2 XL boasts a resolution of 2880 x 1440 pixels and a tall 18:9 aspect ratio, but the Note 8 is slightly taller, with a resolution of 2960 × 1440 pixels and an 18.5:9 aspect ratio. The Note 8 display also has the advantage of support for high dynamic range (HDR). In apps like YouTube, Netflix, and others that take advantage, expect its color contrast, black levels, and brightness to come out on top of the Pixel 2 XL’s display.

Both phones’ fronts are relatively minimalist, owing to their narrow top and bottom display bezels and software-based home and navigation buttons. The Pixel 2 XL’s physical buttons comprise a single power button and a volume rocker. The Galaxy Note 8 isn’t all that different, with the notable exception of the Bixby button — a button that launches Samsung’s AI-powered voice assistant (more on that later).

Flip both phones around and it’s a slightly different story. The Galaxy Note 8’s fingerprint sensor sits adjacent to the rear camera, which makes it both difficult to reach and easy to smudge. The Pixel 2 XL’s fingerprint sensor, by contrast, is smack-dab in the middle of the phone — your index finger’s natural resting place.

The Note 8 and Pixel 2 XL are on even footing in the port department, save the Pixel 2 XL’s absent headphone jack — both have USB-C connectors. With the exception of the Pixel 2 XL’s two-tone design rear cover, which creates some much-needed visual contrast on a phone that’s otherwise somewhat plain, they’re both fairly low profile. Most folks won’t find either polarizing.

The Note 8 is IP68 rated to withstand up to 5 feet of water (for 30 minutes), and the Pixel 2 XL is IP67 rated for up to 3 1/2 feet (for 30 minutes).

The Galaxy Note 8 and Pixel 2 XL trade blows in the design department, but the Note 8’s superior water resistance and curved screen win it the round.

Winner: Galaxy Note 8

Camera

Julian Chokkattu/Digital Trends

The Note 8 and Pixel 2 XL approach photography differently. The former has dual rear cameras, but the latter’s single rear camera draws on sophisticated artificial intelligence.

Let’s start with the Pixel 2 XL. Its 12.2-megapixel, f/1.8 aperture, 1.4μm pixel sized-camera uses clever software to improve clarity in low light and boost sharpness in bright daylight. It taps a Google-designed imaging chip, optical image stabilization (OIS), and electronic image stabilization (EIS) to counteract jerky hand movements, and boasts dual pixel phase-detection and laser autofocus technologies that hone in on subjects in milliseconds.

The Pixel 2 XL’s other AI smarts make the camera even more useful. The Google Camera, the app that powers the phone’s sensors, has an iPhone 7-like Portrait Mode (on both the rear and front camera) that slightly blurs the background while keeping the foreground in focus, an effect known as bokeh. Another feature — Motion Photo — records a three-second clip before and after you tap the shutter button.

Then there’s the Google Lens, an AI photo analyzer that can pick out books, DVD covers, architectural landmarks, and more. Thanks to Google-designed AI chips that process more than 180 trillion floating point operations per second, Google Lens can give a description of a building in a photo or identify the artist of a painting.

That’s all very impressive, but so is the Note 8’s rear camera, which consists of a f/1.7-aperture wide-angle lens and a f/2.4-aperture telephoto lens. The Note 8 uses them to the fullest in Live Focus, a camera mode that lets you apply bokeh to your photo before or after you capture it, and Dual Capture, which takes a close-up and a wide-angle shot at the same time.

When it comes to video, both phones’ rear cameras support resolutions up to 4K at 30 frames per second (and 1080p at 120fps). Samsung says the Note 8’s dual OIS gives it a leg up over phones like the iPhone 7 Plus, but Google says the Pixel 2 XL’s combination of OIS and EIS performs even better. When we have the Pixel 2 XL in hand, we’ll put the latter claim to the test.

The two phones’ cameras are as evenly matched as they seem, but early evidence suggests the Pixel 2 XL’s camera slightly edges out the Note 8’s. In early October, camera authority DxOMark gave the Pixel 2 XL an unprecedented 98 rating, slightly above the Galaxy Note 8’s score of 94.

It’s tough to declare a winner in the photo category without having put the Pixel 2 XL through its paces, but based on what we know so far, it just about beats the Galaxy Note 8 in terms of picture quality. Software like Google Lens is the icing on the cake.

Winner: Pixel 2 XL

Battery life and charging

The Pixel 2 XL has a 3,520mAh battery, which is a tad larger than the Galaxy Note 8’s 3,300mAh battery. It’s too early to tell how much of a difference that 220mAh will make in the real world, but we’re not expecting anything dramatic. The Galaxy Note 8 lasted about a day with moderate to heavy use in our testing, and we’re expecting the same of the Pixel 2 XL.

Both phones support fast charging, albeit different standards. The Galaxy Note 8 can fully recharge in 90 minutes thanks to Samsung’s Adaptive Fast Charging. The Pixel 2 XL, on the other hand, taps USB Power Delivery for up to 7 hours of battery life in 15 minutes of charging. With the right adapter, you can charge up the Pixel 2 XL faster than the Note 8.

The Note 8 has wireless charging, too. It’s compatible with any Qi charging pad, unlike the Pixel 2 XL. But, despite that advantage, the Pixel 2 XL comes out slightly ahead in the battery category, thanks to the extra capacity and faster charging capability.

Winner: Pixel 2 XL

Software

Julian Chokkattu/Digital Trends

The Note 8 ships with the latest flavor of TouchWiz, Samsung’s custom-designed interface that runs atop Android 7.1.1 Nougat. Perhaps the highlight is Samsung’s Bixby assistant, which serves up contextually useful information on the fly, and support for the Dex Station, a dock (sold separately) that transforms it into a functional desktop replacement. That’s to say nothing of the Note 8’s iris- and face-scanning security features, which save you the trouble of having to type in a password.

The Pixel 2 XL, on the other hand, runs stock Android 8.0 Oreo. Among the headliners are Notification Channels, which let you toggle notifications on a per-app basis. A brand-new picture-in-picture mode lets you minimize apps like YouTube to a draggable window, and new limits on apps’ background tasks promise battery life improvements across the board.

But the Note 8 has something the Pixel 2 XL doesn’t: Samsung’s S Pen stylus. There’s Screen Off memo, a feature which lets you sketch and write memos without switching on the Note 8’s display, and Smart Select, which generates GIFs. Air Command pulls up a list of app shortcuts when the S Pen’s removed from its slot, and Magnify turns the S Pen into a digital magnifying glass, enlarging the text and images around its tip. Finally, a new feature called Live Messages lets you sketch an animated image and share it with friends as a GIF.

The Pixel 2 XL doesn’t have an answer to the S Pen, but does have features that take advantage of its custom hardware. Active Edge launches an app or setting with a squeeze of the phone’s touch-sensitive bezels. The low-power Always On Display mode shows a monochrome clock and notifications, even when the phone is off. Now Playing taps the Pixel 2’s three-microphone array to identify music playing nearby and put a link to the relevant Google Play Music listing on the lock screen. Google’s AR Stickers, which launch in preview alongside the Pixel 2 XL, project digital labels onto tables, chairs, and other surfaces.

It’s also worth noting that the Pixel 2 XL has the latest flavor of Android and will continue to get software updates the moment Google rolls them out for at least the next three years.

Winner: Tie

Price and availability

The Pixel 2 XL isn’t as expensive as you might expect. Google’s flagship ships in 64GB and 128GB storage configurations for $849 and $949, respectively, with a Google Home Mini speaker (a $50 value) free with every purchase for a limited time. Alternatively, you can opt for Google’s monthly financing option, which is $35.38 per month for the 64GB model and $39.54 per month for the 128GB model.

The Note 8, on the other hand, starts at $930 for 64GB.

But the Note 8 is available from more places, including AT&T, T-Mobile, and Sprint in the U.S. The Pixel 2 XL, like last year’s Pixel XL, is exclusive to Verizon, the Google Store, and a handful of brick-and-mortar retailers.

Still, $930 is a steep price to swallow. And that’s why we’re giving the win to the Pixel 2 XL.

Winner: Pixel 2 XL

Overall winner: Pixel 2 XL

There’s no denying that the Galaxy Note 8 is a powerful smartphone with capable cameras and a beautiful screen. But the Pixel 2 XL has it beat in several respects.

The Pixel 2 XL has a better camera, a bigger battery, and it can be had for less money than the Galaxy Note 8. Sure, the Pixel 2 XL doesn’t have an answer to the Note 8’s iris scanner, headphone jack, or S Pen stylus, but it more than makes up for its shortcomings with clever software, custom hardware, and Google’s cloud-powered AI.

Put the cutlery down: Food could soon levitate straight into your mouth

Why it matters to you

Food that levitate into your mouth could help make technology like virtual reality more multisensory.

Whether it’s floating clocks or hovering smartphone chargers, levitation is hot right now. That’s why we’re totally hyped at the prospect of some fascinating research coming out of the Sussex Computer Human interaction (SCHI) Lab at the U.K.’s University of Sussex, where engineers have figured out how to make a levitating food-delivery system, in which tasty grub floats straight into your mouth. No knife and fork required!

“We are interested in a way to deliver small quantities of food to a user without anyone touching the food,” Sriram Subramanian, professor of Informatics at the University of Sussex, told Digital Trends. “We created a way to deliver food from a dropper to the user’s mouth without touching anything. Food morsels are levitated using acoustic levitation techniques, and transported using our device to the user’s mouth. This is an semi-automated process giving us digital control over what food is delivered to the user’s mouth, when it is delivered, and how much is delivered.”

So far, the TastyFloats technology has been used to levitate tiny droplets of wine, blue cheese, bread, lettuce, meat, bread, and raspberry grain. Interestingly, the droplets of food changed the way that the flavors were registered by users. In volunteer trials, sweet tastes were reported as being more intense and recognizable, while bitter tastes were much harder to recognize.

“Our biggest challenge in this work was to be able to control the levitation system so that food morsels are stable in the system, whether it is wine, meat, or cheese that we are levitating,” Subramanian continued. “In other words, we needed to find a way to control the levitation energy so that it is strong enough to hold different density food items, but not so strong that they evaporate.”

Subramanian suggested that the technology could be used to deliver a more complete multisensory experience to people experiencing virtual reality, television, or gaming. Imagine, for example, being in a virtual environment that not only looks real but tastes real, as well — without you needing to do any more than open your mouth to achieve the intended effect.

“What we’ve created [so far] is a first prototype that is somewhat cumbersome to use,” Subramanian said. “In the future, we want to make the delivery system more robust and easy to deploy. We would also look to try and create a short movie experience which incorporates our TastyFloats system to get an idea of how users experience it. Finally, we would love to work with content developers to create content that harnesses the potential of our device. While I can easily see a more refined version of our system becoming a real-world device, this is probably a few years away.”

Clean with the power of ultrasound by using the Sonic Soak

Why it matters to you

Looking to get a truly deep clean on your clothes, vegetables, or anything else? The Sonic Soak can help.

Cleanliness has never looked so sleek. Much to the delight of clean freaks everywhere, there’s a new standard when it comes to removing dirt, grime, and bacteria from your life. Meet the Sonic Soak, a new ultrasonic cleaning tool that promises to clean deeply, all while saving you time, water, and energy. The palm-sized device can be taken just about anywhere to clean just about anything — simply place it in a bowl of water, alongside whatever needs to be sanitized, and let it do its thing.

Using modulated ultrasonic waves, the Sonic Soak promises to “disintegrate dirt and bacteria at a microscopic level.” But how does it work? Apparently, the Sonic Soak sends ultrasound into its surrounding liquid environment, creating microscopic cavitation bubbles. These bubbles hit the surface of what needs to be cleaned (your glasses, your clothes, or even a piece of fruit or a vegetable), and implode. The resulting pressure is said to wash out dirt, grime, oil, and bacteria. 

Using the Sonic Soak promises to be a breeze. Just fill your container of choice with water (perhaps contingent upon the size load you have to clean), then plug the Sonic Soak into an outlet. From there, add your detergent or soap, drop in the Sonic Soak, and press “start.” Apparently, even with its impressive cleaning capabilities, the device is quite quiet, and generates sounds no louder, and not much different, than moderate rainfall.

Promising to serve as a perfect travel companion, the Sonic Soak can help you pack lighter, as you can easily wash clothes while you’re away from home. And not only can your clothing benefit from some cleaning, but the Sonic Soak can also clean your jewelry, your toothbrush, and even your kids’ toys. Most other anti-bacterial cleaners rely on harsh chemicals (or harsh washing cycles), but the Sonic Soak promises to be gentle yet effective.

With about a month left in its Indiegogo campaign, the Sonic Soak has raised just under $4,000, about 40 percent of its total funding goal. If you’re interested in chipping in, you can pre-order a Sonic Soak for yourself for $125, with an estimated delivery date of December 2017.

Virtual reality racing in an 80 mph wind tunnel is cheek-flapping good fun

My eyes were watering so much from the monstrous gale blowing in my face, my vision was becoming impaired, and I feared I’d soon lose control of my racer. A horribly messy end awaited if I shot off the edge of the insane race track, when the racer’s sleek bodywork would quickly end up a mangled mess, with me inside. Nothing made sense anymore. Tears were streaming down my face, yet I couldn’t slow down. When would this madness end?

It wasn’t down to me, but the man with his hand on the controls of the wind tunnel. I wasn’t in a real race, I was playing Radial-G on PlayStation VR. It’s a hyper-fast racing game which the development team decided would be fun to play in an environment simulating great speed.

The best virtual reality experiences are truly immersive, and what’s more immersive than having the wind in your hair while shooting along at breakneck speeds in VR?

At 80mph when you open your mouth, your cheeks flap about in a most unflattering manner.

I quickly discovered that the man in control of the machine enjoyed the role he played. At the time when I thought my eyelids would peel back over the top of my head, the tunnel was pushing out a continual 80mph wind. That’s close to its maximum of 100mph, and although I couldn’t see him, I’m assuming he had a gleeful, slightly crazed smile as he cranked the speed higher.

At 80mph when you open your mouth, your cheeks flap about in a most unflattering manner, and basic necessities like breathing become way more challenging than usual. Because this is all happening while you’re trying to steer your ship around the twisting, turning, tube-shaped race track in Radial-G, sensory overload isn’t far away.

Great group fun

Sounds horrid, right? It’s not. It’s stupid, laugh-out-loud, barking mad fun. No, it makes absolutely no sense — the game’s set in space for a start, where wind isn’t something you need to worry about — and the additional level of immersion from playing in a wind tunnel is questionable; but you’d be crazy to turn down the opportunity to give it a try should it arise.

Tammeca

Andy Boxall Digital Trends

Tammeca

Andy Boxall Digital Trends

If additional immersion wasn’t the outcome, what did it do? It’s more evidence that VR can provide a great group experience with the right setting and environment. I laughed, the people watching laughed, and everyone who had a go looked pretty silly in a highly amusing way.

Taking on your mates in a race while getting blown about, or just watching them react, is a brilliant weekend gaming experience-in-the-making. Make everyone dress up in billowy, loose clothing, and you’ve got enough Instagram fodder for weeks.

It’s stupid, laugh-out-loud, barking mad fun.

How about playing Radial-G? If you’ve played one of the many incarnations of Wipeout, then you’ll know what to expect.

You shoot along a cylindrical racetrack — it’s like racing on a giant, twisting, metal worm —and have complete freedom of movement around it.

It’s interspersed with jumps, drops, and other disorientating obstacles, plus speed-ups and even weapons that add to the frantic pace. We played more than once, and enjoyed it more each time. We recommend it if you’re keen for some VR racing fun.

Not just for PlayStation VR

Virtual reality racing games, or any VR game with incredibly fast movement, can induce motion sickness if it’s done badly. The team behind Radial-G have worked very hard to avoid such problems, giving visual anchor points in place of a horizon — which in real life stops us from getting sick, and does the same thing in VR — along with other indicators, to make sure we can continue playing without problems.

In a game that delights in turning you upside down, and has many epic high speed sweeping bends that end in a sheer drop, the complete lack of disorientation or dizziness when playing is impressive.

You don’t need a PlayStation VR to enjoy a quick blast in Radial-G either. It’s available for Oculus Rift and HTC Vive, plus Google Daydream. Showing how powerful the mobile VR experience is becoming, the team only had to make very small tweaks to the game for it to run on a Daydream-compatible smartphone. Just don’t expect the battery to last that long.

Radial-G has nine race tracks, seven racers, a selection of different gameplay modes, and a 16-player online mode.

Is a wind tunnel essential to the Radial-G experience? No, of course not. Kingston University splashed out hundreds of thousands of pounds on the one we were blasted by, and we doubt many players will be looking to do the same. May we suggest placing a fan on its highest setting in front of you instead?

Flippancy aside, we had fun with Radial-G and the wind tunnel, and love that VR is inspiring people to come up with new ways of upping the level of immersion, especially when it lends itself so well to group play. Who’s up for hiring out a wind tunnel and playing some Radial-G this weekend?

The $25 Logitech M720 Triathlon lasts two years on one battery

Competing in a Triathlon is all about endurance, and this mouse takes that to heart.

Is this deal for me?

The Logitech M720 Triathlon wireless mouse is only $24.99 at Staples. The shipping is $9, so you’ll want to order for in-store pickup to avoid that fee. Normally, this mouse sells for around $35. It’s $36 at Best Buy right now. This price is even better than refurbished versions.

You will love the M720 for one reason – the battery life. This mouse is supposed to last up to two years on a single AA battery. That’s really nice and it means when you accidentally leave it on and sitting in your backpack, it’ll still work when you finally pull it out.

Features include:

• Pair M720 Triathlon with up to 3 computers and seamlessly switch between them at the touch of a button thanks to Easy-Switch technology
• Fly through documents and web pages using the hyper-fast scroll wheel, or shift to click-to-click scrolling when you need precision
• A true athlete, M720 is designed to endure, with buttons built to withstand up to 10 million clicks
• Unlock the full range of possibilities and customize to fit your needs on Mac OS X and Windows by downloading Logitech Options Software

Android Central loves this mouse, and Amazon users give it 4.2 stars based on 148 reviews.

TL;DR

• What makes this deal worth considering? – The price is about $10 off what it normally goes for, and this mouse is built to save you money on batteries in the long run.
• Things to know before you buy! – This 4-pack of rechargeable batteries is on sale today, too, and matches perfectly with this mouse.

See at Staples

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Make your Micro-USB cables useful again with a 2-pack of USB-C adapters for $3

Your old Micro-USB cables just became useful again!

Is this deal for me?

The move from Micro-USB to USB-C is great for many reasons, but it also means that all of your old cables won’t work to charge your new phone. Before you ditch all those cables and start looking for new ones to replace them, you may want to consider another option.

Right now you can pick up a 2-pack of Aukey Micro-USB to USB-C adapters for just $2.96 at Amazon when you use the coupon code EDMAOKMY. These generally sell for between $5 and $8 on average, so being able to pick them up for under $3 is pretty awesome.

• Convert your USB-A to Micro USB cables into a USB-A to USB-C cables to charge and connect with the next generation of Type-C devices
• Premium aluminum finish with seamless reversible USB-C connector head plugs in either direction, compatible with USB-C smartphones, tablets, laptops and other Type C devices
• Fast charging and reliable data transfer up to 480 Mbps
• Super small, will work with any Micro-USB cable, great to have at home, office, car

Odds are you will be using your phone at home, in the car, in the office, and more, so you may want to pick up more than just two of these adapters. Keep one in your pocket and one everywhere else so you are never without a way to charge your phone!

TL;DR

• What makes this deal worth considering? – USB-C is becoming far more popular, and most new phones (except the iPhone) are launching with this connection type. Your old cables won’t work anymore, and you won’t want to spend a ton to replace them.
• Things to know before you buy! – Two of these may not even be enough, depending how many places you charge your phone. You may want to pick up more than one pack to ensure you always have one around.

See at Amazon

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GM’s Cruise buys LIDAR company to drastically cut self-driving costs

GM has already said it has what it takes to get a fleet of autonomous vehicles on the road before anyone else, and that timeline might’ve sped up further. Cruise Automation, the company GM acquired a little over a year ago, has announced it’s made a purchase of its own: Strobe, which specializes in shrinking LIDAR arrays down to a single chip. The most immediate benefit here is cost. In a post on Medium, Cruise CEO Kyle Vogt writes that LIDAR-on-a-chip will drop the price “by 99 percent” versus other LIDAR systems.

“Strobe, Cruise and GM engineers will work side by side along with our optics and fabrication experts at HRL (formerly Hughes Research Labs), the GM skunkworks-like division that invented the world’s first laser,” Vogt wrote.

The new LIDAR system can apparently deal with sun reflecting off rainy streets and help differentiate between someone clad in black jaywalking at night. Vogt wrote that when combined with RADAR and cameras, the LIDAR can handle pretty much every type of sensing needed for self-driving applications. If you were looking for proof that GM might beat the competition to market, well, this could be part of it.

Via: TechCrunch

Source: Medium

Waymo ad campaign aims to get the public behind self-driving cars

Waymo announced today that it has created “the world’s first public education campaign for fully self-driving cars.” It’s called the “Let’s Talk Self-Driving” campaign and it aims to increase understanding of self-driving technology and convince would-be riders that it’s safe.

The company has teamed up with a number of organizations in order to highlight the benefits of autonomous vehicles. The Foundation for Senior Living points out that self-driving cars could help seniors maintain more independence by not being inhibited by a lack of transportation — a message mirrored by the Foundation for Blind Children. With Mothers Against Drunk Driving, Waymo notes that drunk driving causes 10,000 preventable deaths per year, a number that could be reduced with the help of self-driving cars. And the East Valley Partnership argues that drivers lose a lot of valuable time on the road and handing over those reins will free up time that used to be spent driving and waiting in traffic.

“Let’s Talk Self-Driving” is currently being focused towards Arizona where Waymo’s early rider program launched in April. The campaign will include digital, outdoor and radio advertising and its accompanying website will be updated with additional resources. Getting the public behind self-driving technology is going to be a key step for all of the companies currently developing it and Waymo isn’t the only one to start working for the public’s trust. Intel is also putting together an ad campaign geared towards convincing everyone that its technology is safe, which The Verge reports will be headlined by LeBron James. Uber also released a video last week about its technology, though it lacked detail and doesn’t stand to reach as many people as a full ad campaign will.

Waymo’s campaign is timely as reports surfaced last week that the company could be launching an autonomous ride-hailing fleet in Phoenix as early as this month. “Together, we all share excitement at the potential for self-driving cars to one day open doors to safer and easier transportation for millions of people,” Waymo CEO John Krafcik said in a statement. “When 94% of road crashes today involve human error, self-driving cars promise a future where anyone can ride with a driver that never gets drunk, tired, or distracted.”

Via: The Verge

Source: Waymo (1), (2)

Twitter bot’s ‘Glitch Art’ is a digital impressionist dream

While most people find video glitches or artifacts distracting, some folks see the beauty in them. One of those is programmer and visual artist David Kraftsow, known for his trippy YooouuuTuuube generator and delightfully droll First Person Tetris. One of his latest projects is a Twitter bot called @youtubeartifact that generates so-called Glitch Art out of the occasionally delightful hiccups produced by YouTube’s MP4 motion compensation algorithm.

Depending on how bad the glitch is, the results can be creepy, mildly grotesque or, like the above image, a sort of blocky impressionism. “I think there is definitely something people find appealing in the unpredictability of the output,” Kraftsow told Engadget, “and i do think it’s interesting that the artifacts strike people as painterly.”

To teach the bot to create the images, Kraftsow relied on his coding, but the aesthetic depends on his curation skills. The bot searches for very specific types of YouTube videos, like vlogger videos and makeup tutorial videos, to name a couple of themes. “It searchs YouTube for videos based on a convoluted set of parameters I’ve set up to find the videos that work best with the effect,” he said.

pic.twitter.com/iueywCt9zS

— youtube artifact (@youtubeartifact) October 9, 2017

Once it finds a promising video, the bot then exploits a technique called “datamoshing.” YouTube uses H.264 motion compression on MP4 videos, which fully captures only select frames (i-frames), filling in the rest with b-frames or p-frames that save the temporal differences between frames. While that conserves space, the image breaks up if any of the i-frames are missing.

So the bot does exactly that, deleting i-frames from the h.264 video data, “then tries to decode as a video which leads to the codec filling space with visual artifacts,” Kraftsow explained. That often results in gradient-like transitions between hues, blotches of colors and other strange effects — a machine’s idea of an image.

The bot has been around in different forms since 2009, starting out as a website “where you could enter a YouTube video and it would cause the glitches in real time,” said Krafsow. In 2012, he transformed it into a standalone app for the internet art database site Rhizome, then, a year ago, transformed it into a Twitter bot to reach more people.

A pure product of the digital age, Glitch Art counts quite a few practitioners, including Takeshi Murata, Mathieu St-Pierre, and Phillip Stearns, whose Glitch Textiles firm transforms malfunctions into amazing throws, pillows and scarves. As for what it all means, some of the artists see it as a way of playing with visual perception or just a new way of creating strangely beautiful patterns. Personally, I see it as charming reminder of what can go wrong in a world with a heavy addiction to data and algorithms.

Source: @youtubeartifact