The Google Pixel 2 vs. the original Pixel: What’s changed?

The new Pixel phones are here and, while they don’t give us much more to look at compared to last year’s models, it’s the inside that really counts. This year’s 5-inch Pixel gives us a better camera and more powerful processor compared to the original, but we’ve also lost the headphone jack. What else has changed? Give the specs below a peep, and stay tuned as we put Google’s new handset through its paces soon.

Pixel 2
Pixel
Pricing
$649, $749 (off contract)
$649, $749 (off contract)
Known dimensions
145.7 x 69.7 x 7.8mm (5.7 x 2.7 x 0.3 inches)
143.84 x 69.54 x 7.31mm (5.66 x 2.74 x 0.29 inches)
Weight
143g (5.04 ounces)
143g (5.04 ounces)
Screen size
5.0 inches (127mm)
5.0 inches (127mm)
Screen resolution
1,920 x 1,080 (441ppi)
1,920 x 1,080 (441 ppi)
Screen type
Full HD AMOLED
Full HD AMOLED
Battery
2,700mAh
2,770mAh
Internal storage
64 / 128GB
32 / 128GB
External storage
None
None
Rear camera
12.2MP, f/1.8, 1.4μm pixel size
12.3MP, f/2.0, 1.55µm pixel size
Front-facing cam
8MP, f/2.4, 1.4µm pixel size
8MP, f/2.4, 1.4µm pixel size
Video capture
4K at 30fps
4K at 30fps
NFC
Yes
Yes
Bluetooth
v5.0
v4.2
SoC
Qualcomm Snapdragon 835
Qualcomm Snapdragon 821
CPU
2.35GHz octa-core
2.15GHz quad-core
GPU
Adreno 540
Adreno 530
RAM
4GB
4GB
WiFi
Dual band, 802.11ac
Dual band, 802.11ac
Operating system
Android 8.0
Android 7.1
Other features
Fingerprint sensor, IP67 certified, USB Type-C
Fingerprint sensor, IP53 certified, 3.5mm headphone jack, USB Type-C

Follow all the latest news from Google’s Pixel 2 event here!

Voyage tests its self-driving cars in retirement communities

Online learning company Udacity decided to redirect the engineers it’s training into a new spun-off self-driving tech company, Voyage, back in April. Now they’re starting to test their autonomous technology with folks who could be greatly empowered by autonomous vehicles: Retirees in San Jose.

🏠 Our first self-driving taxi service is up and running at an amazing community in San Jose. https://t.co/GcyGGUFazP

— Voyage (@voyage) October 4, 2017

Voyage put its software and sensors into a couple modified Ford Fusion cars and began trying it out in the Villages Golf and Country Club in California, a retirement community with about 4,000 residents whose average age is 76. The gated environment is surprisingly ideal: 15 miles of roads with pedestrians, golf carts, animals and roundabouts for Voyage’s autonomous vehicles to learn how to drive around — but with a speed limit of 25 mph, The New York Times reported.

There’s another benefit to testing in a retirement community: It’s private property. That means Voyage doesn’t have to share ride information with state regulators, freeing it from some bureaucracy. But testing in the community meant different obstacles, like insurers requiring Voyage to have double California’s $5 million in coverage funds and to hand over all driving data. To reassure the retirement community, Voyage gave them as much equity as they give to a new hire.

That aside, retirees have a lot to gain from self-driving cars. Losing the ability to drive often cuts folks off from the outside world, so it’s interesting to see Voyage explore where other self-driving leaders haven’t been yet.

Via: TechCrunch

Source: The New York Times

Google Home Mini hands-on: Smaller, cheaper, subtler

Google’s most adorable product launch today is definitely its puck-sized Home Mini. No more imposing cylinders with AI voices, it’s much, much, smaller and just less “tech.” At $49, it’ll square up against Amazon’s Dot, but like the Dot, it will act as a gateway smart speaker for those not willing to throw down bigger sums of money. I took a look at the Home Mini at Google’s satellite London event, and if other speakers left you cold, this unassuming AI speaker might win you over.

Google’s miniature version hones down last year’s Home into a smaller design, but with all of the smarts. The only discernible drawback during my brief hands-on is that sound was (understandably) less bassy, and not quite as loud. I’ve owned a Google Home since it launched in the UK, and never felt it was a replacement to my speaker system. As such, I don’t really ever crank the volume to eleven, and I’m betting most prospective Home Mini owners are likely to do the same.

If the Dot is the Home MIni’s biggest rival, then Google has Amazon beat on sound quality. Yes, that’s not why you’d buy one, maybe, but you’d also be getting a connected smart speaker that can play Spotify, Google Music and plenty more services — not to mention all the connected tricks it can do with Smart TVs and your smart home.

There’s a lot to like about the design: I intentionally positioned the original Google Home alongside the Mini just to show how much smaller it is. It still looks like a Home device, but it already looks more like it’ll fit into your home — whichever room you decide to put it in. And at just under $50, it’s in impulse buy territory. You might not have been interested in smart speakers until now, but if you got one free with your new phone, you’d try it out, right?

Follow all the latest news from Google’s Pixel 2 event here!

Google Pixel 2: By the numbers

Google really turned on the new product firehose during its Pixel 2 event in San Francisco on Wednesday. We saw two new phones in two new sizes and five new colors, an updated Google Home, a pincushion-shaped “Home Mini”, a Home home stereo (suck on that, Sonos), a 4-in-1 laptoblet called the Pixelbook, smart wireless headphones, an updated Daydream, and an automated clip-on camera accessory that decides what memories will matter most to you. Numbers, because how else will you know how badly you’re about to blow your budget?

FCC approves $77 million to fix communications in Puerto Rico and VI

Two weeks after Hurricane Maria devastated Puerto Rico, the FCC has approved a measure providing up to $77 million to restore networks there and in the US Virgin Islands. It said that as of yesterday, 88 percent of cell sites were still down in Puerto Rico, as well as 67 percent in the USVI. While chairman Ajit Pai said “since we’ve adopted this item so expeditiously, carriers will be able to elect to have accelerated payments begin flowing this month,” fellow commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel said “let’s not kid ourselves, this is not enough. The road to recovery is long.”

The money is coming from the Universal Service Fund, and the FCC says “Any funds advanced under today’s action can be used to repair telecommunications infrastructure and restore service to customers across the islands.” This payment is intended to cover up to seven months of “high-cost support” and anticipated repair costs for companies that operate the towers, listed below.

Source: FCC

New York Times offers new subscribers a free Google Home

The New York Times has been upping its tech game recently in hopes to keep subscription numbers up in an age of free internet news. It made digital access free during the 2016 election, bundled free Spotify accounts this past February and bought a VR agency to help the Times create immersive news content. Now you can get a “free” Google Home smart speaker with a $17 per month All Access or $18 per month Home Delivery subscription.

While a $10 per month Basic subscription is available, you’ll need to drop a little more cash to get the Google Home. With All Access, subscribers will also get the NYT Crossword, NYTimes Cooking, and a free subscription to give to someone else. Google Home retails at $130, so this option (which comes up to $204 for twelve months) is a pretty solid offer if you already want the NYT daily. The Home Delivery option gives you all of the above, plus an actual paper edition delivered to your home daily, along with some extra behind-the-scenes content and special print-only features like The New York Times for Kids and dedicated crossword sections. You’ll get two All Access subscriptions to give away, too.

The Google Home offer is only available until December 31st of this year (or when supplies run out). When you pay for the subscription option, you’ll get a code that can be redeemed at the Google store; it must be redeemed by March 18th, 2018.

Via: The Verge

Source: New York Times

Apple Releases watchOS 4.0.1 Update for Series 3 Models With Fix for Cellular Bug

Apple today released a new software update for the Apple Watch, upgrading watchOS 4 to watchOS 4.0.1. The watchOS 4.0.1 update comes one week after Apple first released watchOS 4 to the public.

watchOS 4.0.1 can be downloaded through the dedicated Apple Watch app on the iPhone by going to General –> Software Update. To install the update, the Apple Watch must have 50 percent battery, it must be placed on the charger, and it must be in range of the iPhone. Today’s update is only for the Apple Watch Series 3 models.

watchOS 4.0.1 addresses a serious Wi-Fi bug impacting the performance of the new LTE-enabled Apple Watch Series 3 models.

watchOS 4.0.1 fixes issues that in rare cases were causing Apple Watch to join unauthenticated (captive) Wi-Fi networks, such as those found in public places like coffee shops and hotels, which direct the user to a web page before the network can be accessed.

During the review period for the new Apple Watch, testers discovered that the device would frequently disconnect from LTE, choosing to connect to an unusable Wi-Fi hotspot instead of an LTE tower due to its preference for Wi-Fi to save battery.

The Apple Watch was mistakenly connecting to free Wi-Fi hotspots that have interstitial agreement pages to use the service. With no way to see the page or confirm, LTE Apple Watches couldn’t actually use the Wi-Fi, but it still prevented them from connecting to LTE.

Apple said it was aware of the issue just before the Series 3 models launched, and said it was investigating a fix for a future software update, which is available today.

Related Roundups: Apple Watch, watchOS 4Buyer’s Guide: Apple Watch (Buy Now)
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Apple Releases Safari Technology Preview 41 With Bug Fixes and Feature Improvements

Apple today released a new update for Safari Technology Preview, the experimental browser Apple first introduced one year ago in March of 2016. Apple designed the Safari Technology Preview to test features that may be introduced into future release versions of Safari.

Safari Technology Preview release 41 includes fixes and improvements for CSS, WebRTC, Drag and Drop, Web API, JavaScript, WebCrypto, WebGL, Media, Rendering, Accessibility, Storage, Web Driver, and Web Inspector. Today’s update also enables the File and Directory Entries API.

With Safari 11 now available in macOS High Sierra, Apple is providing two versions of Safari Technology Preview, one for macOS Sierra users and one for those using macOS High Sierra.

The Safari Technology Preview update is available through the Software Update mechanism in the Mac App Store to anyone who has downloaded the browser. Full release notes for the update are available on the Safari Technology Preview website.

Apple’s aim with Safari Technology Preview is to gather feedback from developers and users on its browser development process. Safari Technology Preview can run side-by-side with the existing Safari browser and while designed for developers, it does not require a developer account to download.

Tag: Safari Technology Preview
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Apple Hires AI Team From Init.ai to Join Work on Siri

Apple this week “acqui-hired” the team from Init.ai, a startup that designed a smart assistant to allow customer service representatives to easily parse through and automate some interactions with users, reports TechCrunch.

The startup focused on creating an AI with natural language processing and machine learning to analyze chat-based conversations between humans.

Init.ai announced that it was shutting down its service earlier this week to join a new project.

Today is an exciting day for our team. Init.ai is joining a project that touches the lives of countless people across the world. We are thrilled and excited at the new opportunities this brings us.

However, this means Init.ai will discontinue its service effective December 16th 2017. While we wish to make this transition as smooth as possible, we cannot continue to operate Init.ai going forward.

Apple did not purchase Init.ai and will not obtain any intellectual property nor is there an indication that Apple plans to use any existing Init.ai services. Instead, Apple has taken on the Init.ai team, who will now work on Apple’s Siri personal assistant.

The addition of the Init.ai team may hint at Apple’s future Siri plans, with the company perhaps planning to build out more business integrations to supplement Business Chat, the iOS 11 iMessage feature that allows businesses to communicate with customers.

TechCrunch says it’s not entirely clear how many people from Init.ai will be transitioning to Apple, but the startup only employed six people.

Tags: Siri, Apple acquisition, artificial intelligence
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Apple Watch Series 2 Prices Continue to Drop Following Launch of Series 3 Models

The debut of the Apple Watch Series 3 brought about a few price drops for the previous generation Series 2 models last month, with B&H Photo offering around $290 for 38mm cases and $320 for 42mm cases in Aluminum. This week at Best Buy, prices have continued to drop by about $20 for a wide variety of Series 2 Aluminum models, with most 38mm versions selling for $270 and 42mm versions selling for $300.

Included in Best Buy’s sale are Apple Watch Nike+ models and some Stainless Steel editions, with the latter models up to $120 off their original retail prices, and as much as $60 down from when we posted the previous Series 2 discount article in mid-September. Below we’ll list a few models on sale with Best Buy’s new prices (bold) compared to current prices of similar Series 3 collections on Apple.com.

Series 2 Aluminum

• 38mm Silver Case, White Sport Band – $269.00, compared to $329

• 42mm Silver Case, White Sport Band – $299.00, compared to $359

• Nike+ 38mm Space Gray Case, Black/Volt Sport Band – $269.00, compared to $329

• Nike+ 42mm Space Gray Case, Black/Volt Sport Band – $299.00, compared to $359

Series 2 Stainless Steel

• 42mm Space Black Case, Space Black Sport Band – $429.00, compared to $649

• 38mm Case, Milanese Loop Band – $479.00, compared to $699

• 38mm Space Black Case, Space Black Milanese Loop Band – $529, compared to $749

• 42mm Space Black Case, Space Black Milanese Loop Band – $579, compared to $799

Apple only offers Stainless Steel Series 3 models in LTE versions, meaning that all of the new models with a Stainless Steel case this year are automatically slightly higher in price due to the added LTE capabilities. In total, there are six Apple Watch Series 3 collections (all in Aluminum) without LTE among Apple’s 31 new collections of the revamped wearable device. For this reason, anyone who isn’t interested in cellular connection on their Apple Watch — or in Series 3’s faster processing speeds — will greatly benefit from deals on the Series 2 models.

More of the latest deals can be found in our Deals Roundup, where you can find sales this week on the DJI Osmo for iPhone, certified pre-owned iPhone 7 models from T-Mobile, and more.

Note: MacRumors is an affiliate partner with Best Buy.

Related Roundup: Apple Deals
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