Alphabet Q2 2018 earnings: $32.7 billion revenue, $2.8 billion income despite massive EU fine

Strong growth continues for this already-massive company.

Alphabet has just released its Q2 2018 earnings report, showing another quarter of strong growth. The company had revenues of $32.7 billion for the quarter, which is up 26% year-over-year — extremely impressive for a company of this size. Operating income was just $2.8 billion, which is due in large part to the recent $5 billion fine from the European Union.

Google will be able to effectively shrug off a $5 billion fine and still make close to $3 billion in a single quarter.

Even still, the fact that Google will be able to effectively shrug off a $5 billion fine in just one quarter is quite impressive. If you were to look at Alphabet’s core operations, without taking into account the $5 billion fine, we’d be looking at a quarter with $7.88 billion in operating income — a full $1 billion higher than the same quarter last year.

Alphabet’s overall revenues continue to be largely derived from advertising on Google’s own properties and its network members’ properties, to the tune of $28 billion for the quarter. That leaves the infamously opaque “other revenues” segment — including the hardware business, Play Store, etc. — to bring in $4.4 billion in revenue. The “Other Bets” segment of various startup and moonshot endeavors had higher revenue this quarter, $145 million, but grew its operating loss to $732 million at the same time.

Advertising is still the core business, and it’s still strong.

The trend of increasing traffic acquisition costs (what Google spends to acquire advertising traffic) continued in Q2 2018, though just marginally. Paid clicks were up 15% year-over-year, though that’s a deceleration from an increase of 58% from Q2 2016 to 2017. Cost-per-click is still on the same negative trend from previous years, though it too has reduced its fall — down to negative 10% from negative 22% the year prior. In all, it’s the same trend: it costs more to drive traffic to Google’s advertising, and the cost per click is going down.

Google added over 13,000 employees since Q2 2017, now putting the total headcount for the company at over 89,000 — Google says this was primarily in the cloud portion of the business. That’s absolutely massive, and at this rate it means we’ll be seeing that number breach six figures by early 2019. If you’re interested in the deep nitty-gritty details of the earnings release, Google’s investor relations call is available below.

Netgear’s Arlo Brand Gains New Wire-Free Smart Audio Doorbell

Netgear’s Arlo brand today announced the launch of the new Arlo Audio Doorbell and Arlo Chime, a new smart doorbell solution that’s designed to pair with wire-free cameras in the Arlo lineup.

The Arlo Audio Doorbell doesn’t include its own camera, as it’s meant to be used with existing Arlo home security camera options. It pairs up with an Arlo camera installed in a home’s entryway and adds doorbell functionality, but it can also be used on a standalone audio-only basis.

Able to work via batteries or as a replacement for a home’s existing doorbell setup, when the Arlo Audio Doorbell is pressed, it activates your iPhone with an incoming VoIP call interface so you can speak with whoever is at your door. If you’re not home, the person can leave an audio message.

“When a guest rings the Arlo Audio Doorbell, users immediately receive a phone call on their smartphone via the Arlo app, prompting them to either answer the call or send a prerecorded message for a quick reply. Couple this standout feature with the simple, wire-free setup and users have a seamless way to modernize the traditional doorstep greeting.”

A connected camera provides an image of the entryway so you can see who is at the door through the accompanying Arlo app, and with the addition of the Arlo Smart Chime speaker, you can hear the doorbell ring anywhere in the house if you’ve replaced your existing chime.

When paired with a camera that includes the Arlo Smart subscription service, intelligent people detection is included and there’s an option to call emergency services closest to the camera’s location.

The Arlo Audio Doorbell is resistant to weather conditions that include snow, rain, and heat, and your incoming audio calls are recorded and can be played back for 7 days with included 7-day rolling audio cloud storage.

The Arlo Audio Doorbell and Chime are an interesting alternative to other smart doorbell setups for those who are already in the Arlo ecosystem. As Arlo home security cameras don’t include HomeKit, the new doorbell also will not be HomeKit-compatible.

Arlo plans to share more information on the Arlo Audio Doorbell and Chime, including pricing, later this year.

Tag: NETGEAR
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Archive Offers Up All Past Mac and iOS Wallpapers

Over the weekend, Reddit user Nucleam shared photo albums containing archives of all of the different wallpapers that Apple has offered for iOS and macOS, providing an interesting trip down memory lane.

There are two separate Google Photos albums for iOS and macOS, with images dating back multiple years.

The iOS album, for example, contains wallpapers from iOS 3 and beyond, along with promotional images Apple has used for advertising purposes, images from WWDC and special events, and more.

The macOS album features wallpapers dating back to System 7, with images from Mac OS 9, all the versions of OS X, and more modern wallpapers from the newer versions of the Mac operating system. Event wallpapers, such as those used for the 2017 iMac and the 2017 MacBook Pro, are also available.

As The Loop pointed out this morning, this is an excellent collection of wallpapers that’s worth checking out if you want to revisit (and use) some of Apple’s past wallpaper options.
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Highest resolution smartphone camera yet is designed not to suck at low light

Sony’s new sensor (on the right) compared to a 12-megapixel traditional sensor (on the left). Sony

Smartphones could soon boast cameras with a resolution as high as 48 megapixels, without having disastrous results on low-light images. On Monday, July 23, Sony announced a new stacked smartphone camera sensor with the highest-yet megapixel count, 48 megapixels, and a unique Quad Bayer array design. The move will allow smartphones integrating the upcoming sensor, the IMX586, to boost image quality with a unique design that Sony claims also produces good results in low light.

While larger sensor cameras have hovered around the 50-megapixel mark for a while, Sony managed to cram those 48 megapixels onto a 1/2-inch sensor. That means that Sony’s also claiming the smallest pixel size yet with the pixels on the sensor measuring .8 μm, a size that Sony says is the smallest it has found among all image sensors.

The trade-off for high resolution images on a small sensor is typically grainy, unclear images in low light, but Sony aims to deliver both requirements on a single sensor with a unique design on the color filter. Just as a smaller solar panel will gather less light, smaller pixels aren’t great at taking pictures in limited light, and Sony’s pixels on the new sensor are the smallest yet. Left unadjusted, the sensor would likely take pretty poor images at night and indoors.

But in a low-light shot, the stacked sensor actually becomes the equivalent of a 12-megapixel camera with much larger pixels. The camera’s flexibility comes from the design on the Bayer color filter. On a traditional camera sensor, the Bayer filter array uses a pattern of red, green and blue filters over each pixel to allow the camera to capture color images. In Sony’s new sensor, that color filter instead is grouped where a square of four neighboring pixels all has the same color filter instead of the traditional pattern. In low light images, those four pixels with the same color filter are combined, creating a larger pixel that’s capable of gathering more light.

The ability to merge pixels allows the new sensor to shoot as a 48-megapixel sensor for greater detail in low light, while creating larger pixels and acting as a 12-megapixel camera when the lighting is poor. The design tackles a common flaw in high-resolution cameras, but it isn’t the first time smartphone cameras have tried to balance high resolution and low light — the Huawei P20 Pro uses Pixel Fusion which also improves low light gathering capabilities but is used in part with the smartphone’s three lenses.

Sony says the new sensor will also deliver four times better dynamic range than a conventional smartphone, which means the camera is less likely to lose details in the lightest and darkest areas of the image when shooting high-contrast scenes. The sensor’s tech specs also lists 4K video at up to 90 fps and the ability to shoot in RAW. The sensor is also stacked like earlier Sony sensors, which helps increase the camera’s speed processing those images.

For now, Sony has only announced the upcoming release, so it’s unclear what future phones will adapt the technology and whether the design may have some quirks affecting the color in the final images because of the different filter design.

If you own a 2018 MacBook Pro, you will want to maintain data backups

If you recently purchased one of Apple’s refreshed 2018 MacBook Pro models, you’ll want to maintain backups of your files. Unlike previous models, if the logic board fails on your laptop, there is no way for Apple and its service technicians to access the solid-state drive and recover the contents stored on the system.

On older 2016 and 2017 MacBook Pro models with Touch Bar, Apple had a special tool that could be used to transfer data in the event of a logic board failure. The tool connects to a special data recovery port on the MacBook Pro with a failed logic board to extract the data stored on the system’s solid-state drive. It can also plug into the USB-C port on a new MacBook Pro with a functional logic board to restore the extracted data.

Unfortunately, however, the 2018 MacBook Pro models lack the data recovery port on the logic board, so repair technicians won’t be able to plug in the data recovery tool if the logic board goes out. The missing port was initially uncovered by repair site iFixIt, which also discovered that Apple used a silicone membrane on the third-generation keyboard that debuted on the 2018 MacBook Pro with Touch Bar, which helps dampen noise and keeps the keys free of debris.

While Apple’s move to remove the data recovery port could lead to frustrated users if the logic board on their laptops fail, the notebook’s stronger hardware security may have prompted the change on the 2018 model. “The data recovery port was likely removed because 2018 MacBook Pro models feature Apple’s custom T2 chip, which provides hardware encryption for the SSD storage, like the iMac Pro, our sources said,” MacRumors reported.

This latest data quirk affecting the 2018 MacBook Pro follows a recent data issue affecting Apple’s 2017 models. It was discovered that both the logic board and the solid-state drive need replacement when there is a logic board failure. Like this new quirk, it was advised that owners of the 2017 MacBook Pro maintain up-t0-date backups of their files.

If users need data extracted from a 2018 MacBook Pro with a failed logic board, Apple recommends taking the notebook to a data recovery specialist. However, given the hardware-based encryption provided by the laptop’s internal T2 chipset, it’s unclear how successful recovery efforts would be even if a specialist was able to transfer the contents from the affected SSD to an external drive. For now, owners of the 2018 MacBook Pro worried about lost data should maintain up-to-date backups of their systems, use a Time Machine, or utilize cloud-based services when possible.

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Qualcomm releases new antennas that will make 5G phones a reality in 2019

Qualcomm

After years of network upgrades, it looks like the final pieces of 5G technology are finally coming together. Qualcomm has just announced the release of its first “first fully-integrated 5G NR mmWave and sub-6 GHz RF modules for smartphones and other mobile devices.”

Qualcomm actually announced two antenna modules.  The first is called the QTM052 mmWave antenna module and was engineered to “open up spectrum and improve mmWave signal using 5G technologies.” Since the mmWave signals don’t travel very far and are easily blocked by objects as small as your hand, Qualcomm created this antenna array to overcome those challenges. It uses something it calls “beam forming, beam steering, and beam tracking for bi-directional mobile mmWave,” allowing it to improve overall range and coverage. The module is also a series of antennas to be placed in the handset so the beams can move whenever there’s signal blockage.

The second antenna, called the QPM56xx sub-6 GHz RF module, works on lower 3.3-4.2 GHz, 3.3-3.8GHz, or 4.4-5.0 GHz bands. This sub-6 antenna will provide more consistent 5G coverage in fixed locations

These antennas will be used alongside the Snapdragon X50 5G modem that was released in 2016. The two antenna modules will be used in tandem to deliver 5G speeds in a variety of settings.

Several of the world’s largest handset manufacturers, including Xiaomi, Sony, HTC, Samsung, and LG, have already confirmed that they will work with Qualcomm in the coming months to create mobile devices that are compatible with 5G. These devices should be released during the first half of the year with many likely making their debut at Mobile World Congress next February.

Huawei has also announced it is planning a 5G phone for late 2019. Earlier this year the Chinese tech giant announced its Balong 5G01 modem. The modem is schedule for the third quarter of 2019, meaning we should see its 5G handset soon thereafter.

And while we’re still many months away from seeing 5G handsets, most of the major networks are quickly building out their 5G networks to prepare for the launch. AT&T and Verizon have each indicated they plan to release 5G hot spots (also known as pucks) later this year in selected markets so users can get a taste of 5G.

Editors’ Recommendations

• Apple is reportedly ditching Intel for 5G chips in the iPhone
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• Your 5G Samsung phone will have a massive amount of RAM

Hyperloop pod reaches fastest speed yet in Elon Musk’s latest contest

The Hyperloop has a need for speed and a team of students from the Technical University of Munich is providing it.

At the third SpaceX pod contest on Sunday, Germany’s WARR Hyperloop team pulled off a hat-trick of wins for the fastest self-propelled pod ride by taking its design to an impressive 290 mph (466 kph).

Congratulations to @WARR_Hyperloop for winning the 2018 Hyperloop Pod Competition with a peak speed of 290 mph!

— Hyperloop (@Hyperloop) July 22, 2018

As well as beating its own previous best of 201 mph, WARR’s effort also smashed the existing Hyperloop speed record set by Virgin Hyperloop in December, when its pod hit 240 mph. It posted a video (below) of the winning ride on Twitter.

We’re excited to announce that our team WARR Hyperloop is the winner of the 2018 SpaceX Hyperloop Pod Competition!!!!!

We managed to go almost 50% faster than last year, reaching a final speed of 467 km/h (290 mph)!

We’d like to sincerely thank all our sponsors! pic.twitter.com/YpPTURnHp5

— WARR Hyperloop (@WARR_Hyperloop) July 23, 2018

WARR faced off against more than 15 rivals from around the world, including second-place Delft Hyperloop from the Netherlands, and third-place EPFLoop from Switzerland. Technical difficulties scuppered both teams’ chances of victory, leaving Delft Hyperloop with a top speed of 88 mph, while EPFLoop’s effort reached only 53 mph.

The teams’ unmanned vehicles were sent along a 0.8-mile (1.5 km) ground-level test track at the SpaceX headquarters in Hawthorne, California.

SpaceX CEO Elon Musk first proposed the Hyperloop idea for an ultra-fast transportation system five years ago, and since then he’s been using the regular contests to give students the opportunity to develop the pods.

If the ambitious plan one day becomes a viable transportation option, it’ll carry people inside a near-vacuum environment at speeds of up to 760 mph. At that rate, a journey between Los Angeles and San Francisco would take a mere half hour as opposed to six hours by car.

While several firms are currently working on developing the track technology for the Hyperloop, it is engineering students who are being encouraged to design the pods that passengers could one day ride in. WARR is making serious progress, as its first effort scored it a speed win at the debut contest in January 2017, when its design reached just 58 mph.

In another indication of how the pod technology is advancing, this latest contest was also the first where teams no longer had the option to propel their pod with a so-called “pusher” vehicle, meaning that all the pods had to be self-propelled.

Musk made an appearance at Sunday’s event, taking time to encourage the participants and congratulate the winners. He commented that the skill and ingenuity displayed by those taking part in the contest “kinda blows my mind.”

A number of countries are interested in using the Hyperloop technology for domestic transportation projects. Talks are already taking place with two of the biggest companies that have ambitions for developing large-scale Hyperloop systems, namely Virgin Hyperloop and Hyperloop Transportation Technologies.

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Email shows Nvidia’s GTX 11 Series will start being released in late August

Bill Roberson/Digital Trends

A leaked email purportedly written by a Nvidia graphics card partner for a retailer provides the release dates of the upcoming GeForce GTX 11 Series. The letter also seems to confirm rumors we’ve heard over the last several months: That Nvidia pushed back the launch due to an abundance of unsold GTX 10 Series stock currently on the market. Of course, the letter could be 100 percent fake, so let’s tread carefully with this info.

“We have an overstock of 10xx GPUs and were in the middle of transitioning our manufacturing over from the 10xx to the 1xx series in preparation for releasing the new cards,” the letter states.” However, because we and other partners and manufacturers have an abundance of unfinished or unsold 10xx GPUs, Nvidia decided to have us delay the release of the 11xx cards.”

Here is the supposed new release schedule. Since product availability is usually a few weeks after a formal reveal/launch, the schedule confirms rumors that Nvidia will introduce the new family – or the GTX 1180 at the least – at a special event just prior to or during the Gamescom convention in Germany that starts August 22.

• August 30, 2018: GTX 1180
• September 30, 2018: GTX 1170 and GTX 1180+
• October 30, 2018: GTX 1160

What’s interesting here is the GTX 1180+, an entirely new branding and likely not another name for a GTX 1180 Ti. Could this be a rebranding of the Founders Edition, or will this be an enhanced card with higher clock speeds for a higher price? Maybe the “plus” refers to additional onboard memory?

The letter also notes that the graphics card partner will conduct a conference call for retailers on August 21, 2018, indicating that the GTX 11 Series nondisclosure agreement will already be lifted by that time.

In addition to the leaked email, the GTX 1170 reportedly appeared on a recent benchmark, showing it to be faster than the $700 GTX 1080 Ti. According to the benchmark, the card will run at around 2.5GHz and include 16GB of GDDR6 memory running on a 256-bit memory interface. It scored an alleged 29,752 graphics points in the 3DMark FireStrike benchmark, surpassing the GTX 1080 Ti’s 28,391 score and the Radeon RX Vega 64’s 22,931 score.

But like the email, this benchmark could be 100 percent bogus. For starters, the information stems from a photograph taken of the benchmark, and not from an actual screenshot. The benchmark also isn’t listed in 3DMark’s online database, nor does it sport the Nvidia “generic VGA” entry typically seen in early benchmark leaks. There’s no way to correctly identify the card prior to its official release,” which is why you would see the “generic VGA” label instead.

All new GTX 11 Series cards will likely be based on Nvidia’s new “Turing” architecture and 12nm process technology rather than the Volta design used in the $3,000 Titan V add-in card. In the case of Nvidia’s GTX 1170, cards will be based on the GT104 chip packing around 2,688 CUDA cores with a base speed of around 1.5GHz and a maximum speed of around 1.8GHz. The power draw is expected to be between 140 watts and 160 watts.

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Best Family Charging Stations for Android

Seems like everyone, their brother, and even their dog have a phone these days. These stations can help keep them all charged.

If you live in a household with a family of three, four, or more, and you have kids who are at the smartphone stage, then keeping them all charged up all the time can be a bit of a pain. Smaller wall chargers go missing, the cat chews the cables, and kids can just outright forget (a lot of good a dead phone is in an emergency!).

These family charging stations can help you charge multiple devices at once, all in one spot.

• Anker PowerPort 4
• Vogek 6-port charging station
• RAVPower desktop charging station
• Simicore charging dock
• iClever BoostStrip
• SIIG 10-port charging station
• Unitek 10-port charging station with USB-C

Anker PowerPort 4

Anker makes some of the finest charging products you can buy, from cables to wireless charging pads to charging stations. The PowerPort 4 has four USB ports and simply plugs into any AC wall outlet (can also accept an adapter when traveling abroad), and it can supply up to 2.4A per port.

You can snag one of these for around $25 in either black or white, and Anker provides an 18-month warranty should anything go wrong.

See at Amazon

Vogek 6-port charging station

This sleek, round charging station kind of looks like something out of “2001: A Space Odyssey,” and it has six ports around its circumference, so everyone can get juiced up at once. It features an LED indicator to let you know when it’s properly plugged in, and the silicone pad on the bottom makes it perfect for the kitchen counter, nightstand, or coffee table. The power cable is nearly 5 feet long, so you won’t have to awkwardly place this near an outlet and then even more awkwardly get your phones and other devices hooked up to it.

It comes in black, blue, silver, or white, starting at around $16.

See at Amazon

RAVPower desktop charging station

RAVPower’s desktop charger has six ports and provides up to 2.4A per port, not offering fast charging, though it does provide that 2.4A to all six ports simultaneously. Its compact design makes it fairly inconspicuous, and it provides overcharge/overcurrent/overvoltage protection so that all six of your devices don’t get fried should some electrical calamity strike.

Comes in black or white for about $25.

See at Amazon

Simicore charging dock

Simicore’s charging dock is similar to Pezin & Hulin’s, but it has a more modern design and charges up to four devices, organizing them for you in slots. The minimalist design is sleek and should fit right in on your desk or wherever you need to charge up. The four ports provide up to 2.4A simultaneously, and the on/off switch is handy for when no one’s charging and you want to conserve some energy.

Comes in silver or space gray for around $30.

See at Amazon

iClever BoostStrip

For about $20, you can snag this charging station that has four USB ports and three AC outlets, so you can charge up to seven devices at once if you have three adapters handy. Coming in black or white, this station essentially resembles a power bar with an on/off switch for the USB ports and for the AC outlets, so you can conserve some energy when not using either.

Each of the USB ports supplies 5V at 2.4A, and if you have a quick charging adapter, you can make use of that with the AC outlets. Comes in black or white.

See at Amazon

SIIG 10-port charging station

If the whole family comes over for the holidays, then a 10-port charging station will likely come in quite handy. The 90W charging station from SIIG has a silicone surface so that your phones and tablets don’t slide around as they charge up in their slots. Each port provides up to 2.4A, and there are eight slots for phones and a larger pad for resting your smartwatch or other devices while they charge. One great detail is that the slots are wide enough to fit phones that are in bulkier cases. At $50, this is one of the most expensive charging station on this list, but it’s worth it if you want to charge all the things at once.

See at Amazon

Unitek 10-port charging station with USB-C

The Unitek charging station truly can charge it all; it features 10 charging ports — 8 2.4A USB-A ports, one Quick Charge port, and a USB-C PD port. This lets you quickly charge phones of every type, laptops, Chromebooks, tablets, and more. And the best part is that no one ever has to wait for an open charging port (unless you’re one of the Duggars).

At $90, this type of charging doesn’t come cheap, but it does provide you with virtually every option you could need or want.

See at Amazon

Bototek 6-port charging station with USB-C

This 6-port station has five 2.4A USB-A ports and one USB-C, so you can charge up to five devices at normal speed and one quickly simultaneously. The upright slots organize your devices so that they’re not just strewn all over your counters, and at roughly $28, this is a great way for the whole family to get its charge on. Bototek even throws in the USB-C cable.

See at Amazon

Netgear’s latest smart home gadget is the Arlo Audio Doorbell

There’s also a new Arlo Chime accessory.

Netgear’s Arlo brand has become fairly well-known for its wireless security cameras, and now the company’s expanding its reaches in the smart home market with the Arlo Audio Doorbell.

The Audio Doorbell (left) and Arlo Chime (right)

As soon as someone rings the Arlo Doorbell, you’ll receive a call on your phone through the free Arlo app. Once you get the call, you can either accept it or send a prerecorded message. Also, if you have an Arlo camera, you’ll get a live video feed of your front door with that call once someone arrives.

The Audio Doorbell will be available for purchase this fall.

This is a different approach to smart doorbells like Nest Hello and Ring’s lineup that cram a camera into the doorbell itself, but if you’re already invested in the Arlo ecosystem, this will likely be a much more cost-effective way of upgrading your front door. And, just like Arlo’s other products, the Audio Doorbell promises a very user-friendly installation process.

Additionally, Netgear also announced the Arlo Chime. This essentially replaces your regular doorbell chime and simply plugs into any outlet around your house. There aren’t any wires to mess with and you can place multiple throughout your home to ensure you never miss an Arlo notification even if you’re away from your phone.

Although pricing for the two products has yet to be announced, Netgear says that they will be on sale at some point this fall. To ensure you get all the latest info as soon as it’s available, you can register for updates on Arlo’s site with the button below.

See at Arlo