👋 Hiya! I was at a David Sedaris book tour last night, a first-time experience for me.
I greatly enjoyed a tale he told about buying 170 postcards from a store nearby, because he liked the cartoons on the front, even though he can’t read a word because they're in German. But the story gets better: the man in the store recognized Sedaris, as he’d bought 120 postcards at the same spot on a previous tour, and had kept the receipt stuck to the wall in his store!
Pixel 4 leaks get crazy
The Google Pixel 4 leaks were, at first, just intriguing. Glimpses of the new design, a new color (orange!), a possible launch date... Now they’re getting crazy, as YouTubers upload (extremely early) hands-on impressions.
Here’s what we’re seeing:
Quick Gestures:
- Google has already confirmed that gestures are coming to the Pixel 4, in this reveal back on July 29.
- But now we’re seeing it in the wild, with a new leak that shows Google Pixel 4’s motion gestures in action (Android Authority), and the settings menu where you can set up waving your hands to skip songs, silence alarms, and all sorts.
- My colleague Williams Pelegrin noted: “We can see Quick Gestures for skipping songs by waving the hand left or right and another one for silencing interruptions like calls or alarms.”
- “There’s also a gesture that allows users to reach for their phones to check the time, notifications, and other info when toggled on.”
- All this is the work of the Soli chip on the Pixel 4 series, a chip the team first reported on back in 2015, and which Google has a site for here.
And just when you thought that was pretty crazy, some YouTubers in South East Asia already have the device in their hands right now:
- There's a full review from Vietnamese channel AnhEm TV.
- There’s plenty I don’t understand without captions, which are good, but there are points of interest at 3:52 with Ambient EQ and screen attention settings, a very smooth display shortly after that, and specs at 4:42.
- According to reddit’s community of translators, a mobile store got a pre-production model Pixel 4 and seeded it out.
- A fellow Vietnamese channel Duy Thẩm has a six-minute review as well, with smooth display settings shown at about 3:17, for that 90Hz refresh rate screen confirmation.
- And then there’s Rabbit TV from Thailand, which had all three colors in more of a conversational preview than a real hands-on.
- (One guy is wearing a football shirt supporting Dortmund, from the Bundesliga, which my team beat the other week. Just saying!)
- Last year the Pixel 3 XL appeared throughout the Ukraine and Russia. Now it’s Asia’s turn, and I guess Google might want to review factory security?
Round Up:
🚖 Uber/Lyft's nightmare scenario: The California Senate has voted to end the gig economy as we know it (Quartz). Legal battles, ahoy.
🆕 Android 10 full review: The most personal Android yet (Android Authority).
📸 Motorola One Macro surfaces online: A phone with macro video/photo capabilities? (Android Authority)
🔊 Supposed Google Nest Mini hits FCC (Android Authority), with a diagram revealing a few choice details.
➗ Deal: Master Microsoft Excel formulas and functions, at a pretty good price (Android Authority).
🔨 Fairphone 3 gets a perfect 10/10 repairability score on iFixit (surprise!) (Android Authority).
📨 Chrome now lets you send tabs to your other devices (Android Authority).
🎧 Best wireless neckband earbuds: Hard to lose, easy to wear (SoundGuys).
📺 Does Apple TV+ need to be good? (Gizmodo). Given new product purchases come with 12 months of free Apple TV, even the tiny lineup might be enough, for now.
😎 The Vive Cosmos is coming October 3, with pre-orders today from $699 - and this hands-on says: VR has never looked so good (Engadget). With a bonus 12-month Viveport Infinity subscription, too.
🍎 Apple’s unannounced price cuts keep coming: 1TB iPad Pro models now $200 cheaper (MacRumors). But uh, well, it’s not all good: Apple's keyboard folio shouldn't cost half the price of its new cheap iPad (Engadget).
🆚 Should you buy Apple's iPhone 11 Pro or Samsung's Galaxy Note 10? (Lifehacker). Good rundown although for most people now it’s about their ecosystem preferences. Pricewise, it’s Galaxy Note 10 at $950 vs iPhone 11 Pro at $999, but you’ll want the 256GB model, which matches the storage in the Note 10, and it starts at $1149. Or, get it all done via a carrier at vastly harder to compare costs and benefits! Or! Stick with your current phone, and wait for real game-changing features in 2020.
🔋 Watch Tesla's record-breaking (although not official due to rules) Laguna Seca lap (Engadget).
🎮 Fortnite streamers are desperate for change, and playing a lot of World of Warcraft (The Verge).
🤷♂️ Even 'Civilization VI' is getting a battle royale mode (Engadget).
🌊 Around the planet, enormous ocean currents are traveling to new locations. As these currents relocate, waters are growing warmer (WaPo).
🔋 “Does a fully charged cell phone have enough charge to start a car?” (r/askscience). Yes, but cars need lots of current, which makes it more of a practical no.
🚀 Throwback Thursday
(Artist’s impression of the planet K2-18b, its host star and an accompanying planet in this system. Photograph: ESA/Hubble, M. Kornmesser)
Remember when finding water on a distant planet was the biggest goal for scientists and astronomers? Things have come a long way, as K2-18b has been discovered!
- “Water found on most habitable known world beyond solar system” (The Guardian).
- “A faraway planet in the constellation of Leo has been named the most habitable known world beyond the solar system after astronomers detected water vapour in its atmosphere.
- "It is the first time a planet in its star’s “Goldilocks zone” – where the temperature is neither too hot nor too cold for liquid water to exist – has been found to bear the life-sustaining substance in the blanket of gases that surround it."
Yes, but, as Marina Koren from The Atlantic explained, it’s confusing because space reporting is confusing, and here I’ll paraphrase her good Twitter thread which is worth reading:
- This planet is likely just gas, meaning no solid surface.
- Being in the “habitable zone” doesn’t mean a planet is habitable.
- Water molecules were found but the water only exists as vapor in the atmosphere of this gas giant.
- And the age-old problem: if you ask 100 astronomers about this you will get 99 different opinions.
So, we haven’t quite found a backup Earth-like planet just yet. But we are getting closer.
Cheers, Tristan Rayner, Senior Editor.