Google aims to change the definition of good photography with Pixel 4’s software-defined camera

Google’s new Pixel 4 camera offers a ton of new tricks to improve its photographic chops, and to emphasize the point, it had Professor Mark Levoy, who leads camera technology development at Google Research, up on stage to talk about the Pixel 4’s many improvements, including its new telephoto lens, updated Super Res Zoom technology and Live HDR+ preview.

Subject, Lighting, Lens, Software

Levoy started by addressing the oft-cited saying among photographers that what’s most important to a good photo is first subject, then lighting and followed after that by your hardware: ie., your lens and camera body. He said that he and his team believe that there’s a different equation at play now, which replaces that camera body component with something else: Software.

Lens is still important in the equation, he said, and the Pixel 4 represents that with the addition of a telephoto lens to the existing wide angle hardware lens it offers. Levoy also offered the opinion that a telephoto is more useful generally than a wide angle, clearly a dig at Apple’s addition of an ultra-wide angle hardware lens to its latest iPhone 11 Pro models.

In this context, that means Google’s celebrated “computational photography” approach to its Pixel camera tech, which handles a lot of the heavy lifting involved when it takes a photo from a small sensor, which tend to be bad, and turns that into something pretty amazing.

Levoy said that he calls their approach a “software-defined camera,” which most of the time just means capturing multiple photos, and combining data from each in order to produce a better, single final picture.

What’s new for Pixel 4

There are four new features for the Pixel 4 phone powered by computational photography, which include Live HDR with dual exposure controls, which shows you a real-time image of what the final photo will look like with the HDR treatment applied, instead of just giving you a very different looking final shot. It also bakes in exposure controls that allow you to adjust the highlights and shadows in the image on the fly, which is useful if you want bolder highlights or silhouettes from shadows, for instance.

Also new is “Learning-based white balance,” which addresses the tricky issue of getting your white balance correct. Levoy said that Google has been using this approach in white-balancing night sight photos since the introduction of that feature with Pixel 3, but now it’s bringing it to all photo modes. The result is cooler colors, and particularly in tricky lighting situations when whites tend to be incorrectly exposed as orange or yellow.

The new wide-range portrait mode makes use of info from both the dual-pixel imaging sensors that Pixel 4 uses, as well as the new second lens to derive more depth data and provide an expanded, more accurate portrait mode to separate the subject from the background. It now works  on large objects and portraits where the person in focus is standing further back, and it provides better bokeh shape (the shape of the defocused elements int eh background) and better definition of strands of hair and fur, which has always been tricky for software background blur.

Lastly, Night Sight mode gets overall improvements, as well as a new astral photography mode specifically for capturing the night sky and star fields. The astral mode provides great looking night sky images with exposure times that run multiple minutes, but all with automatic settings and computational algorithms that sort out issues like stars moving during that time.

Still more to come

Google wanted to emphasize the point that this is a camera that can overcome a lot of the problems faced typically by small sensors, and it brought out heavyweight photography legend Annie Lebowitz to do just that. She showed some of the photos she’s been capturing both with Pixel 3 and Pixel 4, and they did indeed look great, although the view from the feed doesn’t say quite as much as would print versions of the final photos.

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Levoy also said that they plan to improve the camera over time via software updates, so this is just the start for Pixel 4. Based on what we saw on stage, it definitely looks like a step-up from the already excellent Pixel 3, but we’ll need more time hand-on to see what it does compared to Apple’s much-improved iPhone 11 camera.

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Google’s Pixel 4 ships October 24, starting at $799

The rumors and leaks have been pretty relentless. In fact, over the past three days, the Pixel 4 and Pixel 4 XL have gone up for preorder on at least two different sites. While it’s true that Google’s never been particularly great at keeping this stuff under wraps, this was pretty silly.

Anyway, the Pixel 4 is finally official, and it’s basically exactly what we were expecting from this year’s Google flagship. The device now features face unlock, another addition that brings Pixels in line with the competition, though Google claims it’s the fastest available. Using a new radar chip, the device is able to start the unlock when you reach for the phone and then fully unlock when it sees your face.

Radar also gives the device gesture recognition, via Motion Sense The concept is similar to what you’ll find on other Android handsets, but it’s significantly more sophisticated, distinguishing accidental gestures from intentional ones Use these, this can do things like skipping songs, turn the screen on and wave to your animated Pikachu wallpaper (actual example). All of the processing is done on device and users can turn it off for privacy.

The 4 maintains the familiar Active Edge squeeze, which launches a newly upgraded Google Assistant. As rumored, there’s a new recording app, which is capable of transcribing conversations in real-time. From the demo, at least, the feature is pretty impressive, with a more accurate transcript than I’ve seen from most AI software. Interestingly, it all works on-device, meaning that you can use it in airplane mode — and that that conversations aren’t automatically uploaded to the cloud.

The company finally embracing a multi-camera set up on the back of the device. Google had been one of the few holdouts on that front, instead insisting that its AI/ML was perfectly capable of producing shots as good as any multi-camera setup.

And while it’s true Google’s managed to get a pretty solid camera with this combo, the Pixel 4 gets a pair of cameras on the back, in the iPhone 11-esque square camera array. There’s a wide angle and telephoto14- and 16-megapixel on the back. That, when coupled with the computational photography Google has been pushing for a number of years now ought to make this a solid competitor. 

The camera utilizes a combination of optical and digital zoom (Super-res Zoom) to take some pretty impressive close up shots. It also looks to be pretty impressive on low light shots, improving on earlier Night Sight offerings. Live HDR+, meanwhile, is able to approximate final HDR shots in real time to give users a better idea of what the final photo will look like.

Dual Exposure controls, meanwhile, give users more direct controls over brightness and shadow, and thus more control over HDR. White balance gets a bump using AI training. Learning based light balance is adopted from Night Sight and now available on all photos to get more realistic shots. Night Sight gets a bump as well, and is now capable of taking better shots of things like a starry sky using long exposure times.

Machine learning is also being used to calculate depth in real-time, so users can get a broader depth of field with subjects at different distances. Oh, and Annie Leibovitz is a fan, apparently. Arguably the world’s most famous photographer has been taking the phone for a spin, shooting an impressive series of portraits on the new handset. The results are pretty stunning — and very iconically hers.

“What’s great about the camera phone,” Leibovitz said, “it’s a brand new language, and it’s really great this is for everyone to use.”

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As with its predecessors, the Pixel 4 comes in both a standard and XL version, at 5.7 (full HD+) and 6.3 inches (Quad HD+), respectively. The Pixel 4 XL got an A+ from Display Mate, according to the company, thanks in part to the addition of a 90MHZ refresh rate.

The handset is up for pre-order, starting at $799. It starts shipping October 24 in Just Black, Clearly White and the new/limited edition Oh So Orange.

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Here’s everything Google just announced at the Made By Google 2019 event

 

Google held its annual “Made By Google” hardware event this morning in New York City, where they launched all sorts of new gear back to back to back.

Didn’t have time to watch the whole stream, but still want to know the bulletpoints of what’s new? We’ve got you covered.

Stadia Launch

Stadia, Google’s cloud video game streaming service, will launch on November 19th.

Pixel Buds

Google went back to the drawing board with its answer to the AirPods. Shipping sometime in “Spring 2020”, the new Pixel Buds will cost $179. Google says the battery should last about 5 hours per charge, with the familiar floss-style charging case packing an additional 24 hours worth of charge. On-board microphones will adapt the sound based on your environment, and help to cancel out background noise like wind.

Pixelbook Go

It’s been a while since Google shipped a higher-end Chrome OS laptop — but with Pixelbook Go, they’re taking another swing at it. It’s got a 13.3″ display, up to 16GB of RAM, up to 256GB of storage, with the company promising around 12 hours of battery life. It’ll weigh roughly 2lbs, with a base model that’ll cost $649.

New Nest Aware

Nest Aware (which lets you add cloud recording to your Nest cameras) used to cost a few bucks per device. Now it’s a flat fee, regardless of how many cameras you’ve got. $6 per month gets you 30 days of “event” history (read: just the bits of video where things are actually happening), while $12 per month gets you 60 days of event history and 10 days of 24/7 video history.

Nest Aware also now lets you put your Nest Minis/Nest Hubs into a security-centric listening mode, with the smart speakers listening for things like smoke alarms and dogs barking and sending you notifications accordingly.

They’ll switch to the new tier structure in “early 2020”.

Nest WiFi

As rumored over the past few weeks, Google is mashing up the concepts of its Google Wifi mesh router with its Google Home speakers, voltroning them into Nest WiFi — a router/smart speaker hybrid. They’ll ship starting on November 4th; a two pack will cost $269, with a three pack going for $349.

New Nest Mini

The Google Home Mini is now the “Nest Mini” — and a bit has changed beyond the name. It’s now wall mountable without any adapters, with a speaker that Google says offers up double the bass. Its got a new machine learning chip on board for faster responses, and more microphones to work better in louder environments. It’ll ship on October 22nd for $49.

Pixel 4

After an endless series of leaks, the next generation of Pixel — Google’s flagship Android phone — is officially official. The Pixel 4 will come in at 5.7″ with a 2,800mAh battery, while the Pixel XL 4 comes in at 6.3″ with a 3,700mAh battery. They’re both running on the Snapdragon 855 chipset with 6GB of RAM. They’ve both got “Project Soli” radar chips inside, allowing you to do things like switch songs, snooze alarms, or silence calls by waving your hand over the phone without actually touching it.

The main focus here for Google is the cameras, with the company leaning hard into the idea of using machine-learning and AI-centric software to improve photos — things like dual exposure controls, AI-driven “learning” white balance, and an improved Night Sight mode that can handle taking photos of star-lit nights. Both phones have two cameras on the back (12.2 megapixel f/1.7 main camera and a 16 megapixel f/2.4 telephoto lens) and one on the front (8 megapixels).

It’ll ship starting October 24th, starting at $799.

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Google Pixel 4, Pixel 4 XL not launching in India

The Google Pixel 4 and Pixel XL smartphones, that Google just unveiled at a press conference in New York, won’t launch in India, one of the company’s most important overseas markets, the Android-maker said on Tuesday.

The bottleneck lies with Project Soli, a radar-based motion-sensing technology baked into the new Pixel smartphones that relies on using certain frequency bandwidth — 60GHz mmWave. The company failed to secure permission from the local authority in India to use this frequency range, a person familiar with the matter told TechCrunch. You may remember that in the U.S., the FCC approved the commercial usage of Soli earlier this year.

“Google has a wide range of products that we make available in different regions around the world. We determine availability based on a variety of factors, including local trends, and product features. We decided not to make Pixel 4 available in India. We remain committed to our current Pixel phones and look forward to bringing future Pixel devices to India,” a Google spokesperson said in a statement.

The radar sensors on the new Pixel smartphones enable a number of human interactions, Sabrina Ellis, VP of Product Management at Google, said at the event. “For instance, Pixel 4 has the fastest secure face unlock on a smartphone, because the process starts before you have even picked up the smartphone,” she claimed. “Motion sense prepares the camera when you reach for your Pixel 4, so you don’t need to tap the screen,” she added.

The radar sensor also enables other applications such as rejecting a call by just gesturing at the phone, Ellis said.

This is the first time Google has had to skip the launch of a phone in India, the second largest smartphone market and where all the Nexus and Pixel smartphones have launched a few days after their global unveiling.

Not launching the new Pixel smartphones won’t really hurt the company… at least financially speaking. The Pixel smartphones have failed to receive any substantial acceptance in the Indian marker, especially as their prices increased over the years.

Even as 99% of smartphones shipped in India last year ran Android mobile operating system, the vast majority of handsets carried a price tag of $200 or lower, research firm Counterpoint told TechCrunch.

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Google Pixel 4, Pixel 4 XL not launching in India

The Google Pixel 4 and Pixel XL smartphones, that Google just unveiled at a press conference in New York, won’t launch in India, one of the company’s most important overseas markets, the Android-maker said on Tuesday.

The bottleneck lies with Project Soli, a radar-based motion-sensing technology baked into the new Pixel smartphones that relies on using certain frequency bandwidth — 60GHz mmWave. The company failed to secure permission from the local authority in India to use this frequency range, a person familiar with the matter told TechCrunch. You may remember that in the U.S., the FCC approved the commercial usage of Soli earlier this year.

“Google has a wide range of products that we make available in different regions around the world. We determine availability based on a variety of factors, including local trends, and product features. We decided not to make Pixel 4 available in India. We remain committed to our current Pixel phones and look forward to bringing future Pixel devices to India,” a Google spokesperson said in a statement.

The radar sensors on the new Pixel smartphones enable a number of human interactions, Sabrina Ellis, VP of Product Management at Google, said at the event. “For instance, Pixel 4 has the fastest secure face unlock on a smartphone, because the process starts before you have even picked up the smartphone,” she claimed. “Motion sense prepares the camera when you reach for your Pixel 4, so you don’t need to tap the screen,” she added.

The radar sensor also enables other applications such as rejecting a call by just gesturing at the phone, Ellis said.

This is the first time Google has had to skip the launch of a phone in India, the second largest smartphone market and where all the Nexus and Pixel smartphones have launched a few days after their global unveiling.

Not launching the new Pixel smartphones won’t really hurt the company… at least financially speaking. The Pixel smartphones have failed to receive any substantial acceptance in the Indian marker, especially as their prices increased over the years.

Even as 99% of smartphones shipped in India last year ran Android mobile operating system, the vast majority of handsets carried a price tag of $200 or lower, research firm Counterpoint told TechCrunch.

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Google overhauls Nest Aware cloud recording plan

Google is updating the Nest Mini today, the device formerly known as Google Home Mini. And the company used this opportunity to announce an update to its home awareness product, Nest Aware.

If you have Nest security cameras, you can subscribe to a Nest Aware plan. It currently costs $5 a month for 5-day video history, $10 per month for 10-day history and $30 per month for 30-day history. All plans include continuous recording, intelligence alerts, clips and more.

But it can get complicated when you have multiple cameras. Additional cameras require their own subscription plan, but those additional plans are a bit cheaper.

Google is going to simplify all that with plans that cover your whole home. New plans will cost $6 per month for 30-day event history and $12 per month for 60-day event history as well as 10-day 24/7 video history.

As you can see, you now have to pay $12 per month for continuous recording as the basic plan doesn’t include continuous recording anymore. But if you have 8 cameras, you’ll only have to play for a single subscription.

New plans will roll out in early 2020 with the option to switch to the new plans.

And now, Nest Mini and Nest Hubs integrate with Nest Aware. For instance, when your non-connected smoke detector is triggered by a fire, your Nest Mini will notice the alarm and send you a push notification.

You can listen live to confirm that it is a smoke alarm. You can confirm the alarm and the Home app then calls 911 or your local emergency service directly.

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How we can eliminate child sexual abuse material from the internet | Julie Cordua

How we can eliminate child sexual abuse material from the internet | Julie Cordua

Social entrepreneur Julie Cordua works on a problem that isn't easy to talk about: the sexual abuse of children in images and videos on the internet. At Thorn, she's building technology to connect the dots between the tech industry, law enforcement and government -- so we can swiftly end the viral distribution of abuse material and rescue children faster. Learn more about how this scalable solution could help dismantle the communities normalizing child sexual abuse around the world today. (This ambitious plan is part of the Audacious Project, TED's initiative to inspire and fund global change.)

Click the above link to download the TED talk.

Google overhauls Nest Aware cloud recording plan

Google is updating the Nest Mini today, the device formerly known as Google Home Mini. And the company used this opportunity to announce an update to its home awareness product, Nest Aware.

If you have Nest security cameras, you can subscribe to a Nest Aware plan. It currently costs $5 a month for 5-day video history, $10 per month for 10-day history and $30 per month for 30-day history. All plans include continuous recording, intelligence alerts, clips and more.

But it can get complicated when you have multiple cameras. Additional cameras require their own subscription plan, but those additional plans are a bit cheaper.

Google is going to simplify all that with plans that cover your whole home. New plans will cost $6 per month for 30-day event history and $12 per month for 60-day event history as well as 10-day 24/7 video history.

As you can see, you now have to pay $12 per month for continuous recording as the basic plan doesn’t include continuous recording anymore. But if you have 8 cameras, you’ll only have to play for a single subscription.

New plans will roll out in early 2020 with the option to switch to the new plans.

And now, Nest Mini and Nest Hubs integrate with Nest Aware. For instance, when your non-connected smoke detector is triggered by a fire, your Nest Mini will notice the alarm and send you a push notification.

You can listen live to confirm that it is a smoke alarm. You can confirm the alarm and the Home app then calls 911 or your local emergency service directly.

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Google’s Pixel 4 is official

The rumors and leaks have been pretty relentless. In fact, over the past three days, the Pixel 4 and Pixel 4 XL have gone up for preorder on at least two different sites. While it’s true that Google’s never been particularly great at keeping this stuff under wraps, this was pretty silly.

Anyway, the Pixel 4 is finally official, and it’s basically exactly what we were expecting from this year’s Google flagship. The device now features face unlock, another addition that brings Pixels in line with the competition, though Google claims it’s the fastest available. Using a new radar chip, the device is able to start the unlock when you reach for the phone and then fully unlock when it sees your face.

Radar also gives the device gesture recognition, via Motion Sense The concept is similar to what you’ll find on other Android handsets, but it’s significantly more sophisticated, distinguishing accidental gestures from intentional ones Use these, this can do things like skipping songs, turn the screen on and wave to your animated Pikachu wallpaper (actual example). All of the processing is done on device and users can turn it off for privacy.

The 4 maintains the familiar Active Edge squeeze, which launches a newly upgraded Google Assistant. As rumored, there’s a new recording app, which is capable of transcribing conversations in real-time. From the demo, at least, the feature is pretty impressive, with a more accurate transcript than I’ve seen from most AI software. Interestingly, it all works on-device, meaning that you can use it in airplane mode — and that that conversations aren’t automatically uploaded to the cloud.

The company finally embracing a multi-camera set up on the back of the device. Google had been one of the few holdouts on that front, instead insisting that its AI/ML was perfectly capable of producing shots as good as any multi-camera setup.

And while it’s true Google’s managed to get a pretty solid camera with this combo, the Pixel 4 gets a pair of cameras on the back, in the iPhone 11-esque square camera array. There’s a wide angle and telephoto14- and 16-megapixel on the back. That, when coupled with the computational photography Google has been pushing for a number of years now ought to make this a solid competitor. 

The camera utilizes a combination of optical and digital zoom (Super-res Zoom) to take some pretty impressive close up shots. It also looks to be pretty impressive on low light shots, improving on earlier Night Sight offerings. Live HDR+, meanwhile, is able to approximate final HDR shots in real time to give users a better idea of what the final photo will look like

As with its predecessors, the Pixel 4 comes in both a standard and XL version, at 5.7 (full HD+) and 6.3 inches (Quad HD+), respectively. The Pixel 4 XL got an A+ from Display Mate, according to the company, thanks in part to the addition of a 90MHZ refresh rate.

The handset is up for pre-order, starting at $799. It starts shipping October 24 in Just Black, Clearly White and the new/limited edition Oh So Orange.

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Google launches Nest Wifi mesh router and extender with built-in Google Assistant

Today at its Google hardware event, Google introduced new mesh routers called Nest Wifi. This is a successor tot he Google Wifi product it introduced a couple of years ago, but with a number of improvements. The new Nest Wifi consists of two types of devices, one a router that plugs into your modem, and one ‘point’ amplifies the signal and extends the network, and it’s more powerful so you only need these two things.

It’s available to pre-order, and will ship on November 4. It comes in a 2-pack or a 3-pack variant, for $249 or $349 respectively, and will be available in eight countries at launch.

Google says that Nest Wifi offers 2x better speed than Google Wifi, with up to 25% better coverage. That’s from the two-piece system, which Google says is probably enough to cover the same space as the three-puck Google Wifi original system.

The hardware is designed to be placed out in the open – Google paid attention to design here to make sure it looks good enough to keep it where it’ll work best to provide signal. And the ‘point’ has a built-in speaker and microphone array, with onboard Google Assistant support, making it double as a smart speaker – which really does add to the overall value in terms of what you’re getting for the money.

Like Google Wifi, it offers simple set-up, parental and guest controls, as well as “seamless setup” for smart home devices rom within the Google Home app.

Interestingly, Google said that Google Wifi has been the top-selling mesh Wifi system in both the U.S. and Canada since its launch, so it’s clearly seeing a lot of success in this category. The company was also quick to point out that it has provided 15 updates to the original hardware since its launch, adding new features and improving performance, so expect a similar slew of post-purchase updates for Nest Wifi, too.

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Google Home Mini is now Nest Mini

Google this morning unveiled the long awaited follow up to the Home Mini. The latest version of the company’s wildly popular entry-level smart speaker has been rebranded the Nest Home Mini, in keeping with the branding refresh of its smart home offerings. The new version of the device looks a lot like its predecessor, but features a number of internal upgrades.

Chief among the changes are improved sound and built-in machine learning that lets the device adapt power based on usage. The new version of the Mini smart speaker also doubles as an intercom and a conferencing speaker, so users can call the device directly, using Duo.

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The most fun addition here, however, is the wall mount. With it, users can move the device from the shelf to the wall, giving it a greater flexibility for in-home placement. The Nest Mini’s familiar fabric covering is made using recycled bottles, as noted earlier in today’s event, in keeping with the company’s increased focus on sustainability.

The new Mini arrives October 22, priced at tempting $49 — same as its briskly selling predecessor. Seems like a pretty safe bet that Google will sell a ton more of these things at that price point Along with the new Mini, Google’s also adding smart speaker functionality into the new Nest Wifi, which arrives early next month.

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Google launches the $649 Pixelbook Go Chromebook

At its annual hardware event, Google today announced the launch of the Pixelbook Go, the latest iteration of its first-party Chromebook lineup. Starting at $649, the Pixelbook Go marks a return to the standard laptop format after last year’s Pixelbook with a 180-degree hinge and the Pixel Slate 2-in-1.

The Go will come with a 16:9 13.3-inch touch screen and either an HD or 4K display, two USB-C ports, a built-in Titan-C security chip, up to 16GB of RAM and up to 256GB of storage. It’s powered by Intel Core CPUs, starting with an m3 chip at the low end and an i7 at the top end. Available colors are black and “just pink” and pre-orders start now, but only for the black version. “Just pink” is coming soon.

It has a rippled bottom, “that’s easy to grip” and a “Hush Keys,” which are supposedly quieter than the keys on previous Pixelbooks. Talking about quiet, the Go also has far-field microphones for all your “Hey Google” needs.

“We wanted to create a thin and light laptop. That was really fast, and also have it last all day. And of course, we wanted it to look and feel beautiful,” Google’s Ivy Ross said in today’s announcement. Ross also stressed that the Pixelbook Go has a larger battery, yet is still lighter, thanks to its magnesium body. 

Unlike Microsoft, with its Surface line, Google’s laptops always seemed more like aspirational devices that defined the high end of the Chromebook spectrum. At $649, the Pixelbook Go is clearly more affordable than many of Google’s previous efforts in this area and the company clearly hopes to sell a few more of them.

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Google launches the $649 Pixelbook Go Chromebook

At its annual hardware event, Google today announced the launch of the Pixelbook Go, the latest iteration of its first-party Chromebook lineup. Starting at $649, the Pixelbook Go marks a return to the standard laptop format after last year’s Pixelbook with a 180-degree hinge and the Pixel Slate 2-in-1.

The Go will come with a 16:9 13.3-inch touch screen and either an HD or 4K display, a built-in Titan-C security chip, up to 16GB of RAM and up to 256GB of storage. It’s powered by Intel Core CPUs, starting with an m3 chip at the low end and an i7 at the top end. Available colors are black and “just pink” and pre-orders start now, but only for the black version. “Just pink” is coming soon.

It has a rippled bottom, “that’s easy to grip” and a “Hush Keys,” which are supposedly quieter than the keys on previous Pixelbooks.

“We wanted to create a thin and light laptop. That was really fast, and also have it last all day. And of course, we wanted it to look and feel beautiful,” Google’s Ivy Ross said in today’s announcement. Ross also stressed that the Pixelbook Go has a larger battery, yet is still lighter, thanks to its magnesium body.

Unlike Microsoft, with its Surface line, Google’s laptops always seemed more like aspirational devices that defined the high end of the Chromebook spectrum. At $649, the Pixelbook Go is clearly more affordable than many of Google’s previous efforts in this area and the company clearly hopes to sell a few more of them.

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Google teases fully wireless Pixel Buds, arriving Spring 2020

As rumored, Google just dropped a little hint about its next generation Pixel Buds. The company unveiled a pair of fully wireless earbuds following the release of its promising, but fairly disappointing tethered earbuds. The new headphones are certainly nice looking, maintaining the same pastel color scheme it offers on its Pixel handsets.

The headphones are still a long ways out, arriving in spring of next year. Clearly the company wanted to let the world know that it still has a vested interest in the category, even as the likes of Apple, Samsung and Sony have taken most of the air out of the room. The headphones use long range bluetooth wireless, maintaining a connection up to three rooms away in doors and a full football field from its source when outside.

The on-board mics give the Pixel Buds adaptive sound, adjusting based on the wearer’s environment. The mics also focus in on the speaker during a phone conversation, while helping to remove ambient sound like the wind The battery should get five hours on a charge, with a full 24 hours in the included battery case. The case looks a bit like a streamlined version of the one that comes with Apple’s AirPods, though thankfully not as large as, say, the one that comes with Beats version.

When they arrive next year, the new Pixel Buds will run $179 — not a bad price, particularly if these ones live up to the (admittedly vague) promises made at today’s event. Once again, the company is focused on software here — not unlike Microsoft’s recently announced Surface earbuds. Though Google’s offerings, including Maps and translate are likely far more useful on a pair of headphones than, say, Office functionality.

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Perhaps second time is the charm here. And, admittedly, the wireless earbud market is significantly more mature than it was when the original Pixel Buds. That means Google’s got a better framework to work with here — but it also means that the company’s got a lot of competition, as well, if it wants to be the Android take on AirPods.

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Google’s cloud gaming service Stadia will launch on November 19th

Google dropped a bit of news right off the bat at this morning’s Made by Google event: Stadia, its on-demand cloud game streaming service, will launch on November 19th.

Stadia is Google’s experiment in changing up the way we play video games; rather than rendering video games on a console or a powerful local PC, Stadia games are rendered in the cloud and pushed to your Chromecast, smartphone, or browser on-the-fly.

Google has already announced a few dozen games they plan to support on the $10 per month service — you can find that list here.

Story developing..

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Germany says it won’t ban Huawei or any 5G supplier up front

Germany is resisting US pressure to shut out Chinese tech giant Huawei from its 5G networks — saying it will not ban any supplier for the next-gen mobile networks on an up front basis, per Reuters.

“Essentially our approach is as follows: We are not taking a pre-emptive decision to ban any actor, or any company,” government spokesman, Steffen Seibert, told a news conference in Berlin yesterday.

The country’s Federal Network Agency is slated to be publishing detailed security guidance on the technical and governance criteria for 5G networks in the next few days.

The next-gen mobile technology delivers faster speeds and lower latency than current-gen cellular technologies, as well as supporting many more connections per cell site. So it’s being viewed as the enabling foundation for a raft of futuristic technologies — from connected and autonomous vehicles to real-time telesurgery.

But increased network capabilities that support many more critical functions means rising security risk. The complexity of 5G networks — marketed by operators as “intelligent connectivity” — also increases the surface area for attacks. So future network security is now a major geopolitical concern.

German business newspaper Handelsblatt, which says it has reviewed a draft of the incoming 5G security requirements, reports that chancellor Angela Merkel stepped in to intervene to exclude a clause which would have blocked Huawei’s market access — fearing a rift with China if the tech giant is shut out.

Earlier this year it says the federal government pledged the highest possible security standards for regulating next-gen mobile networks, saying also that systems should only be sourced from “trusted suppliers”. But those commitments have now been watered down by economic considerations at the top of the German government.

The decision not to block Huawei’s access has attracted criticism within Germany, and flies in the face of continued US pressure on allies to ban the Chinese tech giant over security and espionage risks.

The US imposed its own export controls on Huawei in May.

A key concern attached to Huawei is that back in 2017 China’s Communist Party passed a national intelligence law which gives the state swingeing powers to compel assistance from companies and individuals to gather foreign and domestic intelligence.

For network operators outside China the problem is Huawei has the lead as a global 5G supplier — meaning any ban on it as a supplier would translate into delays to network rollouts. Years of delay and billions of dollars of cost to 5G launches, according to warnings by German operators.

Another issue is that Huawei’s 5G technology has also been criticized on security grounds.

A report this spring by a UK oversight body set up to assess the company’s approach to security was damning — finding “serious and systematic defects” in its software engineering and cyber security competence.

Though a leak shortly afterwards from the UK government suggested it would allow Huawei partial access — to supply non-core elements of networks.

An official UK government decision on Huawei has been delayed, causing ongoing uncertainty for local carriers. In the meanwhile a government review of the telecoms supply chain this summer called for tougher security standards and updated regulations — with major fines for failure. So it’s possible that stringent UK regulations might sum to a de facto ban if Huawei’s approach to security isn’t seen to take major steps forward soon.

According to Handelsblatt’s report, Germany’s incoming guidance for 5G network operators will require carriers identify critical areas of network architecture and apply an increased level of security. (Although it’s worth pointing out there’s ongoing debate about how to define critical/core network areas in 5G networks.)

The Federal Office for Information Security (BSI) will be responsible for carrying out security inspections of networks.

Last week a pan-EU security threat assessment of 5G technology highlighted risks from “non-EU state or state-backed actors” — in a coded jab at Huawei.

The report also flagged increased security challenges attached to 5G vs current gen networks on account of the expanded role of software in the networks and apps running on 5G. And warned of too much dependence on individual 5G suppliers, and of operators relying overly on a single supplier.

Shortly afterwards the WSJ obtained a private risk assessment by EU governments — which appears to dial up regional concerns over Huawei, focusing on threats linked to 5G providers in countries with “no democratic and legal restrictions in place”.

Among the discussed risks in this non-public report are the insertion of concealed hardware, software or flaws into 5G networks; and the risk of uncontrolled software updates, backdoors or undocumented testing features left in the production version of networking products.

“These vulnerabilities are not ones which can be remedied by making small technical changes, but are strategic and lasting in nature,” a source familiar with the discussions told the WSJ — which implies that short term economic considerations risk translating into major strategic vulnerabilities down the line.

5G alternatives are in short supply, though.

US Senator Mark Warner recently floated the idea of creating a consortium of ‘Five Eyes’ allies — aka the U.S., Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the UK — to finance and build “a Western open-democracy type equivalent” to Huawei.

But any such move would clearly take time, even as Huawei continues selling services around the world and embedding its 5G kit into next-gen networks.

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Smart home startup Level Home emerges from stealth with $71M and a new take on the smart lock

As companies like Google, Amazon and Apple hone their strategies to build the brain that helps you use the smart home of the future, where a new wave of internet-enabled appliances, climate and security systems and other connected objects can be connected and controlled through their hubs, a new smart home startup called Level Home is emerging from stealth today with a big packet of funding and a hope of bringing something new to the table, by focusing on ways of rethinking old things you own already, starting with the lock on your front door.

The Level Lock, the first patented product, is a system — tested for durability, powered by a basic CR2 battery (average life: one year), equipped with ANSI GRADE 1/A security and encryption — that is fitted into the existing dead bolt on your door to make it “smart”. Level Home says you can install the Lock yourself using a basic number two scredriver — “the most common tool in the American home”, says CEO and co-founder John Martin — or you can engage Level Home’s installation partner, HelloTech, to set it up.

The key thing with the Level Lock is that you door will not look any different after you install it. But linking it up with HomeKit, you can then use an Apple iPhone or Watch to unlock it (or, you can also still use the physical keys that come with the lock to open the door). Through the app, you can then also provide one-off or repeat access to others and monitor who comes and goes.

Priced at $249 when it goes on sale (first in the US), the Lock is available now for preorder on Level Home’s site. But there is a good chance that when the Lock does become generally available, you will be able to get it in more places beyond Level’s site.

That’s because, along with the launch of the Level Lock and the company itself, Level Home is also announcing that it has raised $71 million in funding in the years that it has been in stealth, with investors including a firm called Hut 8 Ventures (unclear if connected to Hut 8 cryptocurrency mining, I’m asking), Lennar Homes — the home maker that has worked with the likes of Apple and Amazon to build in connected features into new properties — and Walmart.

The retail giant has been working double time to “level up” to Amazon on the e-commerce front, building a range of services online and increasing the ways in which it can connect with shoppers beyond visits to its large retail locations, and while Level is not disclosing any details yet on how it will work with its strategic investors, you could imagine its involvement having more than one touchpoint.

It could be a very strong sales channel for the Level Lock through its many well-visited retail locations.

But it could also be sold potentially as part of a bigger service offering, in competition with something like Amazon Key, where Walmart offers smart locks to its customers as part of a bigger home delivery business. (Walmart has already started down this road: back in 2017 it first partnered with smart lock maker August to test in-home delivery.)

Partnerships with the likes of Walmart and Lennar sound like a big deal, considering that the company hasn’t tested its product or brand in the market, and the area of smart home hardware is also very crowded already.

Part of the reason for the leap may be because of the background of the founders. John Martin (CEO) and Ken Goto (CTO) have worked together for decades across a range of major tech and other consumer companies including Microsoft, Starbucks and Apple. Underneath them, they have assembled a wider team of about 50 of like-minded people to bring that vision into the physical world.

“Much of the current company are people from Google, Microsoft, and Facebook and others,” said Goto. “We have a shared level of talent and capability.”

To be very clear, Martin and Goto are very far from the image of young startup-hopefuls, Martin told me he didn’t even really like the term “startup.” Instead, the two are taking a measured and very confident approach to the bigger task of thinking about how to approach a new generation of hardware.

For them, it isn’t so much as “disrupting” what is already being used, as it is trying to augment it to bring in a wider population of adopters beyond those who embrace the cutting edge of tech.

“We could have made anything for the connected home, so and we thought for weeks about what to invent,” Martin told me about the pair’s decision to focus first on the front door lock three years ago. “We had a couple of fundamentals: we wanted products for everyday life, and we didn’t want home automation out of the mainline of what normally happens. We didn’t want lightbulbs to change color for the sake of it, and we didn’t want to appeal just to the tech professional. So we thought entry was the right point to start.” Or, you could say entry was a good point of entry.

Of course, Level Home isn’t the first to come on this progression of logic. Smart doors and smart locks are everywhere now, although ironically, they are not being used all that much.

“When we looked at first generation smart locks, we were offended by how aggressively the experience was departing from how people use locks today.” By this, Martin is referring to things like physical keys, or aesthetically pleasing doors and locks without large objects attached to them.

Indeed, the smart home market has not been a home run so far, but it shows some promise. The smart home market overall is projected to generate revenues of nearly $74 million this year, nearly doubling to $141 billion by 2023. A stream of hardware sales will underpin that growth, with some 140 million smart locks and other home security devices — the second-biggest category after video entertainment — expected to be shipped this year, growing to 352 million by 2023 globally.

But within that, penetration has not been massive: in Europe, only around 11 percent of homes have smart home devices in them (not counting phones), and in the US, the figure is only slightly higher, at 15%. That speaks to a still-nascent market, but also the fact that many people’s imaginations, and crucially wallets, have get to be captured by what is on offer today.

That spells opportunity for the smart home entrepreneurs, and investors willing to take the leap to back them.

Martin and Goto said that they have a pipeline of several other products that they will be working on, although for now, they are keeping quiet on what those might be. I’ve searched and can only so far find patents for the Lock system, but they tell me that the basic idea will be to continue present an alternative version of the smart home: to quietly make our lives at home easier and more connected, but without any massively perceptible shifts. Move slow, don’t break things.

In a market with a lot of options for how to bring more modern objects into the mix that genuinely look like the future, this could be a good differentiator.

“We’re pleased to make an investment in Level Home as they unveil their latest technology, the Level Lock,” said Ashley Hubka, Senior Vice President of Corporate Strategy, Development and Partnerships, Walmart, in a statement. “Smart technology products and home automation provide us with more opportunities to serve customers in new ways today and into the future.”

“Level Home’s unique approach and technology is a game changer for homebuilders,” said Eric Feder, Managing General Partner, Lennar Ventures, in a statement. “As one of the nation’s leading home builders, Lennar is founded on a long tradition of quality craftsmanship and attention to detail. The Level Lock will transform the smart lock category by allowing home builders to offer innovation without having to compromise on their home experience.”

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9 Improved Features We Want in the Next iPhone

Apple released the iPhone 11 and iPhone 11 Pro in September 2019 to the usual fanfare. These devices are solid upgrades from the previous models, and introduce many desirable features like a new triple-camera setup, stunning battery life, and better displays.

However, these changes feel incremental and leave us hungry for more. There are lots of headline features missing from 2019’s iPhone models that we’d love to see introduced soon. Below are the top new features we want to see in Apple’s next iPhone lineup.

1. A Smaller Notch

In 2017 Apple introduced the iPhone X, an almost all-screen phone with minimal bezels and no home button. This meant no more Touch ID. And to make up for its absence, the iPhone needed a new form of biometric security. That’s how Face ID was born.

The components needed for Face ID sit at the top of the phone, resulting in a black bar that interrupts the all-screen design. That bar has been dubbed the “notch,” and resulted in the annoyance of many users.

Wouldn’t it be awesome if Apple found a way to reduce this notch? Perhaps the company could use a hole-punch design similar to Samsung’s? An under-display camera would be neat, as well.

2. 5G Support

5G is the next step in mobile network technology after 4G LTE, offering lightning-fast speeds. Some Android flagships, like the Samsung Galaxy S10, offer a 5G-compatible model. None of Apple’s offerings have 5G capabilities yet.

This makes sense, because 5G isn’t fully ready yet. Still, it would be awesome to see next year’s iPhone models come with dashing next-gen speeds. In the meantime, follow our guide to speeding up your mobile data connection to get more out of your current setup.

3. A New (or Old) Design

Every iPhone model since the iPhone 6 has had a very similar design, with rounded edges and paper-thin builds. Wouldn’t it be nice to see a change for once? A return to the classic, thicker, squared-off design of the iPhone 5, but with a full screen, would be neat.

Even better, that design would allow for bigger batteries and cameras flush with the back of the device. This wish isn’t too far-fetched, since Apple’s latest iPad Pro design somewhat follows this philosophy.

4. ProMotion Displays

Another iPad Pro feature that Apple should bring over to its iPhone lineup is ProMotion. This isn’t “promotion” as in cheaper prices—although that’d be appreciated.

ProMotion is Apple’s name for a display technology that allows for variable refresh rates up to 120Hz. If you’re not familiar, the refresh rate is how many frames appear on the screen per second. The higher a display’s refresh rate, the smoother the visuals appear.

The standard on most mobile phones is 60Hz, or 60 frames per second. ProMotion allows compatible devices to output at 120Hz when necessary, but drops down to conserve energy when there’s not much on the screen.

A smoother iPhone display would make everything you do on the device look better.

5. A USB-C Port

This one’s a no-brainer. Most of Apple’s newer devices use a USB-C port, so why not the iPhone?

USB-C has better compatibility with other devices, carries more power, and can deliver super-fast data speeds. When traveling, you also won’t need more than one charger for your devices. The future is clearly USB-C, and the iPhone needs to adapt to this by getting rid of the aging Lightning port.

6. Reverse Wireless Charging

Samsung’s flagship smartphones can serve as charging mats for other devices through built-in reverse wireless charging. So when your pal’s AirPods are low on juice, you can lend a bit of power with the back of your Samsung phone, albeit a little slowly. Sounds neat, right?

This form of wireless charging was rumored as an inclusion in the iPhone 11, but was reportedly scrapped at the last minute because it was too inefficient for Apple’s standards. For the next devices, we’d love to see a perfected, power-efficient version of reverse wireless charging.

7. Bigger and Smaller Sizes

Each iPhone since the iPhone X has followed the same size standards, so we think it’s time for more variety.

A smaller phone would be great for iPhone SE fans who want something compact and easy to maneuver with a single hand. On the other end of the spectrum, a bigger screen would be incredible for users who want something on par with the cinematic display of the 6.8-inch Galaxy Note 10 Plus.

Of course, there’d still be an in-between with the medium-sized standard model. Choice is really a win-win for everyone.

8. Better Baseline Storage

The iPhone 11 and iPhone 11 Pro start at 64GB of storage. For a smartphone in 2019, this is simply inexcusable considering the competition. This paltry storage size is simply not enough anymore.

With all those 4K ultra-enhanced photos and videos to store, 64GB will only last you a short time. 128GB of space should be the norm, and we really hope that Apple realizes this in time for the next releases. If you’re unlucky and your storage is full, you might want to look at the best ways to manage your iPhone’s storage.

9. The Return of Touch ID

Face ID is great, don’t get us wrong. But it just hasn’t reached the breakneck speeds of Touch ID in its heyday.

Touch ID is much better for hands-on people who want to have a sense of satisfaction when unlocking their phone. It’s also more secure now than when it was removed, thanks to ultrasonic sensors that detect blood flow (like the Galaxy S10 has).

Knowing this, we feel Touch ID should come back through in-display tech. That being said, Face ID should stick around too; the new iPhone can have both. Having Touch ID and Face ID on the same device would, again, provide users with more choice. With both implemented, your iPhone would become like a secure, virtual passport.

High Expectations for the Next iPhone Models

It’s safe to say that expectations for next year’s iPhones are sky-high. After the somewhat tame year of the iPhone 11, many are eager to see what Apple has planned next. There’s a lot of potential for the next iteration of the iPhone to change the game.

See our comparison of the iPhone 11 and iPhone 11 Pro if you’re not sure which one is right for you.

Read the full article: 9 Improved Features We Want in the Next iPhone

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