Daily Authority: Google’s Pixel phone+apps bundle 🤔

The Pixel 6 and Pixel 6 Pro cats are completely out of the bag after UK retailer Carphone Warehouse released two overviews that cover essentially all of the marketing put together by Google.

• The other interesting news is some leaks around a “Pixel Pass,” a subscription that a Pixel could bundle with a number of Google services.

First the pixel publishing problem:

• It is a tradition for some retailer to list a device before the start date. It’s often smaller establishments or retailers or something that slips off a third party retailer on Amazon and so on. Usually this happens very close to the day of launch; This went back more than a week before Google Pixel launched on October 19th.
• And it was pretty big: Carphone let it publish for hours, and while leaker Evan Blass discovered it, anyone who switched to Pixel News probably got a look at the live websites.
• Bogdan Petrovan from the AA The team summed it up well in this post which confirmed a number of things we saw including the use of Google’s Tensor processor and details on the very long battery life, the Pro model with a 6.7 Inch 120Hz LTPO screen, can be shut down to 10Hz, 30W fast charge, and more.
• The camera details were significant: for example, the Pixel 6 Pro will have a 50 MP wide angle lens, a 48 MP telephoto lens, and a 12 MP ultra wide angle lens on the rear. The Pixel 6 will have the same 50 MP wide-angle lens and ultra-wide-angle shooter.
• This new primary sensor captures 150% more light than the main rearview camera on the Pixel 5 and offers many new features, such as:

👉 You no longer have to say “Hey Google” for these Assistant commands as soon as you receive an update (Android authority).

📲 OnePlus will launch the OnePlus 9RT, Buds Z2 this week in China, possibly only in China. Here are the confirmed specifications of the 9RT (Android authority).

🔋 The Samsung Galaxy S22 series charging speed could be its biggest weakness, with 25W charging being the limit (Android authority).

📂 Another test of the new Microsoft Surface Laptop Studio, but more details on the “stage mode” (Wired).

📸 Solid Fairphone 4 review shows Fairphone has made a big step forward, but there is still work to be done on software tweaks, especially on the camera. Miquel Ballaster told me Fairphone will be working on it, but right now it’s so-so (The edge).

🍎 Google’s technical director for Apple platforms says more or less that Google no longer makes its iOS apps look exactly like its Android apps, but rather uses UIKit to develop it more according to iOS standards (Tweet).

🔫 The Grand Theft Auto trilogy is being remastered for PC and consoles including Nintendo Switch (The edge).

🚄 The construction of high-speed rail lines accelerated the brain drain from the western regions of China to the big cities in the east: once connected, some cities get darker at night after a train station enters the city, and patent applications in western cities tended to decline significantly after one was built High speed rail in the area (SCMP).

⛔ Soon there will be no more ads on Google that deny climate change (Ars-Technica).

🌋 A huge underground ‘tree’ moves magma to the surface of the earth (Wired).

🚀 NASA’s Lucy Mission Launches This Week: What You Should Know About Traveling Into Jupiter’s Orbit To Explore Asteroids (CNET). Also on rockets: Blue Origin postpones William Shatner’s spaceflight to October 13th (Engage).

🏭 Tesla opened its German Gigafactory doors to onlookers over the weekend – unfortunately your correspondent didn’t tap any of the 9,000 tickets, but also someone who has owned a Tesla for five years, and I haven’t tried the press pass route at all. Anyway, old Musky said the factory could start making cars this November, but it will take a full year to get up to speed and permits are still required (Engage).

🌞 A major solar flare a few days ago sends coronal mass ejections toward Earth, with a 35 percent chance of a moderate geomagnetic storm. The modeling suggests that the most affected area will be at 55 degrees north, which is roughly the same as New York City, i.e. Canada, Northern Europe, and Russia. It doesn’t seem to pose a threat to satellites and power grids, but the northern lights should be active (Space weather). More from NOAA here.

🧂 “Where does the human body get chlorine for stomach acid?” (R / question science).