Sony sticks to eye-watering US pricing, and more

Sony’s new flagship, the Xperia 1 III, goes to the US next month, a few months after it launched in mid-April – nothing unusual for Sony.

As a reminder – this is a beast:

• This is quite possibly the best flagship Sony has ever seen. Everything is there on paper: a 6.5-inch 4K OLED panel (21: 9) with 120 Hz, runs on a Snapdragon 888, with 12 GB of RAM and up to 512 GB of internal storage.
• The camera system finally seems to be catching up where an expensive Sony cell phone should be. The flagship contains three 12 MP rear shooters with a main camera (f / 1.7, OIS), an ultra-wide angle sensor and an interesting 12 MP periscope camera that offers lens elements that move between 3X and 5X zoom can be a premiere in a commercial phone.
• The specification list also includes items like 5G, 4,500mAh battery, 30W charging cable, side-mounted fingerprint scanner, and IP65 / 68 rating.
• Oh, and the headphone jack is there, along with speaker support for 360 Reality Audio.

Sony prices:

• Sony has rarely caught a bargain, and it does so again: this flagship is a cool $ 1,299, according to the official website.
• That’s $ 100 more than a retail price Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra, not including the recent sales, trade-ins, bonuses and the like that Samsung is trying to throw you at.
• Sony could counter with its own inclusions or bonuses – we don’t know yet as the official site only allows signups for email notifications when pre-orders start on July 1st. A 256GB version is also listed on the B&H US website and lists pre-orders starting at 10 p.m. ET, on July 1.
• But even this pricing will lead Sony to target a narrow segment of the enthusiast market. But at least the spec list is a laundry list of all the top 2021 smartphone options you could want.
• Hope my colleagues get their hands on it soon for a proper review of all of these tasty sounding specs.

😢 LG Velvet 2 Pro unboxing video shows us more of what could have been (Android authority).

📸 Samsung Galaxy S22, S22 Plus could get a major main camera upgrade, with the base spec getting better (Android authority).

📶 Samsung is targeting Huawei with its latest 5G chips for cellular network operators (Android authority).

💻 Latest Lenovo: New ThinkPads include a 16-inch X1 Extreme, and new Chromebooks promise compact designs, touchscreens, and prices of $ 440 (Android authority).

👩‍✈️ As of now: You need a drone license before flying to the USA. The good news? The process is free (Android authority).

🍎 Tim Cook called Nancy Pelosi personally to warn her about disrupting the iPhone with impending antitrust laws (The edge).

TSMC prioritizes silicon orders from Apple and automakers as global semiconductor shortages persist (9to5Mac).

⚖️ More on the topic: From Biden to Congress, Big Tech is coming under increasing pressure(AP).

☁️ Xbox Cloud Gaming’s next-gen upgrade begins with the launch: Series X performance means faster loading, 120 FPS, and more graphics options for titles like Yakuza: Like a Dragon and Rainbow Six Siege – but not all games yet (The edge).

😷 Time to talk Covid-19 Delta / Gamma: The once feared Alpha variant falls quickly – Delta and Gamma take over power(Ars-Technica).

👍 Zoom adds new options for sharing your pronouns as more websites, services, and apps add pronoun fields (The edge).

😬 Oops: Marvel’s Avengers showed players IP addresses on screen after the latest patch, not good news for streamers (Engage).

👔 NASA and Tide join forces in a new Space Act Agreement to do laundry in space, and the project even has its own logo (CNET).

💧 Satellite imagery shows how bad the drought is in California, and wow, that stuff hurts to see it (The edge).

🌲 Watch a wooden plank come off a truck through a windshield and somehow not kill anyone (Jalopnik).

🚢 The ongoing story of the big boat that destroyed the world (Wired).

🧊 “ELI5: How can people make a fire in igloos without melting through the ice?” (R / explainlikeimfive).

Here’s an unusual one for Weirdness Wednesday; something that sounds weird now but hopefully won’t be in the future.

It’s a new building design, called unTower:

• “A strange donut skyscraper is the future of architecture,” writes Fast companyto tap the malaise of skyscrapers in cities that suddenly found themselves emptier than usual and still find them even as the pandemic subsides.
• The problem is that when building towers for offices, it is difficult to convert that space into something else, from “living quarters to hotels to healthcare facilities”.
• “But turning an office tower into a house or something else is not a smooth process. From the layout of the floors to the lack of natural light inside, buildings designed as offices cannot easily be turned into what could be called a comfortable home. “

The solution is round, with windows to the outside and as a key element.

• “The [unTower] The concept is based on a simple donut-shaped building that has all of its structural supports on its inner and outer edges, which allows the space within the donut to be configured for any type of use. Walls can be pushed in to divide the room into the rooms of an apartment or the individual units of a hotel, or they can be completely removed for a large, column-free office. “
• “I think any post-pandemic developer will think about resilience in anything they build,” said Doug Demers, one of the team at the Toronto-based architecture firm B + H Architects behind the unTower.
• “If you build something that is flexible and resilient, it can have many uses in its life, and that is a lot more responsible and sustainable.”

Cheers,

Tristan Rayner, Managing Editor