This week Google held a special event, where they presented new Pixel 3 phones and bunch of others devices. Let's start with the phones. Google as always presented two versions, the base one - Pixel, and one with bigger screen- Pixel XL. Here is the specification:

• Full-HD+ OLED, Gorilla Glass 5,
• Qualcomm Snapdragon 845 octa-core processor,
• Adreno 630 GPU,
• 4GB RAM and 6GB for Pixel XL
• 64GB/128GB storage,
• 12Mp f/1.8 rear camera with dual autofocus,
• 8Mp + 8Mp, f/1.8/2.2 dual-selfie camera,
• Rear fingerprint sensor,
• IPX8 waterproofing,
• 2915mAh battery for Pixel, and 3430mAh with Quick Charge for Pixel XL
• Wireless charging and USB-C 3.1,
• Android 9.0 Pie.

The specification for both version is almost identical. The only difference comes to amount of RAM, 4GB vs 6GB, and battery size. Of course there is also screen size difference, Pixel has 5.5 inch screen and Pixel XL has 6.3 inch with a notch. Speaking of the notch, it has not been received well. Based on images and videos I've seen, I have to agree with those accusations. I'm not a big fan of the notch, but I got use to it on the iPhone. Keeping that in mind, the Pixel's 3 notch still feels gigantic. I would love to see the phone in real life and do the comparison.
Speaking of real life, both phones are the most expensive Google phones ever :/ The Pixel starts at $799 for 64GB version. The XL starts at $899 for the same storage. It looks like the trend of producing very expensive phones continues.

Google also announced new tablet with a detachable keyboard powered by ChromeOS. It's called Google Pixel Slate, and it's very similar to the Surface Pro. It has 12.3 inch screen with front facing camera and two speakers. On the back there is rear camera. On the side, we will find fingerprint reader.
Device is powered by family of Intel CPUs, from Celeron up to i7 in the most powerful configuration. The CPU version affects the amount of memory we can get, 4GB in Celeron configuration, up to 16GB with i7. In terms of storage, devices will have from 32GB up to 256GB.
The Pixel Slate will go on sale in November starting at $599, while the dedicated keyboard will cost additional $199.

Also during the event, Google presented the Home Hub. This is basically the Google speaker with a screen, like Amazon's Echo Show or Facebook Portal but without a camera. Lack of the camera on a device like this is a bit surprising, but at leas we don't have to worry about device spying on us. Home hub comes in 4 colors and will be released on 22nd of October for $149.

The last news from the event is that Google Plus is going to be shut down. The official reason are security breaches, but to be honest, no one was using this platform anyway, so I'm glad that i will be officially gone.

That all folks from the news, here is the list of interesting things.

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By the end of this week Lucasfilm shared the details of the first Star Wars live-action TV Series - The Mandalorian. The series is set between episodes six and seven and will be about a brand new Mandalorian character.
Jon Favreau will write and produces the 8 episodes, with Dave Filoni directing the first one. Additional episodes will be directed by Deborah Chow (Jessica Jones), Rick Famuyiwa (Dope), Bryce Dallas Howard (Solemates), and Taika Waititi (Thor: Ragnarok).
I'm very exited about this. Especially about involvement of Dave Filoni, who basically created the Mandalorian culture for the Clone Wars. It is also amazing to hear that Filoni finally will be behind real camera. He is George Lucas' protege. Lucas tought him the art of storytelling and we saw the results of this in later episodes of the Clone Wars and though entire Rebels series, which to be honest was better than The Last Jedi and Han Solo movie.

Earlier this week, Microsoft refreshed its Surface lineup. I'm not going to the technical details of the upgrade, but I have to agree with Owen Williams, right now Microsoft has the best device lineup in the industry. They have device for everyone, from casual users, through tech enthusiasts, to the power users and content creators. This is something that Apple had 10 years ago and abandon by focusing on iPhones. Now, they have lineup with various outdated devices that are also expensive. I hope that Microsoft will not make the same mistake and, in 10 years time, the lineup will be as strong as today.

Speaking of mistakes, Microsoft has pulled the Windows 10 October update after reports of personal files being deleted. Microsoft is investigating the issue. The problem didn't affect everyone, but for now, it is good to wait with the upgrade.

Here is the list of interesting things.

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Image credits: Lucasfilm.

This week Google was celebrating its 20th birthday. September 27, 1998, this is the date when Larry Page and Sergey Brin launched their website - Google Search. Since then, Google has changed a lot. Google Search is now just a part of the tech giant now known as Alphabet.
After 20 years, some people see Google as the best company in the world, where others are convinced that Google is evil, spying on us in every possible way. I'm not sure whether Google is good or bad, probably both, but what I know is that Google during those 20 years has changed the world couple of times, and I'm sure it will be doing this in the future.

Elon Musk has been forced to step down as chairman of Tesla. This is the result of Musk's tweets about taking Tesla private. Those tweets, caused drastic price change of Tesla stocks. As Tesla ultimately has not been taken private, the Securities and Exchange Commission accused Musk and Tesla for stock prices manipulation. On Saturday, Elon Musk has reached a settlement with the SOC and will step down as a chairman of Tesla and will have to pay $20 million fine, but will remain CEO of the company. Also, Tesla will have to pay $20 million fine. Both amounts will be later distributed over investors who lost money.
One tweet cost Elon Musk $40 million and his voice on the board. Lesson to take from this - be careful what you tweet.

Speaking of CEOs, Kathleen Kennedy will remain the president of the Lucasfilm for the next 3 years. For couple of months, there was a lot of rumors that Kennedy will be fired after disappointing Episode 8 and Han Solo movie.
Decision about keeping Kennedy goes inline with information about slowing Star Wars franchise down and Disney doesn't want any revolutions, which is a good thing.

That's it for this week, here is the list of interesting things.

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At the beginning of this week, Apple finally released the iOS 12. The new version of the mobile operating system contains plenty new features and improvements:

• Better performance especially for displaying keyboard or opening apps,
• Better battery usage information
• Screen time - tool that allows to track how much time we spent using particular app,
• Grouped notifications - now, notification from the same app are grouped together,
• New Animiji and Memoji - I think this doesn't need explanation 😛,
• Grouped FaceTime - finally you can call multiple people,
• Improved AR capabilities including new Measure app or AR elements in the News app
• Shortcuts - tool for automating common task. With Siri this is very powerful, but so far underrated feature,
• Siri suggestions - Siri show suggest what can we do based on what are we currently doing,
• CarPlay supports third-party apps,
• Location is automatically shared with 911 and first responders,
• Do not disturb during bedtime - a new mode of the phone which will hide all notifications when we are sleeping,
• Password Manager API - this allows password managers to fill your passwords right from the keyboard without switching between apps.

This release is not revolutionary, but brings couple of long awaited improvements, so I encourage you to update your devices.

With premiere of the iOS 12, we also got a new Beta version of the next release. Of course people were looking for new leaks and they found couple of interesting thing about upcoming iPad Pro:

• No home button
• Face ID (with support for both portrait and landscape)
• No notch
• Probably USB-C port instead of lightning

If those rumors are true, then I can't wait to see new iPhone next year. Hopefully without notch and finally with USB-C.

On Tuesday, Marvel released first trailer of the Captain Marvel movie. Movie is set in 90s and tell the story of Kara Danvers, who becomes one of the most powerful superheros in Marvel universe.
Speaking of Marvel universe, Disney is planning Loki and Scarlet Witch TV shows. Also, there are rumors that Disney is planning to create more TV series for characters who don't have their own movies. If any show is created, it will be for upcoming Disney's streaming platform.
I must admit, creating a TV show in popular franchise is a great strategy for promoting the new streaming platform. Let's face it, Disney owns most of the franchises, so they have plenty of material to use. They already confirmed that there will be Star Wars TV show created by Jon Favreau.

As we are talking about Star Wars. Disney's CEO, Bog Iger, said that they are going to slow down with Star Wars franchise.
Since 2015 we had 4 movies. First two movies have been huge success, especially commercially. But last two have been disappointing, they felt rushed. They also, have been confusing for the fans because we had movies from the trilogy interspersed with with anthologies, where fans have been expecting continuation like in Marvel movies.
I love Star Wars, and I would love to see new movie every year, but if we can get movies that are better quality then I can wait.

Last but not least, here is the list of interesting things.

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TinyLETTER

This week Apple held the Gather Round event introducing three new iPhones and new Apple Watch. Without further ado, let's start with iPhones.
The iPhone XS and iPhone XS Max are the premium models with the most features which also makes them the most expensive ones, starting at $999 and $1099 respectively. Here is the specification:

• OLED True Tone Screen
• HDR display
• Dual 12-megapixel rear cameras (wide-angle and telephoto lenses)
• 7-megapixel front camera
• Portrait Mode with Depth Control
• Smart HDR photos
• A12 Bionic chip
• Face ID
• Fast charging
• Qi-based wireless charging
• IP68-rated water resistance to a depth of 2 meters for up to 30 minutes
• 64GB / 256GB / 512GB of storage
• Dual SIM (Nano-SIM and eSIM)
• Gigabit-class LTE
• Voice over LTE (VoLTE)
• 802.11ac Wi‑Fi
• Bluetooth 5.0
• 3D Touch

iPhone XS and iPhone XS Max have almost identical tech specs. The differences come to battery life, XS Max has one-hour-longer battery life, and screen size. XS has 5.8-inch screen, where XS Max has a larger 6.5-inch version.

Apple also introduced a brand new version of the phone, called iPhone XR. It is more affordable, starting at $749. I must admit, for this price point the specs look impressive:

• LCD True Tone Screen
• HDR display
• Single 12-megapixel rear cameras (wide-angle lense)
• 7-megapixel front camera
• Portrait Mode with Depth Control
• Smart HDR photos
• A12 Bionic chip
• Face ID
• Fast charging
• Qi-based wireless charging
• IP68-rated water resistance to a depth of 2 meters for up to 30 minutes
• 64GB / 128GB / 256GB of storage
• Dual SIM (Nano-SIM and eSIM)
• LTE Advanced
• Voice over LTE (VoLTE)
• 802.11ac Wi‑Fi
• Bluetooth 5.0

As you can see, there is not much difference between XS and XR. If you are thinking about new iPhone and don't care about the OLED display and better camera you should choose the XR version. If you need better screen and camera, or if you need biggest screen then you have to pay $250 for XS model.

Now let's move on to Apple Watch. The version is called Series 4. The biggest change is over 30% larger screen. With bigger screen the case also got bigger by about 2mm. Looking at the thinness, Series 4 is about 1mm slimmer compared to predecessor. Here is the rest of the changes:

• 64-bit S4 processor, 2 times faster than S3
• Second-generation optical heart sensor
• ECG monitor
• New accelerometer (up to 32 g-forces) and gyroscope that can detect if person fall down
• Haptic feedback on the Digital Crown
• Louder speaker by 50%
• New W3 wireless chip
• Bluetooth 5.0

The new Apple Watch Series 4 is impressive and can't wait to finally get a proper start watch.

Last but not least, here is the list of interesting things.

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Image credits: Apple.