Jeff Bezos steps down as CEO

Jeff Bezos announced that he is going to step down as Amazon CEO later this year. Andy Jassy, the CEO of Amazon Web Services (AWS), will replace Bezos as Amazon CEO. Bezos motivates his decision by wanting to focus on other projects like Blue Origin, and Bezos Earth Fund.

Another Starship test

SpaceX has launched the Starship rocket for the second time. Once again, it climbed to a target altitude of 10km. After that, the engines shut down, and the rocket started free-falling back to the ground. Unfortunately, like in the previous test, the rocket didn't quite stick the landing. It touched the ground when the rocket was still recovering from belly dive into a vertical position, which ended with a spectacular explosion.

It might seem like a failure, but SpaceX learned a lot. The same Situation was with Falcon 9 rocket - Space X failed many landing during tests, but now they are perfect.

Amazon Luna

Amazon has launched its game streaming service. It's powered by  Nvidia's GPUs and runs on Windows, which should developers easily port games. Right now, it supports over 100 games.

The launch date is still unknown, but  service will be available on PC, Mac, Fire TV. The iPhone and iPad  will get support  via web apps. An Android version planned for after launch.  The official pricing is also unknown, but early access price is set at $5.99/month.

Amazon also announced special controller that will cost $49.99 during the early access.

Epic Games vs Apple continued

Multiple developers, including Epic Games, Spotify and Basecamp,  have  formed the Coalition for App Fairness  intended to coordinate efforts to fight against Apple's monopolistic behaviors on the AppStore.

Windows XP source code leaked

The source code of Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 has leaked online.

It shouldn't be a big issue for Microsoft as Windows XP is no longer supported, but system itself might still have couple of surprises, as secret macOS theme has been discovered.

Dope Links

• Introducing Swift on Windows
• Swift System is Now Open Source
• Modular iOS Architecture @ Just Eat
• Asynchronous Image Loading from URL in SwiftUI
• After Learning to Code at 81, She Made a Game for Fellow Seniors
  

During this week I looked back on what happened this year and I decided to pick my top 3 news from each month. Here are my picks.

January

1. Bitcoin bubble burst,
2. Meltdown and Spectre discovered,
3. EA became scared of YouTubers.

February

1. SpaceX launched Falcon Heavy into space,
2. Elon Musk started selling not a Flamethrowers,
3. Apple started selling HomePods.

March

1. Facebook’s Cambridge Analytica scandal,
2. Apple fixed buggy iPhone X ad before fixing the actual iOS 11 bug,
3. Current frequency deviations in Central Europe.

April

1. Mark Zuckerberg testified before members of Congress,
2. SpaceX reached the promised land of launching every two weeks,
3. GTA V has become the most profitable entertainment product of all time.

May

1. Google Duplex has been announced,
2. GDPR has become effective,
3. Premiere of Solo: A Star Wars Story.

June

1. Microsoft bought GitHub,
2. Apple held WWDC,
3. Apple Pay became available in Poland.

July

1. Apple updated MacBook Pros,
2. New MacBook Pros fixed keyboard but overheats,
3. Clone Wars TV series has been renewed.

August

1. Apple became first IT company to be worth 1 trillion dollars,
2. Twitter limited access to the APIs,
3. CD Project released first gameplay of the Cyberpunk 2077.

September

1. Apple unveiled iPhone XS, XR and Apple Watch 4,
2. Google was celebrating its 20th birthday,
3. iOS 12 and macOS Mojave has been released.

October

1. LucasFilm shared details about first Star Wars tv series - The Mandalorian,
2. Apple shoved new iPad Pro,
3. Google unveiled Pixel 3, a tablet and HomeHub.

November

1. Disney announced new streaming service - Disney+,
2. Stan Lee has passed away,
3. Robert Kubica returned to F1.

December

1. Microsoft announced that it's working on a new browser,
2. YouTube Rewind 2018 became the most disliked video on YouTube,
3. Google’s Home Alone ad.

That's all folks. This was an incredible year. I hope next year will be event better.
Happy New year guys and see you soon!

Image credits: Annie Spratt.

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.

Hire by Google: applicant tracking system & recruiting software

Kinda okay generated text

Secure your web application with these HTTP headers

How to launch a site on AWS for free in 15 minutes

Why building your own Deep Learning Computer is 10x cheaper than AWS

The truth about toxic workers in the workplace