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

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.

20 years of Google Search

MS-DOS v1.25 and v2.0 Source Code

Marzipan: Porting iOS Apps to the Mac

Boost your productivity with macOS Mojave — enable Dark Mode for Xcode only

Pixel Art Tutorials of the month September 2018

I’m a Heart Doctor. Here’s Why I’m Wary of the New Apple Watch

The silly season continues. Let's start with news from Microsoft.
It looks like Microsoft postponed the premiere of the Andromeda device to unspecified feature.
Andromeda is a codename for foldable device that supposed to blur the line between phone, tablet and PC. It looks like the reason for this delay is that the Andromeda OS is not ready. It is disappointing to hear that we will not see probably revolutionary device in the near future. On the other hand it is good that they are not going to release unfinished product.

This week we also got rumors that Microsoft is going to release Surface Go later this year. Surface Go is a tablet device that suppose to compete with Apple's iPads. If Microsoft is going to do as good job as they did with Surface Books and Pros, they might have a really good chance to take a chunk of the market share.

As we are on topic of new hardware. Apple registered five new iPads and Macs in Eurasion Database. Previously, the new additions to the database preceded the premieres, which took place about a month later. It would be unusual for Apple to have an special event in August, last one we had 11 years ago, so we will probably see those devices in September or they will be released without any special keynote.
Regardless of the release date we are getting new hardware. The three of the new MacBooks are probably from the Pro series, where the remaining two might be the MacBook Airs. As for the iPads, we should see new iPad Pros with Face ID.

It looks like Gmail Developers and third party companies have been reading our emails. It is very similar case as with Facebook. If we allowed an application to have access to our email account, the developers of this app could read our emails.
One of the involved companies explained that humans have been reading emails only to improve machine learning algorithms. It is a common practice that’s gone largely unnoticed, because most of the people doesn't even realise how much information they provide to 3rd party companies, by providing access to an account.

Finally, here is the list of interesting things I stumbled upon this week.

Explore the world of passports by country

.NET Core Microservices – DShop

Introducing the Single Element Pattern

How I automated my job with Node.js

Starter template for a MEVN (MongoDB, Express, Vue, Node) Stack Application. (Part 1)

React Native: A retrospective from the mobile-engineering team at Udacity

WWDC 2018 for iOS developers: Siri Shortcuts

Using Step Builder Pattern in Swift

15 Years Ago, I Went Indie and Didn’t Know It.

Image credits: David Breyer.

Half year mark is behind us and we have entered the silly season as nothing important is happening. From worth noting news, Apple and Samsung have finally settled a seven-year-old patent dispute. The dispute was about design patents which covered the iPhone's outer shell, software icons and UI elements. Apple sued Samsung in 2011 starting the long battle with many countersuits, trials and appeals that continued up until now.
The companies did not disclose the settlement amount, but in May Samsung was ordered to pay Apple $539 million for infringing on its patents.

Apple is also planning to release completely new version of Maps. The changes will roll out gradually with iOS 12 Beta. At the beginning Maps will cover San Francisco, then California and should cover rest of US at some point next year.
We don't know when new maps will be introduced in other countries, but Eddy Cue said that Maps team is global, which means that eventually we will get new Maps outside US.
It took Apple a while to do those improvements, but it's good to see that Apple is investing in Maps. Beside, Google is not making Apple's life easier with new improvements to Google Maps putting the comparison bar really high.

Now, lets move on to Star Wars topic. Amy Hennig left EA and the project she was working on has been put on hold. Last October EA closed Visceral, but it kept project alive. Development was to continue at EA Vancouver, but it looks like studio is working on something else.
It has been rough few years for Star Wars players. First, the Star Wars 1313 has been canceled. Then we've had shenanigans with Battlefront 2. Now, the third project is on hold. We've been teased with Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order, but I'm afraid that without specific release date, it might share the fate of the previous projects.

And finally, here is list of interesting articles.

The Problem You Solve Is More Important Than The Code You Write 🔊

How We Created a Virtual Crime Scene to Investigate Syria’s Chemical Attack

Why you should not use Google Cloud

How to build a React.js chat app in 10 minutes

How to create a real-world Node CLI app with Node

Extracting Super Mario Bros levels with Python

Code Injection In Swift

What’s new in Xcode 10?

Ui Goodies - A directory of UI resources

DevTube - The best developer videos in one place

Image credits: Sylwia Bartyzel.

We've updated our privacy policy. This is the sentence we've seen too many times in recent days. It is funny to see how companies comply to GDPR. Most of the companies just updated the privacy policies. Some companies have stopped providing services for EU users. An interesting approach has been taken by USA Today. They've prepared a separate version of their website for EU users. What's interesting, the EU version doesn't have any tracking and ad scripts, so the size of the site has been reduced from 5.2MB to ~500KB.
Fortunately the GDPR is finally here, all companies must to comply to new law. but it looks like some of them have not managed to do that. Google and Facebook have already been hit with a lawsuits with total fine set to about 7.6 billion euro.

This week we also had a premiere of Solo: A Star Wars Story. It is good summer blockbuster movie. If you are a Star Wars fans, you will enjoy it much more. The number of references to Expanded Universe and ester eggs is stunning. Ron Howard managed to create a fast paced and funny origin story of Han Solo and Chewbacca. Watching it, you can fell a climate of old adventure movies from 80's. In terms of acting, many people has been worried about Alden Ehrenreich. It turns out that he was really good, natural. But let be honest, the show has been stolen by Donald Glover. His portrayal of Lando was spot on.
I really enjoyed this movie and I can't want to see it again.

And here is list of interesting things.

Immersive linear algebra

Best Visual Studio Code Extensions

Adobe Photoshop Souce Code

Best iOS hacks from Twitter: March & April Edition

An iOS architecture approach for UIViewController states & error management in Swift