Welcome, gentlemen, gentlemen, gentlemen,
and statistically, ladies, to the tech news.
I think the ratio is even worse. Jessica wrote that, so it's okay.
This morning's Made By Google event marked the official launch of the Pixel 8,
Pixel 8 Pro, and Pixel Watch 2. The sequel to the Pixel Watch
has a more efficient Qualcomm Snapdragon W5 processor
and up to 24 hours of battery life, even with always on display active,
almost matching the features of the $15 dumb watch
you bought off a homeless person. Sure, that one doesn't have a new skin temperature
and electro-dermal sensor, but Georgie assures me that's coming next year.
He never lies. As for the phones, defying the long-term
bigger is better trend, the Pixel 8 will be slightly smaller than its predecessor
with a 6.2 inch 120 Hertz version of what Google is calling the Actua display,
because it displays what the world actually looks like.
It's actually pretty great. The 8 Pro, on the other hand,
will have a super Actua display.
Now, it's Italian, with a peak brightness of 2,400 nits
to the eight non-pros 2,000 nits.
Both phones come with a new Tensor G3 chip with extra AI horsepower,
and both will see overall improvements to their cameras.
Of course, another thing both phones have in common is a significant price bump of $100
over the Pixel 7 and 7 Pro, shifting them to a starting price of $700
and $1,000, respectively. But that's fine,
because you'll now have seven years of software updates to stave off four stops of lessons.
And there's the new temperature sensor on the 8 Pro,
so you can save 30 bucks on a meter-mometer and shove your $1,000 phone
two inches deep in a pot roast instead. Worth it!
Take that, food poisoning. Honestly, changed my life.
Of course, it's still the year of our soon-to-be AI Overlord 2023,
so Google announced a slew of generative AI-powered features
in Android 14, as well as boring non-AI features
that won't hallucinate insane nonsense, like lock screen customization,
expanded PASCY support, and the Health Connect app.
Those are available right now for Pixel owners, starting from the 4A and onwards,
but Pixel 8 owners will get some extra AI goodies.
Best Take lets you pick the best faces in a photo
for each person, immediately making this the phone you need
to get for your mom, ASAP. And Audio Magic Eraser removes annoying background noise
after it's already annoyed you while you were recording it. And Zoom Enhance is a Pixel 8 Pro exclusive feature
that will sharpen photos as you pinch to Zoom using generative AI,
thanks to Google's foundation models running locally on the phone.
But the big news is Google's announcement of Google Assistant with Bard,
a multimodal generative AI that Pixel users
will be able to invoke over any app to do stuff,
like say, come up with a better name than Google Assistant with Bard.
Call it Stacey or something, like. Google's still got some time for that.
It's rolling out to early testers soon to do battle with the Meta AI Assistant.
Frankly, I'm putting my money on Meta's team of celebrity all-stars.
It's just like Space Jam. That's why they call him Mr. Beast. He's the captain of the monstars.
Speaking of Meta, according to the Wall Street Journal, Meta is considering charging European users
for ad-free versions of Facebook and Instagram.
$10.50 a month for Facebook or Instagram
or around $17 for both, what a deal.
So price-sensitive users might have to decide between all those cool Insta filters
and responding to all those requests from high school classmates who are now deep into MLMs.
I don't need any Tupperware. Now to be clear, a fully ad-riddled free version
of each Meta brand hellhole would still be available to users who agree to targeted ads.
But this is just Meta's proposed workaround to these strict privacy rules
recently instituted by the EU. Meta has apparently approached regulators with the plan,
which it calls Subscription No Ads or SNA.
I'm first not. Sounds like a rap album.
And Meta hopes to begin the rollout within the next few months.
It's not clear yet whether the EU will accept a proposal, they may ask for a cheaper alternative.
But regardless, it might be time for privacy-conscious European users to consider
whether they're okay with paying $200 a year for the hyper-addictive misery generators
they currently get for free. But I like the little animation when I heart something.
Quick bits are like a high five, except that I give you five and you give us views
so we don't have to put one of our writers to sleep. I'm sending Jacob to a far-off state.
I love so much room to roam. According to an internal memo obtained by Mac rumors,
all first-gen Apple Watch models released in 2015
have been added to Apple's Obsolete products list,
meaning they will no longer be eligible for service or repairs from Apple's stores
or its authorized service providers. Those Obsolete Series Zero devices
include solid gold Apple Watches with 18-carat cases
that Apple sold for $10,000 to $17,000
and discontinued in 2016. On the software side,
WatchOS 5 already dropped these watches back in 2018.
I guess early adopter of this watch, Beyonce, is gonna have to get her watch fixed
at a tiny bodega behind a laundromat just like the rest of us.
She probably does that already. She's very down to earth. It's her mood forever.
That's a reference to one of her songs. Bing Chat has been reportedly serving users
with malware-tizing, ads that redirect users to phishing sites
that attempt to trick them into installing malware. Microsoft introduced ads into Bing Chat back in March
and online criminals quickly followed. This particular malware-tizing campaign,
uncovered by Malwarebytes, appears to have originated with the hacking
of an ad account belonging to a legitimate business, which was then used to launch malicious ads
targeting system admins and lawyers. Remember, no matter where digital technology goes,
malware follows, just like caterpillars and parasitic wasps.
I'm missing the metaphor. The wasps follow the caterpillars.
Oh, okay. And then they kill them and later eggs in them.
Well, they don't kill them. They paralyze them and later eggs in them.
Future Motion has announced a recall of all original OneWheel and OneWheel Plus
electric skateboards in response to serious injuries
and four deaths that occurred between 2019 and 2021.
And I think I speak for everyone when I say, wow, those things are way safer than I thought they'd be.
Regulators first made calls for a recall nearly a year ago,
which Future Motion described as unjustified and alarmist.
The company didn't explain what changed their minds, but they will be pushing firmware to later OneWheel models
that adds a haptic buzz that alerts the rider
that the vehicle is in an error state on low battery
or needs to slow down. So now users will be aware there is some kind of problem
well before they are flung faced first into a public fountain.
The FCC has fined Dish Network for violating its anti-space debris policy
in the first enforcement of this particular space crime.
I believe the Martians once cited Neil Armstrong for speeding.
While Dish needs to pay $150,000 and implement preventative measures,
the offending junk satellite is still at risk
of colliding with other spacecraft. That's like scolding a parent
for letting their child play on the highway, but not removing the child.
I mean, you can ensure their siblings won't become intimately familiar
with the underside of a Chevy Tahoe, but they're already out there. That's where he's happiest.
And researchers at the University of Maryland claim that there is currently no reliable watermarking
for AI images following a study where they broke through watermarking system
after watermarking system, like the lockpicking lawyer going through a rough divorce.
There's layers to that metaphor. In many cases, removing a watermark from an image
was as easy as adjusting the brightness or adding a little Gaussian blur.
That's how you say it, right? Gaussian, Gaussian. Adding AI watermarks to human-created images
and creating false positives was equally trivial.
So, really, it's only a matter of time before someone tries to use all this stuff
to reinvent NFTs and I am begging you, do not give them your money.
Go away, Jimmy Fallon. Jimmy Fallon.
Can you believe a robot made this?
And I'm begging you to come back on Friday for another episode of TechLink.
You'll be able to make your own NFT by playing the video and hitting print screen.