Month: October 2018

Enlarge (credit: Chesnot/Getty Images)

It was only a matter of time—the same day that Google announced it was shutting down Google+ in the wake of a data leak, two users filed a proposed class-action lawsuit in federal court in San Francisco, saying that their privacy had been violated.

The case, Matt Matic and Zak Harris v. Google, alleges that the company’s "lax approach" to security resulted in API bugs that exposed the private details of almost 500,000 Google+ users.

"Worse, after discovery of this vulnerability in the Google+ platform, Defendants kept silent for at least seven months, making a calculated decision not to inform users that their Personal Information was compromised, further compromising the privacy of consumers‘ information and exposing them to risk of identity theft or worse," Joshua Watson, the attorney for Matic and Harris wrote in the civil complaint filed on Monday.

Enlarge / The Pixel 3 from a video released by Google. (credit: Google)

NEW YORK—Google announced the Pixel 3 at its event in NYC today. With something like two dozen different leaks and an entire lost box of devices that went up for sale on the black market, the Pixel 3 is probably the most-leaked smartphone of all time.

The mostly metal backs of the Pixel 2 and Pixel 1 were one of the few unique hardware features of the Pixel line. Now the Pixel 3 is just another fragile glass phone, which feels like a downgrade. The back panel still has a two-tone look thanks to two different treatments on a single glass sheet. The top is normal glass, while the bottom has a matte coating on it.

As expected, Google is releasing two different devices with totally different front designs. The Pixel 3 has a 5.5-inch 2160 x 1080 OLED display with sizable, straight bezels on the top and bottom of the phone. The Pixel 3 XL has a 6.3-inch 2880 x 1440 OLED display with an extremely tall display notch and a large bottom bezel.

Enlarge / An enhanced color view of Ceres, which highlights different terrain on its surface. (credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA/MPS/DLR/IDA)

Prior to our visit to the dwarf planet Ceres, we knew that it had a density about twice that of water. Considering it likely has a rocky core, that means much of its outer crust is likely to be water. Since water is pretty malleable at the temperatures we'd expect to prevail on Ceres, there were some expectations that any features on the planet had long since flattened out as the ice they were made of flowed downwards as it does in glaciers.

This turned out to be anything but the case, as Ceres is covered in craters, ridges, and the remains of what appear to be ice volcanoes. All of which suggests that the crust is far more rigid than we thought and has a composition that's more complex than simply water with some dust mixed in.

Now, a researcher named Pasquale Tricarico has analyzed the distribution of material on Ceres and found that it is consistent with the densest material having caused the relocation of the planet's equator. He suggests that a series of ridges that ring the dwarf planet represent the former equator, which would mean that Ceres tipped over on its side at some point early in its history.

Enlarge / The Google Home Hub. (credit: Google)

After launching Google Assistant Smart Display software earlier this year, Google now has first-party hardware to match: it just announced the Google Home Hub, for $149.

The Home Hub is Google's answer to the Amazon Echo Show: it's basically a Google Home smart speaker with a display. With a screen, you can see the weather, timer, calendar event, photos, and other information delivered to you by the Google Assistant. Google's Smart Display hardware fits in with the Google Home speakers. It comes in white and black, with the same cloth speaker cover you'd find on a Google Home.

If you've seen our review of the Lenovo Smart Display, there shouldn't be anything new to see from the Google Home Hub. The Google Assistant Smart Display software that both devices run should be identical across devices. Just like a Google Assistant speaker, all devices, regardless of manufacturer, run the same build of the software and receive centralized updates from Google. Smart Displays all run a build of Android Things—Google's stripped-down version of Android for IoT devices—with the special Google Assistant Smart Display app on top.

Enlarge (credit: Google)

After the death of Android tablets, Google has been slowly rebooting its tablet ambitions under the Chrome OS banner. After debuting the concept with the Acer Chromebook Tab 10, Google now has its first-party Chrome OS tablet hardware, the Pixel Slate.

The device has a more-than-passing resemblance to the Microsoft Surface or iPad Pro: there's a tablet, and a keyboard cover, and a pen. The tablet is an Intel-powered device with 8-16GB of RAM and a 3000×2000 display. Single USB-C ports are found on the left and right sides, and a pogo pin connection is on the bottom.

This is the first Chrome OS device to support biometrics—on the top of the device is a power button that doubles as a fingerprint scanner. Inside, Google has a Titan security chip (originally designed for its cloud servers) to protect against various kinds of tampering and provide safe storage for secrets.

Enlarge / The 10.5-inch iPad Pro. (credit: Andrew Cunningham)

Apple appears to be gearing up for another event later this month, and reports suggest we'll see revamped iPad Pros come out of it. According to a 9to5Mac report, "sources familiar with the development" of the new iPad Pro models revealed that the tablets will have nearly edge-to-edge displays, no Home button, Face ID support, 4K video output via a USB-C port, and other new features.

Renders of the new iPad Pros have been floating around for a few weeks. They show slabs with barely-there bezels surrounding all four sides of the screen—no Home button or notch in sight. Whereas the screens on the new iPhones require a notch to accommodate Apple's TrueDepth camera technology, it appears the new iPad Pros will have bezels wide enough to support the camera. This makes sense because tablets typically have wider bezels than smartphones to withstand all the ways users grab them.

The report from 9to5Mac claims the new iPad Pros will support Face ID in both landscape and portrait mode, a feature that none of the newest iPhones can technically claim. Setting up Face ID on an iPhone XS, XS Max, or XR requires holding the handset in portrait mode so it can scan and read your facial features. Reportedly, Face ID will be set up on the new iPad Pros in the same way—in portrait mode—but users will be able to unlock the tablet using their face in both portrait and landscape modes.