Tech Brew Ride Home - Tue. 08/03 – The Pixel 6 And The New Tensor SoC

Starting point is 00:00:00 On April 4th, 2023, around 2 in the morning, a man was found stabbed multiple times on a sidewalk in downtown San Francisco. Hey, who did this to you? What happened next turned the story into a political firestorm. Reports have identified the victim as Bob Lee, the founder of Cash App. From Bloomberg Podcasts, this is Foundering, the Killing of Bob Lee, beginning April 16. Welcome to the Tech meme right home for Tuesday, August 3rd, 2021. I'm Brian McCullough today. Google unveils the new Pixel 6 lineup, but the really interesting detail is the chip inside them. Apple makes the magic keyboard with touch ID available as a standalone product. Microsoft makes Windows as a service live. Now China says games are the opium of the spirit and what if drone delivery is running into the same wall as self-driving cars. Here's what you miss today in the world of tech. So this got announced right after I got out of the booth recording yesterday, and I didn't have any embargoed heads up, so I wasn't prepared. So I either could have rewritten the whole show yesterday or just waited for this for today, and I elected to wait to get a better handle on the larger story. Glad I did. Google yesterday unveiled the Pixel 6 with a 6.4 inch 90 hertz display, and the Pixel 6 pro with a 6.7 inch 120 hertz display. and 4X optical zoom coming in the fall. It's sort of what you'd expect from the new pixel. There's the usual playful colors. There's the bold design choices. There's a full-on camera band on the back. Check the pictures to see what I mean. And that band houses three cameras, a wide-angle main sensor, an ultra-wide, and a 4-X optical zoom folded telephoto lens. But there are two interesting things here. First, remember how Google had been positioning the

Starting point is 00:02:05 pixel lineup as the best mid-range phone you could buy? Well, no more, quoting Dieter at the verge. If the final versions are anything like the prototypes I saw last week, they will be the first pixel phones that don't feel like they're sandbagging when it comes to build quality. We knew we didn't have what it took to be in the ultra high end in the past, Rick Osterlo of Google admitted, quote, and this is the first time where we feel like we really have it, end quote. Both versions of the pixel are glass sandwiches. with fit and finish that are finally in the same league as what Samsung, Huawei, and Apple have to offer. Quote, we've definitely not been in the flagship tier for the past couple of years.

Starting point is 00:02:44 This will be different, says Oster Lowe. He also admits that, quote, it will certainly be a premium priced product, which I take to mean north of $1,000, end quote. But the other really interesting thing about the new pixels are that they have a Google designed tensor system on a chip inside them. This is the first time Google exclusive silicon has made its way to a phone. That probably accounts for those flagship ambitions, quoting the verge again. Tensor is the system on a chip with a mix of components that Google itself has designed

Starting point is 00:03:18 and others that it has licensed. Google is not sharing who designed the CPU and GPU, nor is it sharing benchmarks on their performance, though Osterlo says that it should be market-leading. Current rumors suggest that it might be Samsung providing those more standard component designs, He adds, quote, the standard stuff people look at will be very competitive and the AI stuff will be totally differentiated, end quote. Indeed, this week's announcement is an attempt to reframe the narrative away from gigahertz and toward artificial intelligence and machine learning

Starting point is 00:03:47 in phones, areas where Google, of course, has a big advantage. The most important of those chips is a mobile version of a tensor processing unit. Google has been making TPUs for its server farms for over five years now dedicated to more efficiently performing AI and ML tasks. It offered an edge version of its TPU for Enterprise Solutions a few years ago, but the Pixel 6 marks the first time Google has put a mobile TPU in a phone. So what can the new TPU inside Tensor actually do? Google had a small handful of demos. The first two were unsurprisingly related to photography. Using ML to make better photos has historically been a huge advantage for pixel phones, but in recent years, progress has stagnated as competitors have caught and surpassed the pixel and far surpassed it

Starting point is 00:04:32 when it comes to video. Google clearly wants to take back the crown and thinks the TPU is the way to do it. The first demo Google showed was a blurry photo of a toddler. The kid was moving because that is what kids do. A second version of the photo was the same, but run through Tensors' TPU and the kid's face was sharper, end quote. So Google only let a handful of people see this thing, and they weren't allowed even to take pictures. So we'll have to see if this system on a chip leads to any marked impromed. improvements worth talking about, or if anyone will buy these things, which is always quite the question with pixels generally, quoting Dieter one last time. The thing about AI and ML is that it might make search more accurate and photos better, but it's not necessarily going to improve everything

Starting point is 00:05:19 that happens on your phone. Osterlo suggests that as the TPU takes up more AI cycles, that could free up the other chips for more performance. That may be, but it's still hard to make AI a selling point for a phone. So Google has its work cut out for it. doubly so, actually, since the Google pixel line has languished in the low single digits of market share in the U.S. ever since it was announced. With the Google Pixel 6, Osterlo says that's going to change. He's ready to start grabbing market share wherever he can get it, whether that be from Apple or Samsung, quote, the product is really now the Google phone, Osterlo says. So we are ready to invest a lot in marketing and we want to grow, end quote.

Starting point is 00:05:58 Microsoft's desktop as a service, Windows 365 Cloud PC is now generally available starting today. It costs between $20 to $162 per user per month, depending on what cores, RAM, and storage you opt for. Quoting ZDNet. Windows 365 is Microsoft's newest remote desktop offering, which builds on top of and complements Azure Virtual Desktop. Windows 365 will allow users to bring their Windows 10, or once it's available later this fall, Windows 11 desktop, apps, tools, data, and settings to their personal and work devices, including PCs, Macs, iPads, Linux, and Android devices via a native remote desktop application or web browser.

Starting point is 00:06:48 Windows 365 is available in two editions, Windows 365 Business and Windows 365 Enterprise. The Windows 365 Business SKUs are capped at 300 users. users per organization. The $20 per user per month business price is for a single virtual core, two gigabytes of RAM, and 64 gigabytes of storage, and requires the Windows hybrid benefit. Hybrid benefits are Microsoft's Bring Your Own License model, which allows customers to apply existing or new licenses toward the cost of a product. Without the hybrid benefit discount, that same skew is $24 per user per month. At the high end, the business skew with eight virtual core's 32 gigabytes of RAM and 512 gigabytes of storage cost $162 per user per month or 158 per

Starting point is 00:07:35 user per month with the Windows hybrid benefit. The enterprise skews for Windows 365 are priced similarly. A single virtual core, two gigabytes of RAM and 64 gigabytes of storage will go for $20 per user per month. At the high end, the eight virtual core, 32 gigabytes of RAM, 512 gigabytes of storage skew will go for $158 per user per month. Windows 365 Cloud PC won't only support Microsoft apps. The service will also allow users to remotely log into any app that can run on Windows 10 or 11. Software developers won't have to make any changes or modifications to their apps for them to work virtually with Windows 365 Cloud PC. Officials have said, and because apps are running virtually, users will have access to high-compute apps like video editing software or graphic

Starting point is 00:08:24 design programs, regardless of the specs of the device they're using. In order to use Windows 365 business, customers need only have a Microsoft 365 subscription, end quote. Apple has made the magic keyboard with touch ID, previously only available with the purchase of a new 24-inch IMac, available as a standalone product for $149. One huge caveat, though, the keyboard is only compatible with Apple Silicon Macs, quoting Mac rumors. Apple also retails the Magic Keyboard with Touch ID and a numeric keypad for $179. A standard Magic keyboard without Touch ID or a numeric keypad is available for $99

Starting point is 00:09:10 and a new Magic Trackpad for $129. With Touch ID built into the keyboard, users of the M1 Macs, MacBook Air, MacBook Pro, and Mac Mini can now conveniently use Touch ID with an external keyboard. The Magic keyboard with Touch ID in both its numeric and non-numeric keypad forms begins shipping today alongside the new trackpad and can be purchased on Apple's website. All of the accessories are available in silver only, with other color options being exclusive to the 24-inch IMac, end quote. I warned you that it sounded like they were coming for the games next. after Chinese state media criticized online gaming as, quote, opium for the mind in a now-deleted article,

Starting point is 00:09:55 Tencent has announced stricter rules for young video game users. I've seen the statement also translated as games being opium for the soul, which, you know, can't argue with that, right? But also, this theory that the CCP just doesn't want tech that isn't immediately societally useful to them continues to pan out, it looks like. Quoting the Wall Street Journal. The state-owned economic information Daily published a feature on Tuesday saying excessive gaming could have ill effects on children and highlighting experts call for tighter regulation.

Starting point is 00:10:28 Society has come to recognize the harm caused by online gaming, and it is often referred to as opium for the mind or electronic drugs, the original article said. This line didn't appear in the updated version. In both versions of the article, the newspaper said gaming addiction was on the rise, affecting children's studies and causing alienation. The article cited interviewees as saying gaming platforms should be more socially responsible rather than purely chasing profits. Regulatory penalties should be heavier, and companies should protect children by improving anti-addiction safeguards and content review systems, experts cited by the paper suggested.

Starting point is 00:11:06 Tencent said Tuesday it would introduce new rules, starting with its flagship honor of Kings game. That will enforce tougher limits on playing time than required by the authority. Young gamers will be limited to playing for an hour on weekdays and two hours on weekends and holidays, and children under 12 can't make in-game purchases, it said, end quote. Shares of Tencent, NetEase, and Billy Billy were all down on this news, though their losses have been paired somewhat subsequently. Worth noting that Zhaomi became Europe's top smartphone vendor in Q2, with 12.7 million units shipped up 67.1% year over year. In terms of market share, they were followed by Samsung with

Starting point is 00:11:54 12 million units shipped, which was actually down 7% year over year, and Apple with 9.6 million units shipped, which was up more than 16%. This is all from strategy analytics, which posted a bunch of graphs and charts to bear all this out, so there's nothing really for me to quote from without repeating the basic stats I just gave you. But click over to the link if you want to wade through the numbers. interesting. What if drone delivery ends up being as much vaporware as the whole self-driving cars by 2020 thing? I know I'm being harsh by calling it vaporware, but let's just say, what if this is equally delayed in terms of being something that was promised to us not too long ago? Sources are telling Wired UK that well over 100 UK-based employees at Amazon's Prime Air drone

Starting point is 00:12:46 delivery unit have lost their jobs since 2019 as the company scales back its ambitions for delivering you toothpaste by drone, quoting Wired UK. Those working on the UK team in the last few years who spoke on condition of anonymity describe a project that was, quote, collapsing inwards, dysfunctional, and resembled, quote, organized chaos run by managers that were, quote, detached from reality in the years building up to the mass redundancies. Just five years ago, Prime Airs, UK operations were at the center of a frenzied public relations campaign with Amazon executives claiming that drones would be delivering packages within a few years. The company offered tours of its secret drone lab to local schools, opened a huge new office in Cambridge, and released

Starting point is 00:13:28 an array of promotional videos for the flights that received millions of views. UK regulators also fast-tracked approvals for drone testing, which made the country an ideal testbed for drone flights and paved the way for Amazon to gain regulatory approval elsewhere. But in the intervening years, the tours stopped. The promotional videos were unlisted from Amazon's YouTube channel and bar occasional promises from executives like Jeff Wilkie that delivery drones would become a reality quote within months. The firm's previously widespread PR campaign disappeared. Insiders say that cracks first began to show in the Prime Air Project in late 2019 amid a constant reshuffling of workers and managers. At the time, the drone team was segmented into three divisions that analyzed footage for

Starting point is 00:14:08 different threats. Humans and animals, other man-made objects in the sky, and three D-D mapping, which helped drones know the difference between a lawn and, say, a swimming pool. Frequent hiring sprees, mostly through temp agencies, bolstered the data analysis team, which made up a large chunk of Prime Airs UK operations in Cambridge. The department was tasked with manually going through test flight footage and identifying relevant threats or objects, essentially using machine learning to train Amazon drones. Engineers were trying to do something unprecedented, while other drone companies aimed to drop packages from several meters in the air, or even higher using parachutes, Amazon engineers had to figure out how to make drones land outside people's homes

Starting point is 00:14:46 and deposit a package from barely above the ground. Building such a system was a huge engineering and machine learning challenge. The systems required to make drones land outside people's homes were heavy, and Amazon's drones ballooned to about 27 kilograms, according to Andreas Rapatopoulos, CEO of Drone Company Matternet, which is heavier than the threshold used by some authorities to classify a small drone. Entering that higher weight category, comes with a variety of extra regulations, including higher safety requirements to protect people on the ground from potential collisions. Quote, the hard bit is the last two meters off the ground. It's astonishing what machine learning can do, but it's also astonishing what it gets wrong, says Professor Arthur Richards,

Starting point is 00:15:29 head of aerial robotics at the Bristol Robotics Lab, end quote. Sounds familiar, doesn't it? Five years ago, folks were hella confident that machine learning was going to solve the last percentage point problems of self-driving cars imminently, only to see that last, I don't know, 3% of the problem, be devilishly more complicated than the previous 97% of the problem. Might the same thing be happening here? Finally, today we mentioned YouTube light or diet YouTube, as I called it, yesterday. So can I interest you in Diet Spotify? Spotify says it is testing a 99 cents per month tier called Spotify Plus, which includes ads,

Starting point is 00:16:16 but no limits on skipping tracks or picking songs, quoting The Verge. At least one user has seen Spotify Plus being advertised at 99 cents a month, a tenth of the cost of its standard $9.99 per month premium tier, but it's understood that Spotify's test involves offering the new plan randomly at a variety of price points to gauge user interest. Spotify's free tier, has existed in its current form since 2018. It doesn't let users skip more than six tracks per hour and only lets them pick and listen to specific tracks from 15 select playlists,

Starting point is 00:16:50 ranging from editorial selected playlists to algorithmically generated collections like Discover Weekly and Daily Mix. Outside of these playlist, free users can only listen to shuffled tracks. The new Spotify Plus Tier is a relatively cheap way to reduce some of those restrictions. news of the new test tier was initially shared with The Verge by a reader and later confirmed by Spotify in a statement. Quote, we're always working to enhance the Spotify experience and we routinely conduct tests to inform our decisions, a spokesperson said. We're currently conducting a test of an ad-supported subscription plan with a limited number of our users, end quote. That's all for today. Talk to you tomorrow.

Tech Brew Ride Home - Tue. 08/03 – The Pixel 6 And The New Tensor SoC

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