Tech Brew Ride Home - Tue. 10/19 – The Google Pixel Event And The Pixel 6

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, October 19th, 2021. I'm Brian McCullough today. All the headlines from Google's latest pixel event with the new Pixel 6. Some odds and sods from yesterday's Apple event. Maybe Facebook's Crypto Project is about to debut after all. How much money can the delivery space attract or even support? And more signs that YouTube is becoming a monster business that is increasingly supporting all of Alphabet. Here's what you miss today in the world of tech. Another day, another event, but today it was Google. And first up, by the way, Android 12 is officially out to current pixel devices, featuring

Starting point is 00:01:14 that new material you design revamp, quoting and gadget. Although the Android 12 rollout is underway on pixel, owners of compatible Samsung One Plus, Apo, RealMe, techno, vivo, and Jaume devices will need to wait a little longer. The OS will hit those phones and tablets and ones from other companies later this year. Google released Android 12 on the Android Open Source project earlier this month. There's another important thing to note about the Android 12 rollout. The dynamic color experience powered by the material you design language is only available on pixel devices for the time being.

Starting point is 00:01:47 The color scheme will match the wallpaper you choose across the system and apps, and that look will be mirrored across other Google products, including smart displays, wearables, ChromeOS, and the web. Google says other Android devices will get access to that experience later, end quote. But the big headline news, of course, was the launch of the $599 pixel 6 with a 90-hirts 6.4-inch display, and the $899 Pixel-6-6-6-inch pro with a 120-hertz 6.7-inch display, both featuring upgraded 50-mixel rear cameras and available for pre-order today, shipping October 28. According to Dan Seaford at the verge with these phones, Google says it is finally

Starting point is 00:02:31 ready to take on Apple and Samsung at their own game, which is backed up by the rumor this morning that Google has asked Pixel Six suppliers to produce over 7 million units, which is double its entire estimated smartphone shipments last year. Quoting Seafurt. There are a lot of things to cover with the new pixels, but the most important place to start is this. $599 and $899. Those are the starting prices for the Pixel 6 and 6 Pro respectively. That pricing is aggressive compared to similar iPhones, Samsung's, or even One Plus phones, especially when you consider that Google is providing 128 gigabytes of storage in both base models. The six can be equipped with up to 256 gigabytes, and the Six Pro has options up to 512 gigabytes. Aggressive pricing has long been a pixel thing,

Starting point is 00:03:18 and though the new Pixel 6 and 6 Pro represent a new push from Google to make phones that are competitive with the best from Apple and Samsung, these prices are just lower than the competition. A big draw for a lot of people might be that at the end of the day, the pixel just costs less. The other big thing to note with the pixels is their new processor, a custom-designed arm system on a chip that Google is calling tensor. Google says it's competitive with the Snapdragon 888 from Qualcomm, which is what you find in basically every other high-end Android phone available right now. There's a lot going on with this processor.

Starting point is 00:03:50 The most important piece is that there's a custom TPU, tensor processing unit for AI, built right into the chip and many main processing pipelines. In addition, there are two high-power application cores, two mid-range cores, for low-power cores, a dedicated co-processor for security, a private compute core, and an image processing core. The Pixel 6 pairs the new chip with 8 gigabytes of RAM, while the 6 Pro has 12 gigabytes. Visually, the new phones are a departure from prior pixel phones. Though they share a common design language, that language doesn't really connect back to the Pixel 5 or Pixel 4 that came before. Instead, these are flashier, shinier phones with polished metal frames on the 6 Pro, and glossy glass backs on both. Google is offering each phone in three

Starting point is 00:04:36 different colors, but the 6 pros are decidedly more professional, read, boring, while the regular pixel 6 colors are clearly more fun. The most prominent feature on the 6 and 6 pro is the back camera housing. I call it a ledge. You might call it a shelf. By the way, this is Brian jumping in here. I call it Jordy LaForge's visor. Anyway, back to quoting, Google seems to refer to it as a bar, but it's an enormous protuberance that spans the entire width of the phone and houses two pixel-6 or three pixel-pro cameras and related sensors in it. The bar is large, but unlike camera housing's located in the upper corner like you get on an iPhone or Samsung, it doesn't cause the pixel 6 or 6-pro to rock when placed down. A case will likely help mitigate the size as well.

Starting point is 00:05:20 That back camera housing is so prominent because, as usual, with Pixel-Sypixel, phones, the camera is one of the most important parts of these new models. Google has finally switched to a new camera sensor after using the prior one for four straight generations. Both phones have a 50-mixel main sensor that is hard-coded to output 12.5 megapixel images. It's also a much larger sensor than Google's used before, physically larger than even the iPhone 13 Pro's new camera sensor. Google says it captures 150% more light than the Pixel 5's camera. Next to it is a 12-mixel ultra-wide camera with a 114-degree field of view. If you spring for the Pixel 6 Pro, you'll also get a 4x telephoto camera that's not available on the standard Pixel 6. This uses folded optics, has 48 megapixels, also binned down to 12

Starting point is 00:06:07 megapixel output, and of course, 4X is slightly longer reach than you get with the iPhone 13 Pro's 3X telephoto, but not nearly as far as the 10x lens that Samsung has been putting on its high-end phones, not to mention the even longer lenses. Companies like Xiaomi and Huawei have deployed recently, end quote. Since we did spend so much time on the new Apple chips yesterday, more on that new tensor system on a chip. It has two big Arm cortex X1 cores, two medium cores, and four efficiency cores. I highly recommend reading the Ars Technica rundown of this, which I've linked to in the show notes,

Starting point is 00:06:40 but let me briefly quote from it. When Arm introduced the A78 design, it said that the core, on a five nanometer process, offered 20% more sustained performance in the same thermal envelope compared to the seven nanometer A76. Google is now using the A76 design but on a five nanometer chip, so going by arms description, Google's A76 should put out less heat than an A78 chip. Google is basically spending more thermal budget on having two big cores and less on the medium cores. The traditional parts of a smartphone system on a chip are not why Google built a smartphone system on a chip. It wants to push the envelope, of course, in the onboard processing of artificial intelligence and

Starting point is 00:07:21 machine learning. This is Google being its Googliest when it comes to chip design. This whole chip is called Google TensorFlow, even though that's the brand name for Google's AI efforts, which you see in Google's TensorFlow, machine learning library, and in the tensor processing units from Google Cloud. Every component of the system on a chip is involved with Google's AI algorithms, which is why the whole chip is now called tensor. The proof of tensor's worth will be in what new capabilities it actually brings to the table, and Google appears to actually be delivering. It's taking a vertical approach to AI with TensorFlow, designing the AI hardware and AI software, and Google says that the Pixel 6's ML code can't run fast enough or efficiently enough on older devices. Google says it is,

Starting point is 00:08:01 quote, taking the latest and greatest coming from Google Research, and we're putting it into TensorFlow and Pixel 6, and we do it power efficiently, end quote. So what are these new capabilities? Here's one, the previous Pixel phone's incredible camera performance, despite their ancient sensors, is thanks to its HDR Plus algorithm, which, with a single button press, does exposure stacking across 10 photos taken in half a second and merges them into a single photo using machine learning. Thanks to the ancient camera hardware, though, the video quality on pixel phones has been pretty bad because there's just no way that you can run something like image stacking on a video until now.

Starting point is 00:08:39 The Pixel 6 can run Google's HDR algorithm on 4K video for every single frame at 60 frames per Welcome to the world of video image stacking brought to you by Google Tenser. Google says Tenser has also led to big strides in Google's voice recognition, with the Pixel 6 featuring what Gupta called the most advanced speech recognition model ever released by Google. Voice recognition will now automatically attempt punctuation like commas and periods based on context and pauses in speech. It will try to pull in proper spellings of names via your contact list and previous usage. Gupta says that Tensor does all this while using half-sincexed.

Starting point is 00:09:16 as much power as previously possible, and that, quote, because tensor allows us to run our model so efficiently, we essentially open up a power budget or a thermal headroom so we can layer on more and more advanced technology to make our features even better. We're able to keep up with more nuances of speech because we're running it so efficiently, end quote. This is an on-device, offline voice recognition, and it applies everywhere you see a microphone button like the Google Assistant, Gboard, and Google Translate. Translate has a whole extra batch of tensor-powered feature, and can do live translations now. Google Assistant Hotword detection is supposed to be improved, too, thanks to more sophisticated machine learning that should make it work better in noisy environments, end quote.

Starting point is 00:09:57 Actually, Google did lengthy demos of that sort of thing in the event this afternoon. So what else can I tell you about? What else did they announce? To me, the biggest other thing was, forget Amazon Prime or that rumored Apple Prime, all-in-one subscription product that we always expect to come someday. Google debuted a Pixel Pass plan starting at $45 a month for a Pixel 6 plus an upgrade every two years, 200 gigabytes of Google One, the Google Play Pass, YouTube Premium, YouTube Music Premium, and more. Quoting and Gadget. The Pixel Pass starts at $45 per month for the regular Pixel 6 and climbs to $55 for the Pixel 6 pro.

Starting point is 00:10:39 You can subscribe through either the Google Store or Google Fi, depending on your choice of carriers, but it's only available in the U.S. for now. Google's strategy is familiar. Like Apple, it's hoping to boost adoption of its services and keep you ensconced in the company's ecosystem. You may be less likely to switch to a competitor, even another Android vendor, if you feel you're getting a better bargain with the Pixel Pass.

Starting point is 00:10:59 This takes things a step further by including the phone, though you're buying the whole experience rather than just a spade of extras. Even so, the subscription may be helpful simply by recognizing a practical reality. Many people want more than just a phone, and Google is including those modern must-haves rather than asking you to pay for them after the fact. Don't be shocked if other phone makers take this approach before long, end quote.

Starting point is 00:11:22 What else? Google has partnered with Snapchat to bring exclusive features to pixel phones, including AR lenses and something called QuickTap to Snap. And more on those cameras, the Pixel 6 and 6 Pro's main sensor takes in 150% more light, as we said, and real tone can more accurately capture skin tones. and then there's that face on blur and magic eraser and more that we spoke about recently as rumors, but now have been debuted as actual features. Actually, I think that's all for now so I can get this out to you in time,

Starting point is 00:11:53 but we can collect anything else that I missed tomorrow. Follow up to something that came up on the last Twitter space that Chris and I did. Facebook says it will begin testing its Novi wallet in the U.S. and Guatemala, letting users trade the Paxos dollar. Coinbase also will be providing custody services for the new service. So maybe this is about to debut after all, quoting Coin Desk. Users can purchase USDP through Novi, and Novi will deposit the funds with Coinbase according to a Coinbase blog post. This does not mean our support for DM has changed. The Facebook press release said, we intend to launch Novi with DM once it receives regulatory

Starting point is 00:12:40 approval and goes live, end quote. The pilot has already gone live, but it's is being rolled out slowly on the Apple App Store and Google Play Store, Facebook said. Facebook originally announced Novi alongside Diem in June of 2019. At the time, the wallet then known as Calibra was intended to support the then Libra stable coin before regulatory backlash changed the scope of the project, end quote. Quick, interesting raise for you, Berlin-based grocery delivery startup gorillas raised nearly $1 billion, including $235 million from rival delivery hero, at around a $3 billion post money valuation. This is interesting to me because, again, the delivery space, which I thought was sort of over, seems to be able to support endless rounds

Starting point is 00:13:32 of VC money chasing endless players, a full billion dollars in this case. But can the delivery space support this many players? Also, what are the margins in the delivery business that all this VC money is chasing? I assumed the margins on delivery were tiny, but maybe I'm wrong. Anyway, quoting Bloomberg. Delivery Hero will acquire about 8% of guerrillas in the transaction. Tensent Holdings, KOTU, and DST were among the other investors that participated in the deal, Delivery Hero said in a statement on Tuesday, prospective valuations for guerrillas have ranged widely this year. As of May, it had been seeking funding at a valuation of more than $6 billion. U.S.-based DoorDash was negotiating an investment this summer that would have valued

Starting point is 00:14:19 Gorillas at $2.5 billion, but those talks broke down over disagreements regarding expansion plans. Gorillas is among a group of rapid grocery delivery services that's gained traction over the past year as people spent more time shopping at home during the coronavirus pandemic. The company sells fresh produce and other items delivered from urban fulfillment centers to customers' doorsteps within 10 minutes, end quote. As always, after Apple events, there are often tons of crumbs to pick up the next day or so. First, a couple of clarifications. Turns out that, yes, you can kit out the M1 Max chips on the 14-inch MacBook Pro.

Starting point is 00:15:02 It's not limited to only the 16-incher. Mayaculp a cul-for that, I was wrong. But remember, when I tried to verify all of the different options, the store was all laggy because everyone was using it all at once, though I can confirm that the pricing calculations I did yesterday turned out to be correct. And to clarify something that maybe I muddled just a bit yesterday, the MacBook pros with the M1 Pro chip can support two external 6K 60 Hertz displays at once, while the M1 Max chips can support up to three 6K external displays plus a 60 Hertz 4K display, which again, it's with a laptop that external displays are important,

Starting point is 00:15:41 especially, you know, to pro users. Also, this was interesting to me, quoting Mac Rumors. To go along with the updated MacBook Pro models that are launching next week, Apple is stocking accessories for the machines. There's a 140-watt USBC power adapter, which is Apple's most expensive power adapter to date at $99. There's also a $49-breded USBC to MagSafe 3 cable for charging the MacBook Pro. Combined, it's going to cost right around $150 to get a new charging, set up for the 16-inch MacBook Pro machines should you need a secondary power adapter and cable, though charging is still possible using a USBC port and cable instead of MagSafe. You do get an initial set with the purchase of a new MacBook Pro, however. The new MagSafe cable and 140-watt

Starting point is 00:16:30 power adapter are required to take advantage of fast charging, which allows a MacBook Pro to charge from 0 to 50% in 30 minutes, end quote. It's mostly that woven power cable that I was interested in. Again, another long-time design headache from Apple that Apple just fixed is that for years, the power cables for MacBooks got frayed like nobody's business. Also, Apple has confirmed its 140-watt charging brick bundled with the 16-inch MacBook Pro uses the USB-CPD3.1 standard and is its first gallium nitride charger, meaning you can use this thing to charge other things, not just your laptop. Also, in theory, third-party chargers should work with your. your laptop if they're on the same standard. And lots of people have been talking about how Apple

Starting point is 00:17:16 is now selling a piece of cloth for 19 bucks. They call it a polish cloth. They don't specify what material the polishing cloth is made of, which the app says cleans any Apple display. But the currently listed shipping times for this piece of cloth is three to four weeks. So I guess the supply chain constraints really have come for Apple too if they can't get a reliable supply of rags or scrap cloth at the moment. All morning long, people were retweeting a tweet comparing a MacBook Pro with the M1 Max chip to the PlayStation 5. I've linked to the tweet in the show notes, but here you go as comparison. When it comes to bandwidth, an M1 Max chip gives you 400 gigabits per second. The PS5 is 448 gigabytes per second. Raw GPU performance. The M1 Max is 10.4 terraflops.

Starting point is 00:18:07 The PS5 is 10.3 taraflops, so the M1 Max wins there. And on SSD speeds for the new MacBook Pros, they have 7.4 gigabytes per second, while the PS5 is 5.5 gigabytes per second. And I will point out all of that for a fraction of the power draw, remember? Can we talk about how these machines would be hella high-end gaming machines, if anyone actually ported games to MacOS? And finally, a tweet that I thought I had saved but somehow lost, so I'm going to have to paraphrase and sadly not be able to give attribution and credit where due. Somebody last night said that that weird Apple music voice plan, where for $4.99 a month, you only get to interact with the service using Siri and your voice. Well, this person suggested that this was all a gambit by Apple to get a huge corpus of voice data to better train Siri on. Then there was this tweet from Steve Trouton-Smith, quote,

Starting point is 00:19:06 fun to remember that the M1 was Apple's low-end system on a chip, and today's monster chips are only the mid-range, with a truly diabolical Mac Pro processor at the high end, still to come, end quote. And finally, finally today, more signs of what a massive business YouTube has grown into for Alphabet. According to App Annie, YouTube has passed $3 billion, in global consumer spending on iOS, which ranks it third behind Tinder and Netflix in terms of

Starting point is 00:19:44 lifetime revenue on iOS. So this is people actually doing things like subscribing. This is not about the billions and billions of dollars YouTube already makes from ads, quote, YouTube drove in-app revenue through a variety of offerings that let users choose their experience from various paid membership channels and premium subscriptions that allow for uninterrupted viewing, and the bonus of YouTube music premium as a part of premium. YouTube's consumer spend hit a milestone $3 billion this past weekend as users around the world connect through content. YouTube democratized content consumption in many ways and cultivate some of the most time spent per user globally. As the streaming wars continue to heat up in the U.S. and worldwide, YouTube is a formidable platform in the space.

Starting point is 00:20:27 Reaching the $3 billion milestone indicates that consumers value the content and experience YouTube provides and are willing to pay for a more premium version of that mobile-friendly content. And they are choosing to subscribe to the service from their mobile devices, end quote. Nothing for you today. Talk to you tomorrow.

Tech Brew Ride Home - Tue. 10/19 – The Google Pixel Event And The Pixel 6

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