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Google's addiction to leaking their own phones is so bad now they couldn't even wait one hour for the Pixel 10 launch event to start at 1pm Eastern Time. The company just dropped all their major announcements at noon. And while I think they officially have a problem and should seek help, that did mean I could start looking at the new Pixel 1010 Pro, 10 Pro XL, 10 Pro Fold and Pixel Watch 4 right away, instead of sitting through the pre stream and being subjective to an all onslaught of AI videos depicting pigeons dragging pizza the wrong way. But I was subjected to Google's latest desperate attempt to capture some of Apple's riz in the form of a never ending stream of celebrities and influencers at the event who I don't know probably just showed up because they love talking about Pixels when Google pays them to all the new pixels share some common features, with the hot new one being Google's answer to to Apple's MagSafe new Pixel Snap Magnetic wireless charging based on the updated Qi2 standard with an accompanying magnetic charging pad and stand, as well as the ring stand which doesn't charge. But it is very pretty, even if it looks like it would be somewhat unstable. Those things often go together. Every Pixel 10 variant supports charging via Pixel Snap at at least 15 watts and they also all feature the new Tensor G5 chip. Tensor? Come on, you know this. Tensor nerds out there know what I'm talking about. Tensor G5, which Google says is 34% faster than the G4 on average. They'll all get seven years of software updates and none of them will have a physical SIM card slot in the US just like iPhones now. So what do you think? Google's wondering if that looks like an Apple logo to you yet? They're pretty similar. I mean, you know, they're equally cool. So cool, right onto the phones themselves. The Pixel 10 uses the same overall design as the Pixel 9, but it gets a third camera like the Pro models, although they're not as good as the pros. And two of the three cameras on the Pixel 10 are in fact worse than than the ones on the Pixel 9. They had to borrow some of the Pixels, but the battery is a tad bigger and the screen is a tad brighter and you should not pre order it before it hits shelves August 28th starting at 800 USD. Then there's a Pixel 10 Pro which is nearly identical to the 9 Pro minus the new chip and charging support. And the same is true for the 10 Pro XL, except the XL is the only model in the LineUp to support Qi 2.2 charging and at up to 25 watts instead of 15, the Pixel 9 Pro could reach 21 watts, but only with the official Pixel stand. Also, please don't pre order these when they launch August 28th at 1000 bucks for the Pixel 10 Pro and 1200 for the Pro XL. Okay, but the new Pixel 10 Fold that has something new. It's the first foldable display phone to achieve an IP68 water and dust resistance rating and it can only Pixel snap charge at 15 watts and it's coming a bit later, so you'll have until October 9th to not pre order it for 1,800 USD. Now the Pixel Watch 4 might be the most updated device here. It's got a 50% brighter, more curvedier display for 10% more screen space, smaller bezels, 25% longer battery life, and a new side mounted charger to accommodate it's apparently more repairable design and it starts at 350 bucks for for the smallest WiFi only model, which you should also not pre order before it ships October 9th, even though it's got a tiny AI Fitbit coach slowly going mad while it sits on the shelf inside it. Lastly, there's new A series Pixel buds. The Pixel Buds 2a. They've got active noise cancellation now and when that's on they'll last seven hours or 10 hours when ANC's off. But even if you completely trash the battery in the charging case, it's replaceable. Ah, so I can forgive these ones being 130 bucks. $30 more expensive than the first A series buds. Ah what the hell. Pre order these if you want. Let's go crazy. Now to wrap up the Pixel stuff, I must also mention a few software Things. The Pixel 10s will feature Magic Cue which will pop up relevant details that it's gathered from closely watching your every move. Like suggesting an address when you get a message asking about could just take care of your stuff. Do I need to be here for this? The Pixel 10 Pro models have their own special ProRes Zoom, which has nothing to do with Prores the video codec. It's different. It applies a latent diffusion model that makes photos taken at 30 to 100 times zoom look less like they were taken at 30 to 100 times zoom. Google announced that Gemini is finally coming to Google Nest and home devices. The Pixel Flex dual port 67 watt charger can charge two devices at once, but will prioritize Pixel phones and seems designed to help Pixel users trick iPhone users into thinking iPhones are worse. Whoops. That wasn't a software thing, but this is Pixel 10? S get a new AI enhanced Pixel Journal app for when you need AI to help with a task that I'm pretty sure is supposed to be valuable because you just take a second and come up with your own thoughts. But I don't know. Okay, no more Pixel stuff. A YouTube rep has replied on Twitter to a reuploaded TechLink clip from Monday's episode in which we talked about YouTube seemingly upscaling shorts so they look like AI video compared to the original. Shout out to Dinosaurus for reposting the reuploaded clip and tagging YouTube liaison and former YouTuber Rene Richie, who said this is an experiment that does not involve generative AI or upscaling, but does unblur denoise and improve clarity using traditional machine learning techniques passed down for generations. It's AI that your grandpa would be okay with. He says the test is only running on select YouTube shorts, but I'm thinking they selected a lot of shorts because every random short I picked had the same effect. Rene went on to further explain his terms, which is genuinely helpful. AI gen AI upscaling. These terms are thrown around very casually, so we should know what specific kind of neural network based techniques we're talking about when we say that the ones YouTube is using to try and make shorts look better are making them look worse. I'm not mad because you're using generative AI. I'm mad because you're making real video look like it oozed out of some robot's orifice. Don't succumb to the ooze. Succumb to our sponsor Ground News. They're trying to do something about the fact that the Internet has been divvied up into these information bubbles. It's stuffy and crowded in there and you end up arguing with your mom in the comments. Ground News can help you break free. They aggregate news stories from around the world, breaking down the political leanings and ownership of each news source to to help you understand who's reporting on what and where they're coming from. Take this recent story about Minnesota suing TikTok over the risks it poses to young people. More than twice as many right leaning outlets reported on this as left leaning ones. Why is that? Minnesota's a blue state. Republicans are more interested and supportive of TikTok now. Maybe moving on. There's also news about a new moon being discovered around Uranus, which barely any right leaning outlets reported on, and that's definitely because they don't like saying Uranus. So take one small step for expanding your worldview. Get the transparency you deserve from your news and save 40% on a ground News Vantage plan by using our link in the description hey hey, eyes on me. We're doing the quick bits now. Focus up. A test result for a system called Valve Fremont has shown up on the Geekbench database, as spotted by a person who spots such things, Brad Lynch. The specs of the system seem to be consistent with prior leaks that point towards Fremont being a TV set top console of some kind, but they're still kind of weird. For one thing, it's got an AMD Hawk Point APU from the Ryzen 8000 mobile range, but with the integrated GPU removed in favor of a Radeon RX7600. It's also running Windows 11 instead of SteamOS. It's all quite mysterious, but I'm sure if you do the math right, you can Get a Half Life 3 confirmation from this somehow. Ooh, maybe Fremont's running Windows 11 because Valve is giving up its OS war with Microsoft Because Microsoft announced that the Xbox Ally and Ally X handhelds will launch October 16th. They are gonna come alongside a handheld compatibility program, which actually sounds like it improves a bit on Valve's Deck Verified program, giving games ratings based on expected FPS and other factors like whether it has seamless controller support or small screen friendly UI. Valve doesn't say anything about small screen friendly UIs, I think. Do they even care about us? Elite claims the price will be 550 USD for the Xbox Ally and 900 for for the Xbox Ally X, but nothing's officially confirmed on that front, no doubt due to the challenging economic environment that Sony blamed for the $50 price hike it's applying to the PS5, PS5 Digital Edition and PS5 Pro, which will now be 550, 500 and 7050 USD respectively. The news comes after a similar price hike in Europe, Australia and New Zealand was announced in April, but sadly, we have no idea why any of this is happening. The economy is like the weather. It's challenging out there right now. It's like it's raining. Just wear a coat and intel has gotten some help with its challenges. Not only has it gotten a $2 billion investment from Japanese conglomerate SoftBank, the US government has confirmed rumors that it will give intel the CHIPS act funding previously allocated to the company. As long as the government gets that value, about 5.4 billion, I think, in intel equity. Some are concerned about the US government's having a stake in a very important private company such as Intel. But you know who's not concerned? Bernie Sanders. He's all for this, apparently confusing everyone except me, the only one who understands the economy. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutney confirmed the investment to cnbc. Not to be confused with msnbc, which is not to be confused with its new name, msnow, which stands for My Source News Opinion World, which sounds like a theme park for the AI they'll eventually replace me with, but not yet. Ha ha. Ooh. Sorry, Zuck. I'm gonna be right back here on Friday with more tech news, even if you give me and my whole family free tickets to my Source News Opinion World because. Okay, I'm through the gate. And what, I'm gonna spend $100 on lunch now? Come on.
