Techmeme
October 4, 2017, 6:50 PM

Top News

Dieter Bohn / The Verge:
Pixel 2 and 2 XL hands-on: solid design with standard internals, amazing camera that supports Motion Photos, AR stickers; Active Edge takes some getting used to  —  A pragmatic design and a promising camera  —  For a majority of the 10 years smartphones have been mainstream, phone makers have been copying each other's designs.
DxOMark:
DxOMark gives Pixel 2's camera a record score of 98, four points above iPhone 8 Plus and Note8; Pixel 2's 12MP sensor has f/1.8 aperture, Dual-Pixel Autofocus  —  The Google Pixel 2 is the top-performing mobile device camera we've tested, with a record-setting overall score of 98.
Emil Protalinski / VentureBeat:
Google debuts Pixel 2: 5" 1080p OLED display, Active Edge, Snapdragon 835, 8/12MP cameras, IP67, 4GB RAM, 2700mAh battery, front-facing speakers, no 3.5mm jack  —  After rumors and leaks, Google product chief Mario Queiroz today unveiled two new Android Oreo smartphones at the company's annual hardware event …
Dieter Bohn / The Verge:
Pixelbook hands-on: incredibly well-built, fanless even with i7 option, large bezels; pen doesn't require Bluetooth pairing; Android app support still lacking  —  Google has made a very nice, pretty expensive laptop  —  Chromebooks mostly exist in two camps.
Nick Statt / The Verge:
Google debuts Home Mini with four LED lights under fabric exterior in three colors, available as $49 preorder, shipping October 19  —  It's a small, stone-shaped smart speaker  —  Google announced a smaller companion to its Google Home smart speaker today, called the Home Mini.
Mat Honan / BuzzFeed:
Google debuts Clips, a $249 camera with 12MP, 130° FOV that uses AI to automatically take photos, 8GB storage, 3hr battery life with constant use, no ship date  —  This is Google's new camera.  It's called Google Clips.  —  Wait, but what do you mean it automatically takes candid photos?
Chaim Gartenberg / The Verge:
Sonos announces it is rolling out Alexa support for all its current models in a public beta  —  Sonos announced today that its Alexa support, which has been in a limited private beta for months at this point, is finally rolling out to all current-model Sonos speakers in a public beta.
Business Insider:
European Commission orders Amazon to pay back about €250M in taxes to Luxembourg, saying it had been given “sweetheart” tax advantage since 2003  —  - Amazon has been ordered to pay €250 million (£221 million, $294 million) by the European Commission over its taxes.
Ashley Carman / The Verge:
Google debuts Pixel Buds, wireless earbuds with real-time translation, in 3 colors for $159; Android users on Nougat or higher can pair by just opening the case  —  Google-branded earbuds are coming.  The company announced at its annual hardware event today that it'll be releasing truly wireless earbuds …

Sponsor Posts

Subquadratic:
Subquadratic: the LLM built for 12M-token reasoning  —  SubQ can reason across entire codebases and document sets in one pass with no RAG workarounds.  Read how SubQ 1.1 Small holds near-perfect retrieval out to 12M tokens.
Cape:
Most carriers track everything.  Cape doesn't.  —  Unlimited talk, text & data, 24-hr metadata deletion, network ID rotation, SIM-attack defense, and more.  Switch today and get 29% off for life.
Equals:
Stop vibe coding analytics  —  Equals AI turns questions about your business into auditable spreadsheet models and dashboards.  Build once, iterate for years.
Zoho:
Zoho WorkDrive named a Leader in the Nucleus Research CSC Technology Value Matrix 2026  —  Enterprise content management is evolving rapidly with about 80% of the data unstructured.  The growing challenge is not about storing information anymore.
IDrive:
Protecting your Cloud Applications Data  —  Backing up Office 365, Google Workspace, Dropbox & Salesforce data is critical to preventing data loss or corruption, complying with laws and avoiding critical downtime in case of a disaster.

Featured Podcasts

Great Chat:
Too big to laugh: how tech lost its sense of humor
A podcast mostly about tech. Brought to you weekly by Angela Du, Sally Shin, Mac Bohannon, Helen Min, and Ashley Mayer.
Subscribe to Great Chat.
Channels with Peter Kafka:
Substack Wants To Become A Social Network; BeeHiiv Wants To Stay Invisible
Media and tech aren't just intersecting - they're fully intertwined. To understand how those worlds work, Peter Kafka talks to industry leaders, upstarts and observers.
Subscribe to Channels with Peter Kafka.
Training Data:
Factory's Matan Grinberg: The Coming 'Dark Factory' Where Software Builds Itself
Sequoia Capital partners host conversations with leading AI builders and researchers to develop a deeper understanding of the evolving technologies and their implications.
Subscribe to Training Data.
Invest Like the Best:
Matthew Smith — Natural Gas: The Next Bottleneck
The leading destination to learn about business and investing. We do this by showcasing exceptional talent and ideas.
Subscribe to Invest Like the Best.
Lenny's Podcast:
Why Netflix is betting on systems thinkers—not specialists—in the AI era | Elizabeth Stone (CPTO)
Interviews with world-class product leaders and growth experts to uncover actionable advice to help you build, launch, and grow your own product.
Subscribe to Lenny's Podcast.
Tools and Weapons with Brad Smith:
Connecting the Unconnected: Doreen Bogdan-Martin
Microsoft Vice Chair and President Brad Smith speaks with leaders in government, business, and culture to explore the most critical challenges at the intersection of technology and society.
Subscribe to Tools and Weapons with Brad Smith.
 

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 6:50 PM ET, October 4, 2017.

The most current version of the site as always is available at our home page. To view an earlier snapshot click here and then modify the date indicated.

More News

Dustin Volz / Reuters:
Darrell Etherington / TechCrunch:

Earlier Picks

Paul Carroll / DxOMark: