2017 #MadeByGootle Event recap

I cannot believe that is has already been exactly one year since the 2016 #MadeByGoogle event, and now we have another. Google was expanding it's hardware at this event today, similar to last year, but this time more in Google style.

First of all, let's start small with the brand new Google Home Mini. This device is a smaller and more flat version of the original Google Home. Although it definitely looks different, it shares the same design as the base of the original Home. This is made to be used for all sorts of activities, such as replacing your TV remote oralarm clock. It will retail for a lot less than the original, at $49.99 at all major retailers. This is putting it to compete with similar devices, like the Amazon Echo Dot.

To max things up, we have the Google Home Max. These act more like high quality stereo speakers than the smart speakers you're used to seeing. It definitely resembles the original Home, and matches the smaller Home Mini. Like the others in the Home family, it has Google Assistant built right in. You can still ask it to do stuff, such as turn off the lights, but it is meant to be your one-stop device for your audio needs. Similar the Apple HomePod, it can measure out your room to better match you. Google Cast is finally built in, so you don't need to buy a separate Chromecast Audio for it.

Like to travel? The Google Pixel Buds got your back, or should I say ears. These are Google Assistant enabled wireless Bluetooth ear buds. These allow you to ask the Assistant to do tasks, just like you would normally do on your device, just by holding down. As simple as that, and they work. Of course, you can still listen to your music, as always. I nicely designed case comes with it to charge up your ear buds as well. It is very impressive, with how much complex technology is put into these simplistic devices. For Pixel owners, these even allow you to translate in real time! This means they can listen to what others have to say, and translate it for you, then you can have it respond back. Google is really investing in audio this year.

Looking back at photos in your photobooks at old memories really makes you remember old times. Although a big issue is that the person taking the picture isn't seen, and it is almost pure luck to take a picture at the right time. Well, both of those issues are resolved with the Google Clips. This is a dedicated camera, with built in artificial intelligence to take the shots for you, literally. You just clip it onto an object, and it will watch the scene for you, and take pictures or videos at the appropriate times. Then from your phone, you can see pictures or video clips from Google Photos, just like that. It is a miniature device with humongous potential. Google has outdone themselves on this one.

Remember when we first saw the Pixel branding, on the Chromebook Pixel in 2013, then in 2015 with the second generation, before discontinuing the series last year? Well, now the Google Pixelbook is the Chromebook of the future. Like its predecessors, it is very premium in design, and contains some of the highest specs you ever need to have on a Chromebook. This version is a huge revision of the the Chromebook Pixel line, and although it got rid of features we love, like the lightbar, it makes up it by having a unique device fit to current Google hardware. Google Assistant is now coming to Chromebooks, at least this one, and even has a dedicated key for it on the physical keyboard. The way Google is describing it's innovation, it is either a laptop or tablet, whichever one you feel the most comfortable with. The device definitely turns a new page on what Google can do. In a way, you can call this a a successor to both the Chromebook Pixel and the Pixel C tablet, in a marriage with the current Google design.

No tablet is set without it's pen, and the same can be said with the Pixelbook and the Pixelbook Pen. The Pen is what you would expect an interactive pen to be on a tablet or laptop. It allows you to take notes on the device while it is in tablet mode, and also gives you a nice stylus for when you want to just tap the screen. However, there's also a button, and whatever you circle, Google Assistant can help out with. It corresponds to the touchscreen smoothly, as it it pressure sensitive, and allows you to tilt the pen to make more natural markings on your screen.

The Daydream just got better. The Daydream View of last year now has been modified for this year. Not only does it work with the Pixel series, it also works with other wonderful devices like the LG V30 and Samsung Galaxy S8. Support for IMAX is now included, so you can watch videos just like you would in the theater. Now it has a more wider screen than before, and your experience can also be casted to your Chromecast as well, so others can see what you do. The colors and fabrics have also been updated to match other Google hardware better, and be more comfortable.

Now, what has been waited for since last year, the all-new phones. These include the premium smartphone, Google Pixel 2, and the ultra premium phablet, the Google Pixel 2 XL. Last year, Google's big selling feature was it had the highest rated camera, by DxOMark, at 89. This device topped it, as well as the HTC U11 which also topped the original Pixel, making the highest ever score at 96! Everyone has been moving to adding dual cameras over the last year or so, usually to add portrait mode functionality. So that's what Google did, without the dual camera part. Google used it's smarts to implement the portrait mode feature into it's device's rear camera, without a secondary telefoto lens. Both devices brought back the signature front facing speakers found on HTC and later Google Nexus devices. The Pixel 2 is similar to the original as far as design goes, while the Pixel 2 XL incorporates the almost bezeless display. The contract manufacturer of the standard Pixel 2 is HTC Corporation, once more, while the XL variant is from LG Electronics. Edge Sense may be another one of those great innovations from HTC which becomes a revolutionary standard, as Smart Edge is now a feature in both of the Pixels.

Google has been taking it's hardware to the next level lately, and it is just getting better and better. We have gone from the collaboration-born HTC Dream, to the partner-based Nexus line, and now the Made By Google Pixel series. Also, early next year Google is completing it's acquisition of a chunk of HTC for $1.1 billion, to create a dedicated hardware division of Google. Only time can tell what Google has in store for it's future in consumer hardware.

The "Quietly Brilliant" company may be in trouble

The HTC Corporation, the company known for their former slogan, "Quietly Brilliant," recently made the HTC U11, one of the best phones of 2017, months after making the HTC U Ultra one of the worst ones. Now, according to recent articles, the company may be in danger, but another company may help.

Originally High Tech Computers, the company celebrated 20 years, just before announcing the U11. There is a possibly you have never heard of them, but I can almost guarantee you have at least benefited from one of their innovations. A majority of their innovations they were, if not one of the, first(s) to do it, but almost never recognized for doing so. This is why their former catchphrase, "Quietly Brilliant," fit the company exactly.

However, over the last few years, they haven't been doing so well. The HTC ONE (M7) of 2013 was rated one of the best HTC devices. Unfortunately, the following devices weren't all that great. The HTC U Ultra of this year was a fine device, but lacked a lot of features, for a super premium price tag. Many thought that the creative HTC has come to it's end. The HTC U11 was a complete shock, fixing lots of issues with the U Ultra. Many referred to this as their comeback for the company, although many reports say otherwise.

The reports say the company is struggling to retain sales for the past few years, which has been greatly hurting the company. Last year, HTC was, in fact, the contract manufacturer of Google's Pixel phone, which did help, although earlier reports state that LG was chosen this year over HTC for this year's Pixel iteration.

HTC has worked with Google since the development of the first Android phone, the HTC Dream (T-Mobile G1). Since then, they have worked together to make many other Android devices. These include the Google Nexus One, Nexus 7, and the previous mentioned, Pixel. Besides that, HTC is still one of the largest Android device manufacturers. With all of this in mind, rumors state that Google may be interested in buying out the mobile and manufacturing divisons of HTC.

These rumors do, in fact, make perfect sense. With this, Google would be able to save the company. But there may be other reasons wht Google may want the phone manufacturer. As we saw at the #MadeByGoogle event, Google is looking into making it's own hardware, but they currently do not have a manufacturing plant of their own, or even a team of designers, come to think about it. In fact, a majority of Google's manufacturing is done by HTC.

Keep in mind, we have heard this before. In 2014, Google bought out Motorola Mobility, the spinoff company of the now-split Motorola Inc. Although in that case, Motorola Mobility was kept in a seperate subsidiary of Google, before selling the company, for a lot less than they bought it, to Lenovo.

Also, one big event that sounds super familiar to this is that of Nokia-Microsoft (Which I was, ironically, researching about at the time of finding out about this). Nokia wanted to stop production of their Windows-powered mobile devices, and yet, Microsoft ended up buying their entire mobile division. They also ended up getting quite a bit of their manufacturing plants, buildings, headquarters, as well as their CEO, and rights to use the "Nokia" name. However, when the division became Microsoft Mobile, things turned. Consumers preferred the way Nokia made their devices, and other manufacturers stepped back from producing devices. Microsoft's purchase ended up being one if the biggest corporate failures in history, alongside the Microsoft KIN. Nokia eventually re-entered the mobile market this year, through the companies of HMD Global Oy and FIH Mobile buying a majority of the former Nokia division back from Microsoft Mobile.

At the time of writing this article, on September 8, we were unsure of how HTC was doing on their own, or Google's plan to expand their hardware division. Hopefully, it won't turn into another Microsoft Mobile, Microsoft and Nokia still haven't recovered from it.

Alexa, meet Cortana

Over the last few months, there have been many new and exciting things which have been coming to the tech world, which could change the way we use our devices for the better. Well, one thing that has sparked my interest since the announcements of the Google Home, and the Galaxy S8, were the intelligent personal assistants. These have been getting more intelligent by the year, but more in a quiet sense. But recently, we have seen some vast improvements which really make us ask the question of what can be done with one of these assistants?

Adding skills and bots to our assistant-based experiences made me think about the potential of this type of platform. But according to a recent press conference and blog post, apparently Amazon CEO, Jeff Bezos, thought of this a year before I did. Yesterday, August 30th of 2017, Amazon announced that they decided to partner with Microsoft, and have their respective competing assistants, Alexa and Cortana join forces.

According to Microsoft's blog post, they believe that together, they can strengthen each other. Also, that many people, including myself, generally use more than one assistant, and it may be difficult to control anything, or be productive, if you have to duplicate your information, or just only have it on one assistant platform.

Another reason for this strange partnership is because they don't have the same type of abilities, but that is a key factor for this partnership. Alexa specializes in controlling your smart home appliances, which Cortana is more into heloing you with your PC. This way, a user of either assistant would be able to ask to talk to the other, and use it from there.

What devices would support it? Well, to answer that, it would be any of them that support either Alexa or Cortana. That would include the Amazon Echo line of products, the HTC U11, Huawei Mate 9, and many other upcoming devices, most of these are more home and personal-based. On the other hand, Cortana is currently on Windows 10 PCs, Windows Phone 8.1, Windows 10 Mobile, and even your Xbox One. The Cortana-supported platforms are more productivity and mobile-based than Alexa's.

When exactly would this be avaliable? It is currently unknown at this time frame when exactly this would be avaliable. However, Amazon informs us that this would be avaliable likely later this year. So, a lot of users of both platforms are most likely looming forward to that.

Amazon partnering with Microsoft is possibly just the first of its kind. They state that they are even willing to partner with Google for their Google Assistant, and even Apple with Siri. Microsoft CEO, Satya Nadella stated that he hopes that this would help others make some other cool partnerships in the new future, and he's glad to be apart of it.

Palm is coming back?

From their founding to their acquisition and discontinuation of their operating system, Palm Inc was a company known and loved by many. The Palm name signified quality and thought process to their loyal consumers. It saddened people when their name got phased out of the production of devices running their software after the acquisition of their company, but now another company wants to being that name back to the people.

For a catch up from the start to the present, Palm Inc was a company who originally helped start PDAs, with the PalmPilot. With the decline of those, they made and used Palm OS to run on their mobile devices at the time. The founders of the company latee on left, formed another company, which had many exchanges with Palm before settling to use the same operating system. Palm made another operating system, webOS, which many admired. It featured touch geustures and features not seen in other operating systems beforehand. Hewlett-Packard (HP) ended up buying the company,  and then eventually returing the Palm name, and decided to build onto webOS. The public did not react well to HP webOS, and eventually sold it to LG, who now uses it on their smart TVs. After selling it's patents to Qualcomm, HP in 2015, sold the Palm trademark to a shelf company of TCL.

TCL Communications is a well known Chinese-based company, who made the Alcatel OneTouch devices, lisencing the name from Alcatel-Lucent (now apart of Nokia). Despite buying the Palm name, not much has been done besides redirecting palm.com to MyNewPalm.com. However, late last year, TCL annouced it was now the global lisencee of the BlackBerry devices, and this year making the BlackBerry KEYone. Many marked this as the death of Palm, but new reports state that 2018 will also have Palm-branded devices in store.

As this may excite some fans, others are rather disappointed. Although they have missed the Palm devices on the market, there has been a considerable gap of time between Palm ending, and this announcement. Also, webOS is now owned by LG, and it is highly unlikely newer Palm devices would run the webOS they were known for, but rather Android. Another difference would be the company itself. Unlike the BlackBerry and Nokia comebacks, the possible one from Palm would be a completely different company, with different staff and history.

Reception is mixed, when announcement of TCL's acquisition of the brand, many were excited to see what was next. However, now the public has been waiting for alnost 2 years, now reception is mixed. Some are excited, especially as they are even helping out BlackBerry. Others, including Adam Doud of Android Authority, like that the Palm brand is coming back, but are disappointed it is not the same one everyone enjoyed, even saying the brand is better-left dead. This makes sense as this may ruin the reputation the former compant had if the remake fails.

What are your thoughts of another company trying to bring back the Palm brand in 2018? Do you think it will even happen?

Apple Event Highlights

So, last Tuesday was the Apple event we have been waiting for all year. Some fans left impressed and astonished, while others left bored with old news.

To start off, we now have Apple Watch Series 3. Some models now finally have LTE bands in it, so you don't have to have your iPhone right beside you. According to the annoucement, it would still use your phone number, but is an additional bill added to your existing phone plan. It is powered by the Apple W2 chip, which Apple says it a lot faster than the previous series. Apple Heart Study was also annouced to monitor your heartrate on the device itself.

Cutting the cord fans will be happy to know that 4K is finally catching up as a feature of the new Apple TV, appropriately named the Apple TV 4K. iTunes will supposedly be upgrading all of its HD content, even if already bought on their online store, to comsumer 4K resolution. Only some small other features have been added besides that, such as HDR support and Dolby Vision.

Now, the iPhone 8 and 8 Plus. It looks strikingly familiar if you own the 7. It features similar specs, but now upgraded with Qi-enabled wireless charging (finally). Because of this, both the front and back of the fragile phone are glass! Don't forget to get a case. The Apple A11 Bionic chip is now powering the device.

For what you were waiting for, the iPhone X was announced as well, as a "surprise" from Apple. It's pronouced "10," so don't call it "X"! The device features a mostly bezeless display, like a mix of those seen in the Essential Phone and Galaxy S8. Qi-enabled wireless charging and the new chip are also found here as well. Also, many features we have grown to love in Android-based smartphones are here as well, including face unlock and ambient light sensors. This device is the nost expensive, as the start it $999!

Amazon is buying Whole Foods Market

Generally, when you think of shopping, you think of walking into your local grocery store or Target, and picking up your normal shopping list full of stuff to fit into your trunk of your car. However, it is 2017, and if you are looking for something in particular, you are going to go ahead and just buy it online, from most likely, Amazon. The eCommerce giant has been getting much bigger in size over the last few years, and the Amazon Prime two-day shopping guarantee may have changed you to prefer this short wait over waiting or searching for that product at your supermarket. This is really scary when you come to think of it, especially if you were to ask Walmart.

On June 15th of this year, Amazon.com, Inc. put out an offer to buy out the multiple location organic food-based supermarket chain for $13.7 billion dollars. This decision was rumored as far back as April of the same year. Recently, on August 23rd, the Federal Trade Commission approved of the buyout. Amazon announced on the 24th of the same month that the purchase will be final as of the following Monday, which is August 28th. This purchase would give the e-commerce giant over 400 physical locations.

This would not be the first time Amazon has had a brick-and-mortar location. In 2015, Amazon started opening up Amazon Books stores, which are bookstores owned completely owned by them, to sell consumers the latest books, and also showcases the latest Amazon electronics. There are about  10 of these locations currently up and running, with many more, at least 4, coming soon.

Walmart will most likely be affected the most from this acquisition. They have leaded the supermarket game for quite a while now, and they have even already been greatly affected from this. Already, they have tried to make a larger presence with the online market. In an attempt to try to get customers who favors Amazon's choice of free 2 day shipping, they have added a grocery store pickup ability to a majority of their locations.

AmazonFresh is a service which Amazon has had for quite some time now, where you purchase food or other groceries from their respective website, and have it shipped to you. The style of the website is similar to the main Amazon shopping page, but requires a paid membership to the program. This ability, currently, however, is only in selective areas. It is rumored to be available wherever there is a Whole Foods Market location very soon.

Back at the end of 2016, Amazon decided to show us a sneak preview of a project they have been working on called Amazon Go. It is a store designed to have no waiting, lines, and possibly even human workers. A person would simply sign in with their smart device when they walk in, using the Amazon app, then whatever they pick-up would be added to their cart automatically. The type of stuff sold at these locations are very similar to that which Whole Foods already sells. There is a possibility the store chain was bought to test out the Amazon Go-style store.

There are many other different ideas of what Amazon's plans for this chain are. Although it has been confirmed that as of Monday, all of the items at these 400+ locations will be getting a cheaper face lift, so stay tuned in for that. What are your thoughts of the purchase of the chain by our favorite e-commerce company?

BlackBerry KEYone is coming to AT&T

This morning, we have heard from BlackBerry Mobile (TCL), the licencee of BlackBerry-branded devices for the global market, with big news about their BlackBerry KEYone device. TCL and BlackBerry Limited originally showed off this device at the Consumer Electronics Show in Los Vegas, back in January, rumored to be the "Mercury," until it's official announcement ahead of Mobile World Congress the following month.

This device, which is currently available at Sprint, Amazon, and Best Buy (which can be sold compatible with T-Mobile and Verizon's 4G LTE networks), will soon be available at AT&T, the United States' second largest 4G LTE network. This will be available within it's own network coming in early September.

Also, an even bigger announcement for both the cellular device manufacturer and the phone network is that there will be a new complete model of the KEYone available, the BlackBerry KEYone Space Black, which will be made as an AT&T-exclusive device. As far as we currently know, this device will contain the same specs as the original model, just in a different shade, customized by AT&T. From looking at the rear of the device, it almost resembles the Samsung Galaxy S8 Active, another AT&T exclusive model of a global phone. This device is expected to hit shelves on September 1st of this year.