It’s been a whirlwind time of coming to grips with Google’s new laptops, and we’ve got feelings about Googlebook OS.
Android Authority cites a report from the Korean outlet Money Today, which says Samsung could decrease smartphone production by up to 30 percent in the fourth quarter. An unnamed source tells Money Today that Samsung’s smartphone sales currently aren’t yielding profit due to skyrocketing memory prices.
The feature, called Connected Camera, lets you capture video from multiple angles by linking your Pixel phone camera to another Pixel device or GoPro. Google first launched the feature with support for social platforms like YouTube and Instagram, but now Android Authority reports that it’s expanding to communication apps including Zoom, Microsoft Teams, Telegram, Google Meet, Slack, and Facebook Messenger.
[Android Authority]
This is definitely a proceed-with-caution situation. It’s experimental: Bluetooth doesn’t work, you’re capped at a 60HZ refresh, and there are some other bugs too. But if you’ve got an Apple Silicon machine with at least 16GB of RAM, you could install Googlebook OS and give it a test drive.
Google’s using the UK government’s Fuel Finder data for the feature, which has been available in the US for a while. What Car? warns that the real-time data is “full of inaccuracies and out-of-date information” though, so take it with a pinch of salt. Search “petrol” or “fuel” in either app to see for yourself.
Android Authority spotted code in Android 17 QPR3 Beta 1 hinting at a new “Face Active Illumination” feature that might help Pixel phones recognize users’ faces in low light. It appears to have a brightness slider and toggles for turning it on in various settings, like after bedtime or when “Do Not Disturb” is active.
[Android Authority]
Tomorrow’s event will announce more than $1 billion in commitments for the Trump admin’s “Genesis Project” AI push and investments from the NSF and Energy Department, reports Axios, including $100 million in credits from something called National Compute.
Meanwhile, Fox News and Bloomberg report Trump will award the National Medal of Science to Elon Musk, Jensen Huang, Sergey Brin, and Lisa Su, while Michael Dell and Satya Nadella are in line for the National Medal of Technology and Innovation. It’s the first time Trump has ever given out the awards, which usually don’t go to well-known tech execs, judging by previous recipients.
Following reports on the Google Home subreddit from many users unable to change the color of their connected smart lights yesterday, Google responded that it investigated the problem and rolled out a fix that appears to have resolved the peculiar issue.
Google warned some apps might have performance issues on the Intel Googlebooks, but now Android Authority reports that Google says only “96.6% of the top 10k+ most-used applications” work “flawlessly” on them. There are also new app compatibility ratings for the Googlebooks, but we haven’t found many with the “Made for desktop” tag yet.
