Gadgetory

what's happened to Brian Tong here and welcome to Google issues for all the Google you can think of the big drop this week comes from Android police who posted the first renders of what's believed to be the 2017 pixel XL it's the larger phone of the two pixel phones codenamed Timon now the rear edges are still curved the fingerprint sensor sits below the glass window and the front features a six inch AMOLED display with minimal bezels and rounded corners it's also believed to have a squeezable frame similar to the HTC u 11 that will allow you to interact with the Google assistant now this pixel XL render based on their information clearly looks like a modern design phone throw in pure Android the Google assistant and if they can maintain their status as best camera come on you've got another great phone by Google here so we'll wait for the official announcement but this can be taken seriously with android police's track record all right the Galaxy s8 is arguably the best Android phone at the moment but according to the Korea Herald in the first two months the s8 sold roughly 9.8 million units compared to 12 million units in that same time for the galaxy s7 si that's about a 20% drop now there's a lot of factors here one of the big ones increased competition from Chinese brands and people even waiting on the iPhone 8 as an option but remember Samsung was bragging about its record pre-orders before the phone went on sale now they're telling the herald that the s8 started selling in three key markets compared to the s7 that sold globally so they won't compare the two and in case you found the workaround to use the s8 Bixby button to launch a different app because that's really what everyone wants to do with it Samsung has released their latest update that shuts down any of those methods now including even the Bigsby button remap wrap now baked sweet voice is set to come out in a few more weeks but imagine if they got the software right from the start didn't delay it at launch and it was actually an assistant that people wanted to use instead they're blocking people from using the button they put on their own phone and you know what that gets come on some and the first commercial for the sh dex desktop dock is out in yes we've seen similar things like other phones in the past for example the Motorola Atrix or even recently Windows continuum phones but it's the first mainstream push that's getting an actual TV ad but how many people are really going to do this right now not that many just not yet all right Google is launching a brand new initiative called pair which stands for people plus AI research get it Pai are now their goal is to study and redesign the ways people interact with AI systems and if there's any company that can do this right it's Google with all of their knowledge and their expertise in AI for example the Google assistant and Google lense is just the start their goal is to also build an AI that benefits and empowers everyone and treats users equally without prejudices now this sounds like a huge undertaking but I got to give props to a company that actually identifies this as important with AI being the next platform in the tech world ok Google's Project loon hit a speed bump after a key patent was cancelled by the US Patent and Trademark Office Project loon is their free-floating Wi-Fi balloon project to deliver Wi-Fi in remote areas from the sky Google's patent was for increasing or decreasing the altitude of their balloons until they hit winds traveling the direction they want it to go the balloons themselves have no form of propulsion and this method would help keep them hovering in one place now wired reports another company called space data says they came up with it first and the Gube sivan had acquisition talks with that company back in 2007 now the patent has been cancelled and a trial is set for 2019 between the two so yeah that sounds like fun and finally Android wear users now have a luxury option thanks to Louis Vuitton's first Android wear watch the tambour horizon it's rocking a Snapdragon wear 2100 512 Meg's a ram with four gigs of storage there's no heart rate monitor but a one-point 2 inch round AMOLED display isn't that so pretty now Graham brow models start at two thousand four hundred and fifty dollars and a black model you know the most common Universal color starts at 2900 and I dug around their website to find this fancy charger which will most definitely cost more than $30 all right that's gonna do it for this week you can email me at Google assist at cnet.com we're tweeting at brian tom thanks so much for watching I won't catch all next time for some more of that google issues