Pocketnow Daily: iPhone 12 Pro Durability Tests & Secret Features Revealed! (video)

Google Pixel 4a, iPads and more devices are on sale today

The official news today begin with deals as per usual, cause even installment plans actually make sense right now. For example the Google Pixel 4a is currently available for a $5 a month on Verizon. Of course there’s specific restrictions but, you’ll be getting an Unlimited Plan and you’ll end up paying $128 for the 128GB variant. I know international kids, don’t laugh about how expensive plans are in the US. Moving on to B&H, the LG G8 ThinQ is currently $450 off, leaving it at $500 from it’s original price tag. Moving on to Amazon, we have your daily dose of Apple deals, for example the latest 11in iPad Pro is $50 off, leaving the 128GB of storage variant for $750. The Apple Watch Series 5 is also $79 off, leaving the 44mm variant for $350. We have more deals on Apple products, Razer peripherals. Jabra earbuds and more in the links in the description.

Insta360 ONE X2 launches as the ultimate personal 360-degree camera

Now let’s move on to official news, and particularly for one of the companies that continues to have my favorite approach to action cams and that keeps 360 degree video alive. Insta360 just launched their new One X2. This is a pocket camera designed to replace a multi-cam setup to give you ultra wide video, panoramas, and of course, 360 degree video. It brings several changes from the original model, like a new 1630 mAh battery which let’s you shoot for up to 80 minutes, a new HD touch screen to preview your shot and that also includes 360 degree video, It’s also water resistant up to 33 feet with no case and it brings four microphones. The camera also brings improved performance, and their new AI tech let’s you change focus and other things while editing it, which you couldn’t do before. It’s currently available for $430 in Adorama and B&H. Really the only thing I’m curious about is if you still need to use their software to be able to edit their videos, cause that’s the only thing I still struggle with.

AMD unleashes Radeon RX 6000 series GPUs based on RDNA 2 architecture

And would you look at that, the cool part about TechTober is that official news actually superseed the typical rumor mill. AMD just unveiled three new GPUs for their RX 6000 series. Basically these 3 graphic cards bring RDNA 2 architecture and they undercut Nvidia’s RTX 30 series in price tag and manage to still bring somewhat of a comparable performance as well as lower power consumption. For context, this is the same architecture powering the PS5 and the Xbox Series X. This new lineup starts at $579 with the RX 68000 which competes with the $1199 RTX 2080 Ti which is from last generation. Next up, you get the Rx 6800 XT which directly competes with the Nvidia RTX 3080, offering you 4K and 1440p gaming with 16GB of GDDR6 memory for $649. Finally, you get the RX 6900 XT flagship which is aimed at 8K gamers, and it’ll set you back at $999. We got more technical details in the description but with these prices, why would the average consumer go for the Nvidia cards? Of course, they’re still crazy powerful but, AMD’s prices just make more sense.

Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 2 could still arrive in the first half of 2021

Now let’s move the spotlight over to Samsung, for those of you that thought we weren’t gonna cover leaks today. Ross Young is already talking about the Galaxy Z Flip 2. According to his latest tweet, he claims that the Z Flip 2 won’t be launched with the Galaxy S21 but it will be launched in the Spring and he is impressed with the upgrades we’re getting. If you think about it, this makes a lot of sense because all of the rumors hint to the Galaxy S launching way earlier, either late January or February, so a later Spring launch for the Z Flip would help Samsung stay in the spotlight. We’re expecting this Z Flip 2, to bring both 4G and 5G connectivity but other than that, we don’t have a lot of information on this Z Flip 2, other than these upgrades Ross Young is talking about, which he doesn’t really mention. I know I want a larger outer display but let us know what you guys would like to see to care about this phone.

Apple could be working on its own search engine to replace Google

Now let’s flip on over to the boring politics section, and what companies are doing about it. If you remember, about a week ago we covered how Google was being sued and one of the reasons was, the deal they have with Apple to be their exclusive search engine. Well, as of now, Google reportedly pays $10-12B to be Apple’s main search provider but, thanks to this lawsuit, it may end. And now a new report claims that Cupertino is silently working on a new Search Engine to replace Google in case their deal is blocked. It’s still unclear whether this engine will be a full-blown website like Google, or just an enhanced Spotlight Search, which is already linking websites directly, bypassing Google. These payments from Google reportedly make around 20% of Apple’s revenue which is, a huge deal. Apple will most likely try to build this new solution around privacy so, let’s see what we end up getting cause if Siri is going to be the backbone of this service, who knows if it’ll actually work out.

Story of the day:

iPhone 12 Pro’s Ceramic Shield doesn’t help against scratches

Apple iPhone 12 series supports reverse wireless charging, but it’s hidden: FCC filing

And finally the hottest news today have to do with Apple, and the things they don’t tell you until they’re discovered in teardowns. And yes, it happened, the iPhone 12 Pro just went through Zack’s JerryRigEverything’s Durability test, revealing some stuff that we were waiting to confirm. If you follow me on Twitter, and you definitely should, you probably saw that I scratched my 12 Pro within the first 5 minutes after unboxing it because I stacked the phones together and it obviously made me question the Ceramic Shield. Well, on Zack’s teardown he confirmed that even with the new technology it still scratches at a level 6 with deeper grooves at level 7, however he did say that the level 6 scratches aren’t as noticeable when compared to other glass panels. And he also said that thanks to the build and the ceramic shield this phone should be more drop resistant, which other channels have confirmed. His video will be linked in the description but, let’s move on to other things we didn’t know about the iPhone 12. According to a new FCC filing, the iPhone 12 has a “dormant” reverse wireless charging feature through MagSafe at 360kHz, “perhaps for an external Apple accessory in the future”. A couple of days ago we covered how we should be getting new AirPods soon so, maybe Apple is waiting until they release those for them to enable the feature and advertise it, and since the iPhone has magnets, it might actually make sense
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Apple could be working on its own search engine to replace Google

It seems that Apple has already started to think of alternatives to replace Google as the primary search engine in its devices. Google currently pays Apple around $12 billion a year to be the main search provider in iPhones, iPads, and more, but this deal will expire soon, and the latest antitrust case against Google by the US Department of Justice may block Apple and Google from closing an extension.

According to a report from the Financial Times, Apple is working hard to create its own search engine as it may soon lose Google, and the estimated $8-12 billion the company pays Cupertino to be the default search engine in its devices. We could say that this translates to around 20 percent of Apple’s Services income each year. However, the US Department of Justice believes that this may be anticompetitive, and it may block an extension of the deal between Apple and Google.

If this deal is blocked, Apple may be forced to create its own search engine, and that’s when we focus on Applebot, which is “the web crawler for Apple, used by products including Siri and Spotlight Suggestions. It respects customary robots.txt rules and robots meta tags. It originates in the 17.0.0.0 net block.” This information comes from 2015, when Apple was rumored to start working on its own search engine to go against Google, Bing and Yahoo.

Of course, Apple has come a long way since then, and the possibility of a new search engine may not seem so hard to believe. Further, Apple has recently started to link directly to websites, bypassing Google Entirely in iOS 14’s home screen searches.

“Apple is stepping up efforts to develop its own search technology as US antitrust authorities threaten multibillion-dollar payments that Google makes to secure prime placement of its engine on the iPhone.
“In a little-noticed change to the latest version of the iPhone operating system, iOS 14, Apple has begun to show its own search results and link directly to websites when users type queries from its home screen.
“That web search capability marks an important advance in Apple’s in-house development and could form the foundation of a fuller attack on Google, according to several people in the industry.”

Let’s also remember that Apple hired Google’s Sear and Artificial Intelligence chief John Giannandrea almost three years ago, and he is now Senior VP of Machine Learning and AI Strategy at Apple.

“Apple poached Google’s head of search, John Giannandrea. The hire was ostensibly to boost its artificial intelligence capabilities and its Siri virtual assistant, but also brought eight years of experience running the world’s most popular search engine.”

“They [Apple] have a credible team that I think has the experience and the depth, if they wanted to, to build a more general search engine,” said Bill Coughran, Google’s former engineering chief, who is now a partner at Silicon Valley investor Sequoia Capital […]
“Apple’s position is very unique because it has the iPhone and iOS. It controls the default browser,” said Sridhar Ramaswamy, Neeva’s co-founder and Google’s former head of advertising. Expanding in search “feels natural” for Apple, he said, as it has the ability to gather data and learn from user behaviour at large scale.”

It is also said that Applebot’s crawl rate has increased substantially, which is the number of times it visits websites in order to update its database, meaning that Apple may indeed be preparing for a search engine change. We also have to consider that Apple may be one of the few companies with the resources to create a search engine that can go against Google.

The main difference is that Apple may have to find a way to create a successful search engine without building a profile around a user’s browsing habits and the data stored in their devices, especially after Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO once expressed himself saying that:

“A few years ago, users of Internet services began to realize that when an online service is free, you’re not the customer. You’re the product. But at Apple, we believe a great customer experience shouldn’t come at the expense of your privacy.
“Our business model is very straightforward: We sell great products. We don’t build a profile based on your email content or web browsing habits to sell to advertisers. We don’t “monetize” the information you store on your iPhone or in iCloud. And we don’t read your email or your messages to get information to market to you.”

Source Financial Times

Via GSM Arena

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Google denies it is keeping Chinese censored search engine alive

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Still, employees are concerned about the number of changes being made to the code repository for major parts of Project Dragonfly.

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It's only fair to share...Share on RedditShare on FacebookShare on Google+Tweet about this on TwitterPin on PinterestShare on Tumblr

Google denies it is keeping Chinese censored search engine alive

It's only fair to share...Share on RedditShare on FacebookShare on Google+Tweet about this on TwitterPin on PinterestShare on Tumblr

Still, employees are concerned about the number of changes being made to the code repository for major parts of Project Dragonfly.

The post Google denies it is keeping Chinese censored search engine alive appeared first on Pocketnow.

It's only fair to share...Share on RedditShare on FacebookShare on Google+Tweet about this on TwitterPin on PinterestShare on Tumblr

Nokia 8, Galaxy Note 8, accessibility rate | #PNWeekly 266 (LIVE at 3pm Eastern)

The Nokia 8 has just been launched, the Galaxy Note 8 needs launching and we'll launch into accessibility issues in our show this week!

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Google estimated to be paying Samsung even more than Apple for search engine pre-loading

As the world's number one smartphone vendor, Samsung is likely charging Google around $3.5 billion a year for search engine preinstallation.

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Microsoft joins AMP project with Bing results showing them off

Facebook has them. So does Google.  And now Bing can join in on the fast lane.Microsoft announced that Bing would start officially linking to Accelerated Mobile Pages within its applicable search results. Content partners in the open source project will have their AMP articles — optimized HTML pages for easy, no-nonsense reading — load from close-by servers. Non-AMP pages will be called upon when ...

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Microsoft Word Flow 2.0 has Bing-powered GIF search, contact and business lookup

It’s been four months since Microsoft struck on a keyboard for iOS that made typing with a single thumb’s arc a whole bunch easier. Now, if only there were a way to add a GIF to it.Well, Word Flow 2.0 is now out and it comes with a bunch of new, internet-powered features like a search function for emoji, images, GIFs, businesses, news, facts, videos, contacts, blah blah blah… all of it powered by Microsoft’s own

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Gesture typing among features for possible Google Keyboard on iOS

The iOS audience is a lucrative bunch. It’s why Google, with its web search business, has been aggressively going after it by offering its suite of apps for free to iPhone. So, as Apple opens up more of its App Store to

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Siri now gives relevant results when looking up abortion clinics

Voice assistants tend to be pretty helpful in getting you what you want to know. Google Now seems to be one of the more matured services that can get more than the basics down to an art. Cortana, being one of the newer players, is getting there quick —

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Google has so far removed 440K+ search results on ‘right to be forgotten’ grounds

In addition to being a delicate, polarizing issue that the world’s largest provider of online search services is still fighting in courts around the old continent, the right to be forgotten concept put into practice by the European Union last year apparently requires a lot of time and resources spent by Google.And we mean a lot, with a grand total of 348,508 claims filed since May 2014, concerning more than 1.2 million URLs, of which the now Alphabet-owned search giant only removed 42 percent. That’s a ...

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Ask Google complex questions — it’ll give its best try

We’re somewhat used to asking Google Now to set an alarm for 11:30pm. After all, we can find and play back that very request we made, along with the hundreds of times that we’ve made it. When we asked about Sandra Bullock’s birthday, Google’s Knowledge Graph would pop up a card with her date of birth, her age and a picture of her because you forgot what she looked like.Now, we can finally ask who ...

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