Happy Friday. I collected some links for you. They are good links, worth a click or a tap. Some of them — especially the electric bike guide by Andrew Hawkins — are worth saving in your Pocket or Instapaper queue for reference later. Or maybe send that one to somebody as a very subtle hint about what you’d like to get on your next gift-receiving holiday.
That’s what I’ll be doing with the story about the Canon Ivy Rec, which purports to be a smartphone camera minus the smartphone.
The weekend is coming and boy do we need it. Rest up, because Google is announcing a bunch of stuff in New York on Tuesday next week. That also means there’s a nonzero chance the newsletter will be a little intermittent due to travel. If that happens, we'll get through it together.
- Dieter
Product launches, changes, and endings
+ Adobe is redesigning Creative Clouds desktop app as a hub for tools and assets
I’ll wait until this gets flipped on for me, but I’m saying right now that I am extremely dubious that I won’t hate this.
+ Dyson abandons electric car project
I am shocked. Knock me over with a feather wafting over from the air currents created by a very fancy fan.
+ The OnePlus 7T Pro is a spec bump upgrade that wont come to the US
It sort of baffles me that a company makes more money on creating these variants than it would save by not having to manufacture a bunch of slightly different models.
+ Canons small, clippable Ivy Rec camera will be available on October 16th
A tiny camera that is nearly as good as what you can get on a flagship smartphone is something I would seriously consider buying. It would let me go out on a hike or whatever with just an Apple Watch, but still be able to take the photo that documents that I have, in fact, looked at a tree for once.
As for whether the Ivy Rec can take photos that compare with the cameras on the latest phones, like the iPhone 11 Pro or the upcoming Pixel 4, we’ll need to test it to find out. It has a 13-megapixel 1/3-inch CMOS sensor in a fixed-focus lens, and shoots photos in 4:3 or 1:1 aspect ratio.
+ Apples promised Siri recording opt-in feature arrives in iOS 13.2 beta
Again, credit where due: Apple was way behind both Google and Amazon when it came to transparency and user choice on this issue. Now it is ahead.
Tech + Governments = Complications
+ GitHub CEO discussed evolving position on China in private all-hands meeting
Scoop from Colin Lecher
In a standing-room-only meeting yesterday, executives answered questions from employees on the controversial contract. CEO Nat Friedman fielded questions from employees and attempted to explain why the company would renew a $200,000 contract with the immigration agency. The Verge has obtained a transcript of the conversation.
+ Apple CEO Tim Cook defends removal of Hong Kong mapping app in email to employees
When Google and Microsoft get caught doing bad things or engaging with bad governments, their employees mobilize and protest in a very public way. And it has worked.
+ Google pulls Hong Kong protest game for violating rules against capitalizing on sensitive events
I sure hope that Google is telling the whole truth about its reasoning here, because it’s not a great look.
+ The T-Mobile / Sprint merger should be stopped, say antitrust experts
Nilay Patel on a new filing, which includes a lot of very smart arguments to say a very obvious thing: the idea that Dish will become a viable fourth wireless competitor in the near or mid term is laughable.
If that sounds like a complicated scheme that doesn’t quite make sense, you’re not alone. In a new filing, a group of seven economists and antitrust experts say the court should reject the DOJs proposed solution, calling it doom[ed] ... to failure and a remedy that does not meet the standard of restoring the competition currently provided by Sprint.
Reviews
+ Vive Cosmos review: not out of this world
I don’t care if you don’t care about VR, because when Adi Robertson writes about it, it’s always worth a read.
I’ll avoid burying the lede: my own Vive Cosmos experience wasn’t much fun. While the headset is clearly capable of excellent performance, I was fighting its hardware and software every step of the way from the clunky interface to some frustrating tracking issues.
+ Amazon Fire TV Cube (2019) review: improvements on all sides
Similarly, when Chris Welch reviews a TV or a product you plug into one, you should read it.
+ The Nokia 7.2 is competent and almost as good as the Pixel 3A
Nokia is getting really good at this class of phone.
Just good stories about tech
+ How to buy an electric bike
Andrew Hawkins has written the essential guide. It explains so many things that might have baffled you about electric bikes and gives good, practical advice if you want one.
+ Brydge sues Kickstarter for selling iPad keyboard it claims is a clone
Great look into the lengths independent hardware manufacturers have to go in order to stay afloat. I make no argument about the validity of its patent claims but just looking at the clone, you can see it’s a knockoff. Jake Kastrenakes goes very deep on this story.
