Google

Update #2: The Verge has received the following statement from Google, who says it will reimburse those who paid the premium:

“This was an error, which is now fixed,” a spokesperson writes, adding “Sorry for any confusion. We’ll be reaching out shortly to reimburse those impacted.”

Update: Some report different experiences with Google’s pop-up shop, saying the company changed policy throughout the day. It sounds very much like a “your mileage may vary” situation.

https://twitter.com/jeremyburge/status/921170530236899329

Google today opened brick-and-mortar pop-up shops to promote and sell its new hardware products in Los Angeles and New York City. While Google has held pop-up stores in the past, these stores marked the first time that it was putting its Made by Google products up for sale at them.

The Verge, however, explains that the Pixel 2 and Pixel 2 XL are actually being sold at a premium at these locations…

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With the release of the Pixel 2, Google launched the “Made for Google” accessory program. This meant that companies a part of the program would have its products certified by Google as being at or above the quality level needed to work correctly with the Pixel 2 and 2 XL.

One of these companies, Bellroy, has released a case that features real leather and comes in four different color choices. But is it worth $45 or more? Let’s check it out…

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One of the biggest trends of the last year has been the addition of a secondary camera on the back side of smartphones. While this second lens can be used for a lot of things, like zooming in on landscapes and taking ultra-wide photos, the most popular camera feature has been Portrait Mode, especially on the iPhone 7 Plus and 8 Plus.

Google has now released its brand new Pixel 2 smartphones and with it, the company’s own take on portrait mode. Let’s take a look and see if the Pixel’s single lens can compare to the iPhone’s dual-camera setup.

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Group communication is one of the most vital aspects of college nowadays, and Google is seemingly starting to take advantage of that. While Facebook Messenger has been a strong contender for most users, Google appears to be stepping into the ring by heavily advertising Allo as a worthy alternative…

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It has been a little quiet around Alphabet’s Project Wing, but that doesn’t mean there hasn’t been any progress. Over the last few years, Project Wing has made thousands of test flights and now they are ready to start testing burrito deliveries… again.

The test market is Queanbeyan, South Eastern Australia, where two merchants have signed up for Project Wing. Guzman y Gomez, a Mexican food chain, and Chemist Warehouse, a chain of pharmacies. These companies will receive orders from test consumers, who’ve purchased items using the Project Wing app on their smartphones. Project Wing’s drones will then fly out and make the deliveries.

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Google is able to take such fantastic photos on the Pixel 2 because of a fine-tuned mix of physical hardware (camera lens and sensor), software (enabling HDR+), and machine learning. Even in its current form, the new phones take some of the best photos on a phone.

But the HDR+ process on the Pixel 2 and 2 XL uses a lot of processing power when capturing stunning photos with almost no latency, so Google made Pixel Visual Core, its first consumer-facing system-on-a-chip, which will help it process photos faster and more efficiently.

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Last year’s Pixel and Pixel XL replaced the Nexus lineup as the de facto flagships for stock Android purists, and they ended up being some of the best phones on the market. Naturally, we were excited to get our hands on their sequels, and I’ve spent the weekend with the Pixel 2.

Our full review is coming soon, but in the meantime we wanted to give some of our early impressions on the Pixel 2 and Pixel 2 XL — and I was tasked with sharing my thoughts on the smaller one.

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Yesterday, Google confirmed that one of the Home Mini’s features — the ability to trigger Assistant by tapping on the top of the speaker — was defective on a select number of units. As the bug was causing the smart speaker to essentially listen and record its surroundings 24/7, Google quickly pushed out an update to disable this feature.

Google has now reached out to let us know that it has permanently removed the Assistant-specific touch functionality and will not bring it back…

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While the Russian government was found to have bought around 3,000 ads on Facebook in an attempt to influence the 2016 U.S. election, Google has previously said that it had found no similar practices on its own ad platforms.

However, it now appears that further investigation has found evidence of Russian-bought election ads on YouTube, Google Search, Gmail and the company’s DoubleClick ad network …

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Just like last year, Google is going to be hosting two pop-up stores, one in New York City and another in Los Angeles, to show off and sell some of its new Made by Google products. The search giant hasn’t provided many details about the stores themselves, but we do know that doors will open starting on October 19…

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