Technology - Google News

With the Switch, technology has finally caught up to Nintendo
Android Circuit: Galaxy S9 Vs iPhone X, Samsung Confirms S9 Release Date, Nokia's Love Affair
Amazon will soon stop selling all Nest products

With the Switch, technology has finally caught up to Nintendo

Posted: 03 Mar 2018 07:30 AM PST

For more than a decade, Nintendo's overall hardware strategy has been easy to understand. The company doesn't compete on power; instead, it creates accessible and attainable consoles that are really good at playing Nintendo games but not much else. Sometimes this works out well, like when the Wii rode the motion-control craze to more than 100 million units in sales. Sometimes it doesn't work out at all, like when its follow-up, the Wii U, became Nintendo's worst-selling console ever.

But even when this strategy does work, Nintendo's consoles have never been able to keep everyone happy. They tend to have trouble attracting third-party developers, and they're rarely technically impressive. One year into the Switch's life cycle, however, it's clear that Nintendo has been able to overcome this perennial deficiency. It's not that Nintendo's strategy has changed — the Switch is still far less powerful than the PlayStation 4 or Xbox One — rather, the world around Nintendo has changed, and the company has been able to leverage this to devastating effect.

In short, technology has finally caught up with Nintendo.

The Switch is roughly as powerful as the Wii U — a little speedier, sure, but they're not in different galaxies. Both systems are also built around 6.2-inch touchscreens. Again, the Switch's is better, but the concept is similar. So why is the Switch doing well while the Wii U flopped? There are lots of reasons, but on a basic level, the fact that the Switch is truly portable is the key to its appeal. You could play most Wii U games on the tablet-style controller as long as you stayed close to the console, which handled the game processing and beamed the images wirelessly to the GamePad. But the Switch is a reversal of the concept: all the processing happens on the tablet, and if you want to play on the TV, you plug it into a simple dock.

Barring the occasional neat Wii U game that could simultaneously display different images on each screen, the Switch is obviously the better and more versatile implementation of the idea. But the Switch simply wouldn't have been possible at the time of the Wii U, which was announced in 2011 when the PS Vita represented the peak of portable gaming power.

I'm writing this sentence on a long flight home to Tokyo from Barcelona, and a few minutes ago, I was playing Bayonetta 2 on the Switch. It's a straight port of one of the Wii U's most technically impressive games, and a few years after it debuted, we're now able to play it at 35,000 feet. That is very cool, but it's also not all that surprising given how mobile technology has accelerated in the past half-decade.

The Nintendo Switch isn't powered by magic. It uses an off-the-shelf Tegra X1 chip, announced in 2015 and otherwise best known for powering the Google Pixel C tablet and Nvidia's own Shield Android TV box. The Tegra X1 was not a huge success — in fact, it's the last processor for consumer-grade mobile devices that Nvidia ever put out — but that made it the perfect pick for Nintendo, which wanted a simple, inexpensive solution that would be capable of matching or outperforming the Wii U.

That's the genius of the Switch's design. Nintendo identified a tipping point that would result in a win-win-win scenario: accessible pricing, viable portability, and sufficient power for games like The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. Before the Switch's launch, we didn't know that the software lineup would be as strong as it's turned out so far, but it's that combination of price, portability, and performance that's made it such an attractive platform for so many publishers.

The Switch also serves as a showcase for another technology that wasn't around at the time of the Wii U. USB-C often gets a bad rap for its confusing standards and unreliable cables, but it's hard to argue that the Switch isn't the perfect demonstration of the concept. You get power and display output from a single connection, and that port's universal (if still somewhat nascent) nature makes the Switch hugely more appealing as a travel product. I'd be a lot less inclined to take it along with me if I couldn't juice it up from my laptop charger or a portable battery pack.

The stars really did align for the Switch. It's the kind of system only Nintendo could make, and it will likely set the company up for a long time. Sony or Microsoft would find it hard to bring out similar products in line with their graphics-first strategies. (While the Switch is underpowered by home console standards, it's near the peak of what's currently possible in a portable form factor.)

While Nintendo's consoles tend to be less powerful than competitors, the company does have a habit of exploiting inexpensive technology — touchscreens, motion sensors, and so on — and making them core to the system's appeal. With the Switch, Nintendo has done the exact same thing, but with the console's fundamental processing hardware. Combined with a smart hybrid design, the result is Nintendo's first system in decades that can claim legitimate technical superiority.

How else could I play Bayonetta 2 on a plane?

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Android Circuit: Galaxy S9 Vs iPhone X, Samsung Confirms S9 Release Date, Nokia's Love Affair

Posted: 02 Mar 2018 03:30 PM PST

and you can find the weekly Apple news digest here).

Galaxy S9 Launched

The big news out of this week's Mobile World Congress was the highly anticipated launch of Samsung's Galaxy S9 and Galaxy S9 Plus. The handsets look broadly similar to last year's Galaxy S8 family but pack in a lot of new technology under the hood. Over to Samsung:

The Galaxy S9 and S9+ deliver an enhanced entertainment experience with powerful stereo speakers tuned by AKG, immersive audio with Dolby Atmos and a refined edge-to-edge Infinity Display – a key staple in Samsung's design heritage. In addition, the Galaxy S9 and S9+ will come with the new SmartThings app, which unites Samsung's existing IoT services into one single, smart experience.
"The way we use our smartphones has changed as communication and self-expression has evolved," said DJ Koh, president and Head of IT & Mobile Communications Division, Samsung Electronics. "With the Galaxy S9 and S9+, we have reimagined the smartphone camera. Not only do the Galaxy S9 and S9+ enable consumers to shoot great photos and videos anywhere, it's a smartphone that's designed to help them connect to others and express themselves in a way that's unique and personal to them."

 Dan Seifert gets a hands-on with the two handsets for The Verge:

Though Samsung didn't make a lot of changes to its formula for the S9, the ones it did make should be appreciated, and it will likely be a popular phone this year. It's interesting how there are more things different between the smaller S9 and larger S9 Plus this year, which might make it harder for those looking for a compact phone with all of the bells and whistles.

A hostess holds two new Samsung Galaxy S9 mobile phones during the Samsung Galaxy S9 Unpacked event on February 25, 2018 in Barcelona (Photo Lluis Gene/AFP/Getty Images)

The Good News On S9 Pricing Hides A Nasty Surprise

Samsung may have pitched the price of the Galaxy S9 and S9 Plus below expectations ($720 and $840 unlocked, direct from Samsung, notes Gordon Kelly), but unfortunately the US carriers didn't get the message, as Zach Epstein reports:

There has never been a modern flagship smartphone with pricing that varies by as much as $90 depending on which company you buy it from. It's a disaster, but we'll help make things simpler. There are only three places you should consider when buying the Galaxy S9: Samsung, Best Buy, or T-Mobile.
If you're getting a Galaxy S9 or a Galaxy S9+ and you plan to use it with Verizon, AT&T, or Sprint, preorder the phone from Best Buy this coming Friday, March 2nd. Why? Because Best Buy has a one-day promotion that shaves $100 off the price of either phone, and the offer is good whether you pay in full up front or spread your payments out with a financing plan. You can find more details here. Remember, this offer is good for one day only.

More at BGR.

Samsung vs Apple Round Elventy-Four: Galaxy S9 v iPhone X

We now have the two flagship handsets that will define the smartphone skirmishes during 2018 - the Galaxy S9 is going to be held up against the iPhone X. Putting aside the fanatical portions who love each platform, which is the better handset for those who are undecided? Jay McGregor runs through the comparison, starting with an old favorite:

Who knew something as simple as the headphone jack would become such a contentious battle ground for smartphone makers? With the other major Android phone - Google's Pixel 2 - following Apple's lead by removing the headphone jack, Samsung has smartly kept the 3.5mm connection.
Of the three big smartphone makers - Apple, Google and Samsung, only the latter has kept this technology, which is good marketing for the Korean company. Also, as someone who has tested various devices and lived with no headphone jack for the last year - this is a good consumer move.
Forget arguments about audio quality and design principles, having the headphone jack is better than not having it in purely practical terms - especially if you don't want to venture into the murky world of wireless headphones yet.

More here on Forbes.

Taking a look back at seven days of news and headlines across the world of Android, this week's Android Circuit includes the launch of the Galaxy S9, pricing details on Samsung's flagship, how it matches up to the iPhone X, the new fleet of Nokia handsets running AndroidOne, Huawei's Pro tablet focus, Sony's new Xperia design, and the first signs of Galaxy Note 9 madness.

Android Circuit is here to remind you of a few of the many things that have happened around Android in the last week (and you can find the weekly Apple news digest here).

Galaxy S9 Launched

The Galaxy S9 and S9+ deliver an enhanced entertainment experience with powerful stereo speakers tuned by AKG, immersive audio with Dolby Atmos and a refined edge-to-edge Infinity Display – a key staple in Samsung's design heritage. In addition, the Galaxy S9 and S9+ will come with the new SmartThings app, which unites Samsung's existing IoT services into one single, smart experience.
"The way we use our smartphones has changed as communication and self-expression has evolved," said DJ Koh, president and Head of IT & Mobile Communications Division, Samsung Electronics. "With the Galaxy S9 and S9+, we have reimagined the smartphone camera. Not only do the Galaxy S9 and S9+ enable consumers to shoot great photos and videos anywhere, it's a smartphone that's designed to help them connect to others and express themselves in a way that's unique and personal to them."

Dan Seifert gets a hands-on with the two handsets for The Verge:

Though Samsung didn't make a lot of changes to its formula for the S9, the ones it did make should be appreciated, and it will likely be a popular phone this year. It's interesting how there are more things different between the smaller S9 and larger S9 Plus this year, which might make it harder for those looking for a compact phone with all of the bells and whistles.

A hostess holds two new Samsung Galaxy S9 mobile phones during the Samsung Galaxy S9 Unpacked event on February 25, 2018 in Barcelona (Photo Lluis Gene/AFP/Getty Images)

The Good News On S9 Pricing Hides A Nasty Surprise

There has never been a modern flagship smartphone with pricing that varies by as much as $90 depending on which company you buy it from. It's a disaster, but we'll help make things simpler. There are only three places you should consider when buying the Galaxy S9: Samsung, Best Buy, or T-Mobile.
If you're getting a Galaxy S9 or a Galaxy S9+ and you plan to use it with Verizon, AT&T, or Sprint, preorder the phone from Best Buy this coming Friday, March 2nd. Why? Because Best Buy has a one-day promotion that shaves $100 off the price of either phone, and the offer is good whether you pay in full up front or spread your payments out with a financing plan. You can find more details here. Remember, this offer is good for one day only.

More at BGR.

Samsung vs Apple Round Elventy-Four: Galaxy S9 v iPhone X

We now have the two flagship handsets that will define the smartphone skirmishes during 2018 - the Galaxy S9 is going to be held up against the iPhone X. Putting aside the fanatical portions who love each platform, which is the better handset for those who are undecided? Jay McGregor runs through the comparison, starting with an old favorite:

Who knew something as simple as the headphone jack would become such a contentious battle ground for smartphone makers? With the other major Android phone - Google's Pixel 2 - following Apple's lead by removing the headphone jack, Samsung has smartly kept the 3.5mm connection.
Of the three big smartphone makers - Apple, Google and Samsung, only the latter has kept this technology, which is good marketing for the Korean company. Also, as someone who has tested various devices and lived with no headphone jack for the last year - this is a good consumer move.
Forget arguments about audio quality and design principles, having the headphone jack is better than not having it in purely practical terms - especially if you don't want to venture into the murky world of wireless headphones yet.

More here on Forbes.

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Amazon will soon stop selling all Nest products

Posted: 03 Mar 2018 07:35 AM PST

Nest products won't be sold by Amazon.com any longer once current stock runs out, according to a report from Business Insider. Amazon last year declined to offer some of Nest's newer products like the Nest Cam IQ and latest-generation smart thermostat. After weeks of simply ignoring the products and being unresponsive to Nest, Amazon informed the company of its decision by phone late in the year and said the directive "came from the top," something Nest took to mean it had been handed down by CEO Jeff Bezos. There has been no direct confirmation of this, however.

As a result, Nest has decided to halt further restocks at Amazon once remaining product inventory is exhausted. It's unclear whether third-party sellers will continue selling Nest gadgets, but Amazon itself will not. In removing itself from Amazon, Nest's reasoning is that the powerful retailer should be selling its entire product family or nothing at all. Right now, several Nest products are available with Prime shipping, but they're "fulfilled by Amazon" and actually being sold by other vendors.

The impending disappearance of Nest from Amazon marks just the latest development in the acrimonious, anti-consumer feud between Amazon and Google. Nest was absorbed back into Google last month after spending three years as a standalone Alphabet subsidiary. (Google tipped off Nest that Amazon had decided against selling its latest hardware while the companies were still separate.) Amazon has steadfastly refused to sell some Google-branded products like the Google Home voice assistant speaker and the company's Pixel smartphones. In December, the online retailer said it would restart sales of the Chromecast streaming device, but it's been three months and you still can't buy it. Last summer, Amazon launched a Prime Video app for Android, but has yet to add support for streaming its content with a Chromecast.

For its part in this ugly falling out, Google has removed YouTube from Amazon's Fire TV streaming products and the Echo Show / Spot, claiming that Amazon has violated its terms of service with those implementations of the YouTube app. There were once signs that the companies were mending the scorched bridge between them, but that doesn't seem to be the case any longer.

Last week, Amazon announced its acquisition of Ring, a maker of smart home doorbell and in-home cameras. The company reportedly paid over $1 billion for Ring in an attempt to fast track its mission of making Alexa the dominant digital assistant in the homes of consumers. Amazon continues to sell similar products from August and other companies, but soon won't have to worry about promoting one of its main rivals on its own store.

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