Apple reportedly plans to introduce new Macs on October 27

According to Recode, there is another Apple event almost upon us. This time, it’ll focus on new Macs to support the recent release of MacOS Sierra. It also comes just in time for the holidays. It’s been a while since Apple has introduced new big changes to the Mac line so let’s see what the new computer models will bring to the table. The event is said to be happening at or near the Apple Cupertino campus instead of in San Francisco where Apple hosted the iPhone 7 event. Apple won’t confirm that the event is happening so we’re keeping a lookout for this.

Dyson searches for ‘ReThinkers’ a.k.a. world’s brightest minds

Dyson doesn’t just want smart people, they want the brightest minds. Those who are able to take on a series of challenges that test “ingenuity, wrong thinking, and perseverance.” This competition has an attractive prize waiting for those up to take the challenge: a chance to visit Dyson’s top secret technology campus in the UK and meet Dyson CEO Max Conze—all expenses paid for.

The British company opened the £250m campus in Malmesbury, Wiltshire last month. The site is currently home to 2,500 Dyson people with 129 laboratories, space for hands-on prototyping, designing, and breakout spaces for collaboration. The campus also has a multi-purpose sports facility and café to give the place the university feel. If that’s something you want to see in person, you can find out more here. There’s the first clue embedded in the opening video so keep your eye out for that.

Review: Google Pixel XL

 

By Gadjo Cardenas Sevilla 

Exploding Note7’s have left a crater-sized void in the market and users looking for options can definitely consider a Pixel XL. It’s large, has the killer camera and specs combo, and it’s a Pure Google device. That’s great for consumers with $899 burning a hole in their pocket, but what about the rest of us?

Ambitious, bold, and aiming for the big guns in the smartphone flagship market, Google’s Pixel XL and its smaller brother, the Google Pixel, aim to give consumers the Google phone that they have always wanted but which the earlier Nexus devices may have failed to deliver. 

Pixel represents a brand new chapter for Google as an end-to-end creator of consumer products. The Pixel extends the Made by Google ethos, which is to deliver high-quality devices that serve as the best containers for Google’s technology. This idea has been percolating with the expensive and premium Chromebook Pixel, the similarly costly and ambitious Pixel C 2-in-1, and now is encapsulated in the Pixel family of phones as well as in Google’s Home and Wi-Fi focused devices.

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Video: See the Google Pixel's electronic image stabilization

By Gadjo Cardenas Sevilla

The new Google Pixel and Pixel XL boast the best cameras on any smartphone and while they have a notable 12.3 megapixel camera, these phones omitted optical image stabilization in favour of a computational solution that uses the built-in gyroscope to at 200 times a second to determine exactly how the camera is moving, even accounting for the rolling shutter and even avoiding the jello effect and rolling shutter seen in other forms of stabilization.

I was very impressed at what the Pixel XL could do in terms of grabbing stable video. You can see I shot video from a moving car, which is usually a nightmare scenario for any type of camera and often means it isn't even worth shooting video. I also shot video while walking and moving around in various conditions and as you can see the video isn't just usable, it is clear and generally vibration free. During the October 4 launch of the Pixel and Pixel XL, Google's VP Product Management Brian Rakowski mentioned the company's imaging and photography engineers spent a whole year working on the camera stack and the result is impressive.