'Game of Thrones' White Walkers demo productivity and multitasking on the Pixelbook

In the most unlikely team-up the Night King and his fellow White Walkers demo the capabilities of the Google Pixelbook (and all recent Chromebooks, for that matter). Focusing on productivity, multitaksing, multimedia and getting things done. The caper is conquering Westeros' and serves as a useful recap of where we left off in Game of Thrones which feels like it has been off the air for years.

Once an also see this ad as a hint that Chromebooks, like the White Walkers, are a force of nature and will eventually take over the personal computing and their time has come.

Nine of 10 smart speakers in the US are either from Amazon or Google

Strategy Analyitics conducted a new survey on smart speakers in the US in July and August and it revealed that 9 out of 10 smart speakers are either Amazon Alexa or Google Home devices. The results of that survey show that in the 50 million installed speaker market, the Echo and Google’s Home speaker occupy the top eight slots on a list of the ten most popular speaker models. The outlier is Apple’s HomePod, in the number nine spot, with a 4 percent market share.

Canada, a much smaller market, has seen the availability of Amazon, Google and even Apple's HomePod these past two years although there's no telling how well these devices are selling here. Google Home has been developed partly in Canada and has had the French Canadian language built-in since its inception. Amazon just unloaded new devices in the US and Canada.

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Google's Pixelbook getting Android Pie via Chrome OS Canary update

The still unreleased Pixel Slate may be the hot new 2-in-1 from Google but last year's formidable Pixelbook Chromebook is getting a lot of fresh functionality thanks to the Chrome OS Canary update that brings Android Pie functionality and features.

Chromebooks can now run Android apps and while this has had mixed reactions, Google is skipping Oreo and going straight for Android Pie, which should make Android integration smoother on the Pixelbook's still impressive hardware. Google Assistant will be getting an updated interface. The Chrome camera interface will be replaced by an updated Google camera and other improvements should be visible.

Source: Android Police

OnePlus moves OnePlus 6T reveal a date earlier to avoid sharing the media frenzy of Apple's event

We've known for some time that OnePlus would reveal its latest flagship, the OnePlus 6T in New York City on October 30. But since Apple announced an October 30 media event, also in New York City, OnePlus has smartly moved the launch date earlier by one day.

Knowing that Apple owns the news cycle on its #AppleEvent days, OnePlus smartly avoided a head on collision which might force journalists to forego OnePlus' launch in favour of the higher profile Apple launch. OnePlus, after all, is launching one product, the OnePlus 6T. Apple is expected to launch its consumer iPhone Xr and is expected to drop some iPad Pro, MacBook and Mac announcements at what will be likely its last event for the year before the holidays. See OnePlus' earnest explanation below.

"When we announced the launch of the OnePlus 6T on October 8, we were convinced our timing would allow us to maximize the amount of people we could reach with our message. That changed when Apple announced they would be hosting their own event on October 30. We know the entire industry and all media will be holding their breath. So, imagine how we felt when we learned the date of their latest event. One minute, we were preparing for our greatest and most exciting launch event yet. The next, we were posed with a difficult question: “What do we do now?”

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