News written by Matti Robinson (September, 2020)

Google's much anticipated Pixel event has just ended, and the company had to offer two new Pixel phones. The new 2020 Pixel models are Pixel 5 and Pixel 4a 5G. These join the already announced Pixel 4a.

These two new models actually have more in common than you'd think, and Pixel 4a 5G (pictured at the top) shares much more of its DNA with the new Pixel 5 than the namesake from earlier this year, Pixel 4a.

In fact, there aren't that many things at all that differentiate Pixel 4a 5G and Pixel 5. Both have the exact same camera setup with a 12.2 MP default shooter and a 16 MP super wide camera, as well as the 8MP f/2.0 selfie shooter. Both also feature the higher mid tier Snapdragon 765G chipset.

There is a little more RAM, 8GB vs 6GB, in the Pixel 5, and while the display is slightly smaller, 6.0 vs 6.2, the Pixel 5 does have 90 Hz refresh rate. Battery life should also be better on the Pixel 5 with slightly more capacity, 4080 mAh vs 3885 mAh, and you can charge it wirelessly.

Samsung surprised us yesterday with a new smartphone announcement. Usually after the Note announcements Samsung readies itself to reveal midrange A series phones but this time it was in fact a new Galaxy S.

The new phone is called Galaxy S20 FE and is thus a continuation of the company's flagship brand. Specs-wise it is a lower high-end or perhaps a top notch mid tier device, one that would challenge the likes of OnePlus 8, for example.

To fit neatly into S20 family it needs some specs from the higher end, and that is where the large 120 Hz display, triple camera with Space Zoom, and 5G connectivity comes in.

The display is 6.5 inches which fits nicely between the regular S20 and the S20+, but the resolution has been lowered to Full HD (1080 x 2400).

Some were expecting Tesla to announce yesterday the million mile battery, but perhaps unsurprisingly that didn't happen. However, there was an announcement that Elon Musk says will bring EV prices down.

Tesla has developed a new type of battery technology that will be much more cost effective. One of the main aims of the project has been to remove cobalt from the equation for its costly nature, both in terms of money and manpower.

Musk hopes that Tesla will be able to produce much of its future next-gen batteries themselves but partnership with Panasonic and their battery production is likely to keep going for a while.

Tesla's upcoming so-called "tabless cells" are going to be up to six times more powerful in addition to increasing the range by 16 percent. The official product name of the cells without tabs connecting battery cells to each others are 4680 cells.

There's potential for a massive price drop in prices of electric cars, and could be on par with combustion engines. Musk promised a $25,000 EV once the technology matures.

Musk also announced the new Model S Plaid which has the much-teaser Plaid drivetrain and impressive specs. Zero to 60 in under 2 seconds, over a 500-mile range, top speed of 200 mph and a price of $139,000. It should be available late next year.

Microsoft released the Xbox Series X as well as the smaller and more inexpensive Xbox Series S for pre-ordering yesterday. The company also expanded the accessories for the consoles ahead of the pre-orders.

In a blog post they've unveiled the new color version of the new Xbox controller. There aren't any surprises here, except for the color, the controller works just like the initial black and white versions.

In addition Microsoft announced a USB-C cable and a wireless adapter for people to connect their Xbox controllers to their PCs. If yours had Bluetooth neither of these are, however, necessary.

Apple announced a bunch of devices in both iPads, the 8th gen iPad and new iPad Air, as well as Apple Watches, Apple Watch Series 6 and entirely new Apple Watch SE, but they also had some nice service and software announcements.

And we're not talking about the annual iOS, iPadOS, watchOS, etc updates, although there were those too. We're talking about the completely new service collection Apple One.

Apple One is a umbrella under which Apple has collected all of its most important services. This includes iCloud, Apple Arcade, Apple Music, and Apple TV+.

There are three tiers to the service with the cheapest being $14.95/mo Individual plan. With $19.95/mo you get the service for the entire family, and if you require Apple New and new Fitness+ services, the Premium package is for you at $29.95/mo.

Apple has updated their iPad lineup with a new regular 8th gen iPad and also a refresh of the iPad Air.

The new iPad Air has gone through a design revamp that inches it close to the iPad Pro. With the new sleek, edgy, and more industrial design you might not even be able to distinguish it from the iPad Pro.

In size it is nearly identical to the 11-inch iPad Pro, and the Liquid Retina display with True Tone technology is very similar too with only the slightest, even unnoticeable differences in size and resolution.

The bezels have undergone a massive reduction to the point that the Touch ID has been moved to the power button.

It also now has a f/2.0 and up to 60 fps FaceTime camera, 7 MP like previously, and improved 12 MP back camera from the iPad Pro.

Apple announced, as expected, the new Apple Watch Series 6 to replace last year's Series 5. However, the more interesting announcement was the completely new Apple Watch SE.

The company obviously borrowed the SE moniker from the iPhone in which it represents a cheaper version of their flagship device. In this case too, the Apple Watch SE is a cheaper version that combines some of the features from the flagship to some tech from previous generations.

Apple Watch SE features the last years S5 chip which isn't quite as fast as the new S6 on Series 6 but, according to Apple, is up to two times faster than the Series 3.

Apple's yesterday's virtual press event brought about a couple new product in both iPads as well as Apple Watches. As expected the Cupertino company announced the new Apple Watch Series 6.

This new version focuses a lot on health and fitness related features.

There's now a new red light sensor for measuring blood oxygen. This allows the user to monitor effective breathing and stress related to blood oxygen. This means that it can be used for both exercise and health purposes like to monitor asthma.

Apple unveiled yesterday a bunch of products in the iPad and Watch categories. Arguably the most influential is the new version of the original iPad.

The regular old iPad is the most popular of the Apple tablets, and now there's the 8th generation out. Apple has upgraded the interior with a new A12 Bionic chip which produces market-leading performance.

According to the company, the new iPad is twice as fast as the most popular Windows laptop, three times more powerful than the most popular Android device and up to six times faster than most popular Chromebook.

Other specs include a 10.2" Retina display, a HD resolution FaceTime camera, 8 MP shooter in the back, 10 hour battery life, USB-C charging and support for Smart Keyboard and Apple Pencil.

Customs and Border Patrol has a lot of important duties, one of which is recognizing and seizing counterfeit products that try to circumvent the intellectual property rights.

It might not be as flashy as stopping a thousand pound shipment of heroine, but CBP does get their hands on a lot of illicit tech products. In this case that is exactly what they thought they had.

Instead they seized a shipment of very legit OnePlus Buds, wireless earbuds by the popular Chinese Android enthusiast brand. Not only did they mistake OnePlus headphones as counterfeit Apple AirPods, they posted this epic failure for all to see on social media.

From the tweet you can clearly see the original retail box with a OnePlus logo as well as the product name, UPC, et al.

It is strange to think that the CBP would even entertain the idea that these are a copy of AirPods. Sure, they are white and kind of similar, but if you have AirPods at hand, you can quickly see the difference.

More importantly, they aren't trying to copy Apple logo, name, or even product name.

This embarrassing mistake got even more hilarious when OnePlus USA tweeted a reply, "Hey, give those back!" with a smiley.

Nvidia is known as the top dog in graphics cards but not many realize what kind of a behemoth it in fact is. The company's market cap is about $320 which puts them ahead of giants like Walt Disney or Coca-Cola.

Now, the GPU and SoC maker has flexed its muscles and acquired the world's leading mobile chip designer ARM Holdings. ARM was bought from the Korean technology giant Softbank for around $40 billion.

Softbank acquired the company every smartphone maker, and user, depends on for $32 billion a few years back. Softbank will hold on to a just under 10 percent stake in the company.

The UK-based ARM Holdings is known for its ARM processors, an architecture used by nearly all smartphones whether it'd be Android of Apple-designed silicon. Even the upcoming non-Intel Macs are going to run ARM architecture.

This is a massive deal in the smartphone and mobile world where Nvidia has had trouble expanding to. This means that Nvidia enters, as the deal closes, the realm in a big way.

Nvidia has also suggested that it will offer ARM customers licensing deals with Nvidia hardware. It will be interesting to see what the two companies can come up together.

The controversial social media TikTok has been acquired by a company that not many even considered in the race. Oracle, the company behind MySQL, Java and other computer technologies, has bought TikTok's American operations, Bloomberg reports.

Microsoft was in talks with TikTok for a while, and the Chinese-owned social media even tried to sweet talk U.S. government into not having to sell its operations.

However, Trump administration didn't back down from forcing change in ownership for the U.S. operations to keep up the app available. The administration cited security concerns with Chinese government possibly intervening in TikTok's businesses and data.

And now we're at Oracle owning the teen-focused app with short videos of dancing and cute animals, what else.

Oracle is one of the largest technology companies on the planet but they are largely developing enterprise solutions, AI, cloud computing, and data technologies, not so much consumer products or apps.

Microsoft has confirmed what was leaked already earlier: both the Xbox Series X and Series S are heading to stores near you in November.

The $499 – as the Best Buy leak suggested – Xbox Series X and the discless and the smallest Xbox ever, $299 Xbox Series S, are slated for global release on November 10. If you insist that you get your hands on one of these as soon as possible, you can pre-order them starting 22, 10 days from now.

This also give Microsoft an indication of what type of volume is expected at the launch, and perhaps make them more prepared for the game-starved public.

Microsoft also has a monthly subscription offer in Xbox All Access, which allows you to get Xbox Series X as well as Xbox Game Pass Ultimate for $34.99. A quick 1+1 tells us that this 24-month commitment will cost you a total of $840 in two years.

With the cheaper Xbox Series S, the same subscription goes for $24.99/mo or $600 over the two year period.

Motorola has announced the second version of the second coming of Razr. The new Motorola Razr 5G is based on the original, legendary, Razr and is the second version of this new era of folding displays.

As you might gather from the name alone, the single most important new feature of the device is 5G connectivity. This is made possible by the new Snapdragon 765G chip which powers the likes of OnePlus 8.

Motorola hasn't quite managed to fit all the highest end parts in the second version either, which is evident by the mid-tier, albeit higher mid-tier, chip. Same continues mostly throughout the rest of the specs, although there are improvements across the board over the predecessor.

The Razr 5G has 8 GB of RAM and 256 GB of storage space, the battery is slightly bigger at 2800 milliamp hours, and the cameras have improved: a f/1.7 and 48 MP shooter (Quad Pixel taking 12 MP shots) in the back and a f/2.2 and 20 MP (QP @ 5MP) selfie camera in the shell.

Microsoft has finally officially announced the Xbox Series S. Most of the limelight is directed at the upcoming Xbox Series X but for a long time we've known that the Redmond giant has a secondary, more affordable gaming console in the development.

Now the Series S has been revealed, and the company has confirmed that it joins Xbox Series X at launch.

As expected, the Series S is a slightly less powerful, cheaper, and also, according to Microsoft, the smallest Xbox in history. It will retail for $299.

While it is much more inexpensive than one would imagine from a next-generation console, Microsoft promises next-gen performance.

Microsoft also announced the price of Xbox Series X. The bigger brother will retail for $499, which is just about what we've gathered from rumors and leaks.

We're still waiting from Sony, who've yet to announce PlayStation 5 pricing. It wouldn't be surprising if Sony would hit the same price points with their duo of next-gen consoles, the PlayStation 5 and PlayStation 5 Digital Edition. That is what the previously mentioned leak also suggested.

Chinese manufacturer OnePlus is making a strong push towards the higher echelon on smartphone manufacturers with the latest models upping the specs, quality and price.

While OnePlus 8 series is still fairly new, we know that soon enough we'll get to experience another OnePlus phone thanks to the company's two model a year strategy.

The latter half of the year produces usually a slight upgrade over the first model of the year marked by the addition of T in the name. This years model is expected to be OnePlus 8T.

There's no word yet whether the company will announce both the mid priced OnePlus 8T as well as a truly flagship tier OnePlus 8T Pro. However, new leak reveals a lot about the former.

According to Android Central, we should expect an announcement late September or early October.

Specs-wise there's some nice upgrades to the current generation model. While the OnePlus 8T display is going to be the same size, refresh rate is going to be upped to 120 Hz, which is on par with OnePlus 8 Pro. There's no word on resolution but we'd guess it's going to remain Full HD+.

Nintendo has today announced quite the selection of Mario games for the Switch. Of course the Mario announcements didn't come out of the blue, it's all because of the 35 year anniversary of the original Super Mario Bros. released in 1985.

Mario Kart franchise will get a new take on the classic kart racing game. The new Mario Kart Live: Home Circuit combines remote controlled cars with mixed reality.

As the player you are controlling a remote controlled car with a camera around a virtual race track built in your home. The game will be available on October 16.

If you don't really understand how all of that works, here's the trailer.