Personally i find $10 a month to be too expensive, but don't we all pay for search engines in a way? With Google you don't pay directly but with your information and by getting influenced in your behaviour (e.g. to buy something from someone who in return pays google for advertisement).
That sounds pretty useful. Is this "tool" just software that could also be rolled out to other pixels or is there something physically different on the hardware level?
It's not neccessarily about being unique, but also serving as a reference.
Microsoft introduced the Surface line in 2012, same year as windows 8 that had a new UI designed to be used with a touch screen. They've also released devices with ARM processors to bring windows into that space, presumably with the idea that others might follow. But those attempts so far have failed. Probably due to simply not having any great SoCs available like the Apple with the M1.
You do have a good point with the Pixel exclusive features.
Isn't longer software support actually something that might decrease hardware sales, rather than increase them? Considering it might lead to people using their device for longer. That said i think it is partially to avoid bad optics compared to apple and some of the android manufacturers like samsung. This also seems like a point where the pixel line might try to set an example for more to follow. It might have benefits for google, if more phones are consistently running the newest version.
I wonder if they'd develop a SoC themself, if there were a great mobile SoC on the market with dedicated hardware for ai/machine learning. Apple has with the neural engine in their chips, but that obviously isn't for sale. Google, like many others, is rolling out products that might make use of it, so it is definitely desirable to have. And Google is actually in a good position to develop it, since they didn't start from scratch designing chips, but have done so for a while with the TPUs for their data centers (where they do care about hardware). So this might be aimed at leading the market due to neccessity, since outside of apple others might not have the hardware ready for when the software/service side might need it.
I can't come up with a good explanation. But do we know how much Google cares about hardware sales and their promotion?
The main product they sell in the smartphone market is not hardware, but android. And through that the integration of their other services.
To me the pixel phones serve as a guide where they want the ecosystem to move towards, but at the same time are direct competition for their customers (the other manufacturers such as Samsung). Similar to Microsoft and their surface line
I'd have liked to get something like a Sony that would fit a lot of my needs hardware wise (headphone jack, SD card reader, side mounted fingerprint scanner, and so on). But the shit software update policy and higher price made me just get a pixel 6a and make some compromises.
Wireless headphones have a battery that eventually will need to be replaced, which it usually is not designed for. Wired headphones dont have any inherently degrading components, so can (with care) be used for a very long time.
I think you are right, the first article I linked was a bit ambiguous about it, but rereading the second one it seems that I misunderstood it and you are right.
One aspect through which one could argue that they might stifle competition is their price parity rule, for which it seems they are being sued. See here (not sure if there is any new development.
Hard to compete with steam if you cant at least do it through lower pricing. Although this article suggests that at least for epic exclusives publisher seem to prefer to just pocket the difference, rather than pass on those savings.
Well Munich is a city and not a state, so hard to compare to Texas. However the state of which it is the capital (Bavaria) can in many ways be compared to Texas as it is rather conservative and rural in many parts.
That said Munich itself is actually quite progressive and open.
Case in point regarding politics: On a local level the major has almost always been from the SPD (social democrats, the last conservative one was in the early 80s), and in the last federal election the green party actually got the most votes (compared to the overall result for Bavaria where the conservative CSU won with a wide margin)
I was under the impression that this wasnt a big risk with starlink as they are in a lower (around 550km), which means potential debris will decay rather than stay in a stable orbit.
So more like 3–4 years and not 5, but still behind
I am not sure if it is that simple. Their process is using DUV and I assume a ASML lithograpy machine they got from somewhere. The next big step and what the current leading edge uses is EUV, so a different technique.
Unless they get their hands on one of those machines, which I assume will be prevented at all costs through sanctions, they'd have to reengineer that themselves. Something they havent done even for this 7nm lithograpy machine. EUV was decades in the making with an insane amount of research spending. Even with maybe not having to start from scratch this will be a tough nut to crack.
Unless they solve this problem they might push DUV a bit further, but then hit a brick wall. So I am not sure is your estimate how far they are behind is accurate in this sense.
That said, as someone else posted. 7nm is already plenty good for a lot of stuff.
Others have already mentioned some of the many reasons why.
But i would like to add that even if they'd rejoin, they could not do so with the same conditions that they had before. Since they joined the predecessors of the EU so early, they had a number of privileges that a new joining member nowadays would not be granted. So from that side "going back to how things were before" wouldn't be possible to begin with.
I like the idea, but I fear that I would quickly run out of things to print that I actually need. After then I'd start looking for applications. And the one thing I don't need in my life are more small (or large) plastic things.
As i undersfand it the special thing is not the phone itself, but who made its processor and how.
Most advanced chips are made by tsmc/samsung/intel with Western technology (especially by ASML).
This one is made by SMIC a partially state owned Chinese company with a lot of domestic technology used. Apparently they are using a 7nm DUV process, which is quite advanced. Although not as much as the current smaller nodes used by the other manufacturers, which use EUV (a newer significantly more complex technology that succeeded DUV).
The technology used in manufacturing advanced chips is one of the most complex things in the world. huawei and china are targets of sanctions limiting their access to western technology in this sector. So it is of particular interest how far they've come with their own domestic production. Another debate related to that is how much of that is based on stolen technology vs their own research.
Personally i find $10 a month to be too expensive, but don't we all pay for search engines in a way? With Google you don't pay directly but with your information and by getting influenced in your behaviour (e.g. to buy something from someone who in return pays google for advertisement).