All the Gear We Loved in October
HPYes, HP Really Made a Leather Laptop
Here’s one way to get attention: make a laptop out of leather. Yep, the HP Spectre Folio is fully bonded with 100 percent, chrome-tanned leather. (Why? According to HP, millennials are drawn to its “authenticity.”) Beyond the bovine exterior, this convertible features a 13.3-inch touchscreen display, an Amber Lake-Y processor, two USB-C ports, and a battery that will give you up to 18 hours of battery life. The Core i5 configuration starts at $1,300, and the leather exteriors ship in two tones, warm brown and deeper bordeaux. Read the full story here.
IRL GlassesThese Magical Sunglasses Block All the Screens Around You
What do you get when you put screen-blocking film in glasses frames? A real-life metaphor for modern anxieties. The IRL glasses, launched on Kickstarter earlier this month, block the wavelength of light that comes from LED and LCD screens. Put them on and the TV in the sports bar seems to switch off; billboards blinking ahead seem to go blank. Plus, the lenses are set in ‘80s-inspired angular frames—apropos for when you’re gazing out at 1984. Read the full story here.
MicrosoftSay Hello to All New Surface PCs, Plus New Surface Headphones
Microsoft’s three major hardware releases feature more interior upgrades than significant external changes. The Surface Pro 6 will have the latest quad-core, 8th generation Intel Core processor. The Surface Laptop 2, aimed at designers and other creative professionals, is a gorgeous machine with 28-inch PixelSense touchscreen. Finally, the wireless Surface Headphones automatically pause music or mute calls when you take them off, and they restart when they put them back on. Plus, it can summon Cortana. Read about all the new gear here.
AmazonThe New Kindle Isn't Innovative at All. That's a Good Thing
The Kindle Paperwhite, priced at $130, is a fine upgrade to an already terrific product. With six weeks of battery life on a single charge, you can enjoy your favorite 19th century Russian tomes on the six-inch, high-res display, uninterrupted. It has generous storage and a totally smooth face. The best part is that the new Kindle Paperwhite is waterproof, so you can fill a bubble bath, light your aromatherapeutic candles, and read Crime and Punishment. Ahhhh. Read the full story here.
FacebookFacebook Made You a Smart-Home Device, and There's a Camera on It
Facebook’s Portal allows you to video chat with faraway friends, by way of a big HD screen and a 12-megapixel camera. With the wake word “Hey Portal,” you can video chat via Messenger, play Spotify, or banter with Alexa. During calls, Portal’s native AI code recognizes shapes of faces to zoom in, and makes human voices sound crisp against background noise. Did we mention that Facebook started selling this device, which has a camera on it, just two weeks after a massive security breach? Yeah, there's a lot to talk about. Read the full story here.
Phuc PhamWith the Pixel 3, Google Sticks to Its Software Smarts
When it comes to building new products, Google lets software shine, and the Pixel 3 is no exception. This new smartphone comes with Google’s Duplex technology that can dispatch a virtual assistant to make eerily human-sounding calls for you, or to screen your calls from unknown numbers. The hardware is just as good as you remember from the Pixel 2—but with a matte glass back, the Pixel 3 also supports wireless charging. The screen’s OLED display also looks brighter and richer than last year’s Pixel. Read the full story here.
JUMP BikesHow Jump Designed a Global Electric Bike
Shared e-bike company Jump was acquired by Uber earlier this year, and its new owner wants the speedy red bikes to go global. Which poses a design challenge for Jump: How do you build a single bike model that can serve the most people, in the most urban environments? Protypes are tested under violent conditions, its low frame adjusted and re-adjusted to accommodate the widest range of riders. With global expansion on the horizon, you might say there’s a lot (ahem) riding on getting the design just right. Read the full story here.
Phuc PhamThe Pixel Slate Is Here to Take on the iPad Pro and Surface
The Slate switches between tablet mode and “laptop” mode depending on how you use it. Its amphibian tablet/laptop capabilities are underscored in its UI, which morphs into a familiar Chrome OS desktop display when you connect the tablet to the accessory keyboard. The Slate has a larger 12.3-inch LCD display compared to the Pixel C’s 10-inch display. It ships in four different configurations, with different internals, depending on your needs. The most basic model, with the Intel Celeron chip, starts at $599. Read the full story here.
AppleThe New iPad Pro Ditches the Home Button For a Giant Display
The new iPad Pro’s display is bigger and brighter than ever. The barely-there bezels help enlarge the Liquid Retina display, and a seven-core GPU doubles the performance of the previous generation. All that screen space comes at a price, though. Pour one out for the home button—it's officially gone. Read the full story here.
Casey Chin; Getty ImagesHey Bullies, Instagram's Niceness Cops Are Comin' For You
Instagram’s worked hard to cultivate a reputation as the nicest place on social media. To keep that squeaky-clean status, new head of Instagram Adam Mosseri is rolling out a new set of tools designed to clean up toxic content on Instagram. Chief among them is an algorithm to filter out offensive content in photos and captions, including instances of “bullying” in photos on the platform. Once identified by Instagram’s algorithm, the offending photos will be sent for human review and possible removal. Read the full story here.
IntelIntel's New Processors Spin Up High-End Performance for the Masses
Intel’s latest processor update is focused on power and flexibility. Core i9-9900K is Intel’s first high-volume 5Ghz speed processor, and its first mainstream desktop processor to squeeze in eight cores and 16 threads. Intel says that it will able to handily accommodate the high-volume multitasking that gamers and creatives need from their machines. For professionals with heavy-duty workloads, Intel has revamped the X-Series as well, once again offering up to 18 cores and 36 threads. And then, coming closer to the end of the year, there’s the Xeon W-3175X, a workstation CPU with 28 cores and 56 threads, and speeds up to 4.3 GHz. These chips could push PCs into the future. Read the full story here.
WaybCan Outdoor Gear Experts Make a Better Kid's Car Seat?
A few years ago, Tio Jung and Michael Crooke—two outdoor gear experts—came together with a novel idea: What if they used their outdoor industry expertise to build better gear for babies? Their first product, the Pico car seat, uses a recyclable aluminum frame and breathable tensioned mesh padding. It's for babies who like a little adventure. Read the full story here.
AppleThe Mac Mini Gets an Update After Four Long Years
The Mac Mini is back, with more power than ever. This latest iteration features Intel’s 8th generation Core processors and a new thermal system for more efficient cooling. Oh, and it comes in space grey now. The new Mac Mini starts at $800, with plenty to show for the wait. Read the full story here.
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