All credit goes to Samsung for inventing and popularizing the foldable device. As for the form, I had loads of doubts – I admit I used to be skeptical – when the primary Galaxy Fold hit the market in 2019. It was the primary Galaxy Flip, released a 12 months later, that taught me to actually appreciate foldable devices.

When the unique Pixel Fold debuted in 2023, it quickly became my favorite foldable. Google has shown how just a few tweaks to the proportions could make a foldable phone much less bulky. But despite all of the impressive technology on this device, I discovered that it also worked as a fantastic e-reader.

The Pixel Fold was a formidable competitor that, for my part, only the OnePlus Open could compete with. The addition of those products, in addition to other products from firms like Oppo, has opened up the sphere in a pleasant way. Instead of letting Samsung rest on its laurels, the competition pushed innovation.

By the time Google was able to announce a successor to the Fold, Google had enough confidence within the product to totally integrate it into its flagship product line. There won’t ever be Pixels 2 to eight. Instead, Google gave the world the Pixel 9 Pro Fold, positioning the device as a type of ultra-premium sibling to the Pixel 9 and Pixel 9 Pro. It’s, truthfully, just branding. Ultimately, it doesn’t matter to consumers.

What matters is that Fold is back, bigger and better than before. I admit that the “larger” part initially made me think. One of the things I liked most in regards to the original Pixel Fold was that it was easier to make use of than Samsung’s versions. I suppose it’s inevitable that foldable devices will join the remainder of the smartphone space in the nice screen expansion.

Fortunately, Google has managed to make progress on screen size without constructing a bulky phone around it. The front screen has increased from 5.8 to six.3 inches and is consistently getting closer to the sting. This will likely be good enough screen space for many of the stuff you do each day.

More impressive is the jump in the inner display from 7.6 to a full 8 inches AMOLED 120 Hz. For comparison, the iPad mini’s screen is barely 0.3 inches larger. When unfolded, it’s actually a tablet. Google also selected nice proportions. When you are done replying to emails on the front display, you’ll be able to open it and watch a video.

The Pixel 9 Fold has grown and grown while reducing weight from 283 to 257 grams. Unfortunately, shedding about 100 extra grams comes with a smaller battery, all the way down to 4,605 ​​from 4,821 mAh. Google largely bypasses any issues there through the use of a more power-efficient SoC, skipping the generation from the Pixel Tensor G2 to the G4. It’s value noting that despite the striking $1,000 price difference between the Pixel 9 and 9 Fold, Google has opted to make use of the identical chip across the whole line.

One of the most important upgrades you’ll be able to get from the foldable standard Pixel is the wonderful three-camera system. Don’t tell Connie, but I exploit the 9 Fold to take product photos for the web site. It’s so good. For example, all of the photos within the Snap Spectacles story were taken with a foldable camera.

The numbers have not modified much from the Fold’s original configuration, going from 48MP wide, 10.8 ultrawide, 10.8 telephoto, 8MP to 48MP wide, 10.5 ultrawide, and 10.8MP telephoto. However, Google is consistently improving its computational image processing, so the standard is consistently improving.

The Pixel 9 Fold had quite a bit to supply when the primary Pixel Fold entered the world fully formed. The recent phone is a worthy successor and among the finest foldable phones in the marketplace.

Meta Connect 2024 took place this weekshowcasing recent hardware and software to support two of the company’s biggest ambitions: artificial intelligence and the metaverse. CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced recent Quest headsets, updates to Meta’s Llama AI model, and real-time video capabilities in Meta’s Ray-Ban smart glasses. But the biggest discovery was Orion, an actual AR glasses prototype touted as “the most advanced glasses the world has ever seen.”

OpenAI CTO Mira Murati announced this week that he’s leaving the company after greater than six years. Hours after the announcement, OpenAI’s chief research officer Bob McGrew and vp of research Barret Zoph also left the company. The high-level departures come lower than per week before the start of OpenAI’s annual developer conference.

One of the first CloudKitchens employees is suing this company. In her lawsuit, Isabella Vincenza alleges wrongful termination, gender discrimination and a hostile work environment, including an intense “brother culture” at the company. Vincenza also claims that after her pregnancy and subsequent maternity leave, she faced “retaliation for standing up for herself.”

News

Talk to me, ChatGPT: OpenAI has implemented advanced voice mode after some delays and controversy. This feature has an updated blue, spherical design, five recent voices, and improved accent capabilities for clients in the ChatGPT Plus and Teams tiers. Read more

YC Demo Day: Y Combinator kicked off a two-day “Demo Day” event showcasing what YC’s newest batch manufacturing firms are constructing. Here are the firms price being attentive to beyond the event. (Spoiler alert: almost everyone uses AI.) Read more

Amazon staff vs. RTO: Amazon CEO Andy Jassy announced that by 2025, employees are expected to work in the office five days per week. However, an anonymous survey conducted by employees shows that many individuals who’ve turn out to be accustomed to the hybrid work structure are “definitely dissatisfied”. Read more

How much can a phone wallpaper cost? Marques Brownlee, often known as MKBHD on YouTube, has launched the Panels app where he collects high-quality digital wallpapers from artists. However, to access high-resolution wallpapers without ads, users have to spend around $50 per yr. Read more

WordPress vs. WP engine: A heated legal dispute is brewing between WordPress founder and Automattic CEO Matt Mullenweg and WP Engine – the company that operates web sites built on WordPress – after Mullenweg wrote a blog post calling WP Engine “the cancer of WordPress.” Read more

X toggles the locking function: X will soon change the way the blocking feature works, so blocked accounts will still have the opportunity to see your public posts. Elon Musk explained that blocked accounts will still not have the opportunity to contact the users who blocked them. Read more

RevenueCat turns up the heat: Subscription management platform RevenueCat has acquired Dipsea, a “spicy” audiobook subscription app. The idea is to create a subscription-based application that can function a testing ground for brand spanking new RevenueCat features. Read more

RIP, TikTok music: ByteDance is shutting down its music streaming service TikTok Music in November. TikTok Music originated from a ByteDance product called Resso, and the service was later available in Indonesia, Brazil, Australia, Singapore, and Mexico. Read more

Meta is punished with one other penalty for violating privacy: Meta was reprimanded and fined $101.5 million (at current exchange rates) by the Irish Data Protection Commission for a 2019 breach that exposed lots of of hundreds of thousands of Facebook passwords. Read more

Practical use of Plaud’s NotePin: TechCrunch’s Brian Heater tests Plaud’s $169 NotePin, powered by ChatGPT, for transcribing meetings and taking notes. Unlike other AI pins, Plaud’s product appears to be an answer to real-world problems, he argues. Read more

Analysis

Altman himself goes into “god mode”: OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has long presented artificial intelligence as the solution to the world’s problems, despite its significant impact on the environment. In a brand new post on the rose-colored glasses blog, Altman offers an especially positive update on the state of artificial intelligence, highlighting its potential to change the world. However, as TechCrunch’s Sarah Perez notes, much of what she writes seems to be intended to make skeptics aware of the importance of artificial intelligence, which could have the opposite effect. Read more

X (formerly Twitter) could soon resume operations in Brazil if it agrees to pay an additional fine.

This was reported by Reuters and other publications by order of the country’s Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes stating that Elon Musk’s social networking site can “immediately return to its operations in the country” if it pays a fine of 10 million reais (about $1.9 million).

This is in addition to the 18.3 million reais ($3.4 million) for which X has already been fined. Brazil froze accounts belonging to X and Musk’s satellite web company Starlink to pay the fine, but Moraes said that to proceed operating, Starlink must withdraw its appeal against the payment.

For most of the 12 months, X was engaged in a legal dispute over Moraes’ try to block some accounts he accused of publishing election disinformation. (Musk said that Moraes “should resign or be impeached”). The company ultimately ceased operations in Brazil and was banned from entering the country at the end of August.

The ban resulted in an increase in the popularity of competing services, including Bluesky.

However, X recently appeared to reverse course, agreeing to freeze the designated accounts, pay the required financial penalties and appoint a legal representative in Brazil. Moraes is making the company pay this additional fine after X apparently bypassed the ban earlier this month and resumed services in the country – apparently a “coincidence” attributable to X switching to Cloudflare’s infrastructure.

The X Global Government Affairs account appeared to substantiate his approval fasting on Thursdaywriting: “We recognize and respect the sovereignty of the countries in which we operate” and asserting that providing access to Brazilian users “is essential to a thriving democracy.”