How to Set Your Google Data to Self-Destruct - The New York Times

Last year you may have been addicted to Beyoncé. But nowadays you’re more into Lizzo. You also once went through a phase of being obsessed with houseplants, but have lately gotten into collecting ballpoint pens.

People’s tastes and interests change. So why should our Google data histories be eternal?

For years, Google has kept a record of our internet searches by default. The company hoards that data so it can build detailed profiles on us, which helps it make personalized recommendations for content but also lets marketers better target us with ads. While there have been tools we can use to manually purge our Google search histories, few of us remember to do so.

So I’m recommending that we all try Google’s new privacy tools. In May, the company introduced an option that lets us automatically delete data related to our Google searches, requests made with its virtual assistant and our location history.

On Wednesday, Google followed up by expanding the auto-delete ability to YouTube. In the coming weeks, it will begin rolling out a new private mode for when you’re navigating to a destination with its Google Maps app, which could come in handy if you’re going somewhere you want to keep secret, like a therapist’s office.

“All of this work is in service of having a great user experience,” Eric Miraglia, Google’s data protection officer, said about the new privacy features. “Part of that experience is, how does the user feel about the control they have?”

How do we best use Google’s new privacy tools? The company gave me a demonstration of the newest controls this week, and I tested the tools that it released earlier this year. Here’s what to know about them.

How to auto-delete your search history

Most of Google’s new privacy controls are in a web tool called My Activity. (Here’s the URL: myactivity.google.com.)

Once you get into the tool and click on Activity Controls, you will see an option called Web & App Activity. Click Manage Activity and then the button under the calendar icon. Here, you can set your activity history on several Google products to automatically erase itself after three months or after 18 months. This data includes searches made on Google.com, voice requests made with Google Assistant, destinations that you looked up on Maps and searches in Google’s Play app store.

Which duration should you go for? It depends on how much you care about getting personalized recommendations.

Let’s say you have been doing lots of Google searches on celebrities and movies. Google News will recommend news articles for you to read on those topics based on those searches. So if you’re steadfast about following celebrity and movie news, setting searches to delete after 18 months is probably a good option. If you’re more fickle about your interests, three months may be better.

If you’re the type who doesn’t care to get any personalized recommendations on Google products, you can simply disable search history from being retained in your account. Next to the Web & App Activity option, toggle the switch to the off position.

How to auto-delete your YouTube history

Image

CreditGoogle

New to Google’s privacy controls this week is the ability to auto-delete your YouTube history, which includes searches and the videos you’ve watched.

In the My Activity tool, click on Activity controls and look for the button for YouTube history. Click on Manage history and you will see a similar calendar icon, which lets you set YouTube history to delete after three months or 18 months.

How and when to use private mode and auto-delete in Google Maps

Image

CreditGoogle

Also arriving in the coming weeks is a so-called Incognito mode in Google Maps. Toggling this on lets you look up and navigate to destinations without creating a location history. It also prevents others from seeing your past searches.

To turn it on, open the Google Maps app and tap on the account icon in the upper-right corner. Then click Turn on Incognito mode.

This could come in handy in a few situations:

• If you are meeting someone to discuss a sensitive business matter, Incognito mode will prevent the meeting location from being recorded.

• Google Maps lets you constantly share your location with someone like your romantic partner. If you want your location to be kept secret, like when shopping for an engagement ring, you can turn on Incognito mode.

• Let’s say you are driving and a member of your family is using the Maps app on your phone to navigate to a new address. Turning on Incognito mode will hide your past maps searches from that person.

Google now also includes an auto-delete option for location history. In the My Activity tool, click Activity controls, scroll to Location history and click Manage Activity. On the next page, find the icon shaped like a nut and then click Automatically delete location history. You can set data to self-purge after three months or 18 months.

For those who don’t want Google to create a record of their location history at all, there’s a switch for that. On the My Activity page, click Activity controls and scroll to Location history and turn the switch to the off position.

Just do it

In offering these privacy tools, Google is a step ahead of other internet giants like Facebook and Twitter, which don’t provide ways to easily delete large batches of dated posts.

Yet there’s no one-size-fits-all for how people should use Google’s privacy controls, since everyone has different lifestyles and levels of paranoia. To give an idea of how you can tailor these settings, here’s my personal setup:

• I set my search history to auto-delete. I rarely use Google Assistant and don’t visit Google News, meaning I don’t benefit from personalized recommendations. But I’m often checking Google Maps, and it’s useful to have a recent history of those searches to revisit destinations. So I set Web & App Activity to automatically delete after three months.

• I set my YouTube history to self-destruct. I go in and out of phases that involve cooking different types of foods, and I like it when YouTube surfaces new recipes based on recent searches. So I set my YouTube history to auto-delete after three months.

• I set my location history to auto-delete, too. I use Google Maps regularly, and I go on big trips twice a year. It’s useful for me to let Google know where I have been recently so that its Maps app can load relevant addresses and remember places I have been. But it’s not useful for Google to continue to know that I went to Hawaii last month for vacation. So I set my location history to auto-purge after three months.

It’s difficult to imagine why anyone wouldn’t want to take advantage of Google’s auto-delete tools. There’s no practical benefit to letting Google keep a history of our online activities from years back. So don’t delay in wiping a tiny bit of your digital traces away.

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https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/02/technology/personaltech/google-data-self-destruct-privacy.html

2019-10-02 09:00:00Z
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Huawei phones lose access to install Google's apps - Bloomberg - Reuters

(Reuters) - Huawei Technologies Co Ltd’s newly launched Mate 30 devices have lost their access to manually install Google’s Android apps, Bloomberg reported on Tuesday.

FILE PHOTO: A new Huawei Mate 30 smartphone is pictured at the Convention Center in Munich, Germany September 19, 2019. REUTERS/Michael Dalder/File Photo

According to the report, security researcher John Wu published a blog post bit.ly/2p5d2Cu Tuesday that explained how users of Huawei's Mate 30 Pro were able to manually download and install Google apps, despite a U.S. blacklisting that prohibits the Chinese company from using American components and software.

But in the wake of the revelations, the Mate 30 devices, made to work on new 5G mobile networks, lost their clearance to manually install Android apps, as reported by a number of smartphone experts, Bloomberg said.

The Mate 30 is Huawei’s first major flagship smartphone launched last month, since U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration effectively blacklisted the company in mid-May, alleging it is involved in activities that compromise U.S. national security, a charge the company denies.

Wu wrote in the post a widespread method to install Google Services on newly released Huawei devices relies on undocumented Huawei specific mobile device management application programming interface, or MDM APIs.

“Although this “backdoor” requires user interaction to be enabled, the installer app, which is signed with a special certificate from Huawei, was granted privileges nowhere to be found on standard Android systems,” he wrote.

“The system framework in Huawei’s operating system has a “backdoor” that allows permitted apps to flag some user apps as system apps despite the fact that it does not actually exist on any read-only partitions,” Wu said.

This process let the Mate 30 phones to run popular apps like Google Maps and Gmail that otherwise would not be permitted, Bloomberg reported bloom.bg/2mSwsKg.

An easy-to-use app enabling the installation of Google apps and services on the Mate 30 Pro, called LZPlay, had emerged alongside the device’s release, however it has disappeared after Wu’s posting. Only Google is able to make that change through its SafetyNet anti-abuse check, the report said.

Google and Huawei did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Reuters.

Reporting by Rama Venkat in Bengaluru; Editing by Bernard Orr

Our Standards:The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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2019-10-02 07:06:00Z
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Huawei Phones Had Bootleg Access to Google Apps. Not Anymore - Yahoo Finance

(Bloomberg) -- One of Huawei Technologies Co.’s biggest trade war headaches has just gotten worse, as an unofficial workaround to the Trump administration ban on using Google apps and services has been quashed.

Security researcher John Wu published an illuminating post Tuesday that explained how users of Huawei’s Mate 30 Pro were able to manually download and install Google apps, despite a U.S. blacklisting that prohibits the Chinese company from using American components and software. The process allowed the Mate 30 Pro (along with the basic Mate 30) to run popular apps like Google Maps and Gmail that otherwise would not be permitted.

In the wake of Wu’s revelations, the Mate 30 devices lost their clearance to manually install Android apps, as reported by a number of smartphone experts. Only Google is able to make that kind of change through what’s known as its SafetyNet anti-abuse check.

“Although this ‘backdoor’ requires user interaction to be enabled, the installer app, which is signed with a special certificate from Huawei, was granted privileges nowhere to be found on standard Android systems,” Wu wrote on Medium.

Google declined to comment for this story.

An easy-to-use app enabling the installation of Google apps and services on the Mate 30 Pro, called LZPlay, had emerged alongside the device’s release, however it has disappeared after Wu’s posting. The researcher said in his findings that “it is pretty obvious that Huawei is well aware of this ‘LZPlay’ app, and explicitly allows its existence.”

Huawei said in an emailed statement it has had no involvement with LZPlay.

Huawei’s New Android Phone Lacks Luster Without Google Apps

Effectively, the change makes sure that the U.S. ban on Google services for the Mate 30 Pro is ironclad -- and many of the users outside of China who might have obtained or imported the device will now have only the bare Android-based Huawei user experience.

At the heart of Huawei’s problems is the Google Play Store, a system-level app that’s part of Google’s licensed bundle, which opens access to the full panoply of Android applications. With it on board, an Android device can more effectively compete with Apple Inc.’s iPhone and App Store, equipped with globally popular apps like YouTube, Instagram, Netflix and Spotify. Without it, no matter how great its specs and performance, an Android device is a tough sell for U.S. or European customers. The U.S. trade ban has been damaging to Huawei because it undercuts the company’s ability to compete in the premium smartphone market in Europe, which had been one of its growth drivers.

Huawei doesn’t have the same challenge in its native China because the government already bans most Google apps and services on all smartphones. Instead, Chinese users rely on Tencent Holdings Ltd.’s WeChat as the do-it-all super-app, plus a diversity of other sources for apps, games and entertainment, an ecosystem that’s developed in Google’s absence.

With the latest blow to the Mate 30 Pro, Huawei’s prospects for global smartphone sales dim even further.

(Updates with Huawei’s response in the 7th paragraph)

To contact the reporter on this story: Vlad Savov in Tokyo at vsavov5@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Edwin Chan at echan273@bloomberg.net, Peter Elstrom, Colum Murphy

For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com

©2019 Bloomberg L.P.

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2019-10-02 04:07:59Z
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Sony halves price of PlayStation Now streaming games service to go up against Microsoft, Google - CNET

Sony's slashing prices for its game streaming service.

Josh Miller/CNET

Sony isn't playing games with its PlayStation Now streaming games service. Starting Tuesday, the monthly price for the service will be cut in half, to $9.99 per month. Sony says it's taking the dramatic step in order to keep in line with competition.

The new price, which drops from the $19.99 per month it costs now, will be "comparable to other entertainment streaming services on the market," Sony said in a statement. 

While the move will likely be celebrated by subscribers, it offers yet another sign of how strongly companies are willing to compete to get our dollars. Streaming services have become all the rage, with all manner of companies offering TV, movies, music and, yes, even video games sent over the internet to your phone, laptop, tablet or console.

The popularity and ease of streaming technology has pushed a new generation of consumers drops cable bills, leading to a land grab effort by the likes of Netflix, Disney, Apple, Amazon, Google and even CNET parent CBS. 

Now playing: Watch this: PlayStation State of Play event reveals new console and...

1:57

To attract ever more people, prices have dropped steadily. Disney Plus, for example, will cost $7.99 per month when it launches later this year, offering access to more than a dozen new original shows in addition to back catalog of Disney, Pixar, Star Wars and Marvel films. Apple TV Plus, meanwhile, will charge $4.99 per month when it launches later this year, promising new shows from entertainment royalty like Jennifer Aniston, Reese Witherspoon, Steve Carell and Oprah Winfrey (not to mention, people who buy a new iPhone, iPad or Mac from the tech behemoth will get a year of Apple TV Plus for free).

While there are many streaming video and music services to choose from, Sony's PlayStation Now, which launched in 2014, has been one of the few gaming services available for years.

Part of that, industry executives say, is the higher cost of building and maintaining the ultra fast internet connections and powerful data centers capable of creating a game's intricate visuals, streaming them to a player, and then responding to button presses on a controller. Those costs helped to sink the early game streaming company OnLive, which shut down in 2015.

If price is the first hurdle, then you don't even get a chance to show your technology is superior

Carolina Milanesi, analyst at Creative Strategies

A new band of streaming services is starting up though, driven by falling costs of computer components and faster internet connections across around the world. They include Microsoft's Xbox team, which will begin testing its Project xCloud streaming service in October, and game maker Electronic Arts, which announced its game streaming service last year and began publicly testing it last month. Neither has said how much their respective services will cost.

"The power of instant access is magical, and it's already transformed the music and movie industries," Google's Phil Harrison said when he announced the tech giant's Stadia game streaming service in March. It's planned to launch in November, and will be free to use if you buy the game through Google. 

Not everyone's convinced though. Some people believe that eventually people will sour on having so many subscriptions.

"Most Americans want two, three or four subscriptions -- they certainly don't want 40 of them, and they aren't going to pay for them," Strauss Zelnick, interim chairman of CBS and CEO of game maker Take-Two Interactive, which makes hit titles like Grand Theft Auto V and the western epic Red Dead Redemption 2, said in an interview this summer. 

To help PlayStation Now stand out, Sony's relying on a back-catalog of more than 800 games available on the service, including its hit 2013 post-apocalyptic survival game The Last of Us, Bethesda Softworks' popular adventure game Fallout 4, and the fighting game Mortal Kombat X which was published by Warner Bros.

Sony said it'll be making some of its more popular games available on the service during the holidays, including the Indiana Jones-esque action game Uncharted 4: A Thief's End, last year's epic God of War and Take-Two Interactive's hit Grand Theft Auto V.

That pressure to stand out and become one of the few eventual survivors is likely what's driving Sony's decision to drop its price so dramatically.

"Word of mouth is still important when convincing your peers and people you game with that this is a good solution," said Carolina Milanesi, an analyst at Creative Strategies. "if price is the first hurdle, then you don't even get a chance to show your technology is superior." 

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2019-10-01 12:00:00Z
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ARM-based Surface: why Microsoft has to bet big on this processor - The Verge

Of everything Microsoft is rumored to be announcing this week, the ARM-based Surface is far and away the most important thing to my mind. This is not what I would have told you a month or two ago, honestly. It’s surprising because there are really important storylines for everything Microsoft is set to announce. Let’s just strafe a few of them before digging into ARM.

Take the Surface Pro, for example. Microsoft hasn’t changed the overall design in years, so it feels overdue for a bezel-killing update. At the very least, Microsoft will hopefully bow to the inevitable and include a proper USB-C port on it.

The potential dual-screen device hits on so many long-running Microsoft stories I can’t even begin to list them all. There’s the ancient history of the Courier concept, the old history of Microsoft trying and failing to make Windows Phone successful, and the recent history of hardware boss Panos Panay hinting that Microsoft needs to do something in mobile, even if it’s not specifically a phone.

Command Line is The Verge’s daily newsletter about personal tech. You should subscribe! We’ll be trying something a little different with the newsletter format over the next few weeks, and I’m really eager to hear your feedback. Please feel free to email me at dieter@theverge.com if you have thoughts. -Dieter

By subscribing, you are agreeing to receive a daily newsletter from The Verge that highlights top stories of the day, as well as occasional messages from sponsors and / or partners of The Verge.

You’ve also got Lenovo out there showing how to make a foldable PC feel like a prototype, but can Microsoft make something that feels mainstream? A lot will ride on the rumored “Lite” version of Windows — which has its own dubious Windows S mode predecessor to leave behind, and potential competition with Chrome OS to look ahead to.

Then there’s the Surface Laptop. Any heads-up competitor to the MacBook Air and MacBook Pro is worth paying attention to right now. Sure, Microsoft has the Surface Book line, but the Surface Laptop line is much more mainstream. It also, as I’m sure we’ll be reminded of this week, has an excellent keyboard. Plus, the idea of Microsoft potentially leaving Intel processors out of one of its flagship devices is definitely going to cause a stir.

So why, with all those rich veins of tech analysis to mine, am I most interested in the ARM-based Surface? Because it’s the future of mainstream Windows computers, and Microsoft had better not screw it up.

The benefits of switching to ARM are manifold. The main one is battery life, which is often rated above 20 hours for a laptop. That’s substantially better than anything Intel currently has to offer. It also makes it significantly easier to add LTE options (and, presumably, 5G) to hardware. ARM processors also tend to run cooler than x86 processors, which frees up manufacturers to experiment with different (read: thinner and lighter) form factors.

So: longer battery life, easier cellular integration, and thinner devices. As nice as the Surface Pro can be, there is a limit to how much it can improve in those areas, and that limit’s name is x86.

The switch to ARM is also exciting precisely because we know of a tablet that runs on an ARM processor that’s so fast and powerful that it flat out smokes comparably priced laptops in benchmarks. That tablet, of course, is Apple’s iPad Pro. It’s so fast that everybody has been assuming that Apple will switch the Mac over to an ARM processor sometime soon.

In principle, there’s no reason an ARM-based Windows tablet couldn’t reach similar heights of performance. And Microsoft will surely feel pretty good about getting the Surface on ARM before the Mac makes the change over.

Microsoft is making the right bet by going with ARM because it needs to find something that can be more innovative than Intel. Getting ARM right simply opens up so many more opportunities for Microsoft than sticking with Intel does. It’s not just making thinner tablets that could go up against the iPad. It’s completely different form factors — that dual-screen device, for example, would be a good candidate.

Chrome OS continues to be a thorn in Microsoft’s side — especially in the education market. ARM could help drive the cost of Windows machines down while keeping overall quality up (that last part is vital so as to avoid flashbacks to the netbook era).

That all sounds great, but you know that there’s a “but” coming. Here it is: to date, ARM-based Windows laptops have been bad. They’re slower and still have some compatibility issues to work though.

So while ARM is the right bet, it’s also a very risky bet. As Microsoft’s first ARM-based Surface, it needs to be fast enough for most people’s everyday use — and I mean without any slowdowns for most tasks. That wasn’t quite the case with the Surface Go, which could handle simple tasks, but was far too easy to bog down. Reportedly, Intel talked Microsoft out of using ARM last year with the Surface Go. Maybe that was right for the Go, but I can tell you from personal experience that it meant battery life has been really disappointing.

With a big processor change and eye-popping battery numbers, I bet more people will be tempted to buy this ARM Surface than the Go. That means more pressure on Microsoft to deliver something that’s fast enough. And that pressure will be compounded because whatever Microsoft releases is bound to end up being compared directly to Apple’s iPad Pro.

So far, we haven’t seen evidence that any ARM-based Windows machine is really up to that challenge.

Supposedly, salvation for Windows on ARM is coming in the form of the Qualcomm 8cx chip. I have no idea if that’s what Microsoft will go with and on top of that, nobody has any idea if the 8cx will really be as good as promised. The only laptop using it we’ve laid our hands on is the Galaxy Book S. Early looks were promising, but nobody has actually reviewed it because it hasn’t been released yet.

Whatever chip Microsoft chooses, it needs to deliver something that can convince lots of users that it’s powerful enough to be their main computer. The original idea for the Surface was to show the rest of the industry how to make better Windows computers. Now Microsoft needs to do it again with ARM.

---

Today on The Verge

+ Microsoft Surface event: rumors, leaks, and what to expect

A very good list from Tom Warren. I know you’re expecting me to opine on the potential of a folding, dual-screen device — but I won’t do that today. Instead, I want to focus on something else: that ARM-powered Surface. It is Microsoft’s biggest opportunity and also its biggest risk.

+ Google’s Project Jacquard is available on new Levi’s jackets

I wear a Levi’s Trucker Jacket (or a knockoff thereof) nearly every day. I am obsessed with smartwatches and wearables and gadgets. If there’s an ideal customer for this jacket, it is me. So I reviewed it and am impressed with how much the technology has progressed in the past couple years — but not so impressed that I would spend the extra money for the Jacquard version of this jacket.

+ HP’s Spectre x360 13 seems like an improvement in almost every way

HP is making really good-looking and unique laptops — and that OLED option is really tempting. I was all set to rage about how much I would want this laptop if weren’t for the fact that HP obstinately refuses to include Precision Touchpad drivers, but — wonder of wonders — it does. It’s always dangerous to assume there isn’t a deal-breaking problem on a just-announced laptop, so wait for reviews. Still: this could give whatever Microsoft announces a run for its money.

Just Elon Musk things

Elon Musk aims to put SpaceX’s Starship in orbit in six months

Loren Grush provides essential context for the “prototype” Starship in this story, but graciously refrains from listing the 100 times Musk has overpromised on a timeline in bullet point form.

“This is going to sound totally nuts, but I think we want to try to reach orbit in less than six months,” Musk said. “Provided the rate of design improvement and manufacturing improvement continues to be exponential, I think that is accurate to within a few months.”

+ Here are some pretty photos, too: SpaceX’s massive Starship test rocket shines in Boca Chica, Texas

+ Tesla’s Smart Summon feature is already causing chaos in parking lots across America

This is going to be a fun new way for everybody to figure out who’s liable for accidents. And by “fun” I mean “thousand-yard-stare inspiring.”

Today in Pixel leaks

+ Android 10’s impressive Live Caption feature will likely launch on Pixel 4

This is legit the best thing about Android 10. It’s a win for accessibility and a win for people who just want to see what the YouTubers are saying without having to turn sound on. I increasingly leave closed captioning on for all television that I don’t care about turning into a cinematic experience, and I expect I’ll be doing the same on phones.

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https://www.theverge.com/2019/10/1/20887386/microsoft-surface-event-pro-7-arm-windows-laptops

2019-10-01 11:00:00Z
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Stunning renders might’ve just leaked Apple’s new iPhone 12 design for 2020 - BGR

In the early days of the iPhone, Apple would routinely surprise us with a brand new form factor at least once every two years. But as the iPhone matured, Apple started to switch things up far less frequently. Aside from the introduction of the iPhone X a few years back, it’s really been a while since Apple caught us off guard with a brand new form factor. Indeed, the form factor Apple initially introduced on the iPhone 6 in 2014 essentially remained unchanged for four years.

For anyone of the mind that the current iPhone design is a bit stagnant, there’s good news ahead. Just last week, analyst Ming-Chi Kuo — who has a stellar track record with respect to Apple rumors — issued a new investor note claiming that Apple’s iPhone 12 will boast a completely brand new design upon its expected release in September of 2020.

Kuo’s note reads in part:

We predict that the new 2H20 iPhone design will change significantly […] The metal frame and the front and rear 2/2.5D glass are still used, but the metal frame surface will be changed to a similar design to the iPhone 4, replacing the current surface design.

Personally, I think this is very exciting news and should inject a bit of excitement into an iPhone line that some people — from a form factor perspective — believe has become a bit too predictable. The design language Apple employed on the iPhone 4 through the iPhone 5s was incredible and it will be nice to see Apple’s next-gen iPhone 12 incorporate that look and feel into its own design

As to what this might look like, Ben Geskin posted a few concept images to Twitter over the weekend which look pretty slick.

Image Source: Ben Geskin

The iPhone 4-inspired design here is quite apparent.

The iPhone 12, if these renders are anywhere close to accurate, basically boasts an iPhone 4 meets the iPhone 11 design.

And last but not least, there’s a rumor floating around claiming that Apple’s top of the line iPhone model next year may eliminate the notch and, instead, house the Face ID and TrueDepth camera system into the top bezel. If accurate, the photo below might be what the next-gen top of the line iPhone looks like.

Image Source: Ben Geskin

Aside from a new design, the biggest change to Apple’s iPhone 12, from a feature standpoint, will of course be the inclusion of 5G. It’s worth noting, though, that Apple’s entry-level iPhone 12 may not support 5G.

Lastly, a video highlighting these new iPhone 12 renders can be viewed below.

Image Source: Apple

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https://bgr.com/2019/09/30/iphone-12-release-date-coming-design-photos-leak/

2019-09-30 12:17:00Z
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Microsoft Surface event: rumors, leaks and what to expect - The Verge

Microsoft is holding a big Surface hardware event in New York City on Wednesday, October 2nd. The company has been teasing this event continually on Twitter, and is even inviting Surface fans to attend. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella will be in attendance, alongside Surface chief Panos Panay. It seems like we’re on the cusp on a significant event, perhaps as big or bigger than the Surface 2015 event when the Surface Book, Microsoft Band 2, Surface Pro 4, and three Lumia phones were introduced.

There haven’t been any major leaks about what we might see on Wednesday, but rumors suggest we’ll see some refreshes of popular devices like the Surface Pro and Surface Laptop, alongside a new mysterious ARM-powered Surface. The most significant part of the day could be Microsoft ushering in its dual-screen plans for Surface and beyond, and a new Windows variant to make those plans a reality. Let’s explore what we’re likely, and unlikely, to see on Wednesday.

Microsoft refreshed the Surface Pro lineup with the sixth edition last year in a new black matte finish, but crucially without USB-C connectivity. We’re expecting to see the Surface Pro 7 arrive on Wednesday, complete with USB-C support. How Microsoft adds USB-C to its Surface Pro 7 isn’t exactly clear, but we’re hoping the company simply replaces the Mini DisplayPort with USB-C at the minimum and keeps a USB-A port for compatibility. Patents from earlier this year suggested that we might even see some type of new Surface Type Cover with a future Surface Pro.

Outside of USB-C, it’s highly likely the Surface Pro 7 will include Intel’s latest 10th Gen processors, and perhaps even some new color options (according to rumors). There could even be a new Surface Pen with wireless charging, as a recent FCC filing revealed a new stylus is on the way.

Microsoft has been rumored to be working on an ARM-powered Surface for months now, and it’s likely we’ll see the unveiling on Wednesday. Unlike previous Surfaces with Nvidia Tegra ARM chips inside (Surface RT, Surface 2), Microsoft is rumored to be working with Qualcomm on this particular Surface. That means the device will likely be powered by Qualcomm’s latest 8cx chip, which was first unveiled nearly a year ago.

We haven’t seen many ARM-powered Windows laptops throughout 2019, but Samsung surprised us with its new Galaxy Book S recently and a promise of 23 hours of battery life. If Microsoft creates a Qualcomm-powered Surface then it could be the push that other OEMs need to take this type of device seriously. Windows on ARM still lags behind regular Windows 10, thanks to some app compatibility and generally poor performance from previous Qualcomm chips, but the Snapdragon 8cx could change things.

Little details have leaked about Microsoft’s Surface ARM plans, and it’s not really clear what type of device we’ll see this processor in. Microsoft leaker WalkingCat has revealed that Microsoft could introduce a “Surface Pro with thinner bezel and LTE,” hinting that this might be the ARM-powered device that has been rumored. LTE is a natural byproduct of using Qualcomm’s chips, and you’d expect a different design to the traditional Surface Pro. If the rumors are accurate, then it would be surprising to see Microsoft use the “Surface Pro” moniker on an ARM-powered device.

Microsoft looks set to launch new Surface Laptop 3 models on Wednesday. While the existing Surface Laptop 2 comes in just a 13.5-inch edition, it looks increasingly likely that Microsoft will launch a 15-inch model. Rumors have also suggested that Microsoft will use AMD processors in the Surface Laptop for the first time. If you put the AMD rumors and 15-inch rumors together then it’s likely we’ll see a larger Surface Laptop 3 with AMD chips inside.

It’s not clear if the smaller 13.5-inch model will be refreshed or even include AMD chips, but it would be surprising to see Microsoft just launch a Surface Laptop 3 in one new size and no refresh on the smaller model.

Microsoft’s Surface Laptop 3 might even appear without the infamous Alcantara fabric covering. WalkingCat has hinted that Microsoft could launch a Surface Laptop 3 without Alcantara, and even include removable SSDs as an option. If both changes are true, they’d appeal to a number of commercial customers who need to swap out drives and don’t want to look after the Alcantara fabric like a luxury handbag.

The big surprise of the day will likely be Microsoft’s tease of the future of Windows. We’ve known for a while that Microsoft has been working on a dual-screen Surface device, codenamed “Centaurus,” and the October 2nd event could serve as the first unveiling of this new type of hardware. Microsoft has been building a new dual-screen device for more than two years, and it’s designed to be the hero device for a wave of new dual-screen tablet / laptop hybrids that OEMs are expected to launch throughout 2020.

Microsoft demonstrated this new device during an internal meeting earlier this year, showing that work on the prototype has gone beyond the early stages. A key part of this hardware will be Windows Lite, the codename for a new Windows variant that will power dual-screen devices. Also known as “Santorini” internally, Windows Lite is more of a Chrome OS-like version of Windows designed specifically for dual-screen and foldable devices.

Intel has been pushing OEMs to create dual-screen devices, and a lot of the hardware could look similar to Microsoft’s original Courier concept or even include foldable displays in the future. The Windows Lite interface will be similar to Windows as it exists today, but it will be more of a mix of what Microsoft does with its Surface Hub shell and the limited functionality of its Windows Phone Continuum user interface. The underlying parts of Windows Lite are built on Microsoft’s new Composable Shell (C-Shell) and Windows Core OS, a more modular version of the existing Windows Shell that powers many parts of Windows 10.

How much Microsoft reveals about its dual-screen Surface plans and even Windows Lite remains to be seen, but we’re expecting to see some type of teaser on Wednesday. These devices aren’t expected to be ready until next year, so we won’t likely see final hardware or even software, but just a brief glimpse of the future of Windows.

Alongside the more traditional Surface devices, we could be about to see some type of Surface speaker. Microsoft surprised us all with Surface Headphones last year, and a new patent suggests the company is working on a portable speaker for Microsoft Teams.

The portable speaker itself appears to have a similar design to Google’s Home Mini, with fabric wrapped around the top and volume buttons with the ability to make, receive, and mute calls. That hints that this is related to Microsoft Teams and meeting rooms, and one of the inventors is a principle design manager for Microsoft Teams devices. The device also appears to have a removable base, perhaps to allow it to charge and be positioned around a meeting room.

Microsoft also demonstrated a prototype for a new consumer version of Microsoft Teams earlier this year, dubbed Microsoft Teams “for life.” It’s designed as an extension of Microsoft’s chat app for friends and family. Microsoft is experimenting with features like sending location, shared family calendars, and document sharing. We may see this new version of Teams alongside a potential Surface speaker.

There’s clearly a lot planned for Wednesday, but we’re not expecting any updates to other Surface products like the Surface Book 3 or Surface Go. While a 15-inch version of the Surface Laptop 3 could certainly rival the Surface Book, we’d still expect to see this product updated at some point in the near future. Likewise, a new Surface Go doesn’t seem likely for Wednesday, especially if Microsoft is about to unveil an ARM-powered Surface Pro.

Microsoft is also rumored to be working on Surface-branded earbuds to take on Apple’s AirPods. Amazon just launched its own Echo Buds with Alexa built in, and Microsoft unveiled its first Surface Headphones at its Surface event last year. We haven’t heard any additional rumors about these potential Surface earbuds appearing before the end of 2019, so it would be surprising to see them on Wednesday.

The Verge will be covering Microsoft’s Surface event live, with a dedicated live blog and all the news as it happens. Microsoft’s Surface event starts at 10AM ET / 7AM PT on Wednesday, October 2nd.

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https://www.theverge.com/2019/9/30/20886687/microsoft-surface-pro-7-event-leaks-rumors-products-announcements

2019-09-30 12:00:00Z
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