The Weekly Authority: Google’s possible pixel secret

⚡ Welcome to an immersive release of The weekly authoritythe Android authority Newsletter that breaks down the top Android and tech news of the week. The 218th issue here, with Google’s secret high-end Pixel phone, Musk’s Twitter takeover, news on USB-C standards and cursed Halloween objects…

👻 Happy Halloween weekend! I’m celebrating early with a goth fiction night at a local bookstore before heading on vacation and leaving you with Hadlee and Jonathan next weekend. See you on the other side!

Apple:

• Rumor has it that the iPhone 15 series could ditch physical volume/power buttons in favor of solid-state buttons.
• Apple may have an unwieldy giant iPad in the works – it will reportedly be around 16 inches.
• Apple released macOS Ventura, iOS 16.1 and iPadOS 16 on Monday.
• And the price of Apple Music, Apple TV Plus and Apple One is increasing, with the latter increasing by around $3 per month.
• Apple will now keep 30% of the revenue from the sale of “Boosts” for posts on social media apps.
• In that sense, Apple is the only phone maker to post positive growth this quarter, although Samsung still leads the top-shipping market.
• Meanwhile, Apple Stores are starting to sell exterior locks that can be unlocked with a tap of your iPhone or Apple Watch: Level Lock+ costs $329 and, when installed in a door, can be unlocked with the Apple Home Key will.
• Plus: An Apple exec explained why iMessage isn’t on Android — apparently it “seemed like a throwaway product.”

Social media:

• It’s official: Elon Musk owns Twitter and has already fired former CEO Parag Agarwal, CFO Ned Segal and General Counsel Sean Edgett, among others.
• New report seems to confirm worst fears about how TikTok is using data: A team from Chinese parent company ByteDance planned to use data from the app to “monitor the personal location of some certain American citizens.”

Elsewhere:

• Introducing the Redmi Note 12 series: 200MP camera, 210W charging for under $400.
• Passkeys – Microsoft, Apple and Google’s password killer – are finally here: PayPal will allow US users to log in with FIDO-based passkeys, as will online services Kayak, eBay, Best Buy, CardPointers and WordPress. com , among others.
• The EU is finally moving forward with its USB-C standard, making USB-C mandatory for all electronic devices sold in the EU from autumn 2024.
• And Apple conceded EU law: iPhones will get USB-C ports and will switch over next year.
• Speaking of the EU: No new cars with internal combustion engines from 2035, says the European Union.
• Meanwhile, Uber announced new safety features for passengers and drivers, including reducing the number of left turns.
• Android phones offered an early US earthquake warning, beating iPhones by a mile.
• And the creator of Android has returned with a surveillance startup.
• WhatsApp was recovering from a major two-hour outage that affected users worldwide, the app’s first major outage since last year.
• Lego introduces the spooky one-of-a-kind haunted house-themed RTX 3090 Gaming PC.
• Plastics recycling a “failed concept,” according to the study, with only 5% recycled content in the US over the past year as production increased.
• Drone footage shows the start of construction of the Saudi Arabian megacity The Line.

• Jesse Williams joins the cast of Only Murders in the Building for Season 3, which will also star Paul Rudd. Were excited.
• Warner Brothers’ Black Adam opened last weekend with $67 million, its biggest opening weekend since July’s Thor: Love and Thunder ($143 million).
• We got our first look at the sci-fi thriller TIM, about a humanoid AI gone horribly wrong.
• And an official trailer for Netflix’s 1899 has landed, giving us a look at Dark co-creators Baran bo Odar and Jantje Friese’s next project, which arrives on November 17th.
• Future seasons of Doctor Who will air on Disney Plus but will remain on BBC TV and iPlayer in the UK and Ireland.
• Amazon oops: An internal server full of Prime Video viewing habits was accidentally disclosed, with around 215 million entries of pseudonymised viewing data.
• Check out this week’s best new streaming shows, including Guillermo Del Toro’s Cabinet of Curiosities (spoiler alert: it’s gory).
• Also this week, we have the best new streaming movies, including Netflix’s The Good Nurse, based on a disturbing true story.
• Also: The Simpsons goes Anime for a Death Note tribute – it will be part of the next Halloween compilation of Treehouse of Horror, which airs Sunday 30th October.

• Cult of the Lamb is getting a limited time event for Halloween: The Blood Moon Festival kicked off on October 25th with a host of new activities and decorations for the season ending November 10th.
• CD Projekt Red announced the remake of The Witcher in Unreal Engine 5: The project is in the early stages of development and the game will be “built from the ground up”, so we shouldn’t expect it any time soon.
• Modern Warfare 2 was released on Friday, and the physical disc contains 70MB of data with a 150GB download.
• kotaku‘s Zack Zwiezen played the first four hours of God Of War Ragnarok: “This is mostly good news as Ragnarok plays very much like 2018’s fantastic God of War. But I’m a bit concerned about the balance between narrative and action in this highly anticipated sequel.”
• Fallout 4 is getting one final next-gen update for PS5, Xbox, expect a “high framerate” performance mode, 4K resolution support, and more.
• And Bayonetta 3 reviews are in: Engadget says it’s “full of classic Bayonetta madness,” while The edge called it “A sexy, stylish sequel that just can’t nail the finale.”
• Meanwhile, Sony has apparently quietly removed game expiration dates from PS Plus: games are still listed in the Last Chance to Play tab, but there’s no longer a specific date for games leaving the service.
• And a warning from Xbox’s Phil Spencer: Price increases are coming next year.
• Good news if you were excited by last week’s Silent Hill 2 news: you won’t be waiting too long as development team Bloober confirms that the game is in “late production” and Konami will have more information on one soon release date will provide.
• Speaking of kids, those who play video games do better on brain function tests, a new study shows.
• Finally: every US PlayStation 2 game manual is now scanned in 4K – it took 22 years and cost over $44,000.

Whether you believe in the supernatural or not, October 31st is officially the spookiest night of the year when goblins and ghouls roam and things that go around in the night should never be investigated.

In a nod to Halloween, we came across this roundup of cursed items Atlas Obscurawhich is great for reading before bed (please don’t).

• It includes such delights as Robert the Doll, the haunted doll who has resided at Key West’s Fort East Martello Museum in Florida since 1994. To this day, the museum regularly receives reports of ills allegedly caused by the doll, from divorces to car accidents.
• Then there’s the cursed painting of a crying boy blamed for a series of house fires in Britain in the 1980s (we warned you not to read this after dark) 🙈.
• Or how about the curse of the stolen amethyst? Stolen from India during the 1857 rebellion, it brought nothing but despair and devastation to its owners. Today it is in the vault of London’s Natural History Museum, but its previous owner locked it in seven different boxes in a bank safe with strict instructions not to remove it until three years after his death. His note read: “Those who then open it should first read this warning and then do with the jewel as they wish. My advice to him or her is to throw it in the sea.”

If that’s not scary enough for you Atlas Obscura has also kindly put together some haunted house stories that would make great reading this All Hallows Eve.

tech calendar

• November 8th: Skull and Bones release date on Xbox Series S/X, PS5, PC and Luna
• November 9th: God of War: Ragnarok launches on PS4, PS5
• November 9th to 11th: Mediatek Executive Summit 2022
• November 15-17: Snapdragon Summit by Qualcomm
• 11/18: The Dark Pictures: The Devil in Me will be available on PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series S/X and PC

That sounds pretty scary:

Something extra: Check out this creepy comic Morning Brew‘s Max Knoblauch on how Spirit Halloween dominated America’s malls every fall.

Paula Beaton, Editor.