The Weekly Authority: Google’s possible Pixel secret

⚡ Welcome to a spellbinding edition of The weekly authoritythe Android Authority newsletter that breaks down the top Android and tech news of the week. The 218th edition here, featuring Google’s secret high-end Pixel phone, Musk’s takeover of Twitter, USB-C standards news and Halloween cursed items…

👻 Happy Halloween weekend! I’m celebrating early with an evening of gothic fiction at a local bookstore before heading off on vacation, leaving you and Hadlee and Jonathan the next weekend. See you on the other side!

Apple:

• Rumors indicate that the iPhone 15 series may ditch the physical volume/power buttons in favor of solid-state buttons.
• Apple may have a giant, unwieldy iPad in the works – it’s expected to measure 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 take 30% of revenue from the sale of “boosts” for app posts on social media.
• On that note, Apple is the only phone maker to report positive growth this quarter, although Samsung still leads the market with the highest number of shipments.
• Meanwhile, Apple stores are starting to sell exterior locks that can be unlocked by pressing iPhone or Apple Watch: Level Lock+ costs $329 and, when installed in a door, can be unlocked using Apple Home Key.
• Plus: An Apple exec explained why iMessage isn’t on Android — apparently it “looked like a throwaway.”

Social media:

• It’s official: Elon Musk owns Twitter, and he’s already fired former CEO Parag Agarwal, CFO Ned Segal, and General Counsel Sean Edgett, among others.
• A new report appears to confirm the worst fears about how TikTok uses data: A team from Chinese parent company ByteDance planned to mine the app’s data to “monitor the personal location of specific US citizens”.

Somewhere else:

• Launched Redmi Note 12 series: 200MP camera, 210W charging for less than $400.
• Passkeys — Microsoft, Apple, and Google’s password killer — are finally here: PayPal will give US-based users the option to log in with FIDO-based passkeys, just like online services. Kayak online, 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 fall 2024.
• And Apple has conceded to European legislation: iPhones will have USB-C ports, which will make the change next year.
• Speaking of the EU: no new combustion engine cars from 2035, says the European Union.
• Meanwhile, Uber announced new safety features for passengers and drivers, including fewer left turns.
• Android phones offered early earthquake warning in the United States, beating iPhones to the punch.
• And the creator of Android is back with a surveillance startup.
• WhatsApp has recovered from a major two-hour outage that affected users around the world, the app’s first major outage since last year.
• Lego unveils a spooky and one-of-a-kind haunted house-themed RTX 3090 gaming PC.
• According to a study, plastic recycling is a “failed concept”, with only 5% recycled in the United States last year as production increases.
• Drone footage shows the start of construction of the Saudi megacity The Line.

• Jesse Williams joins the cast of Only Murders in the Building for season 3, which will also feature Paul Rudd. Were excited.
• Warner Bros.’ Black Adam opened to $67 million last weekend, the biggest opening weekend since July’s Thor: Love and Thunder ($143 million).
• We got our first look at 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 the next project from Dark co-creators Baran bo Odar and Jantje Friese, which will arrive November 17th.
• Future seasons of Doctor Who will stream 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 exposed, with approximately 215 million pseudonymised viewing data entries.
• Check out the best new shows streaming this week, including Guillermo Del Toro’s Cabinet of Curiosities (spoiler alert: it’s bloody).
• Plus, we’ve got the best new movies streaming this week, including Netflix’s The Good Nurse, based on a disturbing true story.
• Also: The Simpsons goes anime for a Death Note tribute – this will be part of the upcoming Treehouse of Horror Halloween compilation, airing Sunday, October 30.

• The Cult of the Lamb is hosting a limited-time event for Halloween: the Blood Moon Festival kicked off on October 25 with a number of new activities and decorations for the season, which will end on November 10.
• CD Projekt Red has announced that they are remaking The Witcher in Unreal Engine 5: the project is in the early stages of development and the game will be “rebuilt from the ground up”, so we shouldn’t expect that anytime soon.
• Modern Warfare 2 launched on Friday and the physical disc contains 70MB of data, with a 150GB download.
• My box‘s Zack Zwiezen played the first four hours of God Of War Ragnarök: “It’s mostly good news, because Ragnarök plays a lot like 2018’s fantastic God of War. But I’m a little concerned about the balance between the story and action in this highly anticipated sequel.
• Fallout 4 Gets Latest Next-Gen Update For PS5, Xbox, Expect Performance Mode For “High Framerates,” 4K Resolution Support, And More
• And the Bayonetta 3 reviews are in: Engadget says it’s “full of classic Bayonetta madness”, while The edge called it “A sexy, sleek sequel that can’t nail the finale.”
• Meanwhile, Sony’s apparently removed game expiration dates from PS Plus: Games are still listed under 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 hikes 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 developer Bloober Team confirms that the game is in its “late production phase”, with Konami to provide more support. information on a release date soon.
• Speaking of children, those who play video games score higher on brain function tests, according to a new study.
• Finally: every PlayStation 2 game manual in the US is now scanned in 4K – it took 22 years and over $44,000.

Whether or not you believe in the supernatural, October 31st is officially the scariest night of the year, when goblins and ghouls roam and the things that jostle in the night should never be the subject of a investigation.

In the vein of all things Halloween-y, we came across this cursed item roundup from Dark Atlasmaking it a great bedtime read (please don’t).

• It includes such delights as Robert the Doll, the haunted doll that has resided at the Fort East Martello Museum in Key West, Florida since 1994. To this day, the museum receives regular reports of evils allegedly caused by the doll, from divorce to car accidents.
• Then there’s the cursed painting of a crying boy who was blamed for a series of house fires in the 1980s in the UK (we warned you not to read this after dark ) 🙈.
• Or how about the curse of the stolen amethyst? Stolen from India during the rebellion of 1857, it brought only despair and desolation to its owners. Today it resides in the vault of the Natural History Museum in London, but its former owner locked it in seven different boxes inside a bank vault, with strict instructions not to not withdraw it for three years after his death. Her note read, “Anyone who opens it next, will read this warning first, and then do whatever they want with the jewel. My advice for him is to throw him overboard.

If that’s not enough terror for you, Dark Atlas also very kindly put together some haunted house stories that make this All Hallow’s Eve a great read.

Technical calendar

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

It sounds pretty terrifying:

Something more: Check out this scary comic from Morning infusion‘s Max Knoblauch on how Spirit Halloween has come to dominate American malls each fall.

Paula Beaton, editor.