Daily Authority: 🤯 Wild Pixel Watch story

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Found: A Pixel Watch?

The weekend saw a truly wow story, rivaling the infamous “found iPhone 4” from over a decade ago: A Pixel Watch was apparently left at a restaurant.

The timeline:

• First, Android Central published a wild scoop: someone sent in images of the Pixel Watch, from a source, who said that it was left in a bar: “A Google Pixel Watch was apparently left and found at a restaurant in the US.”
• The world took notice (we wrote about it here). It’s almost certainly Google’s Pixel Watch ahead of an expected launch next month at Google I/O.
• The wearable was apparently found in a box that stated that the device was for “internal testing and development only,” and “markings and packaging are not final.”
• Skepticism started building with questions everywhere: Huh, what are these images? Someone just left the watch itself and not the strap, and didn’t come back for it? Why isn’t the device turned on? Did Google leak this itself?
• Remember, Google “left” a Pixel 3 XL in a Lyft back in late 2018.
• Then, an Ask Me Anything (AMA) was posted on Reddit by u/tagtech414, who claims to own the watch in a post titled “I’m the guy who leaked the Pixel Watch to Android Central.”

Here’s the post on Reddit:

“To answer a few questions right off the bat:

• “My buddy is the one that found the watch. He is a bartender at the restaurant it was left at. They held it for a few weeks expecting the people that left it to return, but that never happened. He gave it to me because I’m the tech nerd so he let me deal with it.
• The reason the bands aren’t attached in any photos is simple — my buddy forgot to give them to me with the watch. They were packaged separately and he forgot to bring them over, so he sent me pictures of them for the article (notice the background is different). I’ll get them from him at some point and post an image of the whole package.
• No charger was left, and the battery is dead. The image with the ‘G’ boot logo was taken by my buddy the day he found it. It had a small amount of charge at that point but only booted to that screen, guessing there isn’t a full OS loaded.”
• In answering questions, the Redditor said he hasn’t been contacted by Google, and still doesn’t have the bands to be able to hook it all together, and that it was found in the “NW suburbs of Chicago.”
• And for whatever it’s worth, this person has been a Redditor for eight years, and didn’t ask for money from Android Central for the leaks, either.

Watch details:

• The device matches what we’ve seen in apparently leaked renders: circular watch face, rotating crown, two buttons on the side.
• There are four pins on the side, but speculation is that the pins are for testing purposes and may not appear on the final model.
• In the AMA, u/tagtech414 says the watch face is about 1/2-inch thick and 1.5 inches in diameter, and posted a comparison to the Apple Watch (40mm) and Samsung Galaxy Watch (46mm) (original, not the latest Galaxy Watch).
• The bottom of the watch shows a rounded health-tracking sensor that “looks metallic but feels like it’s coated with glass,” according to the poster.
• You can make out the bezels here, here it is on his arm.
• Apparently, a charger wasn’t left with the watch, and there was only enough charge on the device when it booted to show a white Google logo, and nothing else happened, so maybe there’s no software on it yet.
• Wireless chargers didn’t work. Another quote: “I have not gotten the wireless charging to work. Multiple Qi chargers, Galaxy Watch charger, and reverse charging from Galaxy Fold 3 and Pixel 6. They all detect it at first but then stop. My guess is this is an engineering sample so I wouldn’t guarantee it won’t have it upon release.”
• Also in more speculative theories, someone said that the four pins are for a typical four-wire USB connector, and a spliced-out USB cable could connect.
• Someone else said to try a Fitbit charger from the Versa to see if that’ll work.

As I write this, the last post from the source was just under six hours ago. There is certainly more to come!

Roundup:

🎂 Android 14 is only coming next year, but we’ve already got a dessert name: “Upside-down Cake”. Tasty! (Android Authority).

🤔 The Pixel 6 Pro was apparently supposed to get face unlock at launch(Android Authority).

👉 Samsung and Google should steal this old LG camera feature: copying settings from existing photos. Genius (Android Authority).

🆚 iPhone SE 2022 second review: The vintage looks and approach means it can’t compete with the best budget Android phones (Android Authority).

🍎 Apple may have begun a new push to remove outdated software from the App Store (Engadget).

👉 Asus’ new portable monitor looks like it was ripped from an ASUS Duo laptop (The Verge).

💰 Apparently Twitter’s board met yesterday to negotiate with Elon Musk into the early hours of this morning to consider selling to a now cashed-up Musk. Quote: “What had initially seemed to be a highly improbable deal appeared to be nearing an endgame” (NY Times, gift link).

🎬 The Wachowski Sisters are auctioning their movie props to raise money for trans youth. You can bid on the Samsung Model SPH-N270! (Potter Auctions).

🛏️ Why pillows turn yellow, and how to clean them: Those yellow stains on pillows may be gross, but they’re not permanent (Lifehacker).

📦 Shanghai’s plan to reboot the supply chain may involve locking workers inside factories (Wired).

🚢 Using robots to clean the hulls of ships: A Roomba for your ship to clean off biofouling, and make the ships more efficient too (TechCrunch).

🕳 We all know about Elon Musk and promises, but Musk says his Boring Company “will attempt to build a working Hyperloop” aiming to go from one city center to another, and says spaceships are faster for longer distances. A glimpse of the future, or should we just be taking fast trains? (Teslarati).

🤔 “How does over-the-horizon radar work? Bounces off the ionosphere like shortwave radio?” (r/askscience).

Monday Meme

How is this tweet so true? Everyone I’ve shared this with has some recollection of one of these books:

Have a great start to your week,

Tristan Rayner, Senior Editor