Google puts its own silicon into its Pixel 6 smartphones and Amazon Canada hands out scholarships to deserving Canadian high school students.

Google raises the bar with Pixel 6 smartphones

After years of contracting out the manufacturing and component design to third parties, Google’s just released its own smartphones that are all Google.

At the heart of the Pixel 6 and Pixel 6 Pro handsets is the Google Tensor chipset which was designed by Google to take advantage of the artificial intelligence (AI) work that’s been happening at the company.

That translates to some crackerjack features on the new devices, including an adaptable power delivery that will conserve power according to your daily patterns of use. If you regularly watch videos on your commute home, for example, the Pixel 6 will make sure you’ve got enough charge to do that at the end of the day.

Google is also leveraging its Live Translate functionality on the new Pixel 6 and Pixel 6 Pro, giving you automatic translation of text messages, photos, and voice. And this is all on the phone itself, so you can use Live Translate even if you don’t have access to the internet.

The photo systems are also the best Google has ever delivered, with a dual rear camera system on the Pixel 6 (50 megapixel main lens and 12 megapixel ultrawide lens) and a triple rear camera system on the Pixel 6 Pro (which adds a 48 megapixel telephoto lens with 4 times optical zoom).

These cameras are enhanced by the Tensor chip, which improves how the cameras capture darker skin tones, can remove blur on the faces of people you photograph or add blur to backgrounds to enhance those people.

And the Magic Eraser tool is unbelievably effective at removing objects from your photos.

All of this is packaged in a completely new design which sets out the Google Pixel phones from others by amplifying rather than trying to hide the camera lenses. The rounded corners are set out by a metal band on the back of the handset that houses the camera system.

The Pixel 6 Pro (starting at $1,179) has 12 GB of RAM, up to 512 GB of storage, and a 6.7-inch screen that can refresh at 120 Hz when necessary, but auto-adapts to the situation in order to save power.

The Pixel 6 (starting at $799) has 8 GB of RAM, up to 256 GB of storage, and a 6.4-inch screen.

The two devices will be available on October 28 and can be preordered now.

Ten Canadian high school graduates get scholarships from Amazon Canada

Amazon Canada has awarded ten Canadian high school students with scholarships as part of the Amazon Future Engineer scholarship program.

Each of the graduating students gets $30,000 scholarship to attend the university of their choice as well as a paid summer internship opportunity at Amazon Canada.

The recipients come from across Canada, and all have demonstrated “exceptional academic performance and leadership in school, work, and community activities,” according to a release. They also represent “underserved and underrepresented communities”.

Among the ten winners are the following excellent students:

• Praise Erianamie (Etobicoke, ON), enrolled in the TrackOne program at the University of Toronto Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering
• Shivam Jindal (Mississauga, ON), studying Software Engineering at the University of Waterloo
• Mulei Mao (Scarborough, ON) studying Mechanical and Mechatronics Engineering at the University of Waterloo
• Sophia Nguyen (Toronto, ON), studying Software Engineering at the University of Waterloo
• Youssef Rachad (Barrie, ON), studying Engineering Science at the University of Toronto Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering
• Joonhan Ryo (Moncton, NB) studying Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Toronto Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering
• Yusra Saifuddin (Toronto, ON), studying Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Toronto Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering
• Melvin Teo (Vancouver, BC), studying Computer Science at the University of British Columbia