Daily Authority: 👀 Nothing's secret

🌊 Good day, and welcome to the Daily Authority. This morning I woke to a water outage. Usually, this wouldn’t be too terrible, but as I forgot to fill the water jug last night, it also means no coffee. It looks like Monday has arrived a day late.

Nothing Phone 1 coming soon

For Nothing, it looks like its Phone 1 launch arrived a few hours early. A big last minute leak has seemingly spilled all the beans ahead of the Nothing Phone 1’s official debut later today.

The skinny

• The info dump comes courtesy of developer Kuba Wojciechowski via Twitter.
• Wojciechowski claims to have access to the phone’s firmware, which reveals plenty about the phone.
• Said firmware is made by Chinese original design manufacturer BYD Electronics.

The software

• As a result, it seems the Nothing Phone 1 will land with a few generic Chinese apps.
• These include the 400MB camera app and a Game Mode that shares some traits with Meizu phones.
• Of course, we’ll only be able to confirm these details once we have the phone in for review.
• The good news is that the Phone 1 runs Nothing OS 1, wholly based on Android 12.

The hardware

• In terms of hardware, the leak confirms the previously disclosed Snapdragon 778G Plus chipset.
• We’re also getting a 120Hz FHD+ AMOLED panel up front.
• According to the firmware, two 50MP sensors from Sony and Samsung will make up the dual rear camera (Nothing already revealed an IMX766 sensor for the main camera).
• The selfie camera will use a 16MP Sony sensor.

Nothing Phone 1’s debut is officially scheduled for 4 PM BST (11 AM ET) today. So be sure to visit Android Authority for the latest details as soon as they stream in.

Roundup

🖼️ In the meantime, grab the Nothing Phone 1 wallpapers while you wait (Android Authority).

🪐 NASA has published the first image captured by the James Webb Space Telescope, and it’s dizzying. A full suite of shots from the telescope will be released here later today (NASA).

🍏 Apple released watchOS 9 beta and iPadOS 16 beta for eager adopters. While the iPadOS upgrade seems a marked step up for power users, watchOS 9 focuses on bringing even more health tracking metrics to the wrist (The Verge).

📜 Do you regret that LG did not launch its Rollable Phone before it bit the dust? Well, someone got hold of it and recorded a hands-on video. You’ll want to watch this (Android Authority).

🤫 Great news! You can now “unmention” yourself across all tweets on Twitter. It’s an easy way to excuse yourself from partaking in a conversation on the platform (TechCrunch).

🤔 Too good to believe? A Twitter user allegedly snapped up a Google Pixel 7 Pro prototype through Facebook Marketplace. It certainly does look like a real Pixel 7 Pro prototype… (Android Authority).

🚀 SpaceX’s Super Heavy Booster 7 exploded during a ground test at the company’s Texan base. An orbital test of the system was due to take place this month, but it’s unclear if it’ll go ahead as planned (Gizmodo).

🐸 A surprisingly informative article about garden ponds and animals’ uncanny ability to find them (BBC).

📺 The pitfalls of YouTube’s automated copyright claim system were exposed again, as the video giant took down one of the internet’s most loved streams — Lofi Girl. But don’t worry; YouTube says the channel should be back soon (Vice).

💰 Remarkably, the Euro is now worth just a sliver more than the US Dollar. The two currencies could soon be on parity for the first time since December 2002 (The Telegraph).

👃 “What smells better than it tastes?” (r/askreddit).

Tuesday Chart

This chart was too impressive to pass up. Reddit user u/r88b tallied the turn signal usage of fellow drivers encountered along a trip across the continental US. The data was lovingly collated “on the lid from a box of donuts” across 3.5 weeks and later charted on the map you see below.

All in all, their “highly scientific study” provides us with clear evidence that drivers in North Carolina may have something against turn signals. Nebraskans seem to host the most well-behaved drivers of the states surveyed.

Until next week,

Andy Walker, Editor