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When it comes to multi-port USB hubs, especially those that support the 3.0 standard, it is a mixed bag.  Often you can find them at a low price but only one or two of the ports will support 3.0.  The others are only 2.0.  Or, the other side of this coin, is that you have one that supports 3.0 across all the ports but it comes at a steep price.

Enter ICZI.  The China-based manufacture has long produced accessories for smartphones and laptops and one of their latest offerings is a 4-Port USB 3.0 hub.  Not only does it support USB 3.0 across all four ports of the hub, it comes in at just under $13 on their Amazon storefront.  Recently the ICZI team sent me one of these hubs to review and after using it on my MacBook Pro for the last couple of weeks, I’m impressed.  It’s a solid performer… no, an excellent performer, with backlit USB ports and a compact, if not utilitarian design.

For those of you who have an iPhone, iPad or Mac, there is a fun update to Apple Maps for you today.  The server-side update will now show you all of the detail of the new Apple Park campus which is slated to open up next month.  The update shows you the estimated $5 billion “Spaceship” main building but also shows you the walking trails throughout the campus as well as the Steve Jobs Theater, the location where it is expect new Apple product releases will happen.

There is nothing you need to do to your iPhone, iPad or Mac.  The update is on the server so just go to Maps and search for Apple Park and you’ll get it right away.

Google is pushing hard to get Actions on Google built for Google Assistant and one of the best ways to do that is to throw some prize money at it.  Google has announced a new contest where the top prize is $10,000 and a trip to Google I/O 2018 for a developer who creates an app leveraging Actions on Google.

For those who are not developers, Actions is the set of APIs that are leveraged to bring Google Assistant compatibility and/or integration into apps.  Google opened up the platform earlier this year and while adoption has been good, Google of course wants to make it more widely used.  Amazon right now has over 10,000 apps that tie into Alexa and Echo and Google is significantly less than that number.  This contest should help change that a bit.

The much rumored and equally anticipated new phone from Android creator Andy Rubin is now reality.  The Essential Phone is packed with impressive specifications and is available for pre-order from the Essential Products site.  The phone starts at $699 or you can pick it up with a magnetic attachable 360-degree camera for $749.

At this price, the near bezel-less phone is aimed at the flagship market and it has the specifications to justify the price.  The Essential PH-1 has a titanium body with a ceramic back, a 5.7″ 2560 x 1320 Quad-HD display, 4GB of RAM and 128GB of storage built-in.  It is powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 processor.  This octa-core processor has four cores running at 2.45GHz and the remaining four clocked at 1.9GHz.