Google hosted its Pixel 8 event today and announced several interesting developments. Their newly-released Pixel 8 phones were the star of the event, with the Pixel Buds Pro and Pixel Watch 2 bringing up the rear. There were also a few announcements on AI, Android 14, and the Bard Assistant.
Pixel 8 phones
The Pixel phones offer a refined aesthetic with rounded edges, more fluid contours, and a smaller size that’s easier to hold. Both phones use recycled aluminum and zero plastic in their bodies. In terms of processing power, they feature the new Tensor G3 chipset which gives them a significant boost in both CPU as well as GPU power. The Pixel 8 offers the new Actua Display which is 42% brighter than the display on Pixel 7, while the 8 Pro sports the Super Actua Display which is Google’s brightest display yet and maxes out at 2400 nits. The 8 Pro also hosts a temperature sensor on its back, which we thought was pretty cool.
Advertisement
Read our hands-on with the new phones
Pixel Watch 2
The recently released Pixel Watch 2 is now 10% lighter than its predecessor and has a battery that lasts an entire day. It places a special emphasis on safety and is bringing back Fall Detection and Emergency SOS. It’s also introducing a new Safety Check tool that sends your live location to your emergency contacts when you’ve exceeded the time it normally takes for you to cover a specific commute. The new Pixel watch also offers the most accurate heart rate tracker that Fitbit has ever used, Heart Rate Zone coaching, Pace Training, and a skin temperature sensor just like the one on the phone.
Advertisement
Read more on the Pixel Watch 2
Pixel Buds Pro
The Pixel Buds Pro got a couple of new colors to match the phones and the Pixel Watch. The newly added shades are Porcelain and Bay Blue. The buds utilize AI to enhance calls via the Clear Calling and Conversation Detection feature. The former uses the new Pixel phones’ Bluetooth Super Wideband connection and eliminates ambient noise to enhance the quality of calls. The latter automatically pauses your music and enables Transparency Mode as soon as it detects a conversation that involves you. The buds also feature lower latency over Bluetooth on the Pixel 8 phones which can be very helpful while gaming.
Advertisement
Read more on the Pixel Buds Pro
Android 14 and Bard
Android 14 is finally out for you to download on Pixel devices. The new OS uses generative AI to design custom backgrounds for your phones or enable a monochromatic theme. New accessibility features allow you to increase the font size of a certain chunk of text as opposed to everything on the page that you’re on. The new OS rolls out a couple of new features in the data and privacy area as well.
Advertisement
Google Assistant is collaborating with Bard to offer an AI-powered voice assistant that you can access with voice, text, or even images on both Android and iOS devices. You’ll be able to use the Assistant for a variety of tasks and talk to it in a conversational way.
AI
There are a handful of AI features other than the integration of Google Assistant and Bard that Google announced today. Zoom Enhance is one of them and is coming to the Pixel 8 Pro soon. It will let users zoom in on an image in their Photos app and use an Enhance feature to fill up the missing pixels. Magic Eraser is another cool one that will allow users to move and remove objects in a photo. Magic Eraser is coming to video as well which will let users eliminate background noise from them. The tool will automatically filter out any white noise from your video. And lastly, the new Video Boost feature will be able to enhance the saturation of a video for you.
Advertisement
Read more on Google’s latest AI features
Services Marketplace – Listings, Bookings & Reviews