Google has excited its users with the Gemini Nano and Pixel Feature Drop. The company has released a comprehensive feature update to delight Pixel phone, watch, and tablet users.
With the new update, Pixel device owners will have a smarter, more useful, and more secure user experience. Here are all the details…
Pixel Feature Drop: Users will have access to Gemini Nano
According to Google’s blog post, Pixel 8 and 8a users can access Gemini Nano, Google’s most efficient AI model, as a developer option. This will give developers more room to build AI-powered apps on the device. In addition, the Recorder app on Pixel 8, 8 Pro, and 8a will offer more detailed and downloadable summaries, including the names of speakers, with Summarize powered by Gemini. These summaries will be easily exported to text files or Google Docs.
Wider screen and improved security
Pixel 8a, 8, and 8 Pro users can view their content on a larger screen by connecting their devices to external monitors via USB-C. It will make it easier to use, especially for people who deal with business and multimedia. On the other hand, the Find My Device feature has been improved to allow you to find your location in an encrypted way, even if your phone is turned off or the battery is dead. I wish Apple had such a feature. As far as I know, Apple doesn’t have such a feature yet. But it may come in the future.
Improvements to the photo and search experience
With a single tap in HDR+ mode, the Pixel camera can automatically detect and take a photo of your face when you focus and smile, making social media sharing easier and more fun. It also now offers the ability to directly dial and make a call to a phone number in your call history. With the launch of Google Wallet in India, users can now securely store bus passes, loyalty cards, event tickets, and more. Soon, the Pixel camera will also allow users to choose which lens to use manually.
Security and smart home control for Pixel Watch and Pixel Tablet
Pixel Watch 2 prioritizes user safety with car accident detection and improved fall detection features. In addition, features like PayPal integration and smart home control aim to make users’ lives easier. These features will allow users to control their smart home devices more easily. Pixel Tablet users will have a smarter home experience with rich doorbell notifications and a smart home favorites widget.
What is Gemini Nano?
Google developed the Gemini Nano, a type of artificial intelligence model. Think of it as a compact and efficient “brain” designed to run on your smartphone. It’s part of a larger family of Gemini AI models, each with different capabilities and sizes.
What can Gemini Nano do?
- Understand and process language: It can understand what you say or type, whether it’s a question, a command, or just a casual conversation.
- Generate text: It can write emails, summarize articles, translate languages, and even help you compose creative messages.
- Work offline: One of its coolest features is that it doesn’t need an internet connection to work, so you can use it even when you’re offline.
- Prioritize privacy: It’s designed to process your information on your device, keeping your data private and secure.
- Save energy: It’s optimized to be efficient and won’t drain your phone’s battery too quickly.
Now, let’s get into the specs:
- Size: As the name suggests, Gemini Nano is the smallest of the Gemini models. It’s designed to fit comfortably on your smartphone’s hardware.
- Architecture: It’s based on transformer architecture, a type of neural network that excels at processing language.
- Training data: It’s been trained on a massive amount of text and code data, which gives it impressive language understanding and generation abilities.
- Applications: It powers various phone features, such as smart replies in messaging apps, language translation, text summarization, and more.
- Future potential: Google is continuously working on improving Gemini Nano, so we can expect to see even more impressive features and capabilities in the future.
Google’s comprehensive update aims to add value to users’ everyday lives by making Pixel devices more convenient, secure, and fun. These features reflect Google’s commitment to continuously improving the user experience.
Featured image credit: Barış Selman
