Google new mobile phone conference: Android 14, "buy a phone, give away AI"

At 10 a.m. local time on October 4, Google held a "Made by Google" event in New York, where hardware such as Pixel 8, Pixel 8Pro, Pixel Watch 2, Pixel Buds, and the latest Android 14 system were exposed one by one.

In addition to the Pixel 8 matte matte back and explosion-proof shield-shaped 50 million pixel camera, the biggest highlight of the day's conference, you can guess, is AI - how Google integrates its various AI concepts and functions on flagship phones, which is more curious.

From super seamless retouching, image quality correction to AI-generated wallpapers, AI has penetrated into Google's new phones and systems, and every user is most familiar with and perceives the strongest features.

The $699 Pixel 8 and $999 Pixel 8 Pro are still much cheaper than the latest flagships of Apple and Huawei, but Google Pixel is the real "buy a phone, send AI".

AI features hack into phones

The new Pixel 8 series mobile phone inherits the consistent design style of the Pixel series, and has not changed much in appearance. One of the biggest changes is that the screen has changed from a curved screen of the previous generation to a non-curved screen, while the back shell has changed from glass to matte matte material, which has a stronger sense of hold.

At the same time, Google has upgraded the screen of Pixel 8 series mobile phones, and the 1-120Hz LTPO refresh rate makes the phone smoother and more power-saving when playing games and browsing the web.

As the first mobile phone equipped with Android 14 system, the biggest highlight of the Pixel 8 series is AI, or at least this is the most said function at the normal press conference.

Pixel 8 pink phone | Google

According to Brian Rakowski, Google's vice president of product management, the Pixel 8 and Pixel 8 Pro are "both AI-centric" and powered by Google's Tensor G3.

First of all, the camera system of the Pixel 8 and Pixel 8 Pro has been upgraded. Compared to the Pixel 7, the 50-megapixel main camera is more capable of adapting to low-light environments, the ultra-wide-angle lens is larger, the telephoto lens can capture more light and take 10x magnified photos in optical quality, and the front camera now has autofocus to help users take selfies.

And even more interesting than the camera are its editing tools. "We've all been in a situation where we take a perfect group photo, but someone doesn't look at the camera." Through generative AI, the Magic Editor in Google Photos can use the photo already taken, manually select another expression from other photos, and generate a new photo to achieve the effect the photographer wants, so that "everyone's eyes are open".

Magic Editor creates hybrid images with everyone's best expressions |

The Magic Editor can also be used to change lighting and background, such as changing gray skies to golden sunsets, and provides multiple result options after selecting edits.

Dina Berrada, Director of Product Management at Google Photos, said: "This is just the beginning, and we plan to add more intuitive generative AI capabilities to the Magic Editor in the future."

Tap or circle the object you want to edit to drag to move or resize |

After taking a photo, Pixel users can also use it to zoom in on the photo at will, use generative AI to fill in the gaps between pixels, and add details to the photo, a feature Google calls "Zoom Enhance", which will be available on the Pixel 8 Pro.

Zoom Enhance fills the gaps between pixels and predicts fine details |

In addition to pictures, there is also audio and video. Audio Magic Eraser, which reduces video distractions, such as howling wind or noisy crowd sounds, identifies and controls their volume, is said to be "the first to use advanced machine learning models to classify sounds into different levels of computational audio power."

Later this year, the Pixel 8 Pro will reportedly come with Video Boost Boost, a video processing app that adjusts the color, light, stability and graininess of a video, as well as enabling Night Sight Video to boost low-light video quality.

Isaac Reynolds, Chief Product Manager for Pixel Camera, said: "We are using the same algorithm to enable a completely new approach to calculating video. Achieving this is challenging because there is so much more data in a video than a photo. In fact, processing 30 frames per second for a minute of 4K video equals processing 1,800 photos, a task that no mobile phone can do on its own."

In addition, Google's Pixel phones embed some common features of generative AI, such as generating snippets for web pages. In addition, Pixel can also read and translate web pages for users, allowing users to "listen to articles" when they are away.

Pixel phones can read web pages aloud | Google

When it comes to communication, Pixel supports multiple languages to type, edit, and send messages with voice. Google executives said Pixel is "better at understanding the nuances of human speech," waiting for users to finish speaking before responding when they pause or say "um."

With improvements in artificial intelligence, Call Screen on mobile phones is now said to help reduce spam calls by an average of 50%. "It will silently answer calls from unknown numbers in a more natural voice to interact with callers. It's also smart enough to separate the phone you want from the one you don't. Soon, Call Screen will also generate contextual reply suggestions for you, quickly responding to simple calls, such as appointment confirmations, without answering the phone."

In addition, the Pixel 8 Pro also has a new temperature sensor on the back that can scan the temperature of the object, which is said to be used to check whether the pan is hot enough when cooking, and to check whether the milk in the baby bottle has reached the right temperature when caring for the baby. Google also submitted an application to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to enable the Pixel's thermometer app to measure human body temperature.

.AI

, from hardware to software

In order for the above AI functions to be fully realized, the Pixel 8 series of phones are equipped with Google's latest custom chip Tensor G3, which is specially designed to run Google's AI models, including the latest generation of ARM CPUs, upgraded GPUs, new ISPs and Imaging DSPs, and a new generation of TPUs.

According to Monika Gupta, Google's vice president of product management, the latest Pixel phones "run more than twice as many machine learning models on devices" as the previous generation of Tors, and the models themselves are more complex, with generative AI on the latest phones "150 times more complex than the most complex models on the Pixel 7 a year ago."

Tensor G3 chip | Google

In terms of speech and natural language understanding, the Pixel 8 is the first phone to use the same text-to-speech model as Google's data center, which also enables the Pixel to read web pages aloud.

The aforementioned image and video applications are also powered by Tensor G3 and Google's data centers. Google optimized the image flow and integrated machine learning algorithms directly into the chip, enabling Live-HDR to capture more detail on the Pixel 8 and Pixel 8 Pro to improve color, contrast and dynamic range. These are combined with new camera sensors, new machine learning models, and new camera software while consuming less power.

"Machine learning models can now enhance almost every aspect of the Pixel user experience." The Google executive said, "And this is just the beginning."

On the same day, Google also launched Assistant with Bard, a Google personal assistant powered by generative AI that combines Bard's generative and inference capabilities. In the coming months, users will be able to use it on Android and iOS mobile devices.

"We believe that digital assistants should make it easier for you to manage the big and small things on your to-do list. For example, plan your next trip, find details buried in your inbox, create a grocery list for a weekend getaway, or send a text message. Like a real assistant." Sissie Hsiao, vice president and general manager of Google, said.

On Android devices, Google is building a more contextual phone experience.

For example, let's say a Pixel phone user just took a photo of a cute puppy, just have Assistant with Bard float on the photo and voice ask it to write a social post. Assistant with Bard can use images as visual cues to understand context and generate content. Google executives called it "a whole new way to interact with your phone."

Let Bard's assistant write puppy pictures social posts |

According to Google executives, Assistant with Bard is still an early experiment and will soon roll it out to early testers to gather feedback before pushing it to the public in the coming months.

In addition, Google's AI is integrated into the watch in addition to being integrated into the phone. In terms of wearable devices, Google has built a typical scenario: after the user falls asleep and wakes up, he opens Google Personal Assistant and simply asks "How did I sleep last night?" to get a daily sleep score or weekly average, or ask to start exercising.

Android 14 system update is not very big change | Google

The latest Android 14 system, similar to Apple's updated iOS 17 system update, has not changed much, more at the level of system beautification and AI. For example, Android 14 allows users to customize the screen saver freely, and at the same time, they can use generative AI, generate their own wallpapers, and so on.

There's no denying that despite the Pixel series' attention, its market share remains low.

However, AI may be an opportunity for Pixel and Google to turn around. In the current explosion of generative artificial intelligence, mobile phone manufacturers have followed up, hoping to add large model capabilities to mobile phones, which in addition to the ability of chip underlying hardware such as Qualcomm, but also need Android system manufacturers - Google to support and guide at the software system level.

And that's what sets Google apart from strong rivals like Apple and Microsoft — both AI capabilities and Android running on billions of mobile devices.

The Pixel 8 series is clearly just the beginning.

Image credit: The Verge