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Google Pixel Fall Hardware Event 2019: What to Expect

Tuesday is the day when Google will be hosting its annual fall hardware showcase event, and as all you know, the event will be finally launching the Google Pixel 4 and Google Pixel 4 XL smartphones. But other than that, the big event will also be revealing some of the major updates to the company’s existing products as well as the other new products.

Pixel 4 has already been in news, and the rumours have got us most of the information about the smartphone. According to the rumours, there are two sizes available in the phone, and it will be in three different colours, i.e. ‘just black’, ‘clearly white’, and ‘oh so orange’. One of the new changes to the new smartphone includes a second, 16-megapixel telephoto, camera lens. The camera will also include some of the new photography tricks in it, like an astrophotography mode that makes the night sky pictures even more magical by capturing the stars even clearer. One of the tricks also includes the “Motion Mode” that is specifically designed to take better action shots.

Google had been working on new radar motion sensors called Soli, which according to the rumours, the company will finally be installing in the smartphone. These sensors will make the smartphone do things only by sensing the user’s gestures, like swipes in the air for changing the song on the music application. There will also be a new face recognition feature that will allow the users to unlock the smartphone and in any orientation. Though the rumours have also claimed the Pixel 4 smartphones to be 5G supported, there is no indication from Google of the same, as it is still working on the technology and cannot launch it any sooner.

Google Pixel
Image Source: trustedreviews.com

Other than the smartphones, the company has made some improvements to some of its products. The Google Assistant has received the major updates and is being called as the ‘next-generation Google Assistant’. The new Google Assistant is ten times faster and will also be available on the Google Pixel 4 smartphones. So, the Assistant will be one of the major highlights of the event.

The company had introduced a Pixelbook laptop in 2017, and there had been no news on new Pixelbooks since then. But as the company had revealed at the beginning of this year that it is working on the next Pixelbook, there are high hopes that it will be showing off a new Pixelbook at the event. Believing the rumours, Pixelebook Go is the upcoming laptop, that may have a 13.3-inch touchscreen. According to a blogpost from 9to5Google, like the Pixel 4 smartphone, the Pixelbook may be in two colours ‘just black’, and ‘oh so orange’.

It is also expected that the company may give us some of its new Nest products. There is a possibility that the company may showcase a new mesh router system that will provide wifi connection to the various Google Home devices. There is another device called Nest Mini, that may attract people’s attention during the event, as it is a small smart speaker from Google that they can also hang on your wall.

Last but not least, one of the new products from Google is a pair of new Pixel Buds. There is not much information about the buds, but we expect them to be completely wireless this time. And according to a tweet from Android and Chrome chief Hiroshi Lockheimer, these new buds are incorporated with great sound quality, sweat proof, better battery with USB C charging port, and more.

So only one day left for the event, and we hope Google will bring even better features and products at the event.

Google Shopping

Google Shopping Gets Redesigned with New Price Tracking Features and More

Online shopping has not only made the shopping experience the most convenient one for the buyers but also, it has opened new doors for the sellers. Google being one platform to connect buyers to different sellers, the company has now redesigned the whole shopping search experience for its users.

People often search directly on Google for a particular product, and through the results, they go to different websites to compare the prices. The company has added a new feature to its searches, such that now, the users can directly compare goods on Google Shopping. This very feature includes another new option for the users to see how a particular dress would look in different styles and on different people.

For instance, if the users want to see a particular piece of clothing, say a floral skirt, on different people, they need to get a picture of it and upload to Google Shopping. The picture can be from the internet, from a store where a mannequin wearing that piece of clothing, or from even their closet. They just need to click the picture and put it into the Google Lens in Google Photos. Then Google, through its Lens’ smart technology, will display the pictures of various people with similar clothing.

Google Shopping
Image Source: livemint.com

The redesign has been done for both desktop as well as the mobile website, but the feature, for now, is only available for the people in the US. Google shopping has got its own redesigned homepage, where the user will get to see personalised items, as soon Google identifies the preferences of a user. Also, the user can not only search for things but can track and compare the prices. The tracking will send them a notification whenever the price of a product drops, so that, they can buy it on affordable prices.

Google-owned delivery service the Google Express will also be playing a part in the new redesign, as the users can order things they found online, and now, they don’t have to worry about the deliveries.

Pinterest has been the biggest player when it comes to comparing various designs and styles online, whether for clothing or the decor. With the new feature, Google will be boarding the same boat as Pinterest. But in the case of Google, the users can also compare the prices of a product. And, when you are putting any random pictures on it, and it is providing you exactly what you want in the results, what can be smarter than that? Though Pinterest is also working on similar technology, so we need to wait, and see, if it is going to be as good as the one from Google or not.

Google Pixel 4

Google to Reveal the New Pixel 4 on the ‘Made by Google’ Event on October 15

This might be the season of new smartphone launches, as we just got introduced to the Apple iPhone 11 last week, and have got to know about the OnePlus 7T and 7T Pro through a few leaks. And now, Google is also going to reveal its new Pixel 4 smartphones on the 15th of next month. The company is hosting a hardware event on 15th October in New York, where it will be providing more details on the upcoming Pixel 4, along with its other premium products.

Though the company has already talked much about its new flagship smartphone and even posted a few pictures of the same through various means like tweets, there is a lot under the wraps yet. The company has already sent invites for the event to the media persons, that reads “a few new things Made by Google”. Google uses the ‘Made by Google’ tagline to represent its in-house products. So even if the invite does not say much about the Pixel 4, it is quite obvious to expect more details on the Pixel 4.

According to earlier revealed details, the new smartphone is going to have an updated face recognition technology that may also make use of Google’s new Soli radar-based gesture-recognition technology. There will also be a three-camera setup in a square on its back, that mostly looks like the camera cluster on the back of an iPhone 11 Pro. Also, there might be more colours available in Pixel 4, other than black, white and coral, as decoded through the revealed pictures of the same.

Google Pixel 4
Source: Google Inc.

In the previous smartphone releases, the company kept a single HD rear camera for all its Pixels. But this time with the main camera, Pixel 4 is having two more cameras. Other than the main camera, most likely, the second camera will be a telephoto lens with high zooming capabilities. The main camera will reportedly have an improved “Night Sight” feature, such that the night pictures will be even brighter. Also, the users can take fast-action pictures with the main camera. And, like the other high-end smartphones with triple cameras, the third camera might be a wide-angle camera.

Along with the Pixel 4 smartphones, the company will also be revealing the Nest and Home smart devices, updated Chrome laptops as well as tablets. Google will also be live-streaming the event on YouTube, starting at 10 am PT.

Though the Pixel cameras have been one of the most top-rated smartphones, in January this year, the company faced a huge fall in the sales. But anyhow, it managed to raise the sales with its Pixel 3 and Pixel 3 XL. So the release of Pixel 4 is quite critical for the company, and it surely had done some great work with it.

Android 10

Canadian Telco Rogers Says Android 10 is Coming to Pixels on 3rd September

People are currently waiting for the launch of new iPhones and iOS 13, and there comes the launch date of Google’s Android Q (Android 10). Yes, two Canadian mobile operators, i.e. Rogers and Telus, has revealed the rumoured release date for the OS, and that too, for everyone’s surprise is today. Yes, news that both the operators had posted on their websites say that Google is releasing its latest OS, i.e. Android 10 on 3rd September.

Though there has been no confirmation from Google, and even Rogers has removed the news from its website, Telus has still got the date printed on its website. It was the leading news hosting website, 9to5Google, that spotted the posts over the webpages of both the carriers. The company also took the screenshot of the same on the website. So the mobile operators are not in the state to deny it.

The post on Telus’s website has got the mention of the release date of the OS as well as the new security updates that the OS will be bringing with it. Believing the news, the new OS will arrive on the eight of the Pixel series Google smartphones. These smartphones include the original Pixel, Pixel XL, Pixel 2, Pixel 2 XL, Pixel 3, Pixel 3 XL, Pixel 3a, Pixel 3a XL.

Android 10
Image Source: cybermagonline.com

People were already expecting the release of the Android OS to be in August. As, for the past few years, the company has been releasing its OSs, including the Android 7 “Nougat”, Android 8 “Oreo”, and Android 9 “Pie”, in the month of August.

Google released the final beta of Android 10 for the testers at the beginning of August. And with the release, Google had also said that the “public release is a few weeks away.” But till now there has been no news from Google in this regard. The beta was available for all companies’ smartphones, including Samsung, Nokia, LG, OnePlus, Huawei, etc., but the original release will still be on the Pixel phones first. So the other companies’ smartphones yet need to wait a few more weeks or months to get the OS. But we cannot say that even the Pixels will get the OS today until Google confirms it.

The latest OS from Android will cover a few security patches as well as new features. The expected features for the Android Q includes the improved gesture controls, dark mode, as well as some accessibility features.

Google Cloud and VMware

Google Cloud to Add Support for VMware Workloads to Attract More Enterprise Customers

Google has just announced that it has joined its hands with the software company, VMware, to expand its cloud services. This way, Google will be able to court the enterprise users of VMware who will be able to run their workloads over Google Cloud.

Through the partnership, the two companies are planning to start a new hybrid cloud service called Google Cloud VMware Solution (developed by CloudSimple). The service will let the VMware enterprise customers use the Google Cloud Platform (GCP) to run their vSphere-based workloads. The partnership will make Google provide its support for the VMware Cloud Foundation. The VMware Cloud Foundation is mainly responsible for deploying and running hybrid clouds.

VMware has got a long list of enterprise customers, and it would be great for Google if it bags them for its hybrid cloud service. Though Google is a long-time rival for VMware and many of the enterprises won’t be moving to GCP, there are many who themselves had requested Google to provide support for VMware cloud over its cloud service. Migrating the VMware workloads to a VMware software-defined data centre (SDCC) running in GCP, will render the organisations to have full, native access to the complete VMware services, i.e. vCenter, vSAN and NSX-T.

Google Cloud and VMware

“Customers have asked us to provide broad support for VMware, and now with Google Cloud VMware Solution by CloudSimple, our customers will be able to run VMware vSphere-based workloads in GCP. This brings customers a wide breadth of choices for how to run their VMware workloads in a hybrid deployment, from modern containerized applications with Anthos to VM-based applications with VMware in GCP.” said Google in the announcement.

Google is moving forward towards internet-based computing and storage, and it is estimated that the company may raise its cloud business to $8 billion this year. The partnership is also going to add up some more to the annual revenue of the company. Where its rival companies like Alphabet Inc. has already been in such deals, Google has just started on this way.

“Our partnership with Google Cloud has always been about addressing customers’ needs, and we’re excited to extend the partnership to enable our mutual customers to run VMware workloads on VMware Cloud Foundation in Google Cloud Platform. With VMware on GCP, customers will be able to leverage all of the familiarity and investment protection of VMware tools and training as they execute on their cloud strategies, and rapidly bring new services to market and operate them seamlessly and more securely across a hybrid cloud environment.” VMware’s Sanjay Poonen said in a statement.

VMware is not new to such partnerships and has recently partnered with Microsoft and formed the Azure VMware Solutions, which is again developed by CloudSimple. In 2016, the company had also joined its hands with Amazon in order to integrate the cloud services from both the companies altogether.

nest max hub

Google to (may) Launch the Nest Max Hub in the Coming September

Recently, Alphabet’s subsidiary smart home device maker was rebranded to Nest from Google Home, and in the last Google I/O 2019 event, the company announced a new and big Smart Display, i.e. Nest Max Hub. Well, the company has also mistakenly revealed the date of launch for the said product. The revealed date though was 9th of the coming Septemeber, but the company has just removed the date from its support page.

Previously the company had launched the Nest Hub, a 7” display, that opened the door to things like guided recipes, song lyrics, appointment calendars, etc. The brand new Smart Display from Google is 10” HD display and is empowered with Google Assistant.

This time, the company has also included Nest Cam to the display, such that if the user is away from home, and the Nest Cam captures any new faces, it alerts the user. For the alerts, the company has included the Nest Aware subscription service into the display. The camera uses the Face Match technology to identify faces and can recognize up to six people. For these six people, it then creates personalised settings, too.

nest max hub
Image Source: techhive.com

The camera offers a 127-degree field of view that covers a larger area. The display also lets the user scroll through the recording history. Having a camera on the display, the users can also make video calls through it using Google’s Duo app.

Having the assistance of the Google Assistant, the Smart Display can create personalised calendars for the users, and on their preferences, it can also incorporate new playlists.

Quick Gestures is another new feature added to the display, such that the user can control some of its apps through the hand gestures only. Like for the music, the user can ask the smart display to reduce or increase the volume through their hand’s gestures.

The new Smart Display has also inherited a few features from its previous version. Like Nest Hub, it will render built-in Chromecast and will also have access to Google Photos. It has also got a 2-channel speaker setup, that includes two tweeters and a woofer.

The Nest Max Hub is an all-in-one device that has been designed to serve almost every type of solutions to the user. According to the company’s keynote at the Google I/O conference, the Nest Max Hub, for users, is their kitchen TV, a security camera, a smart home controller as well as their Smart Display.

According to the announcement, the Smart Display will be first available in the U.S., UK and Australia. The price of the product has been set at around $299, which is a bit pricier than its ancestor. But based on the various specifications of the new Smart Display, it is quite a steal deal.