Author Archives: Rick Osterloh
Introducing our new Pixel portfolio of products
Today, we’re introducing a true portfolio of Pixel products for the first time: the new Pixel 7 and Pixel 7 Pro, and the very first Google Pixel Watch. Every Pixel device is designed to deliver a level of personal intelligence that turns day to day problems into truly delightful experiences. All of this is brought to life thanks to our combination of foundational technologies, artificial intelligence, Android and Google Tensor.
This is what we have been building up to for a while: delivering a lineup of beautifully designed Pixel phones, watches and earbuds that work together to understand your needs and deliver the helpfulness you expect from Google. We believe Pixel isn't only a phone experience, it's a personal, intelligent, cohesive computing experience.
The latest products from Google
As the Pixel portfolio expands the phone is at the center of it all. The new Pixel 7 and Pixel 7 Pro take all the helpfulness and personal intelligence people love about Pixel, and make them even better. The design is the ultimate refinement of Pixel, simplifying the parts and construction to make phones that are sophisticated and distinct.
Underneath, they’re powered by the second-generation Google Tensor G2, the only processor that makes it possible to bring Google’s artificial intelligence and machine learning directly to the phone. The new Pixel phones are great for photography, with features that can sharpen your photos and shoot cinema-quality videos. Pixel Call Assist is a new suite of features that helps with everything from making calls to avoiding them. They also provide fast, accurate voice assistance with Live Translate and Assistant voice typing.
Pixel 7 is engineered to understand you and your world, putting Google’s personalized intelligence right in your hand. And Pixel 7 Pro is Google’s most powerful phone. It brings serious performance, and an upgraded telephoto lens, for people who want an even better zoom experience.
Our new Google Pixel Watch, is the first smartwatch to provide the best of Google and Fitbit, and it’s the perfect companion to our Pixel phones. Pixel Watch features a beautiful, custom-developed 3-D coverglass that’s durable and scratch resistant, with three distinct jewelry inspired stainless steel finishes in black, silver and gold. Watches are so personal, so we offer many watch bands — active, stretch and woven, metal and leather — along with customizable watch faces and an easily personalizable user interface. Google Pixel Watch helps simplify your life by integrating with your favorite Google apps, to listen to music, manage your smart home, get directions, make payments and more. Google Pixel Watch is the first WearOS device that combines Google's helpfulness with best health and fitness insights from Fitbit.
Earlier this year at I/O, we previewed plans to build an Android tablet powered by our custom Tensor G2 processor. And today, we shared more about our vision for making the PixelTablet the most helpful tablet whether you’re at home or on the go.
From their design to the high-tech features, these latest products embody the best of Google. You can learn more about them and pre-order the new Pixel phones and the new Google Pixel Watch in the Google Store, or from our partners around the world. In fact, we're expanding the availability of Pixel phones to more places, including Denmark, Netherlands, Norway, and Sweden for the first time. Google now has a comprehensive portfolio of devices and services, for your home and for on the go, and we hope you’ll love this latest generation of products.
Source: The Official Google Blog
Introducing our new Pixel portfolio of products
Today, we’re introducing a true portfolio of Pixel products for the first time: the new Pixel 7 and Pixel 7 Pro, and the very first Google Pixel Watch. Every Pixel device is designed to deliver a level of personal intelligence that turns day to day problems into truly delightful experiences. All of this is brought to life thanks to our combination of foundational technologies, artificial intelligence, Android and Google Tensor.
This is what we have been building up to for a while: delivering a lineup of beautifully designed Pixel phones, watches and earbuds that work together to understand your needs and deliver the helpfulness you expect from Google. We believe Pixel isn't only a phone experience, it's a personal, intelligent, cohesive computing experience.
The latest products from Google
As the Pixel portfolio expands the phone is at the center of it all. The new Pixel 7 and Pixel 7 Pro take all the helpfulness and personal intelligence people love about Pixel, and make them even better. The design is the ultimate refinement of Pixel, simplifying the parts and construction to make phones that are sophisticated and distinct.
Underneath, they’re powered by the second-generation Google Tensor G2, the only processor that makes it possible to bring Google’s artificial intelligence and machine learning directly to the phone. The new Pixel phones are great for photography, with features that can sharpen your photos and shoot cinema-quality videos. Pixel Call Assist is a new suite of features that helps with everything from making calls to avoiding them. They also provide fast, accurate voice assistance with Live Translate and Assistant voice typing.
Pixel 7 is engineered to understand you and your world, putting Google’s personalized intelligence right in your hand. And Pixel 7 Pro is Google’s most powerful phone. It brings serious performance, and an upgraded telephoto lens, for people who want an even better zoom experience.
Our new Google Pixel Watch, is the first smartwatch to provide the best of Google and Fitbit, and it’s the perfect companion to our Pixel phones. Pixel Watch features a beautiful, custom-developed 3-D coverglass that’s durable and scratch resistant, with three distinct jewelry inspired stainless steel finishes in black, silver and gold. Watches are so personal, so we offer many watch bands — active, stretch and woven, metal and leather — along with customizable watch faces and an easily personalizable user interface. Google Pixel Watch helps simplify your life by integrating with your favorite Google apps, to listen to music, manage your smart home, get directions, make payments and more. Google Pixel Watch is the first WearOS device that combines Google's helpfulness with best health and fitness insights from Fitbit.
Earlier this year at I/O, we previewed plans to build an Android tablet powered by our custom Tensor G2 processor. And today, we shared more about our vision for making the PixelTablet the most helpful tablet whether you’re at home or on the go.
From their design to the high-tech features, these latest products embody the best of Google. You can learn more about them and pre-order the new Pixel phones and the new Google Pixel Watch in the Google Store, or from our partners around the world. In fact, we're expanding the availability of Pixel phones to more places, including Denmark, Netherlands, Norway, and Sweden for the first time. Google now has a comprehensive portfolio of devices and services, for your home and for on the go, and we hope you’ll love this latest generation of products.
Source: The Official Google Blog
Take a look at our new Pixel portfolio, made to be helpful
From phones and smartwatches to tablets and laptops — our day-to-day lives can be filled with so many devices, and dealing with them should be easy. This is why we’re focused on building hardware and software that work together to anticipate and react to your requests, so you don’t have to spend time fussing with technology.
To bring this vision to life, we’ve spent years focusing on ambient computing and how it can help us build technology that fades into the background, while being more useful than ever. Today at I/O, I shared several important updates to our hardware portfolio that lay the groundwork for creating a family of devices that not only work better together, but work together for you.
Meet the new Pixel portfolio
We’ve thoughtfully designed the Pixel portfolio so the helpfulness and intelligence of Google can adapt to you in a non-intrusive way. This is all possible thanks to multi-device work from the Android team combined with our work to layer cutting-edge AI research and helpful software and services onto our devices. And of course, we always tightly integrate powerful data security directly into our hardware.
Last year we launched Google Tensor, our first custom-designed mobile system on a chip (SoC), to create a common platform for our Pixel phones. The first Pixels built with Tensor, Pixel 6 and Pixel 6 Pro, are the fastest selling Pixel phones to date. And today we introduced the new Pixel 6a, which has the same Tensor processor and industry-leading security from our Titan M2 chip.
Our Pixel Buds are designed to perfectly complement your Pixel phone, and we’re excited to expand the earbuds offerings with Pixel Buds Pro. These premium earbuds include a new, custom 6-core audio chip that runs Google-developed algorithms — all tuned by our in-house audio engineering team.
A sneak peek of what’s to come
Building on our ambient computing vision, we’re focused on how Pixel devices can be even more helpful to you — now and in the future. Today, we gave a preview of our new Google Pixel Watch — the first watch we’ve built inside and out. It has a bold circular, domed design, a tactile crown, recycled stainless steel and customizable bands that easily attach. With this watch, you’ll get the new Wear OS by Google experience and Fitbit’s industry-leading health and fitness tools — right on your wrist. Google Pixel Watch is a natural extension of the Pixel family, providing help whenever and wherever you need it. It will be available this fall, and we’ll share more details in the coming months.
We also previewed our Pixel 7 phones, coming this fall.
And finally, we shared an early look at our Android tablet, powered by Google Tensor.
We’re building out the Pixel portfolio to give you more options for varying budgets and needs. I can’t wait for everyone to see for themselves how helpful these devices and technology can be — from wearables, phones and tablets to audio and smart home technology. And if you’re headed to the New York area, you can see these devices in action at our second Google Store that’s opening this summer in Brooklyn.
Source: The Official Google Blog
Google acquires Raxium
Today we’re announcing that Google has acquired Raxium, an innovator in single panel MicroLED display technologies. The team at Raxium has spent five years creating miniaturized, cost-effective and energy efficient high-resolution displays that have laid the foundation for future display technologies. Raxium’s technical expertise in this area will play a key role as we continue to invest in our hardware efforts.
Raxium is based in Fremont, California and will join Google’s Devices & Services team. We’re thrilled to have the team at Raxium on board to help further our goal of building helpful devices and services to improve people’s daily lives.
Source: The Official Google Blog
Google Tensor debuts on the new Pixel 6 this fall
In 2016, we launched the first Pixel. Our goal was to give people a more helpful, smarter phone. Over the years, we introduced features like HDR+ andNight Sight, which used artificial intelligence (AI) to create beautiful images with computational photography. In later years, we applied powerful speech recognition models to build Recorder, which can record, transcribe and search for audio clips, all on device.
AI is the future of our innovation work, but the problem is we’ve run into computing limitations that prevented us from fully pursuing our mission. So we set about building a technology platform built for mobile that enabled us to bring our most innovative AI and machine learning (ML) to our Pixel users. We set out to make our own System on a Chip (SoC) to power Pixel 6. And now, years later, it’s almost here.
Tensor is our first custom-built SoC specifically for Pixel phones, and it will power the Pixel 6 and Pixel 6 Pro later this fall.
Pixel 6 and Pixel 6 Pro
Pixel 6 and Pixel 6 Pro debut this fall, and that’s when we'll share all the details we normally release at launch like new features, technical specs and pricing and availability. But today, we’re giving you a preview of what’s to come.
Industrial design
These new phones redefine what it means to be a Pixel. From the new design that combines the same beautiful aesthetic across software and hardware with Android 12, to the new Tensor SoC, everything about using the Pixel is better.
We also upgraded the rear camera system. The improved sensors and lenses are now too big to fit into the traditional square — so the new design gives the whole camera system a new home with the camera bar.
The Pixel 6 and Pixel 6 Pro have new materials and finishes, too — like the Pro’s light polished aluminum frame, and the 6’s matte aluminum finish. And they both feel great in your hand.
Material You
Google announced Android 12 and the new Material You design language at Google I/O. With Material You, we’re mixing color science with years of work in interaction design and engineering. These UI updates are grounded in the new animation and design framework — to make using your Pixel feel incredibly natural because everything runs smoothly on the Tensor chip.
Tensor
Tensor was built for how people use their phones today and how people will use them in the future. As more and more features are powered by AI and ML it’s not simply about adding more computing resources, it’s about using that ML to unlock specific experiences for our Pixel users.
The team that designed our silicon wanted to make Pixel even more capable. For example, with Tensor we thought about every piece of the chip and customized it to run Google's computational photography models. For users, this means entirely new features, plus improvements to existing ones.
Tensor enables us to make the Google phones we’ve always envisioned — phones that keep getting better, while tapping the most powerful parts of Google, all in a highly personalized experience. And with Tensor’s new security core and Titan M2, Pixel 6 will have the most layers of hardware security in any phone**.
You’ll see this in everything from the completely revamped camera system to speech recognition and much more. So whether you're trying to capture that family photo when your kids won’t stand still, or communicate with a relative in another language, Pixel will be there — and it will be more helpful than ever. We look forward to sharing more about Pixel 6 and Pixel 6 Pro later this year.
* These devices have not been authorized as required by the rules of the Federal Communications Commission or other regulators. These devices may not be sold or otherwise distributed until required legal authorizations have been obtained
**Based on a count of independent hardware security subsystems and components.
Source: The Official Google Blog
Google Tensor debuts on the new Pixel 6 this fall
In 2016, we launched the first Pixel. Our goal was to give people a more helpful, smarter phone. Over the years, we introduced features like HDR+ andNight Sight, which used artificial intelligence (AI) to create beautiful images with computational photography. In later years, we applied powerful speech recognition models to build Recorder, which can record, transcribe and search for audio clips, all on device.
AI is the future of our innovation work, but the problem is we’ve run into computing limitations that prevented us from fully pursuing our mission. So we set about building a technology platform built for mobile that enabled us to bring our most innovative AI and machine learning (ML) to our Pixel users. We set out to make our own System on a Chip (SoC) to power Pixel 6. And now, years later, it’s almost here.
Tensor is our first custom-built SoC specifically for Pixel phones, and it will power the Pixel 6 and Pixel 6 Pro later this fall.
Pixel 6 and Pixel 6 Pro
Pixel 6 and Pixel 6 Pro debut this fall, and that’s when we'll share all the details we normally release at launch like new features, technical specs and pricing and availability. But today, we’re giving you a preview of what’s to come.
Industrial design
These new phones redefine what it means to be a Pixel. From the new design that combines the same beautiful aesthetic across software and hardware with Android 12, to the new Tensor SoC, everything about using the Pixel is better.
We also upgraded the rear camera system. The improved sensors and lenses are now too big to fit into the traditional square — so the new design gives the whole camera system a new home with the camera bar.
The Pixel 6 and Pixel 6 Pro have new materials and finishes, too — like the Pro’s light polished aluminum frame, and the 6’s matte aluminum finish. And they both feel great in your hand.
Material You
Google announced Android 12 and the new Material You design language at Google I/O. With Material You, we’re mixing color science with years of work in interaction design and engineering. These UI updates are grounded in the new animation and design framework — to make using your Pixel feel incredibly natural because everything runs smoothly on the Tensor chip.
Tensor
Tensor was built for how people use their phones today and how people will use them in the future. As more and more features are powered by AI and ML it’s not simply about adding more computing resources, it’s about using that ML to unlock specific experiences for our Pixel users.
The team that designed our silicon wanted to make Pixel even more capable. For example, with Tensor we thought about every piece of the chip and customized it to run Google's computational photography models. For users, this means entirely new features, plus improvements to existing ones.
Tensor enables us to make the Google phones we’ve always envisioned — phones that keep getting better, while tapping the most powerful parts of Google, all in a highly personalized experience. And with Tensor’s new security core and Titan M2, Pixel 6 will have the most layers of hardware security in any phone**.
You’ll see this in everything from the completely revamped camera system to speech recognition and much more. So whether you're trying to capture that family photo when your kids won’t stand still, or communicate with a relative in another language, Pixel will be there — and it will be more helpful than ever. We look forward to sharing more about Pixel 6 and Pixel 6 Pro later this year.
* These devices have not been authorized as required by the rules of the Federal Communications Commission or other regulators. These devices may not be sold or otherwise distributed until required legal authorizations have been obtained
**Based on a count of independent hardware security subsystems and components.
Source: The Official Google Blog
Google completes Fitbit acquisition
For more than a decade, Fitbit has helped people around the world live healthier, more active lives. A clear pioneer in the industry, Fitbit built a vibrant community of more than 29 million active users by creating amazing wearable devices and immersive wellness experiences. Today, I’m excited to announce that Google has completed its acquisition of Fitbit and I want to personally welcome this talented team to Google.
Fitbit's latest and most advanced health and fitness smartwatch, Fitbit Sense, features stress management tools and new ways to manage your heart health, including an ECG app to assess heart rhythm for signs of atrial fibrillation (AFib). And with its latest tracker, Inspire 2, Fitbit brought an enhanced design and features, including Active Zone Minutes, to its most accessible device. Fitbit added a new Health Metrics dashboard in the Fitbit app which lets you track and see changes in heart rate variability, breathing rate and oxygen saturation. These newest devices and services help you better manage your health and wellness, and when combined with Fitbit Premium’s personalized insights, content and actionable guidance, you have everything you need to reach your goals.
Technology can change the way people manage their health and wellness, and that's especially important these days. We’ll work closely to create new devices and services that help you enhance your knowledge, success, health and happiness. Your privacy and security are paramount to achieving this and we are committed to protecting your health information and putting you in control of your data.
This deal has always been about devices, not data, and we’ve been clear since the beginning that we will protect Fitbit users’ privacy. We worked with global regulators on an approach which safeguards consumers' privacy expectations, including a series of binding commitments that confirm Fitbit users’ health and wellness data won't be used for Google ads and this data will be separated from other Google ads data. We’ll also maintain access to Android APIs that enable devices like fitness trackers and smart watches to interoperate with Android smartphones, and we’ll continue to allow Fitbit users to choose to connect to third-party services so you’ll still be able to sync your favorite health and fitness apps to your Fitbit account. These commitments will be implemented globally so that all consumers can benefit from them. We’ll also continue to work with regulators around the world so that they can be assured that we are living up to these commitments.
Together, we can make health and wellness more accessible to more people. We’re confident the combination of Fitbit’s leading technology, product expertise and health and wellness innovation with the best of Google’s AI, software and hardware will drive more competition in wearables and make the next generation of devices better and more affordable. For more on what this partnership means for Fitbit and its community of millions of users, please read Fitbit CEO James Park’s letter to customers.
Source: The Official Google Blog
An update on Fitbit
Last year, we announced that Google entered into an agreement to acquire Fitbit to help spur innovation in wearable devices and build products that help people lead healthier lives. As we continue to work with regulators to answer their questions, we wanted to share more about how we believe this deal will increase choice, and create engaging products and helpful experiences for consumers.
There's vibrant competition when it comes to smartwatches and fitness trackers, with Apple, Samsung, Garmin, Fossil, Huawei, Xiaomi and many others offering numerous products at a range of prices. We don’t currently make or sell wearable devices like these today. We believe the combination of Google and Fitbit's hardware efforts will increase competition in the sector, making the next generation of devices better and more affordable.
This deal is about devices, not data. We’ve been clear from the beginning that we will not use Fitbit health and wellness data for Google ads. We recently offered to make a legally binding commitment to the European Commission regarding our use of Fitbit data. As we do with all our products, we will give Fitbit users the choice to review, move or delete their data. And we’ll continue to support wide connectivity and interoperability across our and other companies’ products.
We appreciate the opportunity to work with the European Commission on an approach that addresses consumers' expectations of their wearable devices. We’re confident that by working closely with Fitbit’s team of experts, and bringing together our experience in AI, software and hardware, we can build compelling devices for people around the world.
Source: Google in Europe
Our focus on helpful devices: Google acquires North
Today we're announcing that Google has acquired North, a pioneer in human computer interfaces and smart glasses. They've built a strong technology foundation, and we're excited to have North join us in our broader efforts to build helpful devices and services.
From 10 blue links on a PC, to Maps on your mobile phone, to Google Nest Hub sharing a recipe in the kitchen, Google has always strived to be helpful to people in their daily lives. We’re building towards a future where helpfulness is all around you, where all your devices just work together and technology fades into the background. We call this ambient computing.
North’s technical expertise will help as we continue to invest in our hardware efforts and ambient computing future. They'll join the Google team based in Kitchener-Waterloo, Canada—North’s hometown and an area with impressive tech talent. We're excited to welcome our new colleagues, and committed to the growing global tech community of Kitchener-Waterloo. For more on what this announcement means for North and its community of customers and partners, read this blog post from North’s founders.