Category: Pixel
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Pixel 9a in Purple Presents Itself
Evan Blass is at it again posting leakers and if you’re unable to see his post on X, 9to5Google has posted the photos on their blog site as well.
Many people are saying that the Pixel 9a looks cheap. From what it seems like, the price might present the same affordability that previous A-series models held within that $399-$499 price. As for it looking and feeling cheap, I plan on getting my hands on it, either the purple or white color, and using it as my main device as soon as it’s rumored to be released later this month.
My Mom is Going to Love Scam Detection
Aisha Sharif, Product Manager, Pixel Phone on The Keyword
Scam Detection for phone calls, powered by Gemini Nano, protects you from fraud with on-device AI while keeping your conversations private to you. This Pixel-exclusive feature detects conversation patterns in calls commonly used by scammers in real time and will notify you if it senses anything suspicious.
And Scam Detection is now available in Google Messages, too. It uses on-device AI to flag conversational text patterns commonly associated with scams, so it can identify messages that seem harmless, but turn dangerous over time. You’ll receive a real-time warning so you can easily block and report the conversation.
My mom recently retired and if there’s one thing that raises her stress level it’s scammers. I bought her a Pixel 8a this last year, after having a Pixel 5 for some time, and she absolutely loves Call Screening and the Spam detection features in the phone app. Just the other day she sent me a screenshot of an E-ZPass texting scam that has been going around. She almost fell victim to it because E-ZPass is an actual highway toll system that is within her area. Thankfully, she didn’t respond to it or click the link, but now that Scam Detection is coming to Google Messages, my mom will now get a large badge alerting her that this message was a Scam.
More from the Google Online Security Blog:
Scam Detection in Google Messages uses powerful Google AI to proactively address conversational scams by providing real-time detection even after initial messages are received. When the on-device AI detects a suspicious pattern in SMS, MMS, and RCS messages, users will now get a message warning of a likely scam with an option to dismiss or report and block the sender.
As part of the Spam Protection setting, Scam Detection on Google Messages is on by default and only applies to conversations with non-contacts. Your privacy is protected with Scam Detection in Google Messages, with all message processing remaining on-device. Your conversations remain private to you; if you choose to report a conversation to help reduce widespread spam, only sender details and recent messages with that sender are shared with Google and carriers.
Scam Detection is only available in English in the U.S., U.K. and Canada and will expand to more countries soon.
Also, something I also found interesting is that a cybersecurity firm, conducted a funded evaluation of fraud protection features on a number of smartphones and found that Android smartphones, led by the Pixel 9 Pro, scored highest for built-in security features and anti-fraud efficacy. The full report is in a PDF.
Pixel 9 Pro is The Best Smartphone of 2024 According to Market Analysts
Pixel 9 Pro wins ‘Smartphone of the Year’ award, Google’s second in a row 🏆🏆
MWC Barcelona explains more about the category and the criteria:
The Best Smartphone award combines outstanding performance, innovation and leadership as determined through assessment of smartphones on the market during the period January 2024 to December 2024, by world leading independent analysts, journalists and influencers.
There’s no surprise here, but it’s important to know that the Pixel 9 Pro was up against the Galaxy S24 Ultra and the iPhone 16 Pro Max which are the best offerings on both of the mobile operating systems.
The judges nominate and select the shortlist for the category, based on the following criteria:
- Physical design and innovation
- Device performance and form factors
- Genuine new innovation deployed e.g. in form factor, technology, features
- Product usefulness in terms of functionality and features
- Price point and perceived value for money
- Commercial success in global territories
- User experience, quality & reliability
- Environmental and sustainability credentials
- On-going commitment on support e.g. software upgrades
All judges come from market research companies with larges amounts of global data that could present proper judgement on these criteria:
Judges
- Amber Liu, Canalys
- Kiranjeet Kaur, IDC
- Carolina Milanesi, Creative Strategies
- Nabila Popal, IDC
- Richard Lai, Independent
- Ben Wood, CCS Insight
- Zaker Li, Omdia
- Prabhu Ram, CyberMedia Research
- Leo Gebbie, CCS Insight
- Abhilash Kumar, TechInsights
- Varun Gupta, Counterpoint
- Francisco Jeronimo, IDC
Galaxy Watch Ultra: Day 4
I’ve only been using the Galaxy Watch Ultra for 4 days now. I really like the fluidity and battery life of it. However, I’m beginning to feel like it’s overkill for what I mainly use my smartwatch for. Maybe because I’m coming from the thoughts of my experience with a Pixel Watch and an Apple Watch. The Galaxy Watch Ultra feels incredibly premium with so many useful features that I don’t think I’ll really use to justify and differentiate the reason to not just go back to my Pixel Watch 3. The display is beautiful and bright, the speed is warranted, and the build bolds confidence. Yet, the Pixel Watch 3 feels good enough to need the extra brightness, titanium build, and speed. I think if the Galaxy Watch Ultra was slightly smaller, like the Hermès H08 that it favors, I would feel more drawn to wear it as a lifestyle smartwatch. But for now, I feel like I’m wearing a strong, utilitarian Pip-Boy
March Pixel Drop, RCS on more iPhones, and the end of an Android era
Some were big surprises and others were long awaited catch-ups. It wasn’t all boring though. Google announced the latest March Pixel Drop with a lot of useful tools and features for the Pixel family of devices ranging from Pixel 6 to the latest Pixel 9 Pro Fold, Pixel Watch, and Pixel Tablet. Last, but certainly not least, the Android journey looks to have come to an end for longtime Android engineer and engineering director Romain Guy. If you’ve been living under a rock, Romain Guy has been such an important engineer to the fundamentals of a lot of Androids toolkits that we have today.
Today was certainly one for the books, but there’s certainly more exciting things to come in the near future.
For a full breakdown of the March Pixel Drop, I suggest checking out In depth Tech Reviews breakdown on YouTube.
Pixel Sense: Google's On-Device AI Leap
“Experience fast and intelligent help, no matter if you are online or offline ”, “Your data stays private—visible only to you, not even Google can see it.”
Kamila Wojciechowska at @AndroidAuthority gained access to a pretty hefty @GooglePixel leak and it’s everything I’ve been looking forward to in a smartphone. Apple level privacy with Google level usefulness. From the sound of everything in the leak, it sounds like Google is looking to bring its version of Apple Intelligence to its Pixel 10, but calling it “Pixel Sense”. I absolutely love the name. Obviously it’ll be powered by Gemini, but with it being completely on-device (🤯) and private, it sounds like Gemini Nano will be at the steering wheel, making all the data processing across all Google apps on Pixel 10 happen swiftly and privately on-device.
My suspicion is that the driving factor for this is speed, privacy is just the blessing result of on-device processing. A good example of this is Gboard’s Assistant Voice typing and Proofread feature. At this point, Google already has a Scrooge McDuck level of user data locked up in an encrypted vault. It’s now all about making your data more universally accessible to you. It sounds like the latest evolution of that is making our own personal data even more useful and quickly accessible to us. It sounds awfully similar to what Apple announced at WWDC'24, a whole year ago, that has yet to even be released on the latest iPhone 16 models. And rumor has it, by Mark Gurman, that the iPhone won’t even see that until 2027. . Also something to consider is that this is something OpenAI won’t be able to do anytime soon until they make their own hardware. Unless Apple, Samsung, or any other hardware makers decide to give OpenAI’s ChatGPT access to secure enclaves.
I told myself to start adding some color to my tech and this Wintergreen Pixel 9 case is delightful. If Google dropped a Bay Blue one, I would quickly order it too.
I’ve been feeling a little cold/flu come along. It’s so cool how the Google Pixel Watch is able to detect that my body is fighting an illness before I start to show symptoms.
Google’s “Loss of Pulse” feature has received FDA Approval and is not on the Pixel Watch 3.
Announced in 2024 starting with Pixel Watch 3 in the EU, this feature is available in 14 countries and will begin rolling it out in the U.S. at the end of March.