Pixelated Dreams: Google's AI is Making Magic, The New Pixel Lineup

Summary

In this podcast episode, Dalton Anderson discusses Google's recent keynote and the new features and products announced, with a focus on AI capabilities. He talks about the new Magic Editor app on Pixel devices that allows users to alter photos using AI. He also discusses the evolution of the Pixel brand and its emphasis on camera quality and software experience. Dalton explores the AI features on the Pixel devices, such as Gemini Nano and Jim and I Live, which enable tasks like creating lists, summarizing emails, and even researching complex topics. He also mentions the new Pixel Weather app and the Call Assist features that block scammers and navigate call trees. Google's Pixel event showcased several new features and devices. The Pixel phones introduced call notes, allowing users to record and transcribe calls for easy reference. The Pixel Studio app allows users to create images and stickers using screenshots and AI. The Pixel 9, Pro, and XL have similar camera quality and chipsets, with slight differences in RAM and features. The Pixel Watch 3 focuses on fitness tracking and AI workout generation. The Pixel Buds Pro 2 offer hands-free conversations with the AI assistant Gemini. The Nest thermostat and Google TV streamer also received updates.

Keywords

Google, Pixel, AI, photo editing, Magic Editor, camera quality, software experience, Gemini Nano, Jim and I Live, Pixel Weather app, Call Assist, scammers, call trees, Google, Pixel, call notes, transcription, recording, Pixel Studio, AI, Pixel 9, Pixel Pro, Pixel XL, camera, chipset, Pixel Watch 3, fitness tracking, AI workout generation, Pixel Buds Pro 2, Gemini, Nest thermostat, Google TV streamer

Takeaways

Google's recent keynote introduced new features and products for Pixel devices, with a focus on AI capabilities.
The Magic Editor app on Pixel devices allows users to alter photos using AI, enhancing the quality and removing unwanted elements.
The Pixel brand has evolved to prioritize camera quality and software experience, with AI playing a significant role.
AI features on Pixel devices, such as Gemini Nano and Jim and I Live, enable tasks like creating lists, summarizing emails, and researching complex topics.
The Pixel Weather app provides accurate forecasts, interactive maps, and AI-generated summaries of the weather, including clothing suggestions.
Call Assist features on Pixel devices block scammers and navigate call trees, making it easier for users to interact with call centers. Google introduced call notes, allowing users to record and transcribe calls for easy reference.
The Pixel Studio app enables users to create images and stickers using screenshots and AI.
The Pixel 9, Pro, and XL have similar camera quality and chipsets, with slight differences in RAM and features.
The Pixel Watch 3 focuses on fitness tracking and AI workout generation.
The Pixel Buds Pro 2 offer hands-free conversations with the AI assistant Gemini.
Updates were also announced for the Nest thermostat and Google TV streamer.

Sound Bites

"What is a photo? Things are heating up."
"Google's emphasis on Pixel: better camera, software experience"
"Pixel is the first phone with an AI chip"
"You can record the call and have a transcription that you could search for, which is very useful."
"Record a call to hold people accountable."
"Pixel Studio allows you to create images and stickers using screenshots."

Chapters

00:00 Introduction: Exploring the Profound Question of 'What is a Photo?'
02:20 The Evolution of the Pixel Brand
07:42 The Magic Editor App: Enhancing Photos with AI
24:27 The Pixel Weather App: Accurate Forecasts and AI Clothing Suggestions
26:20 Improving the Call Experience with Call Assist and Hold For Me
31:03 Call Notes: Recording and Transcribing Phone Calls
32:47 Pixel Studio: Create and Edit Images
40:07 Camera Enhancements for Pixel Devices
50:13 Pixel Watch 3: Fitness Tracking and AI Workouts
53:17 Pixel Buds Pro 2: Hands-Free Conversations with Gemini
56:19 Android 15: Notification Cool Down and Improved Multitasking
57:57 Trade-In Deals and Store Credits for New Pixel Devices

Creators & Guests

Host

Dalton Anderson

I like to explore and build stuff.

What is Venture Step?

Venture Step Podcast: Dive into the boundless journey of entrepreneurship and the richness of life with "Venture Step Podcast," where we unravel the essence of creating, innovating, and living freely. This show is your gateway to exploring the multifaceted world of entrepreneurship, not just as a career path but as a lifestyle that embraces life's full spectrum of experiences. Each episode of "Venture Step Podcast" invites you to explore new horizons, challenge conventional wisdom, and discover the unlimited potential within and around you.

Dalton Anderson (00:01.008)
Welcome to VGSTEP Podcasts where we discuss entrepreneurship, industry trends, and the occasion book review. Today we are going to be asking ourselves a profound question that has been recently coined over the last year and a half, two years is what is a photo? And so many tech reviewers have been jokingly saying what is a photo because things are heating up and they have been for a bit.

and you can kind of see where things are going and a photo doesn't necessarily mean that it was the exact moment that was captured and it's becoming a lot more accessible with this new magic editor app that pixel came out with on their pixel nine devices.

Dalton Anderson (00:56.55)
Magic editor will allow someone to like completely alter their photo. So I have magic editor on my Pixel 7 Pro and I can remove people or remove things from photos and then AI will go through and kind of like magic editor and scrub it about and copy the textures of surrounding areas or fill in textures and kind of make some best guesses just using AI.

And it's pretty legit. You can't really tell that I did that on most of scenarios. If I make something super complicated. Then, yeah, it's going to break down, but for general edits, like if you're at the beach and there's someone in your photo and you want to remove them, fine. You're you know, you're at a park and someone is there. Good to go. Remove those people. You could be at a museum and someone's in your art photo. You can remove them. No problem.

So it's crazy because it's like, what is a photo? That's kind of the question. Today we're going to be discussing Google's recent keynote. I would say that made by Google, there are 20, 24 made by Google, made by Google. If you're not familiar, made by Google is typically done during the summertime, obviously by Google and the stuff that Google's rolling out for their new iterations of products.

recent of recent years. Google has had a large emphasis on Pixel, so they've launched the Pixel Buds, they've launched the Pixel tablet, they've launched the Pixel Watch, and for a couple of years they've had the Pixel, which I think was rebranded on the six Pixel. Pixel 6 was when they became a, I guess a definitive

Dalton Anderson (02:56.538)
branding and effort from Google to grow and.

carve out a brand identity and a segment in the marketplace. And they went with the Pixel. And the big thing about Pixel when originally came out was its camera was so much better than everyone else. And even though their processor wasn't as good, the camera was better because of Google's AI capabilities. They were able to enhance the photo and improve the quality of the photo versus

other phone offerings such as Samsung or Apple. But other than that, it was pretty lackluster. And it's been like that for a bit until I think the six. But as far as hardware, Pixel has always lagged because Google is more of a software company. So they are best at software. And so it's going to be an amazing software experience. Less bugs.

great apps versus hardware, which Apple and Samsung have had years and years head start on building their hardware for mobile compute. And I'm not saying that Google isn't good at building hardware, because they do so for their servers and all these other things. It's just that it's a different playing field for sure. So.

Google, as of like Google Pixel 6, they redesigned their whole branding. They went with this visor camera bar that had like this retro feel, bright colors. The camera bar was different colored than the phone. It was really unique and caught a lot of people's eye. So the 6 kind of took off. Then I jumped on the bandwagon and got the 7. And the 7's been amazing, awesome.

Dalton Anderson (05:03.844)
I originally had the four a and then when the seven came out, I got that. But anyways, I was disregard that. But so, so there was this shift in brand identity. People started, you know, early adopters started picking up. It got a little bit more popular and here we are. I mean, it's definitely nowhere near as popular as the Samsung or Apple.

And especially in the U S Apple definitely dominates. Like I think it's like 70 % of the marketplace.

So it's still pretty niche in the US, but in other places, the pixel is fairly popular. So is Samsung as Android dominates the world market, not necessarily just Apple in the US. I guess Android is like Apple of the world and Apple is Android of the US. If you want to really understand this situation. Anyways.

Okay. But before we dive in, I'm your host Dalton Anderson. I've got a bit of a mix of programming, data science and insurance offline. You could find me running, building my side business or loss in a good book. You can find this podcast in both video and audio format on YouTube. And if audio is more your thing, you can listen to podcasts, of course, on Apple podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever else you get your podcasts.

Okay. So for today, we're going to be discussing a couple points. got Jim and I on Android. We've got the Pixel nine. We've got the Pixel nine pro and Excel and the pixel fold, the pixel watch, the pixel buds, the nest thermostat, Google TV streamer and Android. That's it.

Dalton Anderson (07:05.828)
I'm not going to just list off these things. I'm just going to talk about them in general and some of the pros and cons and maybe some specs, but it's difficult to say how useful everything is as it recently just came out. And it not came out, but it was recently announced that the products and the specs. So there hasn't been much early review demos or testing. I watched the test today and it looked very promising.

with the thermal throttling, throttling, sorry. And the battery efficiency seems to be up to par with what they were saying. But we'll just dive in and we'll start with the AI stuff as I feel like the AI is a big push from Google. And I also feel that it's uncharted territory as this is pretty much the first phone that's coming with an AI chip just to run AI.

on it. And so the chip's going to have Gemini Nano running natively on your phone, which will enable quite a few features, which are, in my opinion, fairly cool and useful. I don't know how useful they are with everyone else, but I think that over time people will become more accustomed and understand what they find useful from these devices, not devices, these features, these AI agents.

or apps. Kind of like how when social media came out, like MySpace or something like that, not everyone found them useful, but over time people built businesses off of social media. There's ecosystems built off social media, communities, groups, concerts, community events. You know, there's this whole thing that is built on top of social media, but the original social media, not that useful.

it's useful when people start using it. So not necessarily the same thing as like adoption of social media, make social media more useful.

Dalton Anderson (09:16.804)
And that might be true with AI because if more people are using it, AI learns more stuff and then AI becomes more intelligent because it uses the data that you use and the corrections you give it. And so you're kind of crowdsourcing the development of the AI models, potentially, but definitely not the same thing as social media. Anyways, this is Pixel's, Pixel is the first phone to have

an AI chip and they started that on the eight and now on the nine. It is uncharted territory for sure as really don't know if it's going to be a good player, a bad play. And to make these chips, they, have to be, you know, developed years in advance. They've got to do testing. They have got to, you know, make sure that it runs to the fab properly and they, they're able to

produce these chips at scale. There's a whole bunch of infrastructure things that are fairly risky if it doesn't play out. And then once you get to this point of putting it into a device like the Pixel, you're pretty far. There's not a lot going, you can't really go back. It's a one door, one door entry and there's not really an exit. And you're kind of seeing that with some of the failures.

with Nvidia when they tried to do, I think the 13 nanometer chip, they had issues with production and the fab was failing. The fabricator was failing to produce. And that forced them to use an older chip. And when they had to use an older chip, they were stuck.

with the promises they made to the businesses. they promised businesses and their large clients like, you're going to get X. They couldn't deliver X, but they still had like contractual agreements with these people and groups. they had to find workarounds and work out, you know, work with smaller margins and all sorts of things. And that's not really saying that that's going to happen with Google. The whole point of that is, you know, once you get to chip in the phone, you're way, way like

Dalton Anderson (11:43.066)
You're at the very end of the process here. So you don't really know how it's gonna play out. mean, they find that an AI enhanced capabilities on device for mobile is a way to win over customers from Samsung, not nearly Samsung as much, because Samsung will have the same thing, but win over customers from, I guess, the Apple ecosystem to the Android ecosystem.

which I'm not so sure about because I'm not necessarily slamming Apple users or anything like that. I love Apple, I used to have Apple all the time. I have a Mac, I had an iPhone for like, I don't know, six years, five years, and I've had Android.

But there's a reason why Google pays like $30 billion for Chrome to be the default app on the web store. Cause a lot of Apple users, like they don't, they don't change that kind of stuff. Like they don't care about the customization either cause they don't know or they just, they just don't mind it. So for an Apple user to go and have to create things,

on device, I think isn't really a pitch. Maybe if they had, like this AI agent will schedule things for you, take care of your day, it'll go through your emails and write an itinerary of things that you need to get done that day and write out a schedule and time box your whole day for you. Then one, that would be super cool. Two, I think anyone would want that.

So.

Dalton Anderson (13:36.816)
that's not the proposition right now. And we'll go through some of the stuff that they demoed. They, they did it live in which I think is a big deal because open AI and other, you know, anthropic, they have recorded demos. Like those are recorded demos. Those aren't live and Apple's demo. They're not live. They don't have the confidence to go on stage with their device and, and do a live demo. And so

Yeah, Google had issues with their live demo. It's a live demo, they never, they never for any of the features they demoed never had an issue getting the end product on one of their demos. took them twice, like two, two tries. And then they switched to a different device. They had a Samson, I don't know, Samson like pro or something as 23 ultra. Yeah. The ultra and the ultra didn't work on the first two tries. They switched to a different ultra.

than it worked. And they were getting a whole bunch of just hate on these demos failing. But my opinion is like, okay, what other AI group is having live demos? Like Google's the only one that is doing live demos. Everyone else is this pre -recorded thing that is supposedly live and the video is released to the public, but it's not a live demo.

And so...

That says something about the confidence of their development of these apps and features is that they're so confident that it's gonna work, they're gonna do it live. And if you don't do it live, then how confident are you? Some of the features that OpenAI has demoed, supposedly with their recorded demo, they still haven't came out with. And it's been like in AI times forever, like three months.

Dalton Anderson (15:38.33)
Okay. Anyways, so these were live demos. So I got to actually see them. I haven't actually been able to see them myself, but I will be able to demo some stuff on my phone as I am part of beta and some of the stuff was released to me. So I'll be able to show everyone live and we'll see how it goes. Cause it might fail cause it's live. All right. So I mentioned earlier that AI chip will run Gemini Nano and they're saying that it's 2X more effective.

efficient, which is great, so it's more battery efficient, runs faster, all sorts of things. What does that mean for you? Right? Like, there's a lot of talk about specs, but I think specs are cool and all, but what's the practical application of these things? So you can ask Jim and I to create tasks, make lists, go through your emails, write emails for you.

summarize your emails. But one of the coolest things I saw in the demo is they had a YouTube video and it was like one of those Korean eating videos where like they eat a whole bunch of weird stuff, I think. And so the person doing the demo asked, hey, can you identify all the foods that this person was eating in the video? And they just dropped in the link to Gemini. Gemini went through the video, extracted all of, guess,

how you would do it is you've gotta pixelate the video, extract out all that information and then understand and.

process all of the, in this case I would say like thumbnails or screenshots or frames of the video, extract all that, then feed it through the model and then be able to understand like what is what, like what is a potato, what is steak, all these things. What is steak with like orange sauce and fried shrimp on it. So, dropping this YouTube link, it comes back like.

Dalton Anderson (17:42.846)
not even that long later. Not that long later, wow. Not that long, maybe a couple seconds, half a second, second and a half. It was pretty quick, I was surprised. And it showed all the foods that the person consumed during the video. And they also did the same thing for a different video of outfits. Like, okay, what are some outfits this person wore? So it's pretty cool. It can make playlists for you. And something that's also,

really cool is this thing called Gemini Live. if you're on camera, if I'm on camera, we will. All right. We're doing this live here. So let me talk. Let me turn up Gemini.

Dalton Anderson (18:26.042)
Hey, Jim and I, you're live on this podcast episode. It is called pixelated dreams. A .I. Google's A .I. is making magic. I messed up my own podcast name, but we're on this episode together and we're just trying to figure out some Jim and I live features. And I would like you to talk about the. Pixel Studio, can you give us some information on how the Pixel Studio is going to work?

Dalton Anderson (18:56.326)
Pixel Studio sounds really awesome. It uses Google's super powerful AI tech to turn your words into images.

a fluffy cat riding a dinosaur through space and it'll create a bunch of cool images for you. It's great for brainstorming ideas or just playing around with your creativity. You should be able to try it on the AI test kitchen. Is that where you're testing it out?

Dalton Anderson (19:22.683)
No, actually, I didn't even know that you could go on the test kitchen. I haven't been on there in a couple of months and I didn't realize that you could do that. So maybe I'll be able to check it out before I potentially purchase a new pixel. Who knows?

Dalton Anderson (19:42.408)
it's messing up. Hey, I lost you there. What happened?

Sorry about

Dalton Anderson (19:54.636)
Hey, can you tell us a little bit more about the pixel buds? There's a feature on here that you can have hands -free Gemini conversations. What's that about?

Dalton Anderson (20:09.936)
Pixel Buds are awesome. They have this new feature called Hands Free Gemini Conversations, which lets you talk to your Gemini Assistant without even touching your phone. So if you're driving or cooking and need help, just say, hey Gemini, and start talking. Gemini will help you out. You might want to try giving it a shot.

Yeah, I'll do that. And I guess our last question before you go. What do you think about the new weather app? So we have a weather app. and also the Pixel screenshot app. What's up with that? Can tell the audience about it as if you're a podcast host?

Dalton Anderson (20:52.014)
So let's talk about the new weather app. It looks like it gives you super accurate forecasts Plus it has some really cool features like severe weather alerts and interactive radar You can even check the air quality, which is awesome. And then there's the pixel screenshot app It makes it a cinch to grab those perfect screenshots. You can even edit them right from your phone before you share no more cropping or resizing It's all right there at your fingertips

That's pretty cool. Thank you so much and really appreciate you and I can't wait to speak next time.

Anytime.

Okay, so that was Jim and I live, actually live, right? Crazy, mid -episode. So Jim and I live is gonna be a feature that you'll be able to have on your phone, on device, and it would never leave your device. It's gonna stay on your phone, private. And you'll be able to run this a lot faster when you have an AI chip. So in my scenario, mine,

is a Pixel 7 Pro. So I don't have any iChip in my phone. So what's happening is I'm sending the input to the model. The model is processing it and then putting it through the cloud and then coming back to me. So that's why it wasn't very conversational, but I thought it was pretty decent, honestly. And it does get hung up sometimes when I'm talking to it. I think it thinks I'm talking, but I'm not actually talking. And I've seen some demos from other YouTubers.

Dalton Anderson (22:28.826)
that do tech reviews and they have the early review models and it looks really, really smooth on their device. It seems like such a natural conversation, great flow, great tone, punctuation of your voice, slowing it down, speeding it up, softer, louder, it's quite nice. And the response times are fluid, like a normal conversation. So that's Jim and I Live, which I...

I think is great. And that's going to be part of a big, a big feature of the pixel studio buds. And so right now you could do hands off. Hey, they call it hands free hands free summoning of Google AI, which is like the Google assistant. But now you'll be able to do, and I said Google AI and Gemini, that's kind of confusing. The Google assistant.

And now you'll be able to summon Gemini and have a live conversation with Gemini, which is way, way more powerful than the Google assistant, obviously. So really excited about that. Really think it's something that's gonna be really cool once they add in some other features that they didn't demo, but they said coming soon, but they demoed it. They did a light demo, but it wasn't live. It was a recorded demo and they have this like research analyst feature.

which will allow you to summon Google, Gemini, whatever the Gemini, Gemini, and you'll create a research analyst AI agent for yourself and it will go on the internet and it will research complex topics. The example they had in the made by Google keynote was they asked the AI agent to go and research

scholarships that are readily available for X major. I think it was like, I don't even know. Maybe it's psychology, I'm not sure what the major was. It's not important. What's important is what would take me, and I've done this before and it takes forever because it's not very organized. And so it's difficult to find all the scholarships really.

Dalton Anderson (24:45.69)
But the research analysts came back within, I think, like four minutes or something like that for something that would take me or yourself like five hours to get to get all the information like pages and pages of information of all the different scholarships that you could attack. And that's just the, you know, the surface that you're scratching there. Like, what if you ask more complicated things and maybe it could come back to you, you know?

eight hours later with all the stuff that you need, like multiple things, like many line items of research that need to be done. They potentially take you 50, 60 hours to do. You can get done in, you know, half a day, which would be really cool, but it would be great to be able to summon that feature with this live with your ears and just use your pixel buds. I don't know. I'm not sure how it's all going to play out, but I do think the Gemini live is super cool.

and similar to how OpenAI ChatGBT live works. But I don't know. I think it's, I just think overall that these things are great and I love that they were live demos. So we're moving on to the next AI feature that they have. And it's not really an AI feature, but more of a app, the Pixel Weather app with AI features on top of it. So.

The Pixel Weather app is going to be this new rebuilt app that provides you with, as Jim and I said, accurate weather forecast, interactive map, and you'll be able to have some toggles or like, guess, widgets that you can move around on the web app, not the web app, the weather app. You'll have some toggles that you'll be able to move around, which will be nice. So you can make some things that you really want to see, like the wind speed or humidity or.

UV index, things like that. You can drag and drop them wherever you want on the app. One of the things I thought was pretty cool that was demoed was it will give you an AI summary of the weather and the forecast of like the week and tell you like what you suggest, like what you should wear. not pick out your outfit for you. Like it doesn't know what you have in your closet or anything like that. That would be pretty cool. Might freak other people out, but I would like, yeah, that's sick. I want an AI, AI,

Dalton Anderson (27:10.342)
What is it? Styler? Stylist, there we go. An AI styler. But it will tell you like, today's gonna feel pretty chilly. Wear a jacket and something warm for your feet, because it might rain. Or like, not warm for your feet, but like something potentially waterproof, like waterproof socks or shoes, because it might rain later. So just be careful out there. And it just kind of provides a summary of how it feels and what the weather's like and what it's just to wear, which I.

It's pretty useful and nice. It's nice that the gym and I was watching my back like that.

Okay, so one of the key features when Pixel first came out was this thing called Call Assist. And I think it's also called Scammer Shield. They're calling it Call Assist now, but there's a couple things that Pixel does with their AI for calls. So the first thing is like Scammer Shield, I think it's called, or Pixel something, Pixel Call.

I'm getting mixed up with the names. They're changing the names and stuff. So Pixel had a feature and it still has it where it blocks scammers from calling. So if you call my phone and you're a random number, the first time you ever call, it's gonna screen you with a robot. And so the robot is gonna, and it sounds pretty human, it sounds pretty legit. The robot's just gonna say, hey, you're calling Dalton Anderson. What's the purpose of your call?

And if you don't have anything that is useful, they'll won't let you call me. Like if you're like, I want to call him about blah, blah, blah, blah. And then the AI agents are to just be like, yeah, no, you're not calling him. And so I have this like gatekeeper on all these random calls. So I don't get any scam scammers calling me because one, they get freaked out.

Dalton Anderson (29:11.792)
to I know if they're calling and they're talking on the other line that

It's just, they're just, I can see what they're saying. So, because once a call comes in, it says like scanning screen call or scanning call screening is what it's called. Call screening. So when a call is being put through this screening, it shows me who's calling. It shows where the AI agent is and interacting. And it can have full conversations too. And it shows me the notes of the call. Like, okay, like.

you know, the AI agent said, why are you calling blah, blah, blah. The person responded that AI agent had another follow up question. And then they either hang up or I screen or like AI agent says, yeah, you're good to go and screens you through.

So that's this original feature that was really cool. And then they also had this other thing where it's like calling queue or queue calling where, it's called Hold For Me. And so it allows you to navigate these call trees on a call. So when you're calling these call centers and it's like, one for customer service, two for accounts payable, three for.

groceries and sandwiches for car washes and exhausts. And it's just like this crazy long list. sometimes you just have trouble paying attention because it's just like the most bland thing. Or it's a long list and you find the one you want and you're like, okay, okay, I'm gonna press two if I don't get anything else that I need. And I think this is the one and you're listening, you're listening, you're like, forget which one that you were supposed to press.

Dalton Anderson (31:06.352)
hang up and recall. What this hold for me does, it navigates the tree for you and some of the calls it will automatically know what the tree is and so all I have to do, and it puts out like notes basically, it's like a one for X, Y, and Z, two for this, and I can just click on the screen, this is what I want, and it will skip ahead. But the big thing is like once I find out where I wanna go, I don't hold.

for the call center, the call center holds for me. So we've flipped the they've flipped the switch, the script, sorry, flip, switch, script, same thing. The script has been flipped on the call centers and they are the ones who have to hold. And so when I answer, they're holding for me. So once they answer, they'll say, hey, you're on hold right now, I'll cue you in.

and you'll be able to speak with Dalton. And then I say, okay, the only thing that doesn't work, it doesn't really work with financial institutions because they get freaked out, like especially if you're calling the government, they don't like that and they'll just hang up on you. So don't do that, but for everywhere else, it works just fine. Okay, so that long winded explanation of this call feature, which is really useful, is being improved and being built upon by offering

summaries. So they're going to be offering call what's what they're going to be calling call notes. So when call notes is enabled on the on the call, it will jot down a transcription and I think a recording as well of the call, obviously with the approval of the not really the approval, but the notifications of both parties. So it's going to let you know, like, hey, going forward, this call is recorded. And, you know, if you're not comfortable with a hang up,

but it will record the call. And so if you're in the car talking to your boss or you're doing something and you're talking to someone, say you're having issues with customer service, you can record the call. If you're needing to troubleshoot and write stuff down from someone that's kind of complex, you can record the call and have a transcription that you could search for, which is very useful. And so I think it makes it super useful to be able to just

Dalton Anderson (33:34.446)
record a call like if I was on the phone with my boss and like we're both in the car and we start talking technical jargon in different projects we want to work on and be like, hold on, like, you all right if we just record this? And then I just record it and then I could send the notes over to him and we could discuss it when we get to the office or when we talk remotely during a meeting or something.

That's pretty cool. I think so. I think that's super useful. Very cool. I said cool and useful quite a bit, but I just enjoy these things. Okay, so the call summary thing, you could use it to record notes or hold people accountable. Like if you're having issues with company and they're saying things on the phone, but they won't put it in writing, like, yeah, it's all right, I record this call.

Well, sure. Yeah, we'll record it. And then when they're like, I never said that we don't do those things like, I spoke with. Spoke with Jim on the phone and this is what this is what everyone said and this is what we read on. Here's here's the transcription and recording. You know, please, please move forward with our previous agreement. Thank you. Appreciate it. OK, so the Pixel Studio thing is that studio that the.

Jim and I live agent talked about where you can imagine things and similar to Meta's imagine feature for their llama model where you can type in words, it will make images for you. But this is in the mobile app and you can make, you can use screenshots as stickers. So you could take a screenshot of a photo of your friend and like add them into the studio and do wonky things with them, which is pretty cool.

Definitely.

Dalton Anderson (35:25.772)
I find it less useful, but I know that a lot of kids would really like it or they can imagine whatever they want and make cool stuff and kind of fiddle around with it. But I don't really, I really get that much use out of it. I do know that my podcasts art cover art, I think the proper term of that is my podcast prep cover art is built by AI. So Google did it before they turned off their image generation.

Dalton Anderson (35:56.42)
Okay, so that was Pixel Studio. Really cool. One thing that they added for cameras, is, which is sick, honestly, is this add me feature. So if you're meeting with your friends and you had this group photo, instead of asking people to take a photo for you in your group, you could take a photo of your friend group, right? You're the photo taker. And then you have one of your friends that you were previously in the photo with take the photo with you in it.

and everyone else is out of the photo and it adds you in the photo and you can't tell that you weren't actually there.

So the original photo, think about the original photo is like a paper, right? Like a paper on the desk. And it's got the photo of your friends. What it's doing is it's superimposing this paper or I guess the your photo of yourself over the original paper that's on the table. So you have one layer of your friends and then you're putting yourself on top of that layer.

and stitching them all together into a singular layer, which makes the photo.

And it's crazy good. The stuff, they did some live demos, YouTube reviewers did some live demos of it. And it looks great. It looks great. It's difficult to tell that there wasn't edited. And I'm going back to that same thing. was like, what is a photo? Because I would have never have known that.

Dalton Anderson (37:36.676)
the photos that they showed in the live demo and the photos that are shown in these other demos or reviews where two different photos stitched into one photo. Never, I would not bet money on that. Okay, so that was one feature that they added for.

photos, but then they have the made you look, which is this like baby feature that you make these like baby care. They made these baby characters that you use utilize Disney characters are rolling out later this year, or you can use the original Google pixel sounds, I guess. And you make these little baby sounds and the baby is like, smiley, because it's happy to take a photo now because

it's got all these little baby sounds for it to keep it interested in what you're pointing at it. And you get these great photos with your baby when you're playing these sounds. And they're also partnering with Disney to roll out like certain Disney characters, which I think is going to be a hit. Parents love getting good photos of their kids. And if you can have an easy way for people to get their

young kids to or toddlers or like babies to pay attention to the camera and take a nice photo and smile and laugh. Parents are over the moon. That's probably the best selling feature that they have because it has a very strong emotional tie to the parents. And then there's this thing called Magic Editor, which is something that is crazy where you can

edit the photo and kind of just do whatever you want. And it's a really advanced version of the magic editor that I have access to, but it's it's its own standalone app, I think now. And you can just just do whatever. Like what they demoed was this photo of this person and the photo was positioned incorrectly and it was too close and cutting off this guy's shoe, like all of his shoe pretty much. And it asked it to reframe the photo and make it make it better.

Dalton Anderson (39:59.3)
and like center the center of the center of the subject and you know, you know, use the rule thirds, whatever. And so it repositions the photo perfectly regenerates the shoe perfectly regenerates all the grass and all the vegetation that the photo was in. And then they went a step further and they said, hey, let's let's turn this this grass that's over here like the whole photo that's all grass. That's like in a grasslands.

Let's turn this photo into.

wild flowers. And so it turns us the grass into this like beautifully like spread out flowers. And they gave like five different choices and all of them were pretty legit. And they picked like this. I don't know. They like these yellow flowers and pink flowers, I think on there. And then they asked, OK, let's throw in.

Let's change. think they altered the sky as well. They altered the sky and after that they

Dalton Anderson (41:09.698)
added in a hot air balloon and they asked the hot like a hot air balloon and they made it kind of small and the generations of those were pretty. Some of them were pretty bad. There was there was out of the five, think three of them were horrendous. Four was OK and one was like perfect. So they obviously picked the perfect one and they reminded everyone, hey, this is live demo. And they finalized it and wow, the difference between the photo, the original photo and

the photo that was with the flowers and the high air balloon in the background and the sky altered is just night and day difference. And doesn't look like overly done. It doesn't look fake. It doesn't, it doesn't appear to be AI edited. And it just so, so cool. And I can't wait to get my hands on that. It's super cool. And I'm going on a trip to Japan and South Korea and I'm wondering, you know, what cool cyber punk

kind of photos can I create with this magic editor.

Dalton Anderson (42:13.638)
Moving past AI features, we are now transitioning to devices. So this should be pretty quick. So there's the Pixel 9 and then the Pixel 9 Pro and the Pro XL, and then there's also the Fold, but I'm gonna talk about the Pixel 9, the Pro and the XL all like in one bunch and just talk about the slight differences. But pretty much the thing that they're doing is they're really emphasizing, okay, same camera.

same camera quality, same chip, just the differences like RAM and some features on the photo. But pretty much everything else is the same. So you have 12 gigs of RAM on the nine and on the Pro you have 16. You have the same quality camera on the nine as you do the Pro on the back. The

Same chip as well, same AI chip, same processing chip.

They have the pro has night sight on video and photo and the pixel has just the photo option, which is pretty similar. I can only have photo and I have the seven pro and it's a couple of years old, obviously. But the photo has been my point of that is the photo has been around a long time. Like the night sight for photos has been around. It's fairly good. And they're using the tensor G4 chip.

They will have a 48 megapixel wide lens and a 42 megapixel selfie camera. The comparisons for the eight and the nine, the photos were pretty close. You couldn't really tell the difference, only in some scenarios. You could tell it's much wider, but it was difficult to tell the difference from eight to nine, definitely for the front camera.

Dalton Anderson (44:12.837)
Prices so the price for the pixel is 799 the pixel Pro is 999 and then the pixel Pro XL is 1099

Dalton Anderson (44:27.142)
So besides the RAM and the photo, know, being able to take photos at videos, sorry, the videos at night, the one other difference or two other differences is the screen brightness is 300 nits different. So the Pixel 9 is 2 ,700 nits versus the 3 ,000 nits for the Pro. And then the optical zoom quality goes to two on the Pixel 9 and the Pro goes all the way to 10.

But other than that, like there isn't much difference. Like they're pretty much the same. And if you're not going to utilize those features, then I think that Pixel 9 is a pretty good deal versus the Pro if you don't want to utilize all the Pro photos or the Pro features because you're getting the same camera. So you don't have to worry about camera differences. You're getting the same chip. So you don't have to worry about speed and such.

And so the battery life should be pretty similar and actually better on a nine because it has less max nits to be used utilized. So it's utilizing less battery.

So besides the camera specs, it's pretty much the same is my point. Okay, so the Pixel 9, other than, other than, you know, those small feature differences, the 9 is pretty close to the Pro. The Pro is a little bit different. You know, it's got the 16 gigs of RAM, it's got,

the ability to zoom in further and it's got night sight video. Okay. So what are some caveats of purchasing a nine this year? Well, there's been substantiated reports of them switching from Samsung as their chip manufacturer to TSMC and TSMC is the Taiwan semiconductor manufacturing company. And those chips are a generation

Dalton Anderson (46:29.144)
ahead of Samsung. So I'm pretty sure that

TSMC is at two nanometers and Simpsons at three nanometers. basically like just think about it as like, okay, like new generation better. That's all you have to do. You don't have to get too technical about this. So the new generation chips are with TSMC. That's the same company that manufacturers Apple's chips. And a lot of these hardware companies like

Nvidia uses TSMC, Apple uses TSMC, and it's pretty much semiconductor manufacturing is like TSMC and Samsung. And TSMC is winning because they're a generation ahead. I think they're 1 .2 generations ahead of Samsung. Samsung made a big push. I think they showcased their two millimeter, two nanometer, sorry, chip like four months ago. They announced it, like slash like demoed it kind of.

So that's potentially a reason why you wouldn't want to purchase a nine because when Google shifts to TSMC, their chips are to be way more powerful. And I don't know how much.

they're gonna crank out of those new chips, but I know it's gonna be more powerful than other current chips that they have. I'm not sure if they're gonna try to go the similar approaches like Apple and kind of compete on specs because they are getting some good usage out of these chips. Like when I say like usage, I mean, they're able to get a lot out of them. Like they're very efficient. They provide high graphics, high...

Dalton Anderson (48:23.952)
brightness of their screens, they're able to provide a lot of these AI features. So they're able to do a lot with the chips that they have currently. So I'm interested to see on the approach that they have if they want to compete on specs with Apple or not, or keep their same approach where the specs aren't as high, but some of the use cases and practicality of the phone is better than Samsung or Apple. So I don't know.

We'll have to figure it out. I can't predict the future either. So I wish I could. I'm crazy rich. OK, so Pixel 9 Pro is like this crazy nice looking phone. Apparently it was kind of, I was going say.

Design was inspired by the one plus and the one plus is like really sleek thin and So is the pixel 9 Pro fold But with all those things It comes a crazy expense and it's 1799 so one thousand seven hundred ninety nine dollars and I feel like that is pretty expensive But then I was thinking about it when I was doing these show notes. It's like wait, wait a minute. So a phone

A phone like a Pixel 9 Pro is $999, so that's $1000. So if you subtract $1000 off the price, you're essentially paying $700, or in this case, $800, and...

Dalton Anderson (50:04.614)
you know, I'm paying in dollars. I don't know what's going on with that. We are paying 800 bucks for a tablet. So you're paying the thousand for the phone and then you're paying $800 for the tablet. So you're getting a two for one. And normally a tablet would be like, I'd say a hundred to, you know, $1 ,300 for a high -end or a more high -end tablet. And a phone could be

in this case, a thousand bucks, but it could be more.

And so I do think that the price is pretty reasonable. If you think about it as just a phone, the price is ridiculous. Like you're like $2 ,000 for a phone, that's crazy. But if you think about it, okay, I'm already paying a thousand minimum for a phone. Like if that's like you're trying to get a flagship phone, a thousand bucks is pretty much where it starts. And if you were trying to get a tablet, a tablet,

Definitely starts at 800. I'm not saying it starts, but a tablet that you would really want is like probably 800 bucks, at least eight to eight, like 600 plus, you know, 700, you know, that kind of range, like 600 up for sure. So if you split them out, it's pretty reasonable in my opinion. One thing that's different from the fold is it's completely redesigned. It's much thinner. It's sleeker.

It looks sharp. It doesn't have the cool camera visor that the other phones do. Or now I think it's a camera pill now. They don't have that. It's just square, which kind of throws off the whole vibe of the pixel lineup. But I think it still fits in with the brand identity. But I do, I do like the new pixels. Like they look really slick. They are apparently two X's durable.

Dalton Anderson (52:08.56)
They kind of look like this, a similar version of the iPhone pro max. Like if you compare the XL pro XL pixel, pro XL to the pro max and get the same color, they, they look identical except the camera is a little different, same kind of look and feel with the aluminum on the sides, like that aluminum in the back and the logo is in the same exact spot. And the buttons are, you know, similar ish.

The thickness, the pixels a little thicker just by a tad, but they look it looks like an iPhone without trying to be an iPhone. Like it has its own identity. OK. Switching to the Pixel Watch 3, the Pixel Watch 3 is pretty cool. I think it sits in a weird spot, though, because it's not a Fitbit and it's not a garment. It's a smartwatch.

And so they, for the majority of their demo, they really emphasize on workouts and integration with Fitbit and

these AI features for AI workout generation, AI scores that kind of have a readiness score, which is exactly what Garmin does. And that's exactly what Apple copied from Garmin. And that's exactly what Google's copying from Garmin. And it just seems like this is the year of which these companies for these wearables are copying from Garmin.

But I don't think that Garmin is competing with.

Dalton Anderson (53:48.548)
Apple or Google, maybe more so with Apple, with Apple's Ultra watch, that's fairly expensive. But for Google Pixel, mean, they're not even the same boat. Like, they don't have an outdoors, like an outdoors slash like rugged watch. They don't. And so maybe that they're trying to pitch that in the future and we'll see.

but they got to get this line up off the conveyor belt first. And Pixel's only been around for three generations. So this is the third one. Obviously it's the Pixel Watch 3.

But yeah, it just seemed like they were really pushing these AI features and workout generation and training programs and these things that Garmin's really good at. And I just don't think a smartwatch is the same thing as a fitness tracker. And a fitness tracker is not the same thing as a smartwatch. Like my Garmin that I have, I have the Garmin Epic 2 or something like that, Gen 2, the most recent Epic, and it's awesome.

but it's not a smartwatch. Like there's a lot of features of smartwatches that I don't have. I'm lucky that I have Android and they do allow quite a bit of integration with third parties. So I do have majority of the features that I would get from a smartwatch besides being able to like type out text messages, which I would probably never do on a watch. So it doesn't matter to me. And then I don't have LTE set up on my watch and I have to have my watch on me.

and my phone on me and my watch. My watch works without my phone with the satellite and stuff, but it needs my watch to hook it up and then it could kind of do its own thing later on.

Dalton Anderson (55:43.718)
But yeah, it just seemed like they were really pushing this fitness tracker piece, but it's not a fitness tracker, it's a smartwatch. So I would like them to emphasize more about, emphasize the product in a way that...

adds more smartwatch features versus trying to become a fitness tracker because it's not.

Besides the point. Okay. So Pixel Buds Pro 2, Pixel Buds Buds Pro 2 are the new Pixel Buds. Yeah, that's pretty funny. And one of the big features that was recently discussed by our friendly Gemini live demo was this hands -free conversation with Gemini, which you'll be able to summon Gemini and have a live conversation with the AI agent. can pick the

know, woman's voice or the man's voice, either, either or, and it's going to have increased battery capabilities, some new colors, and it's going to be, you know, going for 229. 229 is what it's going to go for. I quite like it. I might pick some up and demo this live feature to everyone. Really interested in seeing how that all plays out for myself and Google and you guys.

The Nest thermostat, there's not much to add there. They added customization to the screen, made the screen bigger and made it nicer. They didn't really go in much detail besides that. The Google TV streamer, Google's replacing their Chromecast and calling it Google TV streamer. And it's a new generation model that is gonna have more storage. It's gonna have 38 gigs of storage. It is going to have 4K HDR and

Dalton Anderson (57:39.462)
that's going to be supporting Adobe Vision or Adobe Adobe, Adobe Vision and Adobe Atmos.

So it's pretty cool. And it's going to have a find my remote feature. So your remote's going to, if you, and I have a Chromecast and I lose my remote all the time because it's just so small and it's just, it's like by the, it's like literally the size of your palm and your hand, depending on the size of your palm. And yeah, I lose it and it's difficult to find. So now if you lose it, you can just go wherever this Google TV streamer is and

just click a button and it will summon your remote with a ringer. All right. I think that's pretty cool. They had some stuff with Android 15 and some future iterations like that research analyst that I was talking about that's going to be rolled out in the coming months. They had a huge emphasis on what do they currently have now because people are getting upset and rightfully so and I was too is everyone was pushing these AI features like Apple was.

Open AI, Google, Anthropic. And they're always like, yeah, coming soon, coming to a device to use soon. And people like, well, why are you showing all this stuff? If it's not, if it's not now, I show me stuff that's going on now. And so majority of this demo or, or keynote was live demos and stuff that they could currently show. And they did a quick, like five minute recap of things that they're working on. They're coming out in the coming months. That research analyst was one of them.

which I think is a really cool feature. And I'm excited to try that out if I get the opportunity. Hopefully I will. But for Android 15, it's gonna be just, I guess a notification cool down where you can kind of block notifications for a bit. Partial screen recorder. Right now you could screen record your whole screen with audio or just specify the app that you wanna use.

Dalton Anderson (59:47.992)
and screen record with you, you'll apparently gonna have better multitasking.

But overall, the video was mainly, or not the video, but the keynote was mainly comprised of device.

Dalton Anderson (01:00:05.754)
demos that entailed AI. So the main selling point of Pixel devices currently is the photo capabilities, which is best in class, and AI. That's what they have. And so if those things interest you, then Pixel might be pretty good for you. And I have a Pixel and I quite like them. They're not too bad. They might get some angry faces when you're in the group chat, but they're not too bad.

What's your favorite feature that you potentially want to use? Are you an AI studio person, a pixel studio person, or are you more of a magic editor? Or are you more excited about Jim and I live? I like to talk to the AI and it's lovely to have a conversation with them. And I typically use my voice to send out my prompts to AI. So I would love to just have a live conversation and get real time feedback on, the things that I'm providing to them.

which think is great. That being said, if you wanna pick up a Pixel, which I probably will, you can pretty much pick up one for free depending on your current specs of your phone. I have a Pixel 7 Pro, they're offering me $600. They have a $200 credit, store credit that they'll provide if you pre -order. And then they're offering one year of Gemini AI Advanced, which is $20 a month.

So that puts you at over 200 bucks plus 200 bucks store credit. And then you potentially get a good trade in value if you're in the U S if you're not in the U S apparently the trade in values aren't very good. But if you have all those things, you could potentially get a phone for free. So I would be getting a phone for free if I went through with it. And actually I would. yeah, I think with taxes, but

As far as listing price and including all that stuff, I'd be getting a phone for free, which is quite a nice. And I was really going to wait. This was supposed to be my upgrade here, but I was going to wait because they're going to switch over to.

Dalton Anderson (01:02:22.086)
LTS MC. And so I was just gonna wait until they switched over to this new chip manufacturer where their chip's gonna get a lot of strength. if they're gonna pay me to get a phone, it's a hard wait. It's hard for me to say no. It actually doesn't make sense if they're gonna take care of it for me. Well, I think we're coming to a close here. And I appreciate you. And I hope that you appreciate me.

And I hope that you had a great time and learned a lot. And if you did like subscribe, leave a comment on things that you liked about the video. What you didn't like feedback is feedback. And I hope to have you as a listener next week and we'll be discussing the second half of the Metta's research paper. We'll finish that out and we'll keep chugging along on on our podcast journey. This is episode 30.

and we're going to potentially announce some milestones of the podcast here shortly and maybe within 10 episodes, we might have a new milestone broken. So looking forward to share that with everyone. And of course, wherever you are in this world, have a good morning, good afternoon, good evening and. Have a great day. Bye. Till next time.