Google unveils new devices
Company, up against Amazon and Apple, also unveils a mini smart speaker and hands-free camera.
Two Pixel phones are among the offerings by the firm, which is battling with Apple and Amazon.
Google on Wednesday unveiled new phones, smart speakers and other devices infused with artificial intelligence in its bid to claim the high ground against rivals Amazon and Apple.
New phones
The second generation of Google’s Pixel phones unveiled Wednesday feature larger, brighter screens that take up more of the phones’ front, changes that Apple is also making with its iPhone X that is scheduled to be released next month.
Both the 6-inch Pixel XL and the 5-inch Pixel will do away with the headphone jack, something Apple did with the iPhone 7 last year.
Google also souped up the highly rated camera on the Pixel, boasting that it will take even better photos than the iPhone.
The smaller Pixel will sell for about $650, $50 less than the iPhone 8. The Pixel XL will sell for about $850, or $50 more than the iPhone 8 Plus. Prices for the iPhone X start at $1,000.
Google also announced wireless headphones, called Pixel Buds. In addition to relaying audio from the phone, the headphones can also translate spoken language in real time, working with software built into the new Pixels. The feature also will be coming to last year’s Pixel models in an update.
Smart speakers
The Google Home Mini unveiled Wednesday is a doughnut-sized speaker covered in fabric. It includes the same features as the cylindrical speaker that Google rolled out last year in response to Amazon’s Echo.
The Mini will cost about $50, roughly the same as Amazon’s smaller speaker, the Echo Dot. The standard Google Home speaker costs about $130. Last week, Amazon announced that the next generation of its Echo speaker, coming out in time for the holiday shopping season, will cost just $100, a price that Google decided not to match.
The Google Home Max is a rectangular speaker with superior acoustics for playing music, mimicking Apple’s HomePod.
Like Apple with the HomePod, Google is promising that its Home Max speaker will learn your musical tastes so it can become a digital DJ that automatically selects tunes that you’ll enjoy. But the Max speaker will work with a wider range of musicstreaming services than the HomePod, which is designed to be a companion to Apple Music.
Google is selling the Home Max for about $400, or $50 more than the HomePod. Both speakers are due to hit stores in December.
Center stage for AI
Google’s voice-activated digital assistant will serve as the brains for all the speakers, just as Amazon’s Alexa and Apple’s Siri run their competing devices.
All three technology companies are trying to establish their assistants as prescient concierges that understand people’s needs and desires to help them better manage their homes and lives.
Google is counting on the knowledge that it has accumulated through its dominant search engine to make its assistant far more intelligent than either Alexa or Siri, giving it an edge over its rivals over time.
Candid camera
In a surprise move, Google is introducing a hands-free camera that will automatically take photos and video for people looking to catch candid moments of their family, friends and pets.
The small, square device, called Google Clips, can be attached to a stationary object so it can capture images of everything within its range of view. It will rely on artificial intelligence to learn what and who are important to its users so it knows the best times to snap a photo or record video.
Google is promising that privacy controls that are built into Clips will give the camera’s users complete control over which images they want to transfer to another device or share with someone else.
Clips will sell for about $250 and will be available in stores in December.