More ways to stay connected and safe with Pixel

Transcript - Season 7, Episode 2, March Feature Drop

Aisha 00:00:00 So it's exciting to see this lifeline really be ruled out to new places. I personally am a big hiker and now just having this rolled out even when I'm traveling is a huge advantage and it feels like such a good safety net.

Voiceover 00:00:13 Welcome to the Made by Google podcast, where we meet the people who work on the Google products you love. Here's your host Rachid Finge.

Rachid 00:00:21 It's time for the first Pixel feature drop of 2025. We've got tons of great new features and to tell us all about them, let's welcome back. Aisha Sharif, product manager of Pixel Software.

Voiceover 00:00:32 This is the Made by Google podcast.

Rachid 00:00:35 Hi Aisha. We've detected some highly unusual activity connected to your social security number.

Rachid 00:00:41 Let me just welcome you properly to the podcast. Aisha, great to have you on the Made by Google Podcast. The clip you heard is something you know you might hear on the phone call and this new Pixel feature drop as it focuses on security and safety could help you when someone calls you with a message like that, right?

Aisha 00:01:01 That's correct. So this drop in the US will have Scam Detection rolling out to our Pixel 9 and 9 Pro phones. So if you're like me where sometimes you answer the phone and you probably shouldn't, it'll now be able to tell you live on the call if a scam is detected. So something like someone trying to get your social security number or maybe they're asking you to run and go grab a bunch of gift cards, we can now detect that's a scam and have both a haptic alert and visual alert on the screen as well.

Rachid 00:01:29 It's one of those features that sounds so simple, but how do you build something like that?

Aisha 00:01:33 So the team did an incredible job of building this feature. It was both going through a lot of scam calls and actually detecting these are things that are likely a scam so that it could be able to then trigger the model versus a time when you know it's probably just a normal phone call. So the Scam Detection team has done an incredible job on this feature.

Rachid 00:01:52 That means that there is some sort of AI, I guess listening to the conversation, seeing if it's uh, sort of fishy that phone call. What can you tell me about privacy when it comes to the news cam detection feature?

Aisha 00:02:02 All of this is running on device with our on-device Gemini model. So it makes sure that the conversation that's being had all stays locally to the phone. It's not being sent to the server. Of course, we're always thinking about security across both of those fronts, but when we want that extra layer, we keep things on device and scam protection is one of those features.

Rachid 00:02:22 That's amazing. So that's for phone calls, but this will also work for text messages in the US, UK, and Canada, right?

Aisha 00:02:30 That's correct. So you can also detect scams in texts, which they've been getting really good with. Yeah, scams in text messages. I'm happy this one's rolling out there too.

Rachid 00:02:38 Okay, so moving on from scams to Satellite SOS, we have an expansion there to announce. So where's Satellite SOS going to and can you remind us what that feature does?

Aisha 00:02:48 Satellite SOS is such a great feature because when you're in a situation where you need that emergency service and you don't have connection, it's one of the worst situations you can be in. So it's exciting to see this lifeline really be ruled out to new places. So now we're expanding it to Hawaii, Alaska, Europe, and Canada, which is large. I personally am a big hiker and there are so many times where I'm out hiking and I have my phone, but it's useless at that point. And now just having this rolled out even when I'm traveling is a huge advantage and it feels like such a good safety net.

Rachid 00:03:21 What about AI powered productivity? We have of course a great Screenshots app on Pixel. Now what's changing in that area?

Aisha 00:03:29 I realized recently that I actually take an aggressive amount of screenshots all the time. And so when I go into my app I just see so many, so many of the screenshots that I've taken. But now with this new edition, you can actually have collections created automatically. So for example, you might take a lot of screenshots of a certain restaurant or like there's a travel that you have upcoming and so you can see all of that kind of automatically sorted into collections, which is great. So screenshots is now rolling out to German and Japanese as well. That's actually part of a bigger set of our AI features that are rolling out to more languages. So Screenshots will be available in German and Japanese. Same for Pixel Studio. Also the Pixel weather AI summary on top, which is so convenient and helpful. And then we're actually seeing the recorder summarization roll out to Japanese as well.

Rachid 00:04:18 Wow, you have a lot of good news for all the Pixel folks. Now what about people who maybe aren't just yet into the Pixel world? From what I understand, we have an update of one of my favorite apps, the Recorder app. Great. For people who aren't just yet on Pixel, what's happening there?

Aisha 00:04:33 Yeah, so now if you switch to Pixel all of your old recordings when you restore them on your new Pixel device, they will automatically be transcribed. So you can easily like search through your recordings, get those transcriptions right away, which is great.

Rachid 00:04:46 Amazing. That's really great for people who have a lot of those recordings already on their previous phone and some Japanese there as well on the Recorder app. So that's like it can listen and record and transcribe offline Japanese now. Is that right?

Aisha 00:04:59 And it can summarize too, which is great.

Rachid 00:05:01 That's even better. That's really, really cool. Now Aisha, there's one new feature that I'm sort of confused about which is about connecting GoPros to your Pixel even though Pixel has amazing cameras. So why would someone connect a GoPro to it and why do we uh, create this feature?

Aisha 00:05:18 Yeah, so I think it's really cool for a couple of use cases. I will speak from the one that I know best, which is when I'm not a PM, I'm also a singer. I've actually had quite a few performances recorded fairly on a bunch of different Pixels set up and now with the addition of both connected cameras with Pixels but also with GoPro, you can have different angles going at the same time. So you can get maybe an angle from right of the stage center left of the stage so you can make sure you're getting the best view and all have that coordinated across your phones.

Rachid 00:05:50 And while we're on the topic of cameras for our Pixel Fold and 9 Pro Fold fans and users, some enhancements there as well, right?

Aisha 00:05:58 Yes. They will now be able to get dual screen preview for video and also for Add Me.

Rachid 00:06:03 That is great. Now what I usually love about the feature drops is also sort of the little things, you know, the little things that make life a little bit better. What does that list look like this time?

Aisha 00:06:12 Yeah, so quite a bit there. So keyboard voice typing is getting better where you don't actually have to have the full keyboard up so you have more space to actually see what's on the screen as you're doing voice to text.

Rachid 00:06:23 Oh that makes sense.

Aisha 00:06:23 Which is awesome. And then with modes they're more like easier to navigate between the different modes. So you could have bedtime mode, just regular do not disturb, driving mode, et cetera. And then Gemini continues to get better. Now you can actually attach a screenshot or a picture or a YouTube video and get responses on that like extra element that you want in there.

Rachid 00:06:46 Perfect. That's gonna be really useful when I'm watching a YouTube video that I don't quite understand. So that will be very helpful indeed. Now let's move from the Pixel phones maybe to Pixel Watch. Of course there's one big update that regular listeners of the podcast already know about because the first episode of this season was about the expansion of Loss of Pulse Detection to the US which is absolutely great, but there are some other changes there as well. Uh, regarding step tracking and auto bedtime mode. How has in accuracy been improved in those areas?

Aisha 00:07:16 Yeah, so step tracking has definitely improved there where we're able to detect motion just in different ways. So you might be pushing a stroller or you've been pushing like a grocery cart and step tracking is much more accurate in a wide range of scenarios. Auto bedtime mode is really cool. So this is actually introduced on Pixel Watch 3, but now it's coming to Pixel Watch 2 where if your watch detects that you might have fallen asleep, it will automatically put your watch into bedtime mode. So it will silence your notifications, turn your screen off so it's not flashing light and waking you up in the middle of the night. So very helpful.

Rachid 00:07:52 So many features in this Pixel Drop. It's almost unfair to ask you Aisha, what is sort of your maybe favorite feature? In other words, what is your top tip for listeners, one of those maybe hidden gems in the feature drop that they might not know about that they should definitely try?

Aisha 00:08:06 Okay, there are two that I'm really excited about. Pixel Studio I use all the time for some of the wackiest use cases. Really cool addition that's coming is that now you can actually generate humans.

Rachid Oh wow.

Aisha So it's not just about scenery, it's not just about objects. You can generate humans in Pixel Studio as well, which is huge. And then the other fun convenient one is people finding us now coming to find my device so I can actually see friends and family that I share location with via Google Maps straight from the find my device app, which puts everything in one place and makes it much more central.

Rachid 00:08:38 That's a great one.

Aisha 00:08:40 Yes, it’s such a packed drop. So excited that we've been able to launch all this in March.

Rachid 00:08:44 Amazing. Well it feels like Christmas came very early this year, so that's a great Pixel feature drop. Thank you so much Aisha, and we hope to have you back at perhaps the next feature drop in. Uh, well whenever that is. Thank you.

Aisha 00:08:56 Thanks for having me.

Voiceover 00:08:58 Thank you for listening to the Made by Google podcast. Don't miss out on new episodes. Subscribe now wherever you get your podcasts to be the first to listen.