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Google Pixel Phones Launch Event Highlights

Google Pixel Phones Launch Event Highlights

By Pranay Parab | Updated: 4 October 2016 23:16 IST

Google Pixel, Pixel XL's Really Blue Colour Variant Is Not Launching in India

2016-10-05T01:58:00+0530

Google Pixel Phone Launched: First Phone With Google Assistant Built-In

2016-10-04T23:00:00+0530

That's about all there is from the event. Thanks for following the live blog. Stay tuned to Gadgets 360 for detailed coverage.

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There'll be an embedded Google Assistant SDK next year.

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This helps developers create bots for Google Assistant. You can bring in the Uber bot if you ask the Google Assistant to call an Uber.

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This will help Google partners use Google Assistant.

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He's talking about Actions on Google. There are two kinds of actions - Direct Actions and Conversational Actions.

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Google's lead engineer for Google Assistant, Scott Huffman, is on stage.

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It'll be available for pre-orders from today and will start shipping on November 4.

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Google Home will be available for $129. It comes with free six months of YouTube Red.

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If you have multiple Google Home devices in your house, you can link them. Only one of them will respond - the one that's nearest to you - if you ask questions.

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You'll soon be able to say Ok Google, watch Stranger Things on my TV and it will play it via Netflix.

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You can use Google Home to voice control your TV via Chromecast.

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Google Home connects with Next, Philips Hue, Samsung SmartThings, and IFTTT.

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Google Home can create a shopping list via voice commands. This sounds great, and will compete with Amazon's Echo, but we're not sure if this will coming to India.

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Google Home can also manage your everyday tasks.

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JUST IN: Google Pixel starts at Rs. 57,000 in India.

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Chandra is showing how you can get answers from Google via Google Home.

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It can play music, radio, podcasts, and supports casting audio from smartphones.

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It lets you set a default music service as well.

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Google Home can play songs as well. It supports YouTube Music, Spotify, and other streaming services. No Apple Music here.

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Google's Rishi Chandra is now on stage.

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You can swap bases on Google Home to change colours and customise it.

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Google Home has a mic mute button so it's not listening to you all the time.

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It has LEDs on the top to give you visual feedback.

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Google Home lets you enjoy music, get answers from Google, and manage everyday tasks.

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On to Google Home.

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It'll be available in November for $69.

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Chromecast Ultra loads content 1.8X faster. It supports Ethernet as well.

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Google Play movies will be rolling out 4K content in November.

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Chromecast Ultra is the new launch. You'll be able to cast content in 4K.

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Meet Google Wifi

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On to Chromecast. Google has sold over 30 million Chromecast devices.

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It'll be available for pre-orders in November at $129. A 3-pack for $299. This will ship in December in the US.

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The router looks sleek. It's short and cylindrical.

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First thing is Google Wifi. It's a router.

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He's talking about Google hardware for your home.

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Google's Mario Queiroz is on stage.

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Daydream View will be available for $79 in November.

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The entire library of YouTube videos will be available on Daydream. And there are some 360 and VR videos for a more immersive experience.

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Google Play Movies, Google Photos, Google Street View, and YouTube are also coming to Daydream.

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Google has been working with Netflix, HBO, and Hulu to bring more VR movies.

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Fantastics Beasts and Where to Find Them by J. K. Rowling - is coming to Daydream. You're a wizard and you can use the controller as a wand. It sounds like an interesting game.

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Adrienne McAllister, who heads VR partnerships for Daydream, is on stage.

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Daydream View ships in three colours. Snow, Slate, and Crimson.

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The controller can be placed inside the headset when you're done using it. This is for all those people who will inevitably end up misplacing the controller.

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The Daydream View comes with a controller.

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It's 30 percent lighter than similar devices, Google claims. And it fits nicely over eyeglasses.

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The Daydream View headset uses soft microfibre fabrics for comfort.

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Now Google is talking about VR. The headset is called Daydream View.

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Those are the specs of the Pixel phones.

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The phone will be available via Flipkart, Croma, and Reliance Digital in India (based on a slide Google showed).

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It's a Verizon exclusive in the US. And will be available unlocked via Google Store for $649. Available for pre-orders today in US, Australia, Canada. India pre-orders start on October 13.

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It's also the first phone that's Daydream VR ready.

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Three colours - Very Silver, Quite Black, and Really Blue. Hilarious.

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There are two phones - Pixel and Pixel XL, which is bigger.

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They have an app that makes it easy for you to switch to Pixel. It can also transfer iMessages, according to Ellis.

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Customer care is built in with Pixel. You can quickly screen share and help Google's customer care agents help you with your problem.

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Pixel phones ship with Android 7.0 Nougat. Google claims it'll get system and security updates instantly.

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Pixel can get you up to 7 hours of charge with just 15 minutes of charging, Ellis says.

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Google Duo is pre-loaded on Pixel. It's their video-calling app - like FaceTime is for iOS.

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Sabrina Ellis, who's on Google's Pixel product management team, is on stage now.

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Now they're showing an ad for the Pixel smartphone.

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Free unlimited photos and videos at full resolution, including 4K videos, for Pixel phone owners.

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Pixel comes with Google Photos built in.

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It has video stabilisation too. A demo shows a shaky camera on the left and Pixel's stable camera on the right.

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Our camera has a shorter capture time than any smartphone camera we've tested.

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They're showing some nice photos to highlight how good HDR+ is. There is zero shutter lag so HDR+ is on by default.

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Google says the camera inside Pixel phones is the best ever

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The camera app has a smart burst mode and an HDR+ mode.

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It has a 12.3-megapixel rear camera.

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Finally - Rakowski is talking about the Pixel's camera. He claims that DXOMark rated it 89, which is the highest rating according to the benchmark. Above iPhone 7 (86).

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So far Google has hardly talked about the hardware.

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Rakowski just used the Google Assistant to make a restaurant reservation via OpenTable.

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That minor error aside, the Assistant has been impressive. It can find restaurants near the concert venue and understood the context of Rakowski's queries.

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He sent a text to his wife. He said Want to go see The Lumineers but the Assistant recognised it as Went to go see....

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He asked it to play a song and the Assistant opened it in YouTube.

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This launches the Google Assistant. Rakowski just asked it to show photos from last October and upcoming events at Greek Theater in Berkeley.

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They're talking about the Assistant. Touch and hold the home button to launch the Assistant or say OK Google.

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The phone has a new Pixel Launcher.

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Google's head of software management team - Brian Rakowski - is on stage to talk about the Pixel.

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Meet the Google Pixel phone

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The Pixel is the first phone with Google Assistant built in.

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It has a polished aluminium edge and no unsightly camera bump - he takes a dig at Apple. But no one in the crowd reacted to it.

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Looks like the leaks were right. The phone looks exactly like what the leaked images showed.

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New phone is called Pixel.

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First up - phones.

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We're building hardware with the Google Assistant at its core.

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Google believes the next big innovation is going to take place at the intersection of hardware and software - with AI.

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At the peak of film photography, 80 billion photos were captured every year. Last year, that number was 1 trillion, Osterloh says.

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Google Assistant is coming to new hardware devices. Rick Osterloh, head of Google's newly formed hardware group, is on stage to talk about it.

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Now he's talking about Allo. The Google Assistant is learning from chats and getting better.

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Even that is approaching human levels, Pichai says.

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He's highlighting how text-to-speech has also improved.

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Pichai says Google's translation is approaching human translation levels.

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He gives a couple of examples. One of these was - two years ago the machine learning algorithm would have recognised a train on tracks from an image. Now it recognises the colour of the train as well.

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How machine learning has improved

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The comparison was against machine learning from two years ago.

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Machine learning - Pichai saus the quality of Google's machine learning has gone up from 89 to 94 percent. He says this is a big jump at these levels of machine learning.

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He's talking about machine learning and how Google is making big strides. He referenced AlphaGo AI's victory over legendary Go player Lee Sedol.

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Pichai is back on stage, talking about Knowledge Graph, natural language processing, translation, image recognition, and voice recognition.

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The video is highlighting features of the assistant that we already know. A summary of the things Google Assistant can do.

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Now they're showing a video about Google Assistant.

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Our goal is to build a personal Google for each and every user, Pichai says.

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This brings the Google Assistant into the conversation.

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The world is going from mobile-first to AI-first, he says.

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He's talking about the history of computing. Going from personal computer in the 1980s to the Web in the 1990s.

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Sundar Pichai takes stage

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The event has begun. Google CEO Sundar Pichai is on stage.

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Just five minutes to go for the Google Pixel event. Stay tuned.

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The event will begin in 10 minutes, according to an announcement here at the venue.

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The venue is surprisingly small, as you can see in the photo below.

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We're at the launch venue and we'll be bringing you live updates. The event will begin at 9.30 pm IST. Stay tuned.

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The company to launch two smartphones at the event.

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Hello everyone and welcome to Gadgets 360's live blog of the Google Pixel Event.

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The Google Pixel Event begins at 9.30pm IST (9am PT) on Tuesday, and this is Gadgets 360's live blog of the event. Google is expected to launch two Android smartphones - Pixel and Pixel XL - at the event. This could mark the death of the Nexus brand name and an acknowledgement that the series had a lot of room for improvement.

(Also see: Google Pixel Event: Pixel, Pixel XL, Google Home, and What Else to Expect From the October 4 Event)

The Google October 4 event is also expected to see the unveiling of the Andromeda platform, which could replace Chrome OS. This could be an acknowledgement that Chrome OS has failed and could be Google's way of trying to break into the market for tablets and laptops.

(Also see: Google Pixel, Pixel XL Leaked on Verizon Ahead of October 4 Event; Google Magic and Blue Colour Variant Revealed)

The Google event is also expected to unveil more details about Google Home, Google Wi-Fi, Chromecast 4K, and the Daydream VR headset. The biggest takeaway here is that Google could be using it's own 'G' logo on all the hardware it launches at the October 4 event. If your Internet connection won't allow you to catch the event live or you're stuck at work during the event, you can just follow this live blog for latest updates. Gadgets 360 is at the venue so we'll have nice event photos too. Stay tuned.

(Also see: Google Daydream VR Headset Tipped to Cost $79; to Be Unveiled on October 4 Event)

We discuss what you can expect from Google's October 4 event, featuring Pixel smartphones, Andromeda, and more on Orbital: The Gadgets 360 Podcast. You can either subscribe to via iTunes or RSS or just hit the play button below.

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Further reading: Google Pixel, Google Pixel Event, Google Pixel XL, Google October 4 Event, Google Pixel Phone, October 4, Google Home, Google Wifi, Google Chromecast, Andromeda

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