The Latest Pixel Drop Feature Will Allow Geminis to Remember Information About You

It’s Pixel Drop time again, and Google’s regular series of updates to phones and tablets arriving in December 2024 includes improvements to Gemini AI, photo sharing, instant messaging, device security, accessibility, and more.

Smarter Geminis

There’s a lot to cover , and with artificial intelligence dominating tech news headlines right now, it makes sense to start with Google Gemini. An AI-powered assistant can now remember information about you—your favorite movies, your taste in food, your love of sports—and provide more personalized responses. These memories can be viewed and deleted at any time or disabled completely.

Gemini is also getting more extensions as it strives to catch up and go beyond Google Assistant’s functionality. The new extensions will let you use Gemini to control Spotify, control smart home devices through Google Home, and request locations on Google Maps.

Now Gemini can remember some of your preferences. Credit: Google

If you have a Pixel 9 phone with the Gemini Nano model built-in, you now have access to smarter, context-aware auto-replies to calls you’ve filtered out and decided not to answer, so you can essentially carry on a conversation with someone. then without answering the call. All Pixels starting with Pixel 4 will display transcripts of these conversations on screen.

Improvements to photos and photo sharing

Photo sharing and selection have been optimized for Instagram and Snapchat, and if you have a foldable Google phone—the Pixel Fold or Pixel 9 Pro Fold —you can get a dual-screen preview of your portrait photos on your home screen. The Made You Look feature, which allows young children to look into the camera, is now included in the Pixel Fold, and additional animations for it will appear in the Pixel 9 Pro Fold.

New Security Features

A new feature called Identity Verification is rolling out in beta, which will insist on face or fingerprint authentication when changing sensitive settings on your phone, even if the phone is already unlocked. This gives you extra protection against someone gaining access to your phone and then changing your passwords or PINs.

AI-powered subtitles

Live subtitles become more expressive. Credit: Google

Google is also introducing something called Expressive Captions , which uses artificial intelligence to expand the existing live subtitles feature on Android, where automatically generated subtitles can be displayed on the screen for any audio. You can better understand emotions in audio by using symbols such as capital letters and sound descriptions such as sighs in the text.

Additional accessibility features and other quality of life improvements

Another new feature is Simple View, available on Pixel 6 and later phones. It increases font size and touchscreen sensitivity—definitely worth turning on if you have trouble seeing text on the screen or accurately pressing buttons and menus.

The excellent speech-to-text app that Google installs on its Pixels is also getting an update with a new “clear voice” feature that reduces background noise to focus on vocals. Another Pixel exclusive, Now Playing, will show album covers of songs it automatically detects around you.

Identity verification is a new security feature. Credit: Google

There are also a few small updates here. On Pixel 9 devices, Pixel Studio stickers can be sent directly from the Gboard keyboard, and the Pixel Screenshots app gets tighter search circle integration, Google Wallet sync, automatic categorization, and suggestions on Gboard. All pixels are easier to navigate with the Emoji Kitchen emoji maker.

Outside of phones, widgets on Pixel tablets can now be accessed from the lock screen by swiping right, and Pixel tablets now also have access to Google VPN. On the wearable side, the older Pixel Watch 2 gets the ability to view live feeds from Nest cameras right on your wrist, just like the Pixel Watch 3.

Speaking of the Pixel Watch 3, the Daily Ready, Cardio, and Target features that Google introduced with the wearable will also be coming to the older Pixel Watch and Fitbit watches and trackers, so keep an eye out for that new features.

These updates are already rolling out. You can manually check for updates on your Pixel phone or tablet by going to Settings and selecting System & Software Updates .

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