Pixel 3
- Pixel 3 (5.5 inch, $800 with 64 GB, 900 with 128 GB) & Pixel 3 XL (6.3 inch, $900 with 64 GB, 1000 with 128 GB) in US
- Based on Android 9 Pie, Snapdragon 845, OLED, wireless charging, 4 GB RAM
- With Assistant, Lens, Call Screen (robot answering, based on Duplex), Super Res Zoom, Night Sight, Top Shot (8 photos burst, selects best with ML), Photobooth (based on Clips), Motion Auto Focus
- Pixel Stand (for charging, $80)
Google Home Hub
- Assistant Smart Display, smart speaker with 7-inch display, $150, in US, UK, Australia
- With Assistant, personal info, Home View dashboard for smart home device control, access to Google Photos, YouTube & YouTube TV
Pixel Slate
- Tablet, 8 or 16 GB RAM, from $600
- With Chrome OS
- Sparate Slate Keyboard ($200), Pixelbook Pen ($100), Folio (cover, $200)
Chromecast 3
- 1080p, 60 fps, $35, in US, Canada, UK, Australia, NZ, Denmark, Finland, NL, Norway, Sweden, Japan, Singapore
Amazon's Echo/Alexa event, 20 September 2018
New Echo devices:
- Auto: invitation only, $25; control car's infotainment system
- Wall Clock: $30; Bluetooth for alarms & reminders
- Input: $35, add Alexa to existing speaker
- Sub: $130, subwoofer
- Link: $200, connect to home stereo
- Link Amp: $300, amplifier
Renewed Echo devices:
- Dot: $50
- Plus: $150
- Show: $230, 10 inch HD screen, works with Ring doorbells, Skype for calls, Silk browser, Firefox, accompanying stand $30
Other devices:
- AmazonBasics Microwave: $60, with Dash Replenishment Services
- Amazon Smart Plug: $25
- Fire TV Recast: DVR, connects to Fire TV devices, with antenna for FTA TV; $230 for 2-tuner 500 GB version, $280 for 4-tuner 1 TB version
- Ring Stick Up Cam: $180, with Ring Alarm, wired or battery
New Alexa features
- TIDAL & Amazon Music new release notifications
- Email management
- Step-by-step cooking
- Location-based routines
- Smart home and home monitoring: Alexa Guard (security), Hunches (experiments with emotional awareness), Local Voice Control
- FreeTime on Alexa features: Routines, podcasts, new skills
- Partners with Microsoft for Skype (voice & video, SkypeOut, Bing) and Alexa (on Xbox), integration of Alexa and Cortana
Other
- Launches Wi-Fi Simple Setup for smart home
Takeaways
- Growing CPE portfolio; next: TV? try the smartphone again?
- Focus on smart home (full vertical integration), first step to smart car; next: smart city?
- Intermediate devices to control legacy electronics
- Alexa to rule them all
- Microsoft (i.e. non-Google, non-Apple, non-Facebook) partnership for VoIP (Skype) and search (Bing)
3 Divisions
- Family of Apps (CPO Chris Cox))
- Facebook (Will Cathcart)
- Instagram (CEO Kevin Systrom)
- Messenger (Stan Chudnovsky)
- WhatsApp (VP Chris Daniels)
- New Platforms & Infrastructure (CTO Mike Schroepfer)
- AI (Jerome Pesenti)
- AR/VR (Andrew Bosworth)
- Blockchain tech (David Marcus)
- Engineering/Infra/Privacy (Jay Parikh)
- Central Product Services (shared features across products & apps, VP of Growth Javier Olivan)
- Ads (Mark Rabkin)
- Analytics (Alex Schultz)
- Integrity/growth/product management (Naomi Gleit)
Other
- Establishes team to integrate privacy into products, 300 employees.
- Rumor: plans cryptocurrency.
- Appoints Jeff Zients to Board.
- Rebrands Oculus Research to Facebook Reality Labs.
New
- Android Things (out of beta) for smart devices/IoT, with SDK for developers.
- Demos Google Duplex (lets Google Assistant call businesses for info or reservation).
- Launches Smart Displays: smart speaker with screen (from Lenovo, LG, Sony, JBL).
- Launches Android P (Adaptive Battery, Adaptive Brightness, App Actions, Slices; based on AI), any order OEM partners timely security updates.
- Launches Subscribe with Google (access all your paid content anywhere, including on Google Search, Google News & publishers’ sites).
- Plans new chip Tensor Processor Unit 3.0 (requires liquid cooling in datacenters).
Updates
- Google Assistant connects to >5k smart devices, adds Continued Conversations, adds 6 vioices (total 8) based on WaveNet tech.
- Gmail adds Smart Compose (autocomplete mails), confidential mode (expiring mails) and offline mode.
- Google Photos adds Suggested Actions (share with people in picture), turn photo into pdf, turn B&W or colorize.
- Google Maps adds Google Assistant, adds navigation by Street View (AR), adds For You
- Google Lens adds highlighting text & make copy, adds Style Match, to be part of top-end Android phones
- Google News adds AI for personalised feeds.
- Android Auto adds RCS, Google Assistant, partners with Audi & Volvo (integrate voice search and maps into vehicles).
