Just The Good Stuff From Wednesday's Google Event

​Google has well and truly joined the hardware party now, so the annual fall iPhone release event is getting a new rival: Google's Pixel phone release event. This year we got some pretty new Pixel phones, a smaller and bigger version of the Google Home, a new Pixelbook, and more. 

This post is in reverse chronological order, with the beginning of the event at the bottom. 

Google Clips

In Short: A tiny, standalone camera that takes pictures by itself (and figures out what to take pictures of with machine learning). 

The camera captures motion photographs, so that you can pick and choose the best frames (or use the whole motion image):

Heading off privacy concerns, Payne says all the machine learning happens on the device, so no private information will leave the camera until you permit it. 

Google Clips is a tiny separate camera that captures pictures without you having to tell it to:  

Google Pixel Buds

In Short: Bluetooth headphones that feature what appears to be an extremely impressive live translation feature. 

They'll cost $159:

They come in a charging case, which promises 5 hours of use: 

It can support 40 languages: 

The Pixel Buds can also translate conversations using the Pixel phone (it's only a demo, but based on this conversation between Isabelle, speaking Swedish, and Juston, speaking English, looks pretty incredible):

What's this? A new pair of Google wireless earbuds, which will have Google Assistant:

Google Daydream

In Short: Basically the same thing as last year. 

The headset costs $99: 

You can cast to the TV, so not only you can see what's going on:

Juston Payne is up to talk about VR and Daydream. Here's the new headset (not much changed):

Google Pixel 2 And Pixel 2 XL

In short: The specs and the appearance aren't radically different than last year's versions (elongated XL screen and home screen reshuffle aside), but the Pixel promises a spectacular camera and to "just work better."

The Pixel 2 will cost $649; the XL, $849. For a limited time, you get a Google Home Mini when you buy a Pixel. 

Here's a recap of the new Pixel phones: 

Pixel users will get free storage for all their hi-res photos (the average Pixel user has stored 23 GB of photos to the cloud). 

Google shows off some sample shots: 

The image stabilization software looks quite impressive:

Google promises high dynamic range, even in low-light. It also features portrait mode, but does it without requiring 2 cameras — using machine learning instead (which means it also works with the front-facing camera!) 

Mario is back to talk about the camera, saying Google has "reimagined" phone cameras with the Pixel 2. After the original Pixel's previous all-time high DxOMark score (89), the Pixel 2 is rate at a whopping 98: 

Assistant has customizable "Routines," like this one for a commute home: 

You can send Broadcasts to your Google Home at home: 

You can squeeze the sides of the phone and it will open Google Assistant. The search bar searches both the internet and the phone:

The homescreen has been rearranged, with the search bar moved to the bottom ("it's easier to reach"):

The Pixel 2 will have always-on display (and a sort of always on Shazam, which is pretty cool):

The Pixel 2 XL has a nearly bezel-less screen, with curved corners. It comes in 2 colors. Queiroz takes a shot at Apple, saying that Google doesn't reserve better features just for the bigger phone. 

 

Pixel 2 comes in three colors: 

Both Pixels have full aluminum bodies and each have the glass inlay in the top. There's a fingerprint sensor on the back of both phones. There are front-facing stereo speakers… but no headphone jack:

Here they are: 

Mario Queiroz is out to talk about the main event — the new Pixel phones. Google appears to be gunning for Apple's "it just works" reputation: 

Google Lens and Augmented Reality

In short: Real world image recognition software that looks really useful, and some gimmicky AR stuff that doesn't. 

The stickers can interact with each other, like Eleven and the demogorgon from "Stranger Things":

Google's answer to Apple's animoji: AR stickers? 

AR is also expanding, like this furniture showroom ability:

Lens is still in its early days, but it's improving its accuracy rate (it's at around 95% now).

Aparna Chennapragada is on stage to introduce Google Lens, which will come to Pixel phones, which can recognize things in the real world, like text or art: 

Google Pixelbook

In Short: A beautiful, powerful laptop that sadly isn't much cheaper than a Macbook. Also, a stylus? 

If you were hoping Pixelbook would be a cheap alternative to the Macbook line, you're going to be disappointed — it starts at $999:

Here's a person in the ad using the pen: 

Google worked with Wacom on the pen, and the specs look pretty solid: 

And a… pen? Sure, a pen. You can circle stuff on the screen and Google Assistant will look it up for you. 

 

The Pixelbook will have Google Assistant built in: 

Vokoun introduces "instant tethering," which immediately connects the Pixelbook to the internet through your Pixel phone: 

Here are the screen specs, and it has something akin to Quick Charge to get 2 hours of use on 15 minutes. 

It can fold into a tablet as well:  

Matt Vokoun is on stage to introduce the Google Pixelbook, which runs ChromeOS and has Google Assistant. It's pretty (and light):

Google Home Max

In Short: A big brother to the Google Home, Max is a powerful stand-alone speaker with Google Home's smarts and a (potentially gimmicky) ability to tune its sound according to your room's layout.

And here's Diplo to do an ad for the Max: 

Max will cost $399 and will come in black and grey: 

You can also plug Max into an aux cord, like a real speaker:

Max will come with "Smart Sound," an AI powered system that will help the speaker adjust to the layout of your room. According to Chandra, it will also adjust to activities in the room (getting louder if the dishwasher is running, for example):

As rumored, Google's launching a big brother for home, a big-ass speaker called the Max, which is 20x more powerful than the regular Google Home:

Google Home Assistant Abilities

And now, ways for Google Home to play with your kids, so you never have to come home. The feature has some pretty big launch partners, including Disney: 

Chandra is back, introducing a few more abilities for the Google Home. First up: Broadcast, which lets you, well, broadcast your voice to other Google Homes in your house:

Google Home + Nest Smarthome

The Nest doorbell can recognize common faces and Google Home will tell you who's at the front door:

Matsuoka shows off the ability to connect Google Home to Nest products, so you can ask what the noise in your front hallway is and find out that it's… your pet pig? 

Nest CTO Yoky Matsuoka is on stage to talk about the next steps for Nest's smarthome ecosystem:

Google Home Mini

In Short: It's small and cheap, and it looks like Google wants you to put one of these in every room of your house.

It will cost $49: 

It comes in 3 colors (Olsson says it took 157 tries to get the gray color right):

But it's mainly speaker:

Isabelle Olson is on stage to announce… the Google Home Mini (it's small!):

Google Home Voice Recognition

Google trained its voice recognition on 50 million+ samples, and is expanding Voice Match to all 7 countries the product is available in. You'll also be able to use your personal cell for hands-free calling:

Rishi Chandra is on stage to talk about the Google Home, which will be launching in Japan later this week

Hardware

Rick (and Sundar before him) keep referencing the intersection of AI, software and hardware, talking about how Google is connecting AI and software abilities (eg. Google Photos and auto photo editing abilities combined with the Pixel's very good camera) to make them… "radically helpful":

55 million+ Chromecasts have been sold: 

And now, an ad for the products introduced last year (good job, Google): 

Rick Osterloh is on stage to give an update on Google's hardware products: 

Opening Remarks

Pichai teases a conversational translation tool, using AI:

Pichai touches on AutoML, a machine learning technology introduced a few months ago, which has already powered a powerful new image classification model: 

Pichai is outlining Google's vision for an "AI First" future, which encompasses four key pillars — conversational abilities, an ambient device environment (think Google Home), contextual suggestions, and continual improvement through AI learning:

Pichai discusses Google's use of machine learning to improve Google Maps in Lagos, Nigeria:

Sundar Pichai is on stage. After touching on the events in Las Vegas, Pichai has turned towards Google's focus on AI (a "mobile first to an AI first world"):

For more live coverage, we'd suggest following live blogs from The Verge or Ars Technica.