Google's annual Made by Google hardware event got underway early Tuesday morning, but the company announced so many things that a lot got lost in the shuffle. We've rounded up some of the more interesting AI-related announcements that got under the radar, including Pixel Studio for generating images and Pixel Screenshots for saving and organizing information in your screenshots.
Call notes summarize the conversation
For people like me who have short-term memory problems, call notes can be a useful feature.
Call notes, available on Pixel 9 series devices, saves a summary of your conversation after a call. Details and a transcript are stored in your phone's call history.
Image credit: Google
If this sounds like a potential privacy nightmare, you're not wrong: Google says Call Notes runs entirely on-device and notifies everyone on the call when a recording is in progress, but it's up to security experts to decide.
Pixel Studio is a new image generation app
Pixel Studio is an image generation app exclusive to the Pixel 9, Pixel 9 Pro, and Pixel 9 Pro Fold, leveraging both on-device generative AI models and Google's Imagen 3 models running in the cloud. With Pixel Studio, you can enter prompts to generate creative inspirations, add stickers, and make edits and changes after the fact.
Image credit: Google
Pixel Studio creations, despite the on-device component, require a stable internet connection to use but can be shared with contacts via Google Messages.
A Google PR representative told my colleague Ivan Mehta that Pixel Studio can't yet generate human faces, likely due to the unfortunate Gemini mistake earlier this year, but the spokesperson declined to say whether there are other safeguards in place to prevent the app from generating potentially harmful images.
Pixel screenshots are searchable
If you're like me, you often take screenshots of tickets, QR codes, boarding passes, or anything else for easy access later. But screenshots aren't very search-friendly, which makes them a real pain when you're looking for something specific.
Luckily for soon-to-be Pixel 9 buyers, there's a new app called Pixel Screenshots, which uses AI to analyze the content of your screenshots, including the text, people, objects, etc. that have been captured. Google Photos already offers this functionality, but Pixel Screenshots works locally.
Google gives this vivid example: “Let's say your squirrel-loving friend's birthday is coming up. You're browsing for gifts in Google Chrome and you screenshot squirrel-related things you think your friend might like, like squirrel shirts or coasters. Pixel Screenshots will analyze the content of all those images and make the information searchable within the app. Just open the app and search for 'squirrel' and you'll see these results pop up. Plus, you'll get links to where you found all the information, and a summary of what's shown along with related information.”
Pixel Screenshots also lets you search for things like door codes and addresses across your photos.