This episode of Pixelated is brought to you by Yabba, who have been sponsoring the podcast for the past couple of weeks, and they have an opportunity for you to win a Pixel 9 and a Yabba T2 projector. I've been using this for a while. I've talked about it previously in the podcast. Really like this product.
It's a portable 1080p projector with speaker built in. Excellent, really like the design. Lovely little carry handle as well. It's just a really, really good option if you want to watch Android TV.
on the go. They also have their really impressive and newly released Yabba K300S. This is an ultra short throw laser projector which can even produce basically a 100 inch display from around about nine inches so it's perfect for anywhere in your home be that home cinema system or even just somewhere you want to add a tv
where you couldn't ordinarily put one. Stick around to the end of the podcast and we'll tell you just how to enter to win a Pixel 9 and potentially win that Yabba T2 projector as well. So Abner, we have another episode. We don't have as much to talk about this week in terms of like big things, but there has been a lot of little changes to Gemini. Yes, I'm sorry everybody out there listening.
We're talking AI once again. Google said they were going to go basically, how would you describe it? Like really deep in on Gemini this year. And yeah, that seems to be the case. Tons of updates to talk about. It's in. Gemini's world. We're just living in it. But yeah, it's Gemini. Let's see. The big announcement this week, at the start of this week.
Well, it's not last week, really. 2.0 Flash is now instable. That's the model you'll find in the Gemini app. It's also available for developers now. 2.0 flash which was announced in december is out of testing that's the model people are using it's interesting that they're keeping around 1.5 flash and 1.5 pro for a few weeks
Why do you think that is? Do you think that's just for people working with specific projects that have targeted those levels? Yeah, it's basically just to keep those conversations around, which I don't, they didn't do that. well, they didn't really rather pick models until recently. But yeah, it's just to keep conversations going. So yeah, that's instable. That's the current.
But the new thing is some experimental models with... These names are going to get unwieldy. There's 2.0 Pro Experimental. That is the next flagship thing that... you can expect in a few weeks, few months, I guess. And then, but the real, I guess the novelty here is something called 2.0 Flash Thinking Experimental. This is, it's really...
I'm sure at this point everybody has used AI models, already interacted with it. But using a reasoning model, a thinking model, which can show its train of thought. It's an interesting novelty. It's novel. It's new. I recommend trying it at least once. It's definitely alive on the website already. But basically, you can see... its train of thought in real time. It's thinking, it's showing its output way faster than you can actually read it.
You can follow along, basically. You can follow along before you get the final response. And from a comp sci standpoint of view, it's pretty interesting. Do you think that that's going to give people... Because I've started to use Gemini a little bit more here and there. And I just wonder if maybe, is it one of those things where it may give more trust in the product? I don't know. I don't know how to describe it. It's like...
you see the reasoning that Gemini has come up with and you can kind of follow along a little bit better. It does have a bit of trust. Do you think it adds a little extra trust? Let's say more important queries, life-altering queries, maybe. Now, if it's important enough, you'll want to see the train of thought. But again, at the end of the day, I think there's novelty to see it's thinking, but at the same time, some people just want a response.
Yeah, people don't care about the process. They just care about the output. A short, concise response. But at the other end of that, we also got the launch of deep research. which people find very interesting. It's basically you can ask a long-form question and it writes a report for you, which all the kids these days have it so easy.
Anecdotally, I think I heard about somebody, and this is all effectively conjecture, so please don't take me to court for this, but basically I've heard about someone, effectively lecturers at universities. teaching children, I say children, they're adults, teaching people at universities and colleges how to use these tools effectively is almost like a research term. If people are going to use them, the cat's out the bag. So I do wonder as well, like you...
With the deep research, it's going to really help people kind of understand the processes that Gemini is going to go through to reach the reasoned, in air quotes, answer that they're going to be giving the person. Is it searching? What do you call someone who's using an AI tool? It's prompting, I guess. Yeah, a prompter. Promptter, I guess, yeah. It's a general thing, but yeah, so that's the underlying Gemini stuff that's been announced, Will.
These experimental models will presumably launch in, well, pro-thinking is probably coming out before flash thinking. Sorry, pro-experimental. But yeah, that's the underlying stuff. But on top of it, which probably what people care most about as the Gemini assistant, which unofficial term, I guess, but the phone assistant experience for Gemini. That got some updates in the past. So basically, you can now use Gemini extensions on your rock screen. It's really interesting because it's a lot...
When Gemini launched about a year ago in the Gemini app, when it was available as a Google Assistant replacement, it was not in good shape. It was so obvious that it was just a chatbot. basic chat bot trying to fill the role of a traditional smartphone assistant. But a year later, I really say that Google has...
they put the work in. It's a much more comparable Google Assistant replacement. It's much better at... It's just more featured. This really should have been what... the Gemini app was originally a year ago and it's a shame it wasn't that people's first impression was pretty sullied but it's here now and it's
How have you been using it? I know it's on your doc. I've also moved it to my doc. I was literally interjecting you. I have it on my doc, on my phone, and I ask queries all the time. It's so good. I don't want to say I'm an AI convert, but for quick queries and questions that I know...
This is the most ridiculous thing about it. You know, when you kind of have a base knowledge level of something, so you know that I can search, for instance, it may be the best places to eat in Manchester or the best places to eat in London. And I have an idea. in my mind what someone has told me and it's almost like reinforcing that a little bit yes i use it for that what i will say is and i have
I removed the Nest Hub second gen from my office, which has interrupted the podcast on a few times in the past. I've replaced that fully now with the Pixel tablet and the speaker dock. But because the Pixel tablet is using Gemini, the difference between general voice commands, like the interpretation of that while using Gemini has been fantastic. It's so good at picking up.
nuance in the phrases you use. So for instance, when I'm controlling home devices, now we can do that. Yeah, I can use natural languages to say, turn off this product, this product. Sorry, this product, this switch, this light. And basically you have a string of like five or six things. And Gemini on my Pixel tablet is able to differentiate with those, turn them off and do it correctly. Whereas...
I have obviously Nest Minis and a couple of Nest Hubs of various generations. The Google Assistant has just kind of faltered. And I do wonder, and I think this poses a bigger question, a broader question. Do you think the... The Google Assistant has stagnated so far to allow Gemini to almost get, not comparable, but like parity, if that makes sense. Like these extensions now put it at...
almost parity. I know some people will never like Gemini and some people will always prefer the assistant. I'm kind of on the fence. So there's a bit of a funny disconnect there. So... On phones, tablets, smartwatches, earbuds, you will be using Gemini. But in the US, we've been able to preview... the Google Assistant with Gemini on our home devices for a few weeks now. It basically takes the conversational aspect of Gemini Live and lets you talk to have general knowledge stuff.
So that's there. And they're going to still brand it as Google Assistant, which is... Oh, yes. Sorry, you reminded me. Yeah, I didn't realize that was actually in preview right now. I didn't realize. It's in preview, yeah. Again, it's US-only, so you wouldn't have been having... Nobody else would have had a chance to use it. But it's such...
I don't know. In the early days of this, which is like only a year ago, I was of the opinion that Google Assistant should have just stayed the brand and they just added the Gemini stuff, which is... the approach they are doing with smart home stuff. But I guess my views have shifted based on how hard Google is pushing Gemini on phones. And I still do think that the better brand...
is Google Assistant because you immediately know what it does right off the bat. It's in the name. But given how much advertising there is around Gemini, just the sheer force that Google is pushing at it.
I wonder if right now it just bites the bullet and tends to go all in on Gemini on all platforms. I think it's a very good point. I do wonder if the kind of... or the rush from, from Google to have Gemini as its own individual product is driven by the fact that people want to see something new because rebranding Google assistant, it was, it would technically feel old compared to chat GPT, which is still.
predominantly when i talk to people about ai chat gpt is most people's introduction to it they just associate ai with chat gpt and i wonder if gemini being its own thing and then using gemini as a brand, in air quotes, brand new product, makes sense because people say, oh, Google has their own ChatGPT as opposed to the Google Assistant is now ChatGPT. I mean, look at the Alexa comparison.
the Alexa what came before Google Assistant then I think in the culture it's still Alexa yeah that's well I mean I think Amazon announced that at the end of the month they have an upgrade Alexa thing where they're going to announce, say, AI, LRM-based Excel. That might be interesting. But I don't think people will pay for it. No. I mean, I'm sure it'll be hidden behind an Amazon Prime paywall. Yeah, if it's Prime, it makes sense. But even then, I think it...
Maybe that's just too late to the game. I would love to know what people think about Gemini. I know that the extensions on your lock screen is huge for me. The extensions make it really powerful. And I'm curious how that model gets brought over to Google Assistant on smart home devices. Again, the naming is horrible. But yeah, that's Gemini extensions.
that concept should have been there a year ago. And I think it would have changed, really changed people's initial perception if the underlying structure for all these extensions that we have up to 13 now were available. I think I've changed Gero's perception. The other thing that's happening is Gemini Live is starting to test these call-style notifications. So when you use Gemini, are you usually using the main...
experience or using Gemini Live? So I've spoken about it previously on the pod that I split between the two. I think I just would love an easier way to initiate Gemini Live.
I want to be able to start a conversation straight away. Like, I know that you can use like wake phrases to do it, but it just doesn't work. For me, it doesn't work that nicely. It's a bit clunky. And I just kind of use it like... basically the app experience, type it in, or maybe use my voice sometimes because I do think that the text, sorry, the speech to text is incredible compared to what it was even two or three years ago.
I use that because I kind of use it like a Wikipedia type deal. And I think that that is where it's probably most valuable and also potentially has its greatest weaknesses because you don't know how the data has been derived. I know you mentioned about the reasoning, how it's come from those reasoning models. I like the idea of that because it gives me an idea in my mind that, okay, Gemini is in the right track. But yeah, to go the roundabout way to answer your question.
I tend to just use it like I would a search engine. Yeah, I'm curious. It's the voice experience. I feel like the... So the voice experience in the main Gemini app... That's just voice input. But when you go to Gemini Live, it takes you to a much more full feature. It's like a phone call. It's an active conversation. So I wonder how those things get blurred together. especially once Gemini Live can access the extensions. And I guess you can...
Yeah, you can just automate things. Yeah, that would be so strange. Maybe in the next few months we'll know. We'll have a better idea, but I would like to see that. It's announced. We're waiting for it. Yeah. Especially when you start to be able to use your Astra, these camera capabilities, which we've talked about in the past, but that's going to be...
That's the next update. And again, I feel like that would be such a prime announcement for IO if Google can get it out at that time. But yeah, gem a lot. These call sound notifications. Again, they make it seem like they're a phone call. And how does that look visually? How does that look visually on your phone? So is that effectively like a chip on the status bar that you can just tap and...
Okay, because obviously the current generation is almost like a... Icon. Icon, yeah. And I always end up ending the call that way. I say the call, the chat with Gemini. And I do think sometimes the time's out too soon. But I can completely understand that there's certain compute time that needs to be accounted for. So you effectively... treat it exactly the same as a phone call. You hang up and you hold. Okay, yeah. That has a new icon as well, right? Mm-hmm. So speaking of Gem Night Live...
A bit more general. We're almost out of this section. The Super Bowl in the US, the big game is this Sunday and Google is airing its traditional ads. There's a Google Workspace with Gemini ads that reflects how the full Gemini feature set is now available to all Google Workspace business brands. But the one we're interested in is the Pixel ad. In the past, they used it to highlight camera features. That's always the big focus. But this year...
Pixel 9, fully about Gemini Live. The ad is two minutes. It's a dad basically going in for a job interview using that. which is google's favorite example for Gemini live discussing practicing your job interview with it which honestly it's not a bad use case it's I can see how you get there. Sometimes it's...
Is it less embarrassing to talk to a virtual assistant than it is a person? No, I think that works. I can understand the reasoning for it. I mean, I don't know how often people are going for job interviews that they're going to use Gemini Live every week. I'm guessing when you're straight out of university and stuff like that, like I'm not making light of the situation. I'm just saying it's kind of a funny example to give, but it is a good, I'm guessing it is a good use of that because.
Gemini can access information that the kind of questions that people would potentially get asked. So yeah, that's kind of cool. I like that idea. Yeah, no, they've used this exam from the start and they're putting... their ritual money where their mouth is in terms of having this be the main example so it's there's it goes in for nostalgia it is a the dad is using his experience from being a parent it's a It's kind of a tearjerker. I can see people getting emotional about it. I mean, is this...
I find it strange that you would release the ad before the actual airing. Is that quite a common thing? I don't know. I'm talking from a UK perspective.
Yeah, you don't have ads in your games except during halftime. It's so nice. Maybe that's why they sponsor the teams instead in the UK. Sponsored a couple of the Premier League teams. Get it on your jerseys. Yeah, I mean... I like the idea that Google's going to be pushing Gemini in some respects, but at the same time, I think it probably speaks volumes about where they see the Pixel 9 as more of a vehicle for Gemini as opposed to its own standing in its own right.
But do you think maybe we've reached a point where, in general, smartphones have hit so much of a plateau? And to be fair, as we talked about last week when we were talking about the Pro XL, this Pixel line is the first, well... as far as I'm concerned, the nine is the first one I can truly give a full seal of approval to any random person and not feel like, okay, how are they going to deal with this problem at some point?
They maybe are so confident in the product that they're just going to just highlight their service in air quotes, Gemini Live and Gemini. I don't know. It's a strange dichotomy, right? I can absolutely... Yeah, it's not hiring the camera. It's always a bit weird. But you can see the natural progression of this. Like this time next year, assuming Astro is out, they're going to advertise the hell out of that.
being able to share your screen. Well, I think that's going to be a challenge to the idea and where the call chip kind of helps to have a persistent indicator. I think... Google Lens, people know what Google Lens is. People know like pointing your camera at something and then asking questions about it. That's available in Google Lens today. That's a bit more familiar in action.
I think the screen sharing thing and what the UI is going to be like that when you're actively sharing your screen to Gemini and you can ask questions about what you're seeing. I think that's going to have a UI challenge. I would so not be surprised if they take the new serial out of having a border around your screen when Astra is actively looking at it. I feel...
I don't know, maybe they make the entire status bar, the Gemini glow or something. It's going to be really interesting how they implement it. Because if you remember the Pixel 4, when they were advertising the new Google Assistant, this was the year... pre-just the navigation era when you had the two buttons with the pill in the center and the back button. I think what I kind of liked about that initial IO demo was
On the right side, you had the Google Assistant dots, that waveform as you're speaking that's active. I thought that was a pretty clever UI idea. Of course, two-button navigation went away, and this is in the gesture era. There's not really any space for that at the bottom. But I'm really wondering what that UI is going to look like.
I think you're right. I think UI glow would make the most sense. But yeah, there is a lot of things that strike me strange about this ad, this commercial in some respects, but in others, it kind of makes sense. I mean... Dave.
They've done Super Bowl commercials before, right? I mean, I have literally zero knowledge of the Super Bowl. I'm not an NFL person and I don't understand why people like it, but that's completely by the by. People watch it for the ads and the halftime show. Okay. But you can already watch it before the event.
kind of defeats the purpose of airing an ad. I don't know. It's confusing to me, period. You Americans and your ads, it's strange, but it's pretty good. I think even from a cynical British perspective, it's quite a good advert. And I'm interested to see how people perceive it. I haven't delved into the YouTube comments yet. I don't know if they're even enabled on this ad, but usually you get the dregs of the earth sometimes talking about ads.
on youtube and every single ai the but by the looks of it every single ai company is going to advertise it in the super bowl it's like in terms of a service it's like all these things offer free versions And you can, it's just an app. You either visit a website or download an app. So there's something like the Super Bowl is the ideal vehicle for this. So yeah, that's...
Abs are back. Yeah, abs and abs are back, yeah. It kind of leads on to one more thing that we kind of talked about this week. We had a, I mean, as far as I'm concerned, it was slightly delayed. Is it a 24-hour delay for the... February 2025 update. Was there any specific reason given for that? No. It's, again, like for the past, I don't know, like year, year plus maybe. Yeah, we've had a really strange...
Officially, they no longer target the first Monday of the month to release updates, which I guess if that helps make these things more stable, they take the time they need. it's the inconsistency is kind of unfortunate but people want stable software so this is what that looks like uh but yeah it's they release it when it's ready and
This one was tiny though, right? In terms of ready, this was a tiny, tiny update. But there's two, I think, two pretty important fixes. I think two major complaints. One of those was with Bluetooth. accessories and bluetooth connections for the pixel all all the pixels no pixel 9 series and which is great because yeah i have experienced issues with specifically bluetooth gaming Gamepads. I mean, that's a mouthful. Not pairing at the right times, not pairing again. And so...
As far as I can tell, touch wood, I'm very cautiously optimistic in saying that it feels like it's fixed. I'm having no issues with it. I have a GameSir controller because I'm a huge Balatro addict now. Oh my God. It's such a good game. If you haven't already downloaded it, please download it for Android. It's worth that $10, 100%. But yeah, you can use a gamepad for that. It's a card game, mate.
Yeah, it's basically like a rogue-like poker game. I could talk about an entire podcast about it. I love it so much. But yeah. Oh, you and Kyle. With the games, with gaming controllers, it's a lot better now. It seems to have more consistent.
I never had an issue with Bluetooth earbuds, so that's fine. And the second was for Android Auto Audio Output, which I'm going to take a little bit of time to talk about this because I want to... wax lyrical by android auto in a minute because i finally have it on my vehicle i don't understand how there would be an issue with audio delays unless it was phone calls yeah because obviously if you listen to a podcast
the delay would only kind of be a problem if you press pause and then it carried on for, let's say, 30 seconds. So I'm interested to see if that has fixed it. I don't know if it's fixed itself because... my car first let's talk about it let's talk about this because this is a big deal for anyone out there who has an android automotive vehicle because i was a big proponent for android automotive and i've 180'd after using android auto
So just a little bit back, sorry. I have a Polestar 2. I'm not trying to flex or anything like that. It's a nice vehicle. Android Automotive was a great stopgap. I really enjoyed it. But Android Auto, having seen it, is exponentially better in terms of user experience, just how you access it, being able to reply to messages cleanly. It's just a better interface. Yeah, so let's start. Android Automotive is the car.
The UI between Android and Automotive, there's some shared principles, but for the most part, it's the early days of Android skins that the car manufacturer can theme the UI. to their design, their buttons, their color, their palettes. But Android Auto, in comparison, is the consistent.
Yeah. I mean, it's like having your car has become a pixel effectively. Like I think that the UI is so much nicer. You're getting all that information. It has a big in-car dash and it's used correctly. Like all of the space is used efficiently.
And I think that was a great thing they've achieved in the last few years or two. 100%, 100%. And I just think automotive is, well, it works. It's fine. It is a stopgap. It's basically, it feels like... I think when I reviewed it a few years ago and when I had a, weirdly, a review unit post R2, it felt like your phone...
is the car, if that makes sense. Whereas this feels like more of an extension of the thing you carry with you all of the time and have all of your accounts on. And so, yeah, I'm, I cannot. praise Android Auto enough. I've used CarPlay and CarPlay's fine, but Android Auto smokes it 100%. It comes as a trend is that Android Automotive, people are adopting that. to the detriment of Android Auto. So it's Google can do car design with Android Auto.
more consistent experience anyways yeah but yeah it's an interesting trend that we're having with these cars as phones phones as cars yeah it's it's a strange it's a strange one but i definitely um I think it's a much better experience. So anyone who was potentially looking through the, almost looking through the looking glass and thinking, I would love a vehicle with automotive, I can tell you wholeheartedly having used the system for almost three years.
auto is so much better because like i say it's just i use the aa wireless i get in the car my car is on the on the screen within a couple of seconds everything's there i don't have to it just picks off where i left off with podcasts all that kind of stuff is just seamless whereas i think with automotive is a little bit more like you have to kind of like kickstart it it is what it is it is what it is and hopefully we get improvements with auto over time and now you may see more coverage from me
on Android Auto. That's the main thing. And I feel like I can talk about it more rather than be envious that people have a really nice experience with it. But yeah, I don't know. We haven't really had much else to really... dig our teeth into over the past couple of weeks. It's been a quiet one. We've had plenty of Gemini. We're expecting a bigger update, obviously, with that Pixel OTA in March with the feature drop.
feature drop pixel drop whatever they want to call it it's a terrible name it's a new i think the new name's terrible but it is what it is um and then yeah we we should hopefully have some that that'll be the final final android 15 update which Feels insane to say. The final major, yeah. Insane. Security patches, the three months or so security patches after that will be pretty quiet as we've seen this month. But yeah, other things to look forward to this month.
16 beta 2 hopefully it's actually big yeah hopefully hopefully it's a decent size but yeah that's that's um that's us we're done episode 40 if pixelated and i just want to remind you if you do want that opportunity to win a pixel 9 or a yabba t2 projector go visit the link in the show notes all you have to do is click a few things
And it's fairly simple and seamless. And I want to say thanks to Yabba for sponsoring the podcast. And thanks, Abner, for joining me and you for listening. And I will speak to you very, very soon. Bye.