Latest Pixel Drop Brings New At a Glance Features, More

Google today announced a new Pixel drop that brings new features to supported Pixel handsets.

“Our latest Feature Drop is here and bringing a boost of helpfulness to your Pixel,” Google’s Natalie Ford-Hodges writes in the announcement post. “Updates begin rolling out to Pixel 4 through our latest Pixel 6 and Pixel 6 Pro devices today.”

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New features in this Pixel Drop include:

At a Glance improvements. Google will never let you remove the At a Glance widget from your Pixel home screen, but it will keep adding new features. Now, you can access your Nest Doorbell video feed, a flashlight reminder, and, soon, air quality alerts right from the screen space-stealing widget.

Conversation mode. Previously available in beta, this new feature is now available on Pixel 3 or newer via the Sound Amplifier app. “Designed for and with people with hearing loss, Sound Amplifier uses your phone to amplify and filter important sounds around you,” Google explains. “Based on a deep learning model that uses both audio and visual signals to separate speech, conversation mode amplifies the voice you want and filters out the background noise and other voices you don’t. Use your camera to focus on whomever you want to talk to and tune in to only them.” Google Meet is also picking up noise reduction functionality too, filtering out background noises like traffic or a dog barking. This feature is available to all Pixel users.

Pocket operator for Pixel. This new feature—created in collaboration with teenage engineering, Google says—lets you shoot video content and turn it into fun music and video cut-ups. “Layer sounds, add visual effects, create patterns and beats, and mix it all together to make your own unique tracks,” Google says. If you have a Pixel 5 or newer, you can download it from the Play Store (in U.S. English only).

Vaccine proof. Now, you can take a screenshot of your digital vaccine card and create a shortcut so you can easily access it directly from your home screen. This feature is available only in the U.S., Canada, and Australia. You can learn more here.

New wallpapers. To celebrate Pride month, Google collaborated with illustrator Yann Bastard on three new wallpapers for the Curated Culture collection.

Real Tone filters. Real Tone filters are now available in Google Photos.

Car Crash Detection. This feature is now available in Canada for Pixel 3 and later (excluding Pixel 3a). You can learn more here.

Chat translation in messages. This feature is now available in Traditional Chinese, Dutch, Korean, Thai, and Turkish for Pixel 6 and Pixel 6 Pro. You can learn more here.

 

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Conversation 3 comments

  • dftf

    06 June, 2022 - 5:14 pm

    <p>Have to be honest… nothing much exciting here.</p><p><br></p><p>The <strong>Conversation Mode</strong> is great as an accessibility-feature for those who need it, so I won’t knock that: but it’s an <em>app update</em>, not a <em>Feature Drop</em>, so not-sure why they’re advertising it as-such.</p><p><br></p><p>And the <strong>chat translation in the Messages app</strong> is fine… but why not add system-wide translation, so that <em>any text on-screen in any app</em> can be translated. Surely that would be more useful? I mean, why not make it so the <em>Google Translate</em> app can have the "draw over other apps" permission so it could do that function?</p>

  • anderb

    Premium Member
    06 June, 2022 - 11:50 pm

    <p>They’ve added an option to restore the vibrate icon to the status bar. I’d love to know the reason they removed it in the first place.</p>

    • SvenJ

      07 June, 2022 - 2:12 pm

      <p>So they could re-introduce it later perhaps? That’s the MS approach with Win 11, look at all the ‘new’ stuff we are adding.</p>

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