There’s more news from Google today than just a “fresh” new colour for the Pixel 8 line. The company also talked about its newest feature drop, which adds the brand-new Circle to Search feature to both the Pixel 8 and 8 Pro. This feature was first seen on Samsung’s Galaxy S24. As it turns out, Google’s Circle to Search will go live on January 31, the same day that Samsung’s S24 range comes out. When you press and hold the home button or navigation bar for a while, you can circle anything on your phone screen. Google will then show you more information about what you underlined.
the Pixel in its most recent update :
The Pixel 8 Pro’s built-in thermometer is now at least a little more helpful thanks to this feature drop. You can use it to take your own or someone else’s body temperature. This tool on Google is called “medical-grade,” which makes it almost certain that the company got FDA approval to use the thermometer in this way. I still don’t get why Google put a thermometer in the phone in the first place, but at least you can use it for something useful now instead of checking the temperature of your coffee or something.
Older Pixels are getting some new tricks, too: From the Pixel 6 and up, Google says Magic Compose will be able to “rewrite a drafted message in different styles” with the help of AI. In the case of the Pixel 8 Pro, that processing happens on the device itself. But Google’s other phones will be able to use the cloud to make their texts sound more professional or shorter.
This feature drop also changes what was previously Nearby Share to the simplified Quick Share name now shared by Google and Samsung. The functionality is still the same: Quick Share lets you send material to nearby Android, ChromeOS, and Windows devices that support the feature.
Rounding out the latest update, Google says automatic music switching is coming to the Pixel Watch. “You can switch your Pixel Buds Pro from your Pixel Watch to any number of Pixel phones or Pixel Tablet and get helpful notifications about where your audio is switching to,” the company wrote in its blog post. And finally, Google is adding “Photomoji” to its Messages app:
Want to answer to a message with a cutout of you or your four-legged best friend? Photomoji on Google Messages allows you to transform your best photos into reactions with the help of on-device Google AI. Simply pick the photo, review the object you’d like to react with and hit send. Your works will be saved in a special tab for reuse, and, as a bonus, your friends in group chats can use your sent photomoji.
As always with these feature drops, they’ll begin rolling out to some Pixel hardware users as early as Thursday, with others following “over the next few weeks.”