The Pixel Tablet will attach to a speaker base to double as a smart display

After some stops and starts, Google is returning to tablets, but with a smart home twist. The company first teased the upcoming Pixel Tablet at I/O this year, saying the device would be launching in 2023. Though that release window is at least several months away, Google was eager to share more details at its hardware launch event today.

Google’s vice president of product management Rose Yao said during the keynote that the company thinks of the tablet as part of its Pixel portfolio of products, and that it didn’t feel complete without a “large screen device”. That might be confusing if you recall the ill-fated Pixel Slate and Pixelbook, which were “large screen” Pixel-branded devices.

Like other Pixel gadgets, the tablet will be a canvas for Google’s own expression of Android. And as the company already hinted at its developer conference this year, the tablet will be powered by the same Tensor G2 chip that’s in the flagship phones. Since this is still just a tease, the company is still keeping details like screen size, resolution, RAM and more under wraps.

Google Pixel Tablet
Google

Google is ready, however, to share more about the Pixel Tablet’s design. It looks similar to older phones like the Pixel 3, with a rounded rectangle shape and a matte-ish glass back. In fact, Yao said the company developed a new “nano-ceramic coating” that she said is inspired by “the feel of porcelain.”

In an interview with Engadget, Yao said the best way to think about this finish is to imagine the coating on a Le Creuset dutch oven. She said that the Pixel Tablet’s coating should feel similarly durable and premium, and that it’s basically embedding tiny pieces of ceramic onto the device’s frame, which is made of recycled aluminum. This creates what she said is a “soft matte finish” with a “grippy feel” that should alleviate what her team believed was a pain point of tablets: “They’re really big devices that are kind of slippery.”

The Pixel Tablet will also run Android, complete with Material You personalization and big screen-friendly features like split screen and stylus support. When I asked for more information about stylus support, Yao said “We’ll talk about the more next year,” though she added that “you can use a third-party stylus.”

Google Pixel Tablet
google

The fact that the Pixel Tablet is powered by Tensor, which Yao said is the first time Google is bringing its own processor to a different type of product than a phone, enables a few different things.

“I have so many stories I want to share about what that means,” Yao said. But she can’t at the moment, besides alluding to speech recognition, video calls, photo editing and image processing as areas to look out for.

She also shouted out the Assistant, which will be able to “work seamlessly between a tablet and the phone” thanks to Tensor. But not just that, Google wants you to think of its tablet as a place for an always-listening Assistant, much like you would with a Nest speaker. Yao said that her team observed how people used tablets and learned that “tablets are homebodies.” According to her, most tablets are home 80 percent of the time and are only active for a small portion of the time.

Google Pixel Tablet
Google

Another thing Yao said was that though tablets tended to remain in people’s homes, they “don’t really have a home at home.” They’re often left in drawers or by charging outlets, and can either be forgotten or get in the way. To make a tablet that’s “truly useful 24/7” and that would “bring together the best of Pixel and home,” Yao said her team made a charging speaker dock.

The base doesn’t just charge the device, Yao said it also “unlocks a ton of new experiences and makes the tablet helpful all the time.” Her favorite feature is the photo frame, which is similar to that on the Nest Hub smart display. But the Pixel Tablet also has front and rear cameras, making it useful for video calls.

Yao said the angle “is just really perfect for me,” though based on the pictures Google has shown so far it appears the camera might shoot at an unflattering upwards angle. She also confirmed that the base won’t allow for adjustable angles, so if you don’t like the position you likely won’t be able to change it.

“I really think it’s one of the most versatile tablets on the market,” Yao said, adding “We’ll talk more next year.” While Google still hasn’t shared information like screen size and pricing, we’ll likely find out more closer to launch.

Follow all of the news from Google’s Pixel 7 event right here!

Google Pixel 7 event liveblog: Pixel 7, Pixel 7 Pro, Pixel Watch and more

Google’s hardware launch event takes place today at 10am ET, and Team Engadget is covering it live from Brooklyn, New York. Deputy editor Cherlynn Low and Sam Rutherford will be there taking in the company’s announcements live, and we’ll post the breaking news here (and maybe some jokes. Just a few.) We’ll also share pictures from the event of any fun or newsworthy behind-the-scenes happening. Stick around!

Follow all of the news from Google’s Pixel 7 event right here!

Apple Watch Ultra review: A big smartwatch with some little quirks

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How Google is working to help you find food and local businesses

At its Search On event today, Google unveiled several new ways to help people more easily find what they’re looking for. Some things can be trickier to locate than most, like a particular style of clothing or a certain fragrance. But when it comes to food that makes your mouth and eyes water, Google thinks it can help. Engadget spoke with vice president and general manager of Local Search Yul Kwon to learn how the company believes it can bring people to the dishes they’re craving.

Kwon’s lived many lives. You might remember him as the winner of Survivor: Cook Islands, but he’s also been a management consultant, a law practitioner and the owner of several Red Mango franchise locations in California. “I lost about 20 pounds during the show and when I came back, I was so hungry,” he said. “I basically just sat there and ate everything and anything I could get my hands on.”

His ravenous spiral led to a “40-pound weight swing,” which drove Kwon to find healthier alternatives to junk food and dessert. On a trip to Los Angeles, Kwon discovered frozen yogurt and was hooked. But the dearth of high quality frozen yogurt stores in the Bay Area at the time meant it was hard for him to find the tasty treat at home. Inspired, and driven by the desire to make an “unlimited supply of frozen yogurt for me to eat myself,” Kwon opened stores in downtown Palo Alto, San Carlos and San Jose. 

Over time, competition in the froyo business grew intense, as more and more stores opened to cater to growing demand. “At some point everyone and their grandma was opening a frozen yogurt store,” Kwon said. “A lot of the stores that opened were lower quality and lower cost and so they were not as healthy.”

Yul Kwon (L), the winner of 'Survivor: Cook Islands', and host Jeff Probst pose for photographers after taping the show's season finale in Los Angeles December 17, 2006. REUTERS/Max Morse (UNITED STATES)
Max Morse / reuters

Kwon said that amid this spike, it not only became became tough to differentiate his business from the competition, but the tools to reach and engage with customers just weren’t available. “It was harder to track new customers to get the word out, and we didn’t really have great tools to drive word of mouth or use technology to drive awareness.”

Eventually, the financial crisis of 2008 became the final straw and Kwon had to close his businesses. 

This is a story that’s all too familiar. Small, local businesses lacking the tools to reach larger audiences eventually have to cave to competition and shutter. Though services like GrubHub and DoorDash have made it easier for people to discover restaurants to order food from, they often charge high fees and offer businesses little control over how they’re presented. 

These days, companies turn to social media to reach would-be customers, and making an attractive profile can determine how successful you are. Skills that have little to do with running a restaurant, like photography and caption-writing, are now key to bringing in money. Though it’s not technically social media, Google Maps and Search results also play crucial parts in whether a business thrives or fails. If a restaurant’s Maps listing has a rating that’s lower than four stars, or if it doesn’t have a menu available for perusal, a potential diner can quickly be turned off. 

An animation showing a restaurant's Google Search listing, with a picture and review highlighted.
Google

Updated digital menus and vibe checks

One of these potential roadblocks is fairly easy to solve. Not only does Google already provide a digital menu on most listings, it also groups user-submitted pictures of physical menus for easier reference. The company also announced today that it’s expanding its coverage of digital menus, “making them more visually rich and reliable. 

“We combine menu information provided by people and merchants, and found on restaurant websites that use open standards for data sharing,” Sophia Lin, the company’s general manager of Food and Search, wrote in a blog post. Google also uses image and language understanding technologies like its Multitask Unified Model to scrape available data and produce these menus, which will also showcase most popular dishes and call out different dietary options (starting with just vegetarian and vegan).

Just like Neighborhood Vibe that Google just announced for Maps, a new feature is also coming to Search to help capture and relay to users what makes a restaurant stand out. “Star ratings are helpful, but they don’t tell you everything about a restaurant,” Lin wrote. In the coming months, listings will show pictures and reviews that the company’s machine learning systems determined are representative of how a place feels. 

Identify and find specific dishes

Google also wants to help people find the exact food items they’re craving. “Our research shows 40 percent of people already have a dish in mind when they search for food,” Lin wrote. “So to help people find what they’re looking for, in the coming months you’ll be able to search for any dish and see the local places that offer it.”

Lin gave the example of soup dumplings, which she said is a family favorite. The new multisearch near me tool can not only identify the type of xiao long bao (the Chinese name for soup dumplings, or XLB for the well-informed) in a picture, but can also tell you where you can buy it near you. You can also get more specific with your search. 

According to Lin, “In the past, searching for soup dumplings near me would show a list of related restaurants. With our revamped experience, we’ll now show you the exact dish results you’ve been looking for. You can even narrow your search down to spicy dishes if you want a bit of a kick”

Of course, these new tools alone won’t help struggling small businesses thrive, but they do help users better understand what restaurants have to offer. 

When Kwon recounts his experiences running his Red Mango franchises, he feels on hindsight that “it was hard for people to really understand how we differed from other yogurt shops, It wasn’t any like one place that could go to to really help them find what they’re looking for.”

Kwon said he learned from that ordeal how hard it was to be successful as a small business and wanted to do something to help people in similar situations. He believes that building a set of tools that help small businesses succeed is how he can make a difference.

“Ultimately, technology can be the great equalizer.” he said. “It can be the thing that helps small businesses can change on an even playing field within the big guys.” While today’s announcements on their own don’t seem to specifically target local businesses trying to reach customers in their community, Kwon says the updates “help people connect and find the types of foods that they’re looking for,” which he said is part of helping build relationships between people and their communities.

I want to see Google do more to help and empower small local businesses trying to engage with their communities and customers, and though I’m underwhelmed by today’s announcements on that front, I am hopeful for more to come.  

Amazon’s Halo Rise is a $140 bedside sleep tracker that works by sensing you breathe

Amazon wants to help you get better understanding of your sleep, but knows that many of us hate wearing something to bed just to track our rest. That’s why it made the Halo Rise — a bedside lamp and sleep tracker that works without a camera or microphone to track the person resting closest to it. It’ll also use machine learning to detect what sleep zones you’re in and will cost $140 when it’s available later this year.

It uses a “no-contact, low-energy sensor” to sense movement and respiratory patterns. Together with machine learning, Amazon can tell from the rising and falling or expanding and contracting of your body to determine your sleep stages throughout the night. Amazon says it “trained and validated the device’s sleep algorithm against the clinical gold standard for sleep analysis called… overnight polysomnography.”

If there’s another person or animal sharing your bed, Amazon said its algorithm can detect and exclude their activity and only include your data in your sleep summary, which you’ll see every day. The company will then offer you tips on how to sleep better, including suggestions on how to optimize your environment.

The Rise also has sensors to gauge the temperature, humidity and brightness of your room, and is also a lamp. It’ll glow in accordance with sunrise times so you can wake up to a gradually brightening grow instead of having your retinas scorched off when you open your curtains. You can also set a smart alarm that will monitor your sleep stages and wake you at an ideal time instead of disrupting you in the middle of deep sleep. 

The Rise will also work with Alexa and you can set a compatible Alexa device to start playing your favorite song as you’re waking up, based on the Rise’s insights. If you have personalized sleep routines, the Rise can also trigger them when you get in bed, turning off your lights and other devices for you. 

Those concerned about privacy can turn off the sleep-tracking sensor whenever they want, and Amazon said that all Halo health data is encrypted in transit and at rest in the cloud. You’ll also be able to download your health data, limit access to it or delete it altogether.

Though Amazon describes this as a “first of its kind bedside sleep tracker,” Google already introduced something similar last year with the second-generation Nest Hub. That device uses the company’s Soli radar sensor to monitor your breathing and is designed to be used by your bed, too. It doesn’t offer the alarm and lights that the Halo Rise does, but is based on the same principle. Google’s version didn’t work perfectly — it was tricky to set up and didn’t always know when I’d awoken. We’ll have to wait till we can test the Halo Rise for ourselves to see how well Amazon’s tracking works, but for now, it’s an intriguing device, especially for those of us keen on getting sleep insights without having to wear a gadget to bed.

Follow all of the news from Amazon’s event right here!

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