Google Pixel 3a XL shows up at Best Buy in the US ahead of official release

Well, this killed any remaining mystery surrounding the more affordable Google Pixel devices—specifically the Pixel 3a XL. The phone was spotted at a Best Buy store in Springfield, Ohio. The phones were kept under glass but it showed the two previously leaked colours, “Purple-ish” and “Just Black.” The phone was being rumoured for a launch at Google’s I/O event on May 7^th. This seems to confirm that the phone will make an appearance then. The rumoured specs of are 5.6-inch for the Pixel 3a and 6-inch for the Pixel 3a XL. The phones will reportedly run on a Snapdragon 670 and 710 processors, respectively, with 4GB of RAM and the same Pixel Visual Core that runs on the cameras of the current Pixel 3 phones. The prices are said to be US$399 for the Pixel 3a and $479 for the Pixel 3a XL. While this seems legitimate, the launch hasn’t happened yet, so as usual, it’s best to take this information with a grain of salt.

Source: Android Police

Google’s Duplex phone call-making AI needs to identify itself

One of the attention grabbing announcements at this year’s Google I/O is Duplex, an artificial intelligence service that will make calls for you when you want to do things like setup an appointment for a haircut or asking about a business’ operating hours. The demo at the conference showed two replayed calls with small business employees that don’t seem to have caught on they were talking to a bot. As explained on Google’s blog post about the technology, the company is trying to make the technology sound natural. But it doesn’t address the issue of disclosure or whether it’ll alert those on the other end of the line that they are talking to a bot.

Fast Company reached out to Google and the company repeated part of the blog post saying: “It’s important to us that users and businesses have a good experience with this service, and transparency is a key part of that. We want to be clear about the intent of the call so businesses understand the context. We’ll be experimenting with the right approach over the coming months.” And when they wanted to further clarify that the Duplex will identify itself as a bot, the representative reiterated the last sentence so we have to wait and see what Google does with the technology and that they remain aware of the implications or any issues that may arise with this new tech it’s introducing.  

Google Maps will finally get Google Assistant

You may or may not have noticed but Google Maps’ navigation mode has been using Google’s old voice search functionality all this time. Finally, that’s going to change in the near future. Google announced at Google I/O 2018 that Google Assistant is finally coming to the app. It’ll be rolling out to Android devices this summer and will be coming to the iOS Maps app later in the year. Unlike it’s usual format of having Google Assistant take up most of the screen, on Maps it’ll show up as a small bar at the bottom of the navigation screen.

Source: Android Police

Google readies I/O app for 2018 developers’ conference

With Google I/O happening soon, the tech company has taken the time to refresh the app for the developers’ conference. The app itself is already available for download and introduces some important features you’ll need for Google I/O. It will let you reserve seats for sessions. There’s no limit to how many reservations you can have as long as none of these overlap. But you can opt to star events so you can keep track of them. A big chunk of Google I/O is live-streamed so you can watch there.

The app gets a new look, too, with the bottom navigation bar and a system navigation bar to match that. You can see general info, schedule, and map in the navigation bar. The Google I/O app also gives you access to important information about the event, travel details, and FAQs.

Source: Android Police