Google has released its December feature drop for Pixel devices with some great new AI-powered updates. The company’s flagship Google Pixel 8 Pro smartphone has also gained two new video features.
Gemini AI
Google says that its new Gemini AI is the most capable and flexible AI model the company has ever built. Gemini comes in three different sizes: Ultra, Pro and Nano. It’s also optimized to run on everything from data centers to smartphones. Following the update, the Pixel 8 Pro will be running Gemini Nano. Google describes Nano as “our most efficient model built for on-device tasks.” In addition, Google says that the Pixel 8 Pro is the first smartphone engineered for Gemini Nano.
Video Boost
Video Boost is only available on the Pixel 8 Pro at the moment. Google says the feature means you “no longer have to worry about shaky or imperfect videos.” Video Boost utilizes the power of the smartphone’s Google Tensor G3 to upload your videos to the cloud. Once there, Google’s computational photography models adjust the color, lighting, stabilization and graininess of your clips. Google says that Video Boost delivers “stunning videos that look true to life.”
Night Sight
Video Boost also enables a feature called Night Sight on the Pixel Pro 8. Night Sight uses AI to apply noise reduction to your videos recorded at night or in low-light conditions. Again, Google promises “rich detail and color.” Note that Night Sight does require you to have the Google Photos app. In addition, you can record detailed timelapse videos in low light with Night Sight in Timelapse using the Pixel 8 and Pixel 8 Pro.
Other features
With improved Portrait light in Google Photos, a new AI model enables Balance light to easily remove harsh shadows. You can use this to improve new or old portrait photos. Photo Unblur is also now better at sharpening images of dogs and cats, as well as people. In addition, Gemini Nano powers Summarize in the Recorder app on the Pixel 8 Pro. This feature gives you a summary of your recorded conversations, interviews and presentations.
What we think
The rollout of the Google Gemini AI is going to bring some great new video features to the company’s flagship Pixel 8 Pro smartphone. The sample video for Video Boost shared by Google does look impressive. It will be interesting to see how real-world tests match up once people get the update. It’s a shame that only the Pixel 8 Pro is getting the two video features, but this does appear to be a hardware limitation, unfortunately.
Availability
Google is rolling out the update to compatible smartphones now.
