Making Pixel more helpful with the first Pixel feature drop

Shenaz Zack

Group Product Manager

Published Dec 9, 2019

Your phone should get better over time. Your Pixel automatically updates regularly with fixes and improvements. Now, your Pixel will also get bigger updates in new Pixel feature drops. Our first one, coming this month, includes a new way to capture portraits, easier Duo calls and automatic call screening.

More photo controls

Now, you can turn a photo into a portrait on Pixel by blurring the background post-snap. So whether you took the photo years ago, or you forgot to turn on portrait mode, you can easily give each picture an artistic look with Portrait Blur in Google Photos.

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Put an end to robocalls

With our latest update to Call Screen on Pixel 4 in the US, the Google Assistant now helps you automatically screen unknown callers and filter out detected robocalls before your phone ever rings, so you’re not interrupted by them. And when it’s not a robocall, your phone rings a few moments later with helpful context about who is calling and why. Call Screen works on your device and does not use Wi-Fi or data, which makes the screening fast and the content private to you.

Improved video calls on Duo

Video calls are better on Pixel 4 with new Duo features that let you focus on conversations instead of logistics. Auto-framing keeps your face centered during your Duo video calls, even as you move around, thanks to Pixel 4’s wide-angle lens. And if another person joins you in the shot, the camera automatically adjusts to keep both of you in the frame.

Now, the playback on your Duo calls is even smoother, too. When a bad connection leads to spotty audio, a machine learning model on your Pixel 4 predicts the likely next sound and helps you to keep the conversation going with minimum disruptions. Pixel 4’s Smooth Display also reduces choppiness on your video feed, refreshing up to 90 times a second.

When you make Duo video calls on Pixel 2, 3 and 4, you can now apply a portrait filter as well. You’ll look sharper against the gentle blur of your background, while the busy office or messy bedroom behind you goes out of focus.

More helpful features for more Pixels

In addition to new features for Pixel 4, we’re also bringing new apps and features to Pixel 2, 3 and 3a:

The Recorder app is now available on older generations of Pixel.
Pixel 3 and 3a users will get Live Caption.
Digital Wellbeing is getting updates too. Focus mode is rolling out to help you stay productive and minimize distractions by pausing apps you've selected in a single tap. You can now set an automatic schedule, take a short break or end Focus mode early without disrupting your schedule.
Flip to Shhh will also join the Digital Wellbeing features on Pixel 2 and 2XL.
If you use a Pixel 4 in the UK, Canada, Ireland, Singapore and Australia, you’ll soon get the new Google Assistant (English only), which is even faster and more helpful.
With the latest update to Pixel 4, you'll also get amazingly fast accuracy in Google Maps with improved on-device computing for much better location quality.

A more efficient phone

In addition to these new experiences, all Pixel devices will also receive an update to its memory management in the feature drop. With this new enhancement, your phone proactively compresses cached applications so that users can run multiple applications at the same time -- like games, streaming content and more.

Pixel phones have always received monthly updates to improve performance and make your device safe. Now, feature drops will bring more helpful and fun features to users on a regular basis to continue to make your Pixel better than ever.

These features are already rolling out, and will hit Pixel devices in the coming weeks. To get the new features, update to the latest version of Android and go to the Play Store to start downloading your updated apps.

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Home Alone Would Be a 6-Minute Short Today

In 2019 You’re Never Home Alone

New & Next

by Lance Ulanoff

Updated December 05, 2019

I’m a sucker for a good holiday movie. Even the bad Hallmark ones are sometimes acceptable, like warm, tasteless white bread on a cold winter’s night.

Home Alone and Home Alone 2: Lost in New York are different, of course. These two tales of the same annoying-yet-somehow-endearing youngster getting left alone on two consecutive Christmas vacation trips are the perfect holiday cookie dough blend of humor, slapstick, sentiment, and adorability, all baked to perfection and sprinkled with holiday cheer.

I try to catch at least one Home Alone (do not watch Home Alone 3, 4 or the execrable Home Alone: Holiday Heist) every holiday season and now, with Disney+, I can watch them whenever and wherever I want.

Home Alone in 2019 — Lifewire / Lance Ulanoff

These iconic films are now about to turn 30 years old and, obviously, predate most of our cherished modern mobile and constantly connected technology.

It occurred to me that if Home Alone were made today, it would be a 6-minute short. A handful of readily available technologies and current cultural realities would’ve short-circuited Kevin McCallister’s predicament in no time flat:

Smartphones
The Internet
Find My
GPS
Bluetooth tags
Web cams
Cloud-based security systems
Drop-in video calling
Mobile Payment systems
Massive airport security

In 2019 and for the foreseeable future, you’re never home alone.

Call Kevin

Home Alone’s entire premise is based on a human having the agency and freedom to go unnoticed by at least two adults and five (or more) older children. Granted, the movie has always stretched the bounds of credibility, but pretty much all that elasticity is gone today.

There is a small chance that a modern-day 8-year-old McCallister might not have a smartphone in 2019. A 2016 study found that the average age of a child getting their first cellphone is 10.3. In that case, Kevin McCallister in Home Alone 1 and Home Alone 2, which arrived in theaters in 1992 but is set just one year after the events of the first film, might not have a smartphone on him for either of his adventures.

Drop in on Kevin

In the first film, though, McCallister rarely ventures outside his Chicago, Illinois home. And the home of 2019 would have at least one smart device. A 2018 study found that 53 million Americans own at least one smart speaker. As we approach 2020, they own even more and some of those speakers probably include a screen and, yes, calling capability.

As soon as Kevin’s parent’s, Kate and Peter, realized he was missing, they would’ve picked up their cellphone (or any one of their teenage kids' handsets) and tried calling Kevin using, perhaps, Amazon Echo Show’s drop-in feature, which lets you call and see a blurry depiction of the home before the call recipient accepts the call and turns on their Echo Show’s camera full blast. The McCallisters see their son is still at home with aftershave on his face and turn around to go get him.

The film ends roughly 10 minutes in.

Watching Out for Kevin

Let’s say for some reason every McCallister phone is dead and not one stranger is willing to let the frantic parents use their phone. I know, that would never happen, but let’s say it did, Kevin is Home Alone and the “Wet Bandits,” Marv and Harry are about to try and rob his house.

First, the crooks have to canvas the place. In the original film, Harry poses as a cop and talks his way into the house. In 2019, he would’ve run into a Ring video doorbell and been asked by Mr. McCallister to show his ID to the camera.

Film ends at 8 minutes in.

Maybe the McCallisters didn’t bother with a video doorbell, but they might’ve invested in a popular smart home security system, which can include exterior Web cams, cloud-connected window and door open detectors, and handy apps that alert you to every single movement and intrusion.

The movie has always stretched the bounds of credibility, but pretty much all that elasticity is gone today.

A basement entrance Nest Outdoor Cam would’ve caught Marv’s spectacular, limits-of human endurance-defying fall outside the rear basement door and another cam might’ve captured Harry burning his hand on the front door doorknob. Those alerts would’ve been sent directly to the oblivious McCallisters.

Film ends at 1 hour 17 minutes.

Message Kevin

Kevin’s family was in a mad rush to make the flight. So, it’s possible they could’ve outrun every single alert and been airborne long before Kevin fully engaged with his tormentors. In 2019, at least one McCallister would’ve paid for inflight Wi-Fi, which means an alert or two would’ve made its way through. Kate McCallister would’ve used something as simple as Facebook Messenger and maybe a still-on and logged on laptop to contact Kevin directly and alert the local authorities.

Movie ends at 19 minutes.

Tag Kevin

It’s more likely though, that Kevin’s family would’ve put a Bluetooth tag, perhaps a Tile, on the backpack of every under-10-year-old McCallister, which means that as soon as the van started driving away without Kevin an alert would’ve popped up on Kate’s Tile-connected app and she would’ve turned the van right around.

The film ends at 16 minutes.

Home Alone 2: Lost in New York would be an even shorter film in 2019. Massive airport security means nobody accidentally wanders onto the wrong airplane, even an adorable little kid.

Film ends at 14 minutes.

So What

Time and technology move on and I know it’s silly to try and watch decades-old movies through the lens of modern technology. I also know that Disney has been thinking about rebooting the Home Alone franchise.

There’s simply no way they can remake and retell the same tale. The next Home Alone must be about something else, which means it won’t be about a scrappy, adorable kid left behind on the holidays. And that means I’ll just keep watching the original.

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Wednesday, 11 December 2019