Google launched five new Pixel devices—Pixel 11 Pro Fold, three Pixel 11-series phones, and Pixel Watch 5—with Gemini Intelligence features. The Pixel 11-series phones start at $899 and the Pro Fold retails for $1,899. The new lineup adds on-device AI functions like faster Tensor G6 model execution, sign-language transcription via SL2T, and Gemini features such as glanceable cards and location-aware retrieval.
Google unveiled the Pixel 11 lineup, Pixel Watch 5, Pixel Buds updates, a new tracking tag called Pixel Tag, and Gemini-powered features at its Made by Google 2026 event. The Pixel 11 starts at $899, a $100 increase over the Pixel 10, with the 128GB option dropped. AI-related capabilities expand across devices, including Live Transcribe support for American Sign Language, plus features like Rambler voice input and more camera-based Circle to Search and Gemini functions.
Google revealed its 2026 Pixel hardware lineup, including the Pixel 11 series, Pixel Watch 5, and Pixel Tag, and opened orders for all of them today.
The Pixel 11 Pro adds an RGB LED notification ring inside the back flash assembly (called HiLight), which lights up when the phone is talking to Gemini.
This means only the Pro models get the notification LED while the base Pixel 11 stays unilluminated, alongside updated watch hardware and the new in-house tracker device.
Google added four Pixel 11 phones (Pixel 11, Pixel 11 Pro, Pixel 11 Pro XL, and Pixel 11 Pro Fold) to the Pixel lineup with camera upgrades and new features.
A new Tensor G6 chip is included for faster performance.
The upgrade choice shifts because the devices add improved photography tools like Magic Capture, expanded Live Translate, better Gemini Intelligence, and camera access to Circle to Search, making last-year models less compelling.
ThreadPort lets people move AI chats between ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini with a one-click workflow. The concrete detail is that it works “one click”. As a result, users can switch chat destinations without manually recreating or re-threading the conversation.
Researchers showed that hidden, encrypted step-by-step reasoning from OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google models can sometimes be replayed and decrypted via weaker sibling models in the same provider, enabling recovery of private traces. Across 315,320 public reasoning blocks, they recovered 367 pieces of personal information and 182 credentials. OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google were notified before publication and changed their systems, and the findings highlight a new defense need for encrypted reasoning traces moving across models, apps, sessions, and users.
Google’s Gemini and OpenAI’s ChatGPT both reported surpassing 1 billion users, with Google highlighting Gemini app monthly active users and OpenAI referring to broader AI interfaces. Google’s CEO said on August 11 that Gemini passed 1 billion monthly active users, including voice usage where 63 percent of users speak to the assistant. The companies’ different counting methods complicate comparisons, and Google’s Gemini reporting points to continued platform expansion through additional dialect support and more tools.
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