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Both the Ayaneo Gaming Pad and Pocket S2 debuted today, bringing Qualcomm’s new Snapdragon G3 Gen 3 SoC into the market at the highest end of the company’s G series for gaming devices. The Gaming Pad is Ayaneo’s first Android tablet, and it’s quite something.

Phone Link has been around for some time, and it offers a way for users to connect their Windows machine with an Android device for certain tasks, like viewing photos or sending messages. Microsoft Copilot AI is getting an update that will allow your Android device to share data in the same way, making the AI model capable of controlling your phone’s settings via something called “Phone Connection.”

Google is expected to release the Pixel 9a later this week, but the leaks haven’t stopped as the device has now received the customary YouTube unboxing which has also seemingly confirmed that the modem inside isn’t on par with the rest of the Pixel 9 series.

It was revealed earlier this year that Pebble smartwatches may be making a comeback after Google released the source code for PebbleOS. The “RePebble” project promised new hardware – a Pebble reboot – with the backing of the original founder, and a new countdown has begun on a store.

It seems that Amazon is outdoing the substantial $200 discounts offered on the Google Store these past few days, with the Pixel 9 Pro XL is a steal as it’s down to an astounding $699 right now.

We know that YouTube is becoming a new home for podcasts, but to help expand, the dedicated Android TV apps dedicated “Podcasts” sidebar tab is now rolling out widely.

On Friday, we learned that Gemini is replacing Google Assistant on Android phones. At the same time, Google quietly announced that Assistant is losing 7 more features.

Google has released the first Android Auto 14.0 update through its beta program and while there are no major user-facing changes, code behind the scenes continues work on temperature controls.

Google released a new Android 16 beta earlier this week and, hiding beneath the scenes, there are more new features and changes in the works including custom icon shapes for the app launcher, a revamped notification panel, and more.

We got our first look at the Pixel 10 series this week and it looks rather familiar, but Google is apparently planning to add a third camera to the base model, and that raises a lot of questions.

The US Google Store is once again discounting the Pixel 9 Pro, Pixel Watch 3, Pixel Buds Pro 2, and Pixel Tablet.

Following the Thursday announcement, Google is widely rolling out the latest Gemini models, including 2.0 Flash Thinking (experimental), to the web, Android, and iOS apps.

Welcome to episode 45 of Pixelated, a podcast by 9to5Google. This week, we talk about the Chromecast bug, Google Play Games on PC, and the latest Gemini models.

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With Android 16 Beta 3, Google is now more specific about how “Limit to 80%” will fully charge your Pixel to “every one to two weeks.”

Just over a year after its launch and various feature parity updates, Gemini is set to replace Google Assistant on Android phones later in 2025. This follows yesterday’s model updates and bringing Deep Research to all users.

If you’re content with what Google offers in Gemini, you might leave the AI assistant as your default option when it comes to long-pressing the power button. However, the digital assistant that you conjure with a button press or swipe up from the corner can be changed, and a new update to the ChatGPT beta means it’s now a default option.

On Windows and MacOS, Google Chrome’s bread and butter is extensions. They round out the user experience, and each user finds a different arsenal of add-ons useful. That feature never made it to Android, but it looks like Microsoft Edge has added extensions in its latest mobile build.

One of the downsides of RCS messaging for a while was a lack of support for end-to-end encryption but, now, the GSMA has announced that the latest update to RCS will add the long-awaited security layer, and both Google and Apple will support it.

Following the announcement at the start of this month, Google today has more widely rolled out the big Find My Device update that adds location sharing with “People.”