Tech Brew Ride Home - The Pixel 10 Smartphone Unveiling

Episode Date: August 20, 2025

All the headlines from the Made By Google event where we saw the new Pixel 10 lineup and the 4th gen Pixel Watch. We have a release date for those new Xbox handhelds. More seeming chaos at Meta’s AI headquarters. And a report back from the first ever AI film festival. Links: The Google Pixel 10 Pro Fold is the first fully dust-resistant foldable (The Verge) Pixel 10 Pro and Pro XL are all about upgrades you can’t see, still starting at $999 [Hands-on] (9to5Google) Google debuts Pixel Watch 4 with domed display, emergency Satellite Communication (TechCrunch) Microsoft and Asus’ new Xbox Ally handhelds launch on October 16th (The Verge) Mark Zuckerberg Shakes Up Meta’s A.I. Efforts, Again (NYTimes) US tech stocks hit by concerns over future of AI boom (FT) I Saw the Future of AI Film and It Was Empty (Wired) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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GoogleFi Wireless is not subject to data traffic deprioritization during times of high network usage. Welcome to the TechBrew Ride Home for Wednesday, August 20th, 2025. I'm Brian McCullough today. All the headlines from the Made by Google event where we saw the new Pixel 10 lineup and the 4th Gen Pixel Watch. We have a release date for those new Xbox handhelds, more seeming chaos at Meta's AI headquarters, and a report back from the first ever AI film festival. Here's what you miss today in the world of tech. Study and play. Come together on a Windows 11 PC.

And for a limited time. College students get the best of both worlds. Get the Unreal College deal, everything you need, to study and play with Select Windows 11 PCs. Eligible students get a year of Microsoft 365 Premium and a year of Xbox GamePass Ultimate with a custom color Xbox wireless controller. Learn more at Windows.com slash student offer. While supplies last, ends June 30th, terms at AKA.m.m.S. College PC. Google held it's made by Google event this afternoon in Brooklyn. Jimmy Fallon hosted, and actually they trotted out a bunch of celebrities, but that's not what we're here for right.

Let's just get to it. First up, they announced the flagship phones, the Pixel 10 Pro and ProXL. They look similar to last year's models, but get meaningful under the hood upgrades. Both move to the new TensorFlow G5 chip, which Google claims delivers around 34% faster CPU performance and around 60% faster on-device AI via the TPU. The phones add true Chi 2 magnetic wireless charging, branded by Google as PixelSnap, actually, and they both stay at 16 gigabytes of RAM. The display also stays at 6.3 inches for the pro and 6.8 inches for the Pro XL.

The Excel alone has the fastest Chi 2.2 charging spec up to 25 watts wireless charging, while the Pro tops out at 15 watts. Storage on the XL now starts at 256 gigabytes, and as far as pricing, the Pixel 10 Pro starts at $999, while the XL starts at $1,119.3.3rders are open now. Retail availability begins August 28th. They come in silver, green, white, and black varieties. Cameras took a two-track approach with these phones. The pro models keep the larger 50-mixel main sensor and a bigger 48 megapixel, ultra-wide sensor than the base model, and they add a new controversial trick. Pro-res zoom, an on-device latent diffusion model that cleans up pictures that you take that have

a greater than 30x zoom. Quoting the verge, pro-res zoom kicks in when past 30x all the way up to 100x digital zoom. Typically, the camera uses an algorithm to help fill in the gaps left by upscaling a small portion of your photo to the original resolution. Typically, the results look like hot garbage, especially when you get all the way up to 75x or 100x, despite every camera maker's best efforts over the past two decades. ProRes Zoom aims to give you a usable image where you wouldn't have gotten one before, and that's where the diffusion model comes in. That might be an understatement. In the handful of demos I saw ProRes Zoom cleaned up some pretty gnarly 100X zoom photos remarkably well. The processing all happens on device after you take the photo.

Google tells me that when Google started developing the feature, it took around a minute to run the diffusion model on the phone, but the team got the runtime down to four or five seconds. Once the processing is done, the new version is saved alongside the original. I only saw it work a handful of times, but the results I saw looked pretty darn good, end quote. Other notable hardware changes to these two phones. US units are ESIM only, dual active ESIM, by the way. They store eight or more profiles, apparently. Batteries tick up slightly, 4,870 mill-amp hours for the pro and 5,200 millanph hours for the Pro XL. The screens are also brighter across the board. As for the straight-up pixel 10, it gets its biggest camera rethink in

years for the first time. The base pixel model, the pixel 10 now includes a proper telephoto moving to a three-camera system. Hardware isn't identical to the pros. The main camera drops to a smaller 48 megapixel and a half-type sensor versus the pro's 50 megapixel, and the ultra-wide is 13 megapixels. The new telephoto is 10.8 megapixels with a 5x optical zoom. You also get TensorFlow G5, Chi-2 magnets with 15-watt wireless charging, a slightly larger battery, and peak brightness up to 3,000 nits. The price starts at $799. Pre-orders begin today. They're in stores August 28th. Colors for the straight 10 include indigo, light blue, bright green, and black.

But maybe the bigger news comes from the new Pixel 10 Pro Fold. Google's foldable keeps the $1,99 starting price but lands a first full IP 68 dust and water resistance thanks to a new gearless hinge. The cover screen grows to 6.4 inch with thinner bezels and the inner OLED display stays at 8 inches and now has peak brightness at 3,000 nits versus 2,700 nits before. It shares the entire family's Tensor G5 and Chi 2 magnets at 15 watts wireless, though the camera hardware still trails the slab style pros pre-orders for the foldable phone. Start now, they hit stores October 9th. The colors are Moonstone, gray, and jade, which is sort of a greenish-yellow. But for this entire lineup, beyond the raw specs, the pitch from Google is, you guessed it,

A.I, A.A.I.A.A.A.A.A.A. Standout features include Magic Q, a proactive system-wide assistant that surfaces the exact text or info you likely need inside of apps like Gmail, calendar, messages, phone, et cetera, and call translators that mimic speakers of voices, all running on device via the G5 chip. Google is also pushing visual overlays in general. Demini Live, which is basically camera-aware guidance. Also, camera coach, composition tips, and a take-a-message with action-ready transcripts feature. In photos, you can now literally talk to the app to make edits to photos. Edit by asking, they call it.

And the whole Pixel-10 line writes C2PA content credentials to captured images, flagging when AI-assisted. Just describe the change by voice or text that you want, like brighten the subject, remove glare, make the sky bluer. and the AI does it. The app composes the edit for you. This launches first on Pixel 10 devices in the US in a couple weeks. On the health side, there's a new Fitbit AI Health Coach app, which is Gemini-powered inside a redesigned Fitbit app, which builds adaptive weekly plans from your data, then adjusts for sleep, illness, travel, or injury, and explains trends in your health. Conversationally, it arrives in October as an opt-in preview for Fitbit Premium, not limited to just the newest hardware, but it does pair naturally with these new Pixel 10 phones.

But wait, there was more beyond the phones. The new Pixel Watch 4 comes in 41mm and 45 millimeter sizes, has a new domed Actua 360 display, which apparently is 10% more screen with 50% greater brightness up to 3,000 nits. Also, faster charging, a Snapdragon W5 Gen 2 chip, raised to talk Gemini assistance, emergency satellite SOS service with no extra fee and a big win user repairable display and battery. This is all coming October 9th, starting at $349.

Also, there are budget PixelBuds 2A, which jumped to $12599 with active noise cancellation, transparency, Gemini hands-free assistance, and a replaceable battery case. The PixelBuds Pro get adaptive audio, hand gesture call, controls and more via a September software update. The Pro 2 headphones ship August 28th, the Buds 2A on October 9th. If I had to give a summary of the whole event, this is just one of those classic cycle upgrade years for the Google phones. Conservative hardware tweaks wrapped around a big silicon shift, the TSM-built TensorFlow 5 chips, which maybe we'll talk about more tomorrow, and of course the continued drumbeat about on-device AI.

The headline spec ads are probably the Chi-2 magnets slash charging across the line, the e-sim only in the U.S., the brighter screens, the bigger batteries, and the base pixel finally getting a telephoto lens. But the demos were probably the most exciting around the cameras, that generative pro-res zoom on the pros paired with the system-level C2PA. If you care about wireless charging speed and storage, the X-L is maybe the way you want to go, but if you want to jump on board the foldable bandwagon,

now that we have maybe the first foolproof design with the hinge, i.e. a dustproof foldable for the first time. Well, Google has the only game in town. That's not the only hardware news today, though this is just an announcement about an unveiling of new hardware, not the unveiling itself. Microsoft and Asis have announced that their new Xbox ally handhelds, including the Xbox ally and Xbox Ally X, will launch on October 16th in various markets worldwide. Pricing details and pre-orders have not been revealed yet, but leaks suggest the Xbox Ally could be priced at about $699 and the Xbox Ally X at $1,049. Both handhelds will feature a 7-inch 1080p screen with a 120-hertz refresh rate and VRR support. The Xbox Ally will use an AMD Risen Z2A chip, while the Xbox Ally X will feature a more powerful Risen AIS2 Extreme processor. Microsoft has also introduced a handheld compatibility program.

to optimize games for the new devices with two categories, handheld optimized and mostly compatible. The devices will ship with the Xbox full-screen experience, and Microsoft is working on improving the game, shader experience, and introducing features like automatic super-resolution and AI-powered highlight reels. Quoting the Verge, the price information delay could be related to the leaks or ongoing uncertainty with U.S. tariffs, alongside release date confirmation. Microsoft also announced its handheld compatibility program today, quote, We have worked with Game Studios to test, optimize, and verify thousands of games for a handheld compatibility, allowing you to jump into the game without having to tweak settings or requiring only minor adjustments, said Roan Zons, CVP of gaming devices and ecosystem at Xbox.

Additional improvements to the docking experience for the Xbox ally devices are also coming soon. Microsoft is working, quote, to enable a seamless high-performance setup that supports big screen, gaming, auto-sr, intuitive controller pairing, optimized display output and more according to Sones, end quote. Ready to soundtrack your summer? With Red Bull Summer All Day Play, you choose a playlist that fits your summer vibe the best. Are you a festival fanatic, a deep end DJ, a road dog, or a trail mixer? Just add a song to your chosen playlist and put your summer on track. Red Bull Summer All Day Play. Red Bull gives you wings.

Visit Red Bull.com slash Bright Summer ahead to learn more. See you this summer. Okay, I mentioned yesterday how meta is reorging the reorg of their AI efforts yet again, but at this point, I kind of have no idea what is going on over there, because now there is this. Quoting the Times, on Tuesday, Meta announced internally that it is splitting its AI division, which is known as Meta Superintelligence Labs into four groups. Two people with knowledge of the situation said, one group will focus on AI research, one on a potentially powerful AI called Superintelligence, another on products, and one on infrastructure such as data centers, and other AI hardware, they said. The reorganization is likely to be the final one for some time, the people said. The moves are aimed at better organizing meta so it can get to its goal of superintelligence and develop AI products more quickly to compete with others, the people said.

But some AI executives are expected to leave after this reorg. The people said, meta is also looking at downsizing the AI division overall, which could include eliminating roles or moving employees to other parts of the company because it has grown to thousands of people in recent years, the people said. Discussions remain fluid and no final decisions have been made on the downsizing, they said. In what would be a shift from meta using only its own technology to power its AI products, the company is also actively exploring using third-party artificial intelligence models to do so, the people said. That could include building on other open-source AI models, which are freely available, or licensing closed-source models from other companies. Since Mr. Zuckerberg

created the superintelligence team under former scale AI CEO Alexander Wang. Tensions have surfaced. Mr. Wang's team is focused on creating the company's most powerful AI model known as a frontier model, two of the people with knowledge of the matter said. The new team has discussed making meta's next AI model closed, which would be a major departure from the company's long-time philosophy of open-sourcing its models. A closed model keeps its underlying technology secret, while an open-source AI model can be built upon by other developers. The new team has chosen to abandoned Meta's previous frontier model called Behemoth and start from scratch on a new model the people said. Behemist release was delayed last spring after disappointing performance test,

one person said. As Meta has spent billions to bring in AI talents, some members of the old guard have chafed at the new hires, three people with knowledge of the matter said, end quote. Hmm. Maybe we are seeing now why there are whispers that even with all the money in the world, Zuck is facing some recruiting headwinds for this AI initiative. You don't, Don't want to jump to a lily pad if the lily pad might have been moved before you can even land on it, even with all of the money in the world on offer. I wonder if this segment is at least tangentially related to that last segment, because if Zuck were to ever signal that he's slowing spending on AI,

it would be Katie Bar the Door for the markets, quoting the FT. U.S. tech stocks sold off on Tuesday as warnings that the hype surrounding artificial intelligence could be overdone hit some of the year's best-performing shares. NVIDIA, the Chips Group that has surged to become the world's first $4 trillion company on the back of AI fell 3.5% while Software Group Palantir dropped 9.4% and chip designer arm shed 5%. The tech-heavy NASDAQ composite closed down 1.4%. The biggest one-day dropped for the index since August 1st. Traders pinned some of the declines in the U.S. on a critical report on Monday, authored by a branch of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Researchers said, quote,

95% of organizations are getting zero return from their investments in generative AI, the technology that has sent U.S. stocks soaring to record highs in recent months. The story is spooking people, said one trader close to a multi-billion dollar U.S. tech fund. Just five percent of integrated AI pilots are extracting millions in value while the vast majority remains stuck with no measurable profit and loss impact, the MIT report said. The stock, the stock. Drop drop also came days after Open AI chief executive Sam Altman signaled an AI bubble might be forming. Quote, are investors over-excited? My opinion is yes. Altman said late last week. He said, quote, I do think some investors are likely to lose a lot of money,

and I don't want to minimize that. That sucks. There will be periods of irrational exuberance, but on the whole, the value for society will be huge, end quote. Finally today from Wired, a look at the 2025 AI Film Festival, backed by AI Startup Runway AI and screened by IMAX. Some cinefiles and attendance have derided it, while others have been praising the quality of the short films shown. Quote, the AI Film Festival is backed by runway, a New York-based AI company offering tools for human imagination. Among those tools are image and video generators allowing users to create characters, sets, lighting schemes, and whole immersive scenes. With its Gen 4 software, users can theoretically create a whole movie or something vaguely

approximating one anyway. We were all frustrated filmmakers, said Runway's co-founder Alejandro Matamala Ortiz of he and his partners who met as grad students enrolled in the interactive telecommunications program at NYU's Tisch School for the Arts. We wanted to build the tools that we wanted to use, end quote. The film festival was born of a further desire to help legitimize those same AI tools. A gala screening held earlier this summer at New York's prestigious Alice Tully Hall at the Lincoln Center, home to New York Film Festival. and year-round programming, saw filmmakers and technologists gather to watch the creme de la creme of a technology typically written off for producing mere slop. The festival format, Ortiz says, serves to bring people together.

Now that same gala program is touring IMAX cinemas around the country for a limited engagement. As with any billing of ten shorts made by ten different filmmakers, the quality is a bit scattershot. The program begins promisingly enough with Maddie Hong's emergence, an immersive nature documentary shot, in quotes, and narrated from the POV of a butterfly larvae hatching from a chrysalis. With a bold pastel color palette, the rotoscope animated more tears than harm, superficially evoked the work of American primitivist painter Horace Pippen, who is one of my favorite artists. 6,000 Lies is a rapid collage of gestating human fetuses,

followed by a photo of a fetus' burial site. In an abridged form, it might make an effective advertisement for a pro-life group. Indeed, if there was anything like an aesthetic sensibility shared by the films, it was a sense of commercialized gloss. Rapid Fire edits, satiny, photorealistic images, a few, like editorial and fragments of nowhere, played like perfume ads for a fragrance an Android might wear. The lousiest of the bunch was an anime short called Rojuki, a million trillion pathways credited to a filmmaker named Hatchie and I.O. Beyond being wholly derivative, it highlighted the rather obvious shortcomings of the technology, like characters' earlobes and shirt collars, seemingly mutating in

shape between scenes. One filmmaker in the audience, Robert Pietri came away mostly impressed by what he saw, quote, a couple of them were really pushing and going where I think you should be going with this, he says, which is creating a cinema that you can't create otherwise. I was excited by it. He sees the weaker films as not being limited as much by the emerging AI toolkit, but by the, quote, limitations of the creators. An AI, it seems, cannot render away bad ideas in putted by the human beings plugging in the prompts. Well, not yet anyway, end quote. Nothing more for you today. Talk to you tomorrow.

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