The arrival of the Google Pixel 10a won’t come as any great surprise. Google pioneered having a mid-range of ‘a’ designation smartphones (see also similarly named devices from Nothing, where the 3a is about to be superseded by the 4a) and the release schedule has stayed close to the original template; introduce a flagship (the Pixel 10) and follow up six months later with a mid-range device. Six months on from that, introduce the new flagship, and so on.

Collectively, we’re not upgrading our phones nearly as often as manufacturers would like. It’s also safe to say that the age of AI hasn’t made sufficient inroads into the smartphone market to be considered a killer app. Even Google, which made such a song and dance about Gemini integration a few years back, is underselling the Pixel 10a’s AI elements as ‘helpful’, rather than ‘useful’ or even the more hyperbolic ‘essential’.

In truth, AI is deeply embedded in almost all modern high-end smartphones; when it’s genuinely helpful (or even useful) we tend to take it for granted. It’s only when it becomes associated with unwanted assistance or – worse – intrusive and complicated processes that we start to notice it.

So what exactly does the Pixel 10a have to offer? As a mid-range offering, it’s understood that the 10a won’t match the processing power, storage space and camera quality of the flagship. Instead, the 10a leverages the inevitable evolution of silicon to get close for less.

The invisible hand of computational photography is more active than on any previous A-series form, with Google’s Camera Coach parsing the scene with Gemini to get the right lighting and exposure balance. The 48MP main camera is joined with a 13MP ultrawide camera, and intentional AI tools (ie, those you have to engage yourself) include Auto Best Take and Add Me. ‘Results may vary,’ read the footnotes.

Fewer camera modules allows for a more streamlined body (and case), with a simpler, less techy look than the regular Pixel 10, with none of the protrusions or bumps that increasingly characterise premium phones.

The four launch colours – Lavender, Berry, Fog and Obsidian – are brighter and more playful. No sober greys here. Recycled content is up, most notably the 100 per cent aluminium frame, but there’s also recycled cobalt, copper, gold and tungsten on board (surely for their cost-effectiveness just as much as their environmental credentials).

In the hand, the Pixel 10a feels reassuringly solid and unfussy. Android 16 comes as standard, there’s water- and dust-protection as well a newer, tougher version of Corning’s ubiquitous Gorilla Glass. Seven years of updates (‘Pixel Drops’) come with each 10a and Google promises easier repairability as well, without going into too much detail.

The feature creep of Gemini will no doubt form a central part of these updates as the years roll by. Gemini Live is currently being rolled out to Google Home devices around the world, helping normalise natural language communication with our devices.

As it becomes more and more convenient and reliable to chat to your home hub (or your car) the friction that stops many of us from chatting away to our phones will evaporate. If you want a device that guarantees a few years of smooth sailing, the 10a is a no-nonsense choice.

Google Pixel 10a, available in 128GB and 256GB models, from £499, Store.Google.com

Google is describing the new raft of products and services launching under its Google Home division as the ‘next chapter’ in home intelligence. We’ve had a preview of the company’s uprated and upgraded hardware and back-end. Our first thoughts? If you go all in on Google’s new Home eco-system, there’ll be many compelling reasons – and reasonable caveats – that justify the hype.

First things first. The smart home didn’t really work, did it? Even Google admits as such. Ten years or so after the first devices appeared touting connectivity and controllability, the much mythologised ‘internet of things’ remains the domain of a small but dedicated coterie of home hackers and tech enthusiasts. For the rest of us, add or remove one element from this carefully constructed house of cards and you’re in danger of demolishing the whole edifice.

Enough of all that. The big news for late 2025 is the replacement of the Google Assistant with Google Gemini, part of the creeping AI-ification of every facet of our lives. Perhaps this one will be a little different. Many of us – this writer included – use Google Assistant more than we know. Like Alexa or Siri, Assistant sits within our phones and smart speakers and can usually be relied upon to deliver a weather forecast, perform a simple calculation, answer a question or stream a radio station.

And yet. Assistant often acts like a glorified gopher, with responses like ‘I found a website that might be useful’ when it can’t drag up the answer itself. Gemini will change all that, in ways that can scarcely be imagined. According to Google, this step change ‘turns the page on the last era’ and introduces a new age of ‘helpful, proactive’ home AI.

From the outset, Gemini for the home will manifest itself in a more familiar, conversational and natural way, with ten new natural language voice models complete with more realistic pacing and cadence. Anyone who’s used Gemini’s voice recognition capabilities will know that it is a very companion-like experience.

What will change the domestic manifestation is the system’s ability to define and utilise context. Not only will we be able to chat back and forth with our freshly Gemini-enabled devices, but the system will be able to infer all sorts of background information from other connected sources – your calendar or contacts, for example.

In addition, these smart(er) capabilities will also be baked into Google’s Nest series of security cameras, both indoor and outdoor, as well as the Nest doorbell, almost a ubiquitous piece of home tech in certain American suburbs. Even Walmart’s ultra-budget ‘onn’ range will be able to hook up to the system.

And what does the system entail? For Google, the overarching ambition is to streamline the use case and make everyone’s vast database of imagery and information more easily searchable. It’s a valid point. Those familiar with the Nest system will know that the currently ‘dumb’ system spews endlessly notifications, triggered by movements indoors and out, be they pets, children or passing cars.

With the ‘semantic scene understanding’ introduced by Gemini, notifications should become incredibly specific: ‘UPS driver left a package on the porch by the chair,’ or ‘a woman in an Amnesty International T-shirt range the doorbell and waited for two minutes.’

All of this data gets distilled into a ‘Home Brief’, a daily summary of what happened in your Nest-equipped home and environs. It’ll be a godsend for homeowner associations and neighbourhood watches, and a way of living a vicarious domestic life while you’re trapped in your cubicle at work. All this is controlled through an updated, streamlined and enhanced Google Home app.

Cameras have been given greater 2K resolution and a wider field of view, all the better to help the system decode what it’s looking at. The term ‘facial recognition’ wasn’t raised at the presentation, but it’s hard not to see how a swift cross-reference between your photos, contacts and calendar to see if anyone unfamiliar has been snooping around.

And of course, all of these watching and listening capabilities can be smooshed together in myriad ways through custom automations. This is where hobbyists have traditionally excelled and the rest of us lost heart after the massive achievement of programming the Christmas lights to switch on when it gets dark. Put simply, an automation is simple programming – if this happens, do that.

These days, ‘programming’ is a bit of a misnomer, as automations can be built by simply asking Gemini to put them together – just enter ‘At night, if no one is home, use lights and TV to make it look like someone’s home’ and hey presto, your eco-system of Google-enabled devices will club together to create a simulacra of a bustling hearth.

Other devices can also be accommodated into this web of connectivity, starting with Google’s own Nest thermostat and extending to a growing family of smart devices. Google’s own products are made with recycled plastic and err on the affordable side, all the more reason to get as many as possible. The former Nest Aware subscription service will be bundled into Google Home Premium, and the company is also striving to consolidate all the Nest app features into Google Home.

Why go premium? It’s all about the data. If you’re onboard with surrendering every bump and rustle of your home to the company’s servers, you’ll have a rich seam of searchable data to draw on. Standard ($10/month or $100/year) subs enable you to save 30 days of ‘event-based video history’, a capability that doubles with the Advanced sub ($20/month, $200/year). If you want summaries and the ability to search this history, you’ll need the Advanced package, which also delivers daily recaps of what’s been going on.

Finally, Google has baked all this capability into a new premium smart speaker, the Google Home Speaker. Available from spring 2026 in Porcelain, Hazel, Jade and Berry, the 360-degree speaker doubles up as a home theatre component, with a newly designed lower light ring that indicates when Gemini Live is active.

So what will this all mean? The law of unintended consequences plays fast and loose with technological innovation, and there are limitless scenarios opened up by having a searchable audio and video database of two months of domestic life. To European sensibilities, it’s all a little Black Mirror (particularly the Jesse Armstrong-penned episode ‘The Entire History of You’ from Season 1).

There’s also the suspicion that the smart home stuff is pitched at the modern American suburban experience, a tech-enabled personal empire of ennui where battles rage against porch pirates and scammers, furniture-shredding pets and thermostat-abusing WFH partners. It suggests whole neighbourhoods of Gemini-enabled ‘mockupants’, frantically and automatically running devices and switching lights on and off to simulate an active home life.

While this announcement was a good opportunity to launch next-generation camera and doorbell models, the biggest takeaway is that Gemini for the Home is coming to us all. That’s right – every single speaker, smart display, doorbell and camera ever made by Google will have these functions enabled in due course. An end to loneliness? Or the start of a deluge of data that threatens to drown us all?

Nest Cam Outdoor (wired, 2nd gen), available in Snow and Hazel, for $149.99

Nest Cam Indoor (wired, 3rd gen), available in Snow, Hazel, and Berry, for $99.99

Nest Doorbell (wired, 3rd gen), available in Snow, Hazel, and Linen, for $179.99

Google Home Speaker, available soon, Home.Google.com, Gemini.Google.com, Store.Google.com

What is the most technologically advanced watch you can buy? Arguably it’s now the Apple Watch Ultra 3, the latest iteration of Cupertino’s flagship timepiece. But it’s not the only watch to lean into multi-functionalism. We’ve assembled a dozen wearables that do so much more than simply tell time without losing sight of aesthetics.

1. Suunto Vertical

2. Withings ScanWatch Nova

3. Samsung Galaxy Watch8 Ultra

4. Timestop D-20

5. Coros Nomad

6. Nixon Base Tide Pro

7. Pebble

One of the original smart watches, Eric Migicovsky’s original Pebble watch dates back to 2013, following a hugely successful crowd-funding campaign. With a simple black and white LCD screen and easily adaptable software, it quickly found favour amongst more technical-minded owners.

After selling to Fitbit (which was subsequently acquired by Google), the Pebble dream seemed over. Now Migicovsky is back with a pair of new e-paper devices, powered by a new open-source version of the original PebbleOS, much extended battery life (up to 30 days) and plenty of hackability.

Pebble 2 Duo, $149, Pebble Time 2, $225, Store.rePebble.com

8. Sekonda Active Plus

9. Garmin fēnix® 8 Pro

10. Barrelhand Monolith

Barrelhand’s Monolith is the kind of future-thinking design we can really get behind, even though it has a hint of speculative retro-tech about it. Billed as a ‘mechanical wristwatch engineered for astronauts,’ it’s a handsome piece of industrial design that has actually made it into orbit. Made from 3D printed aerospace alloy and featuring a contrasting crown and strap, the Monolith also contains an Easter egg.

Inside the case is the Memory Disc, a modern-day iteration of the famous Golden Records dispatched into deep space with the Voyager spacecraft in the 70s. Encoded with up to 4.5GB of information (a 'nano-engraved archive ... engineered to safeguard humanity’s linguistic and cultural heritage across the galaxy for millennia'), it adds intellectual heft to a timepiece that weighs just 32g.

Monolith, $8,750, more information at Barrelhand.com

11. Google Pixel Watch 4

For a more prosaic, mainstream watch with embedded intelligence, consider the latest iteration of Google’s Pixel Watch series. Watch 4 has an edge-to-edge domed display, available in two sizes (41mm and 45mm), is water resistant to 50m and has been built to work seamlessly with Pixel phones and Google’s Gemini.

Whether or not you’ve surrendered yourself to an AI assistant, the Pixel Watch 4 still packs a lot of tracking tech, including Fitbit-powered workouts (for which an additional subscription is required).

Google Pixel Watch 4, from £349, Store.Google.com

12. Polar Loop

Finally, a wearable that does away with any visible information altogether. The new Polar Loop is a fitness band with a straightforward and simple premise: no screen, no subscription, and a host of sensors that’ll autodetect exercise and track your sleep while building up an app’s worth of data to sift through without distraction from notifications and widgets. Available in eight different, easily swappable colours, the Loop allows you to keep discrete tabs on your movement.

Polar Loop, £149.50, Polar.com

For the past week, all eyes have been on Google as the company wraps up its annual I/O conference with a wave of new announcements. You can find reams of online speculation and bulleted lists elsewhere, but what, ultimately, does all this change – both incremental and monumental – mean for the end user, us?

In amongst a cavalcade of new features, tweaks and updates, the big takeaway was that it’s no longer all about the OS. Granted, Google announced the substantial overhaul of Android and Wear OS with the introduction of a new evolved design approach, Material 3 Expressive. This will be the underpinnings of what is now the 16th incarnation of Google’s home-brewed phone operating system, Android 16. But what matters more to Google – and by extension you – are the creeping features of AI functionality into all facets of search and, by extension, consumption.

Android is by far the world’s most dominant mobile OS, with over 70 per cent of market share. Apple’s iOS hoovers up around 28 per cent, leaving a couple of points for independents to scrap over. In the US, things are a little different, and iOS dominates (c57 per cent to 42 per cent). When OS design changes, every pixel shift and icon change, launch animation and enhanced feature is minutely scrutinised in order to determine who will retain the edge for the next cycle of tech.

The list of Google’s new announcements was especially long this year. Google’s Gemini AI became a little more ubiquitous and a little more pricey, as the top tier version of the system, Google AI Ultra, bundles the cutting edge of the technology into a $250 monthly package that includes generative video (Flow, capable of sating the desire for Guy Ritchie/Grand Theft Auto mash-ups running at a seamless 40 clichés per second), the Whisk visualiser, a new research assistant, Project Mariner, and a subscription to YouTube Premium thrown in. Presumably so you can use the service without having to sit through a slew of AI-generated ads.

For AI watchers, the most significant announcement of the week was the arrival of the fully fledged AI Mode, first in the US but rolling out to other markets in due course. AI Mode effectively splices AI-generated responses into search, allowing users to make conversational enquiries either via text or speech and then collating contextually relevant results that can be queried and refined.

Shopping and searching with AI

In practice, this is how many people already use search engines – asking a question – but AI Mode is about creating a set of queries and responses that flows naturally. Think something along the lines of ‘can you remind me how much the set lunch was at that restaurant I found yesterday’, or some such.

Caveats? It’s too early to tell, but given the slow degradation of ‘traditional’ search via the incursion of first sponsored results and latterly AI-generated summaries, it’s not hard to see how AI Mode could quickly become the archetypal ‘mid’ experience, guiding us all on invisible rails to businesses and services that just happen to be inextricably commercially co-dependent on the big G.

Naturally, AI Mode will also become the go-to portal for Google’s shopping experience. Google claims to have no fewer than 50 billion product listings on its systems, refreshing two billion of them every hour for accurate price and availability data. In an attempt to make this avalanche of choice feel less overwhelming, AI Mode debuts a couple of new features, including the ability to ‘virtually try on clothes’ using an AI that mimics the drape and fall of clothing across a wide variety of body types. Or you can go one stage further (for US customers only right now) and upload a full-length photograph of yourself to use as the basis for the virtual clothes horse system.

In other news, there was a renewed play for the AR/VR space with the arrival of Android XR, an ‘AI-powered operating system’ designed for augmented reality glasses. Capable of overlaying information, from navigation to how-to guides, to text messages and search, onto the world around you, Android XR will be appeal to a certain kind of early adopter, for sure, but is more likely to find its niche in industrial and commercial applications.

A new look and feel

Google is heralding Material 3 Expressive as one of its ‘biggest update in years’. For Wear OS 6 devices, that means making more of the circular interface, with scaling animations that appear to emphasise and exaggerate the ‘water droplet’ design of the display. Animations add a further sense of depth.

On Android devices, the Material 3 Expressive toolkit takes a similarly fluid and organic approach to animations and haptic feedback. Developers now have access to a revised palette and typography as well as having more freedom when creating shaped buttons and interfaces. The many flavours of Android give the OS an untethered, slightly anarchic feel that feels a world apart from Apple’s rigorous rules and high aesthetic standards. Google clearly hopes that a more expansive set of highly curated options will help close the gap.

Android 16 should start rolling out in the next few weeks, initially to Google’s own flagship devices. It also means that when the next tranche of Pixel devices drop – the tenth generation – they’ll come with Android 16 straight out of the box. There’s a long list of enhancements and new features, beyond the new aesthetic, including a Live Update tracker for deliveries, cabs, etc, new camera functionality, more Gemini integration, as well as many behind-the-scenes updates to security and information sharing. Better and more intuitive desktop mirroring is also coming, allowing you to use your Android phone as a portable minicomputer when paired with a suitable screen and keyboard.

Google describes all these enhancements as a way of making watch and phone more ‘fluid, personal and glanceable,’ but this feels like sleight of hand, because the whole business model of a modern device is not about glancing but about glueing. With every launch, conference, update and overhaul, the tech giants are simply putting more and more power into these devices of mass distraction, while simultaneously promising hacks and workarounds that purport to make our lives easier and more seamless and less easily diverted by the fast-flowing streams of information. I/O is an especially apt name for an event of this nature, for the ins and outs of digital culture have never felt more imbalanced and precarious.

The internet shifts up a gear

Unfortunately, all the things that make the web bad are still bad even if the interface is shiny, beautiful and new – UI changes can’t cloak the essential emptiness of the experience, just as a glossy AI-generated image captures the attention for a few seconds until its dark, lifeless core is revealed. In that respect, Android 16’s aesthetic improvements are merely a band-aid over a realm of chaos, patching security, guiding choices, and maintaining a grip on the essential tools needed to navigate the modern world, all the while encouraging ever greater user involvement and data commitment.

On top of all of this, AI is simultaneously invisible and everywhere. AI Mode is just one more step on the road to its the inevitable and unstoppable integration with search. If Wi-Fi is considered an essential service, like water or electricity, then isn’t the ability to search for information an extension of that service? Commercialising search is like plumbing in an apartment and then serving up soda water or an influencer’s energy drink through the taps, depending on who has paid for the placement. It remains to be seen whether greater AI integration will be able to undo this or simply accelerate it.

To the naysayers, AI has already been derailed by commercial concerns, trumping safety and ethics and copyright and all manner of the apparently outmoded but once essential ways we used to conduct ourselves. There are still pockets of opposition holding out. The idea that generative AI is already beyond parody still holds sway for now. Thus far, the vast majority of AI art, music, writing and films has achieved the status of nothing more than a sophisticated, rather more egregious type of photocopying, plagiarism in its purest form.

However, as a new generation of creatives grows up with a technology that’s maturing at a terrifying rate, it’s unlikely this will hold true for much longer. There are already plenty of prompt jockeys out there capable of cajoling the machine into creating something interesting. A generation that can find therapeutic solace in the ‘thoughts’ of an AI chatbot isn’t less discerning, just less concerned with the distinction.

So what next?

For now, our devices and desires are inextricably linked, a situation that Google’s raft of changes seeks to cement. But in the future, will conventional screen-based devices still be at the centre of our world? As the annual bipartisan announcement techfest got underway, cleverly sandwiched between Google's I/O conference and Apple's WWDC, Sam Altman's OpenAI quietly let slip that it was working with none other than Jony Ive. And not just Ive and his LoveFrom cohort, but a team of crack technologists, including alumni from Apple, who have formed a specialist start-up, io, to exclusively shape OpenAI's future move into personal devices. Altman isn't just employing io, but owns it outright, although Ive's hard-won independence will remain.

It’s inconceivable that Apple, Google, et al, don’t have teams hard at work on a similar paradigm-busting approach to the way we communicate, consume and create. Just as screen-based reaches its apogee, the digital world could suddenly shift in ways we can’t yet imagine.

Google I/O 2025 can be explored in full at IO.Google

This year, Microsoft turns 50, a significant waypoint in the valley of anguish that is Gen X middle age. In comparison, Generation Z Google (aged 26 and a half) is in the prime era of its shape-shifting, multifarious journey. Both companies are in a celebratory mood, with Microsoft issuing a clutch of microsites and retrospectives bathed in a golden glow, and Google consolidating its two-fisted grip on AI and AI-enabled hardware. As chance would have it, both Google and Microsoft have new, albeit virtual, product to talk about in the perennially fascinating realm of artificial intelligence. We sat down with key players from each company in an attempt to ascertain the status quo.

Google’s latest innovation is an update to Gemini Live, a service offered to its coterie of Gemini Advanced subscribers, as well as those who own a Google Pixel 9 (or new Pixel 9a) or Samsung’s Galaxy S25. Essentially, Live allows you to talk to the smart assistant in natural, everyday language, requesting answers and information and have ‘her’ respond in real time. The latest update adds video as a means of conveying information, in addition to the text, image and voice commands it already understands.

This is a realisation of some of the capabilities demonstrated last year in Project Astra, Google’s ongoing research into the idea of a true AI assistant. Up at Google’s central London HQ, we’re shown a few demos, with a Pixel phone relaying info live to Gemini via its camera whilst Google’s rep asks questions. ‘What cocktail can I make with these mixers and spirits – something that’s not too sweet’, or ‘What can I cook with the contents of my fridge, and what wine would go best with that?’

It is impressive stuff, no question, although Gemini isn’t studying every single frame of the video – more like capturing a series of stills that it can then parse according to its large language model. There are still quite long, awkward silences between queries, as some distant server scrobbles around to assemble your answer. Is it a true assistant? In a sense, yes, although Google admits that the ability to act on certain commands across different apps (eg, ‘Gemini, book me a flight to Paris getting in tomorrow before 4pm’) still eludes it. ‘We can make tweaks,’ says Google’s spokesman, admitting that ‘it could be quicker. Gemini couldn’t be a tennis line judge, for example.’

For now, Gemini can only store the last seven minutes of visual memory, although text conversations and transcripts live practically forever in the cloud. It’s all part of a move to making AI ‘remember’ and be able to infer context and subject from previous conversation, things and places so that it can pick up where you left off. What Gemini can’t do now is surely on a product roadmap somewhere. As the dev team readily admits, a substantial aspect of AI research comes from seeing what users deploy the technology on in the wild. The man from The Guardian wanted to know if Gemini could ‘watch’ a game of football and generate a live blog. The woman from the FT was concerned about the privacy implications of allowing an all-seeing eye into your home and processing what the contents on a distant server. Would this data be used for training? Apparently not.

AI: the Microsoft approach

A few days later, we sit down with Lucas Fitzpatrick, Creative Director and Design at Microsoft AI. In the battle of advanced digital assistants, it’s probably too close to call between Google’s Gemini and Microsoft’s Copilot. Both enjoy a penchant for whizzy demos, along with corresponding controversies, and yet neither AI tool has really entered mainstream usage. Microsoft has baked Copilot into its Office apps, while Gemini can now be found into Google Suite. Do you know anyone who uses them?

Microsoft is definitely being a bit edgier with the related recent introduction of Recall, a controversial (but optional) function for Copilot+ enabled PCs that captures regular screenshots of your PC to create a massive database that serves as a visual and mental back-up of what you’ve been up to. It’s meant to help search. Needless to say, privacy campaigners are not impressed.

For a designer like Fitzpatrick, our use of AI poses many intriguing problems. ‘What does it mean for interaction and design?’ he asks rhetorically. ‘As designers its such an interesting time.’ To make it clear, we’re not discussing the role of AI as a creative tool here; this is about how users interact with devices in ways that frequently go beyond pushing pixels around a screen. ‘We can now create sentences that evoke feelings,’ Fitzpatrick says. ‘It’s such a big shift.’

The end goal – one that is increasing in complexity every day – is for Copilot to be a true digital companion, an AI-driven assistant that provides context-related help, aids accessibility, simplifies everyday computer use and – crucially – builds something akin to an emotional relationship with the user. ‘We’re moving from an era of search into an era of normal conversation,’ Fitzpatrick says. ‘As designers, we’re looking at what that journey could be like.’

In a similar vein to Gemini Live, there’s Copilot Vision for sharing and decoding video, whilst other AI toolsets and features criss-cross the aisle between the various tech giants, making it hard to say who exactly thought of something first (both Google and Microsoft can conjure up AI-generated podcasts, for example, giving you ‘an easy, engaging and different way to consume information with minimal effort’, according to Microsoft.

On a very simple level, Fitzpatrick and his team started with the visual branding of Copilot, two intertwined rainbow-coloured ribbons. ‘The colours speak to endless possibilities, whereas the form is the symbolism of the handshake,’ says Fitzpatrick. ‘How can we signal the future is friendly.’ For a designer, the move to voice-based computing is not without its challenges and rewards (Fitzpatrick has enjoyed working with voice talents to help shape the Copilot ‘voice’). ‘We’re not going to end the visual experience. But we might spend less time looking at screens – which I think is a wonderful thing,’ he says. Nevertheless, typography, animation, colour palettes, icons and navigation all have to be considered.

There’s more. ‘AI is one system created for millions of people,’ Fitzpatrick continues, ‘but what if it had a visual form that was created for you, by you? That’s very exciting.’ He’s talking about Copilot Appearances, a tech demo shown earlier this month wherein the user can create an avatar for ‘their’ AI. ‘We’re thinking about this as a human-centred personal experience,’ he says, ‘bringing a warmth, an accessibility and a non-tech feeling to what it means to interact with AI. AI can feel cold and sterile. The underlying technology will move forwards, but [for a user] the difference is whether it [feels] aligned to them and their goals. Our team is really deeply invested in these questions.’

Would you like some help with that?

It's a brave new world of digital assistance, although let’s not forget that Microsoft has been ploughing this furrow for decades – the company even went as far as summoning Clippy, its dreaded Windows help assistant from 1995, in its Copilot Appearances demos. However you choose your avatar to appear, the aim is to increase its connection to you and you alone. As Mustafa Suleyman, Executive Vice President and CEO of Microsoft AI, put it, ‘with your permission, Copilot will now remember what you talk about, so it learns your likes and dislikes and details about your life: the name of your dog, that tricky project at work, what keeps you motivated to stick to your new workout routine’.

So is everything rosy in the world of AI? Skip the rampant energy consumption, privacy concerns, sketchy copyright issues and little understood but very real problems like hallucinations, it feels as if AI is being rendered down as two distinct paths, assistance and creation. Here we run up against a bit of a culture clash. Google split its demo session between ‘traditional’ media (including yours truly) and a clutch of ‘content creators’. In a very real sense, it feels as if we're a part of the real-time vivisection of the media industry, with the former group committed to reporting and the latter to creating. Except there are no prizes for guessing which one Google appears to be betting on.

Google itself has admitted that the latest update to its ‘algorithm’, the feared and dreaded backroom machinations that drive its vast search empire, are intended to ‘continue our work to surface more content from creators through a series of improvements throughout this year’. It’s part of an ongoing game of global whack-a-mole, whereby Google updates its algorithm and millions of websites change their practices in order to stay within its (sometimes surprisingly myopic) sights. Unsurprisingly, people do unscrupulous things for attention and have done since the earliest days of the web, and part of the 'algo update' is to ferret these out.

There are other unwanted diversions. Woven in amongst the myriad, ever-changing SEO strategies is a firehose of AI-generated slop, an infinite layer of slurry that’s in danger of coating everything with misdirection, misinformation and general misery for those in the business of ‘creating content’ the old-fashioned way. Although the system is designed to weed out the slop before it gets into your feed, it doesn’t always work, much like the British water companies and their attitude to sewage in rivers.

What is ‘good content’?

That takes us to the crux of the matter: what Google defines as 'great content' isn’t entirely clear. AI or no AI, there’s a nagging suspicion that the company doesn’t really rate or rank traditional journalism. Click around this website and you’ll find thousands and thousands of stories, lovingly researched and written over two decades by nearly 500 writers. With a flick of a switch in some distant data centre, the global ability to discover this – and hence its appetite for it – can be dialled up or down. Fluctuating, unpredictable traffic is not good news for a website, especially when those fluctuations have no obvious correlation with the quality and quantity of the output. It becomes a sort of death spiral, with sites that fall out of the spotlight in danger of falling by the wayside, withering and dying when their content is unwittingly overlooked.

What exactly is 'good content'? It would be the work of a moment to ask an AI to conjure up some fantastical imagery for this piece, but it still feels like a form of cheating and certainly nothing that could be described as 'good'. Instead, we’ve chosen imagery from Microsoft and Google, some of which will inevitably have been machine generated. However, just as there should be more to journalism than re-sizing jpgs and pondering likely search terms, ‘creativity’ shaped by prompts still feels awfully lacking. It still takes a lot of human input to make machine-generated output feel in any way clever. Let's hope it's always that way. Compare the video for Pulp’s comeback single, 'Spike Island', which cleverly plays on AI’s default uncanny awkwardness (so Jarvis). Contrast it with this trailer for 'Giraffes on Horseback Salad', an AI-driven interpretation using Google’s new Veo 2 generative video model of Salvador Dalí’s unrealised 1937 film script. It should be a good match, no? No.

As of this week, you can ask Veo 2 to create eight-second snippets of an imaginary action movie, pseudo-Pixar animation or psychedelic imagery. There’s also Whisk Animate, one of Google’s many open experiments, which adds the ability to tune your ‘film’ with imagery as well as text. Of course, this is invariably quite entertaining. However, the knowledge that somewhere, your trivial prompts are consuming vast amounts of energy to create something so fundamentally without value quickly takes the edge off the fun.

Google is (unsurprisingly) cagey about how much energy all this consumes, although it admits that dealing with video is much more data- and processing-intensive than working with stills. When we asked Gemini what Google’s goals were for AI, it (she?) replied that the company wanted ‘to develop artificial intelligence that fundamentally enhances humanity's ability to access, understand, and utilise information, leading to breakthroughs that solve major world problems and create profoundly helpful tools and experiences for everyone, developed and deployed responsibly’.

Noble words, even if they were spoken by a machine trained on millions of corporate PowerPoint decks. When you next ask yourself what AI can do for you, consider the contradictions of an industry that pushes brave new approaches to content creation with one hand and blanks traditional creators with the other. Google and Microsoft both want their AI to be all things to all people, seemingly not happy until their customer base is fractured to the point that everyone has become some form of creator. Wherever you hope or fear AI goes next, be wary of accepting its unsolicited offers of help.

Gemini.Google, @GoogleGemini

Copilot.Microsoft.com, MicrosoftCopilot

Google today debuts its latest mid-tier smartphone, the Pixel 9a. Following a well-established strategy of releasing ‘a’-branded models eight months or so after the release of top tier phones. Autumn 2024 saw the arrival of the current flagship Pixel 9 series, so naturally enough we now have the Pixel 9a to replace the Pixel 8a.

Enough of big tech logistics. At this stage and price point, a new phone drop is just as much about colours and finishes as it is about specification and raw power. Those in the market for Google’s ‘a’ branded phones are not early adopters, nor do they care hugely about having the ‘very best’ in terms of imaging or AI tech. Suffice to say, they trust Google enough to ensure that the feature set and ethos of the flagship trickles down sufficiently to make the 9a an excellent all-rounder.

That certainly seems to be the case. Google is still pushing hard on its Gemini AI, a multi-billion-dollar investment in a technology that is still searching for a killer app that transcends the novelty of a smarter search and easy photo editing. The Pixel 9a can tap into all the latest upgrades of the Gemini model, including the new Gemini Live service that uses video to take in scene data and process it accordingly.

Features like this are increasingly blending into the mainstream and become a part and parcel of how we interact with search. Gemini Live’s ability to parse and converse in natural-sounding language is one of the technology’s strongest points, yet these AI-driven interactions still feel like an obfuscating layer that’s draped over physical reality. Can it ever really be trusted?

Infinitely more tangible are the Pixel 9a’s physical characteristics. Solidly built, with a tried and tested camera module that includes both 48 MP main and 13 MP ultrawide cameras, along with new Macro Focus and Astrophotography modes, the 9a will make an excellent photographic companion. Battery life has also been improved, with that crucial crutch of day-length longevity that should dispel any charge anxiety. There's 8GB of RAM and a choice between 128GB and 256GB of storage.

Posterity will have to decide on the merits or otherwise of Google’s suite of photo-editing tools. They range from the relatively benign (cropping, re-framing, even expanding the edge of the image) to the all-in AI-driven slopscape opened up by Pixel Studio, where you can conjure up fantastical imagery out of a sketch or a prompt. Additional lures include a three-month sub to Google One cloud storage and ad-free YouTube premium, along with a six-month subscription to Fitbit Premium content.

Our perennial gripe about modern smartphones – that the tactile delight of their all-metal and glass construction and fine, jewel-like buttons, curves and edges are all subsumed beneath the essential requirement of a robust case. The ‘camera bump’ on the 9a is smoother and less prominent than on its pricier siblings, and there’s also greater emphasis on recycled plastic and aluminium which make up nearly a quarter of the phone’s entire mass.

Durability of another kind is ensured through a guaranteed seven years of what Google calls ‘Pixel Drops’ – software and security updates that’ll keep this phone current well into the 2030s (providing you don’t do a Pixel drop of your own). Finally, those all-important new colour ways, Iris, Peony, Porcelain and Obsidian, go some way towards stripping away the tech bro aesthetic of modern devices in favour of something softer and less in your face.

All in all, Pixel 9a is yet another tread on the slippery stair to Google’s conquest of everything. If that’s a journey you’re inescapably yoked to, then the 9a is a welcome companion, an unpretentious, affordable device that deserves a place on everyone’s shortlist.

Google Pixel 9a, from £499, Store.Google.com

Google today debuts its latest mid-tier smartphone, the Pixel 9a. Following a well-established strategy of releasing ‘a’-branded models eight months or so after the release of top tier phones. Autumn 2024 saw the arrival of the current flagship Pixel 9 series, so naturally enough we now have the Pixel 9a to replace the Pixel 8a.

Enough of big tech logistics. At this stage and price point, a new phone drop is just as much about colours and finishes as it is about specification and raw power. Those in the market for Google’s ‘a’ branded phones are not early adopters, nor do they care hugely about having the ‘very best’ in terms of imaging or AI tech. Suffice to say, they trust Google enough to ensure that the feature set and ethos of the flagship trickles down sufficiently to make the 9a an excellent all-rounder.

That certainly seems to be the case. Google is still pushing hard on its Gemini AI, a multi-billion-dollar investment in a technology that is still searching for a killer app that transcends the novelty of a smarter search and easy photo editing. The Pixel 9a can tap into all the latest upgrades of the Gemini model, including the new Gemini Live service that uses video to take in scene data and process it accordingly.

Features like this are increasingly blending into the mainstream and become a part and parcel of how we interact with search. Gemini Live’s ability to parse and converse in natural-sounding language is one of the technology’s strongest points, yet these AI-driven interactions still feel like an obfuscating layer that’s draped over physical reality. Can it ever really be trusted?

Infinitely more tangible are the Pixel 9a’s physical characteristics. Solidly built, with a tried and tested camera module that includes both 48 MP main and 13 MP ultrawide cameras, along with new Macro Focus and Astrophotography modes, the 9a will make an excellent photographic companion. Battery life has also been improved, with that crucial crutch of day-length longevity that should dispel any charge anxiety. There's 8GB of RAM and a choice between 128GB and 256GB of storage.

Posterity will have to decide on the merits or otherwise of Google’s suite of photo-editing tools. They range from the relatively benign (cropping, re-framing, even expanding the edge of the image) to the all-in AI-driven slopscape opened up by Pixel Studio, where you can conjure up fantastical imagery out of a sketch or a prompt. Additional lures include a three-month sub to Google One cloud storage and ad-free YouTube premium, along with a six-month subscription to Fitbit Premium content.

Our perennial gripe about modern smartphones – that the tactile delight of their all-metal and glass construction and fine, jewel-like buttons, curves and edges are all subsumed beneath the essential requirement of a robust case. The ‘camera bump’ on the 9a is smoother and less prominent than on its pricier siblings, and there’s also greater emphasis on recycled plastic and aluminium which make up nearly a quarter of the phone’s entire mass.

Durability of another kind is ensured through a guaranteed seven years of what Google calls ‘Pixel Drops’ – software and security updates that’ll keep this phone current well into the 2030s (providing you don’t do a Pixel drop of your own). Finally, those all-important new colour ways, Iris, Peony, Porcelain and Obsidian, go some way towards stripping away the tech bro aesthetic of modern devices in favour of something softer and less in your face.

All in all, Pixel 9a is yet another tread on the slippery stair to Google’s conquest of everything. If that’s a journey you’re inescapably yoked to, then the 9a is a welcome companion, an unpretentious, affordable device that deserves a place on everyone’s shortlist.

Google Pixel 9a, from £499, Store.Google.com

Google’s installation at Milan Design Week 2025 promises an immersive spectacle. Following on from 2024’s Making Sense of Colour, Making the Invisible Visible will feature dynamically re-shaped columns of light set within the Garage 21 event space. The installation is the work of artist Lachlan Turczan, the second time he has collaborated with Google’s Ivy Ross, following 2023’s The Shape of Water.

‘We always start from a point of inspiration, something which isn’t always obvious for a tech company,’ Ross explains, ‘and of course this inspiration is completely invisible to consumers.’ Making the Invisible Visible attempts to put a shape to that intangible relationship between creativity, form, the ephemeral and the real world. ‘It’s about turning an abstract idea – ‘light into something’ – into a physical shape,’ Ross says.

Ross crossed paths with Turczan’s work as part of her research into cymatics, the study of sound, vibration and shape. ‘I’ve been studying sound and vibrations for 40 years,’ she says, explaining how this research gives rise to form like the Pixel watch, with its case and face shaped like a water droplet. ‘I was sent a clip of Lachlan’s work at the Rhode Island School of Design,’ she recalls, ‘so I reach out to him. I’m not sure if he believed that a Google executive was contacting him.’

That began a relationship that first bore fruit at Salone in 2023. ‘He’s a very curious person, as am I,’ Ross continues, ‘we connected over that. He’s an artist who needs to execute his ideas with precision.’ For Ross and her team, who are working two to three years ahead of what’s currently on sale, the idea of an installation that captured the creative process was a way to share the process.

‘The fun of these exhibitions is to share some insight as to how we do what we do,’ she continues, ‘for example, using laser light to scan ears in order to shape our earbuds.’ New to the Google hardware line-up is a new thermostat design, a simple form factor that reveals more information as you come closer to it. ‘It’s a bit of magic,’ Ross says.

Capturing this relationship between the fleeting moment and physical form, as well as the impact and influence of humans on the natural world, is the subject of Making the Invisible Visible. ‘We’ve spent the last nine months trying to create sculptures that present light as a physical object, something that can be touched,’ says Lachlan Turczan, ‘we’re taking light and making feel like a solid object.’

To achieve this, Turczan and his team have created a series of custom optics that can project light in a very focused way, controlling the beam so that it doesn’t spread or scatter or diffuse. ‘Imagine a tube of light six feet in diameter and ten feet tall that delineates the space,’ the artist says, ‘we’re trying to imbue light with the characteristic of an object.’

Throughout his career, Turczan has used light to shape and alter spaces, both natural and artificial, documenting the process of these fleeting transformations, often using water to further manipulate the light. ‘My work often starts with an interesting in light and how it can be change. It’s a reaction to the over-digitisation of light,’ he explains, ‘I’ve always been really into a more organic way of working with light – this informed my use of water as a way of shaping and perceiving it.’

Describing his process as ‘allowing technology to interface with nature in different ways,’ Turczan uses a mix of custom-built technology and off-the-shelf theatrical components to build his installations, taking kit like concert-grade projectors out into the natural world.

At Garage 21, Turczan’s installation for Google takes this ethos into the gallery setting. ‘We’ve basically distilled our landscape practice into an installation,’ he says, ‘I like the idea of art existing in a public square.’ It’s a very different proposition creating a piece for a controlled black box environment versus the ever-changing light and weather conditions of the natural world. Indoors, a theatre-grade vaporiser creates a haze of water droplets to highlight the beams and better shape the space.

To achieve the final result, Turczan has once again turned to Google’s Ivy Ross and her team. Ross, the company’s Chief Design Officer of Consumer Devices, selected the artist’s work for the 2023 installation, and wanted to take it further. ‘Her support has been instrumental to my practice,’ he says, ‘she encouraged taking it into a gallery space with a heightened, more concentrated look.’

For Turczan, the opportunity to control the entire environment over a period of several days rather than document an ephemeral moment gives him a chance to see people react with his work in real time. ‘It takes on a whole new lift of its own,’ he says, ‘there are always surprises along the way. Everyone wants to reach out and touch the light, which is a small victory.’

The exhibition in Milan includes a section on Google’s hardware evolution, tracing the development of the new thermostat and how its form factor was arrived at, shaped by concerns for material, usability, interaction, technology and the environment. It’s joined by a display of Google’s entire hardware portfolio.

Just as Turczan manifests light into form, are we getting closer to the point where hardware itself dissolves into nothing? ‘When I started, we all had this vision of physical technology going away completely,’ Ross admits, ‘but what we have to ask is ‘what serves us?’.’ Citing the way the new thermostat blends into the background and only becomes apparent when you need it, Ross believes that the future will hold a mix of physical and intangible. The job becomes finding the most beautiful way of blending in.’

‘I’m the orchestra conductor for this incredible team of designers,’ Ross concludes, ‘we’re craftsmen. We all hope the sensorial nature of life doesn’t go away. As humans, ‘we’re always going to crave the tactile and the textural. As long as consumers still want that, there’ll aways be a resonance in craft and the appreciate of physical objects.’

Making the Invisible Visible, Lachlan Turczan, April 7 through 13, 2025, at Garage 21, Via Archimede, 26, 20129 Milano

LachlanTurczan.com, @LachlanTurczan, Design.Google

The audio realm remains divided, with the convenience of streaming continuing to trump all over formats. That hasn’t stopped a steady progression of new devices aimed at adherents to old-school vinyl, CD and even cassette. In the world of speakers, bigger isn’t always better, but the most significant systems this year were about sculpture and form, not just their sonic signature. Read on to discover our ten favourite audio stories from 2024.

01. Brian Eno's Turntable II

Art or entertainment, or a mash-up of the two? Brian Eno’s Turntable II explored the realm of ambient light, with the newest version of the legendary producer, musician and artist’s on show at the Paul Stolper Gallery.

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02. Revo SuperCD music system

It might not have the raw artistry of an Eno deck, but Revo’s ultra-functional SuperCD system made up for it in terms of function and joined the CD player revival. A simple wooden box that contains multitudes, it was the most convenient all-in-one device we saw all year.

READ MORE

03. Ruark R610 music console

Ruark continues to forge a path as a purveyor of both high-quality craft and high-end sound. Its newest console, the R610, condensed its warm, familiar approach into a neat table-top or shelf-based system.

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04. Goldmund Pulp speakers

Designer Cécile Barani has paired with audio specialist Goldmund on several projects, including these compact Pulp speakers. We also admired her take on the Swiss manufacturer’s monumental Gaia speakers.

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05. Nocs Monolith Aluminium speaker

Along with Transparent’s mighty Brutalist Speaker we had this architectural heavyweight, the Nocs Monolith Aluminium. For the music-loving minimalist.

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06. Tom Fereday Cast Loudspeaker

Another foray into the art of extreme speaker design, industrial designer Tom Fereday paired with Tasmanian speaker maker Pitt & Giblin to create Cast, a mighty metal object that celebrates sound and material.

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07. Fiio CP13 cassette player

High quality cassette players, especially portable ones, are still thin on the ground – advocates of analogue tape reckon the second-hand and refurb market is a much better bet for true fidelity. Still, new Fiio’s CP13 showed there was still life in the 60-year-old cassette format.

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08. Beats Pill Bluetooth speaker

The Pill is mass-market sound design done well. We spoke to Apple’s Oliver Schusser about the speaker brand’s latest model.

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09. Bang & Olufsen Beosystem 9000c music system

B&O continued to bang the drum for sustainable tech design with devices like the Beoplay H100 headphones. It also delved into its archive to create the 9000c, a stacking CD system that’s been reborn for the modern age.

READ MORE

10. Google Pixel Buds Pro 2

Finally, a recommendation for one of the year’s most dependable accessories, Google’s Pixel Buds. Now available in Pro 2 spec, they’re the in-ear choice for those who want to feel at one with their increasingly smart device.

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Should you switch to a folding phone? Google’s annual deluge of new product – the ninth iteration of its Pixel phone series – marks the arrival of a better, more sorted Pixel Fold. At the same time, the standard Pixel line-up has also expanded, with a new Pixel 9 Pro XL taking the top slot.

We’ve road-tested both the regular Pixel 9 Pro and the Pixel 9 Pro Fold. The latter is a definite step on from the original Google Pixel Fold, even if it shares that device’s extremely high price. It’s thinner, lighter, longer-lasting and now comes with Google’s much-vaunted AI assistance, an integral part of this current generation of Pixel phones (and watch and earbuds).

Google Pixel 9 Pro Fold vs Pixel 9 Pro: which is right for you?

Despite the epic internal screen, the new Fold is only a smidgen thicker that the Pixel 9 Pro and a few millimetres wider, an impressive feat of miniaturisation. As before, the hinged screen is the weak point; anecdotal evidence regarding the previous generation suggested it was marginally more delicate than a regular smartphone and that any failures were more catastrophic. It is theoretically repairable, nevertheless, with industry leader iFixit offering a comprehensive set of parts and instructions for its predecessor, so expect new guides soon.

The Fold certainly spoils you – once you've used one for a bit, it's hard to go back to a ‘regular’ screen, especially for watching videos and editing photographs. Pair it with a compact Bluetooth keyboard and you have an ultra-compact, albeit pricey laptop. You can even angle the screen to 90 degrees and expand a keyboard across the lower half, creating an even tinier laptop substitute.

A folding smartphone can effectively be used just like a regular device most of the time: the party-trick screen expansion only needs to come out when it's absolutely necessary, not just as an embarrassing flex. Indeed, the vast majority of people won't even notice that you’re using a folding phone, as the design is so well integrated, with its smart and sturdy steel hinge. Unless you're a perennial show-off, they can stay in the dark.

If the added functionality and scale feels completely superfluous, how does the new Google Pixel 9 Pro stack up in comparison? As mentioned, the Pixel range has grown somewhat with the introduction of another size, the Pixel 9 Pro XL, which becomes the top tier (non-folding device). With a 6.8in screen, the 9 Pro XL is bigger than the old Pixel 8 Pro (6.7in) – the new Pixel 9 Pro is now shrunk down to a 6.3in screen. This is the same size as the new entry-level Pixel 9, which lacks some of the features and camera functions of the Pro models.

We road-tested the Pixel 9 Pro, and although the size deflation was initially a bit jarring after the relentless but subtle year-on-year growth of smartphones, it’s actually quite refreshing to take a physical downgrade. Nothing else about this phone is a step down, however, apart from the battery size (the Pixel 9 Pro XL has a 5060mAh battery, equivalent to the old Pixel 8 Pro, whereas the smaller Pixel 9 Pro makes do with a 4700mAh battery). Box-fresh phones have box-fresh batteries, and it’s only six-to-eight months down the line that you start paying attention to battery life.

The big question is whether the combination of a new chip (Google’s own Tensor G4) and a massively increased reliance on power-hungry AI computing will sap the battery at a faster rate than ever before. Naturally, this depends on how much you wish to rely on the powers of Gemini. Google wants you to go all-in, having spent the past 18 months or so preparing the market for Gemini’s capabilities as a smart digital assistant that replaces a traditional search engine.

‘Our ultimate goal [is to make] AI helpful for everyone,’ the company claims and in the short term the benefits are placed squarely on photography, more of which later. However, Gemini also operates as an overlay on regular apps (with permission), adding a layer of automated suggestions and search functions. All new Pixel Pros also come with 12 months of Gemini Advanced, a subscription-only service that adds more depth and breadth to the responses, together with Gemini Live.

Consider the latter as a search engine you talk to, with excellent voice recognition and the ability to splice together several different strands of information in a coherent, conversational way. Apart from a few superficial chats about the weather, and asking it to do a couple of sums, we’ve barely scratched the surface of what Gemini can do. Google clearly believes the current strain of AI is most valuable in assistant form, rather than as a content generator.

With that in mind, both devices also give you Pixel Studio, Google’s AI-powered image creation app, now with the newest Imagen 3 engine. Google’s generative AI came under fire earlier in the year when it was found to be an enthusiastic creator of various offensive images, thanks to some malicious prompters.

You’re either an enthusiastic fan of generative AI or consider it to be a mortal enemy of creation; in our experience, it’s a novelty experience that swiftly tips into banality. Proponents claim that the tech is improving all the time, but to what end? We asked Pixel Studio to ‘show me an accurate image of a Google Pixel 9 Pro Fold smartphone open on a desktop’, and this is what we got (below). The lack of self-awareness is surprising and also a little bit concerning.

The Pixel range is now broader than ever, with a flagship device that might just change the way you use your mobile. It’s still a very intentional experience opening up a folding phone, more akin to getting a laptop out and doing some serious work rather than just noodling about on a handset. If that appeals, then consider the Google Pixel 9 Fold Pro as your new pocketable powerhouse. If straightforward smartphone use is more your thing, then the new Pixel 9 Pro is the best new phone around.

Google Pixel 9 Pro 128 GB, £999, Store.Google.com

Google Pixel 9 Pro Fold 256 GB, £1,749, Store.Google.com

With the launch of the Google Pixel Buds Pro 2, earbuds just took a step forward in capability. Google is busy integrated its Gemini AI assistant into every device it builds – as seen in the new Google Pixel 9 family – and the new generation Pixel Buds Pro 2 are the company’s first AI-enabled earbuds. If you’re not after an in-ear companion to help you out with spoken queries, we’ve rounded up an elegant selection of recent releases in this highly competitive sector.

8 of the best new earbuds, Google Pixel Buds Pro 2 and beyond

Google Pixel Buds Pro 2

Google describes its newly released Pixel Buds Pro 2 as ‘an intelligent audio interface.’ Incorporating Google’s Gemini AI assistant, the company claims you can quiz the system simply by speaking normally, getting info and answers back in real time. Not only that, these latest Pixel Buds also have an 8 hour battery life (30 hours when paired with a fully charged case) and have a more sophisticated noise cancelling system.

Other innovations include being able to tap into Google’s Find My Device network and Conversation Detection, which works out when you’re talking and mutes the volume accordingly. All this is powered by the Tensor A1 chip, Google’s first bespoke Tensor chip designed for earbuds.

Google Pixel Buds Pro 2, £219, Store.Google.com

Audio-Technica ATH-CKS30TW+

Deep, deep bass in the name of the game for Audio-Technica’s new ATH-CKS30TW+ earbuds. These affordable in-ear devices incorporate an ultra-low frequency equaliser (accessible via the Connect app), which, when paired with the active noise cancellation, create an immersive and physical bass response.

With a 6.5-hour battery life (17.5 hours in conjunction with the case, and more still without ANC activated), the earbuds also have excellent water and dust resistance. Available in four colours, standard matte black, discreet light beige, lively evergreen, and translucent skeleton black, the ATH-CKS30TW+ can also be used to access Siri and Google Assistant.

Audio-Technica ATH-CKS30TW+, £89, Audio-Technica.com, Amazon.co.uk

Skullcandy Push ANC Active

At the brighter, more affordable end of the market are these new wireless earbuds pitched at the younger and more active generation. Skullcandy might not be to everyone’s taste, but the Push ANC Active incorporate a useful ear hook – essential for anyone who’s managed to lose an earbud whilst hanging off a rockface or bumping down a mountain side.

The larger design means a bigger battery – without using ANC, the earbuds can run for 12 hours in standalone mode and 46 hours in conjunction with the case. The button functions can also be customised.

Skullcandy Push ANC Active True Wireless Earbuds, £89.99, Skullcandy.co.uk, Amazon.co.uk

Shokz OpenFit Air

Another pitch for those in constant motion, SHOKZ OpenFit Air also place the emphasis on comfort and fit. Available in pink, white and black, these are earbuds for fitness fanatics who don't want to feel like they've got anything in their ears with rubberised Shokz Air-Earhook that are the key to the comfortable fit.

Just 10 minutes of charge time will give you two hours of listening, and there's 28 hours of music available in conjunction with a fully charged case.

Shokz OpenFit Air, £119, UK.Shokz.com, Amazon.co.uk

CMF Buds Pro 2

Whilst sister brand Nothing also makes impressive earbuds in the shape of the Ear and Ear (a), CMF somehow manages to pack features and quality into an even more affordable package. These CMF Buds Pro 2 are not only available in a tasteful quartet of hues that extends from case to earbuds themselves, but they incorporate a special Smart Dial on the case. This customisable control can be used to activate the noise cancellation or Voice Assistant, as well as controlling the volume, switch to gaming mode or muting the mic.

Somehow CMF hasn't compromised on audio quality, with Hi-Res Audio Wireless certification and effective noise cancellation. No less than six microphones keep call quality high and there’s even a dedicated Wind-Noise reduction system. Paired with the case, you could be good for up to 43 hours of playback.

CMF Buds Pro 2, £59, CMF.tech, Amazon.co.uk

B&O Atelier Editions series EXs

Devotees of Danish design and high-quality audio need to keep an eye on Bang & Olufsen Atelier Editions site. The most recent drop was a special edition of 200 units of the Beoplay EX wireless earbuds finished in Hazy Blue, ‘inspired by the ethereal hues of a summer’s sky,’ no less. Limited edition colourways are part of the Atelier Editions approach, which currently includes the Beosound Explore Atelier Bluetooth speaker in Blossom Pink with more to come soon.

Bang & Olufsen Atelier Editions, Bang-Olufsen.com

Denon PerL and PerL Pro

These distinctive disc-shaped earbuds have the distinction of being plugged by no less than Katy Perry. That might not be a strong selling point, but Denon’s commitment to design and quality can’t be faulted. The new PerL and PerL Pro (the latter model adds support for lossless audio over Bluetooth and spatial audio) can run for up to 8 hours in standalone mode and also have an useful ‘Social Mode’ to keep you clued in to your surroundings.

Denon PerL and PerL Pro headphones, £189 and £299 respectively, Denon.com

Devialet Gemini II

The second-generation wireless earbuds from high-end French audio specialists Devialet, Gemini II are a luxurious and upgraded. Smaller and lighter than the original Geminis, yet with no loss of performance or endurance, the oval-shaped earbuds now come with a variety of earpiece fittings for greater comfort, with an exterior design that evokes the form of the company’s iconic Phantom music player.

Available in iconic white, matte black or gold, the Gemini II has a full suite of noise cancellation and reduction technologies, with up to 22 hours of listening using the case to recharge.

Devialet Gemini II, £349, Devialet.com

We’re in a meeting room in Google’s current central London HQ, high up on the upper floors of the Renzo Piano-designed Central St Giles complex. Before us on the table is a spread of mobile phones, representing the full design evolution of Google’s dedicated, own brand, in-house Pixel smartphone. These range from the original 2016 device all the way up to the new suite of Pixel 9 phones.

Talking us through this flatscreen smorgasbord is Claude Zellweger, Google’s long-standing head of design. Over the past three years, Zellweger has spearheaded the Pixel design ethos (amongst other things), starting with the ‘new era’ aesthetic that began with 2021’s Pixel 6. In many respects, having this evolutionary journey made explicit is part of the established playbook of smartphone design. These are highly complex devices that evolve in myriad ways, not just in their physical form but through changes in supply chains, legislation, technological advances and shifting customer allegiance.

From Pixel 6 onwards, photography became a Google USP. ‘We invested big time in the optical modules in Pixel 6,’ Zellweger says, pointing out that this marked the debut of the horizontal camera bar across the upper part of the phone back. It’s been a dominant feature, through Pixel 7, the first-generation Pixel Fold to last year’s suite of Pixel 8 products. Now it’s time for another change.

Google Pixel 9 family: what’s new

In Pixel 9, the camera bar becomes a more discreet raised element, evoking a cluster of lenses standing proud from the phone back, complete with rounded edges that give the impression of a more standalone camera system. Zellweger explains how this new camera bar takes visual hints from high-end optical design, including SLRs and other specialist equipment, with finishes that wouldn’t be out of place in watchmaking circles. It also helps to incorporate a bigger optical module. These curves are also carried through into the edges of the phone itself. ‘It looks smaller, and feels better in the hand,’ says Zellweger.

The new Pixel family consists of the Pixel 9, Pixel 9 Pro and Pixel 9 XL, along with the Pixel 9 Pro Fold. At Google’s launch event, the Pixel Watch 3 was also unveiled, now in two dial sizes, alongside a new set of earbuds, the Pixel Buds Pro 2. This annual cycle of shiny new hardware feels somewhat profligate in this straitened era of resource awareness. According to Zellweger, the company is very aware of this. ‘[Pixel 9] is more repairable,’ he says, ‘we try and be ahead of the regulations.’

All aluminium is 100 per cent recycled, and the phones come in completely plastic-free boxes. The company also promises seven years of software updates for all its Pixel devices. Not only are contracts getting longer, but smartphones are getting more durable. In short, one simply doesn’t need to upgrade every year. If not for life, a phone can and should last for many years.

Pixel 8 also marked the debut of a far more intensively AI-driven approach to photography, not just in terms of how the sensors and processors managed light, colour and exposure in the moment, but the ways in which photographs could be enhanced, manipulated and generally messed about with once they were in the phone. Pixel 9 obviously goes further, not just by physically foregrounding the camera itself, but through new lens and new software.

The base Pixel 9 has two camera modules, whilst the 9 Pro and XL have a more sophisticated triple modules. The Pixel 9 Pro and 9 Pro XL can be specified with up to 1 TB of onboard memory, whilst the regular 9 only goes up to 256 GB. In addition, brighter hues are now in the palette, including two different shades of pink, and the overall colour collection is less sober and business-like than before.

The new Fold now takes on the numbering system of its sister smartphones, becoming the Pixel 9 Pro Fold. When the first model came out, Zellweger told us that he ‘believed the form factor of the Pixel Fold is optimised for what Google is great at – productivity and entertainment use’, and not much has changed in terms of intention. This is a flagship device, almost twice the price of an equivalent smartphone, with a vast screen when opened and a Tensor G4 processor that can power through gaming, streaming, photo and video editing, and all the other computationally intensive tasks you might have once relegated to a laptop or desktop.

‘The new Fold is quite different from the first,’ Zellweger says. ‘It’s always been our goal to create a folding phone that looks and feels like a normal phone when it’s closed.’ That means a 6.3in display on the outside, and an 8in display inside, with split-screen modes for working and watching, or video conferencing, or even whilst using the camera. The camera modules are slimmed down, with upgraded sensors and lenses and all the AI abilities of the other Pixel 9s. When folded, it’s just 10.5mm thick.

In the past, smartphone’s sleek sophistication and impenetrable carapace have been hard to reconcile with the idea of repairability. ‘[With Pixel 9] we’re making the right balance of high-end appearance and accessibility,’ Zellweger says, adding that ‘the industry probably went a bit too far in the past’. A partnership with iFixit, fast becoming the go-to supplier for smartphone longevity, bolsters the options to repair a broken screen, for example.

Google’s much-vaunted AI investment also plays a role here, with the physical device you use to access the service becoming less important than the service itself. ‘Phones are really starting to deliver on that promise of a personal assistant,’ says Zellweger, and the AI offering in the Pixel 9 family gets a boost with the offer of a one-year subscription to the Google One AI Premium Plan. Not only does this give you 2TB of cloud storage, but also access to Gemini Advanced, a more sophisticated AI model that can parse documents up to 1,500 pages in length, using up to one million multimodal tokens per query: put simply, each token represents a data point from your input, be it text, images, or video. The more tokens available, the more sophisticated the analysis of the data set.

Google Pixel Watch 3: bigger, better, longer battery life

After all this intensive AI talk, it was a relief to explore the almost relaxing ambience of the new Pixel Watch 3, now available in both 41mm and 45mm cases for the first time, the latter providing 40 per cent more visible screen. According to Zellweger, the design inspiration was far more natural; the Watch’s smooth surface is inspired by a 3D scan of a water droplet, while the charging case for the Pixel Buds Pro 2 is meant to evoke a pebble or rock smoothed by a river.

Pixel Watch improvements aren’t limited to the scale change. The bigger watch also has a bigger battery (35 per cent) and advances in software, including an ‘Auto Bedtime Mode’, give a longer battery life and faster charging. Wear OS5, the most recent version of Google’s wearable operating system, includes more integration with the fitness and sensor capabilities, leaning into Google’s 2021 acquisition of Fitbit.

Keen runners can build workouts within the app, set daily targets and deal with all sorts of aspects of wellbeing, from stress levels to cardio load. The company calls all this ‘glanceable helpfulness’, although the jury is out as to whether smart watches distract from the distraction of the phone or simply exacerbate it.

We’ll report back on the day-to-day experience of using the Pixel 9 Pro and Pixel 9 Fold in due course.

Google Pixel 9 128 GB, £799, Pixel 9 Pro 128 GB, £999, Pixel 9 XL 128 GB, £1,099

Google Pixel 9 Pro Fold 256 GB, £1,749

Google Pixel Watch 3 Wifi, £349, Pixel Watch 3 XL LTE, £399

Google Pixel Buds Pro 2, £219

All available from Store.Google.com

Folding devices might not have made the mainstream, but they represent the cutting-edge of smartphone design. We check out Samsung and Motorola’s latest offerings as well as the newest photography-focused phone from Honor

Motorola razr 50 and Motorola razr 50 ultra

Motorola’s new razr 50 is, unsurprisingly, a successor to the Motorola razr 4, a firm folding favourite in a world still dominated by conventional rectangular smartphones. Motorola’s flip approach is all about ensuring the external screen is big enough to be usable when the device is shut. With the new 50 ultra, that external 4in display now covers the whole surface of the closed phone, and apps that can use this space include Google’s Gemini AI-powered search and Google Photos.

Dull colours are also out: motorola razr 50 ultra comes in Midnight Blue, Spring Green, Hot Pink and Peach Fuzz (the Pantone Colour of the Year 2024, so we’re told), while the smaller-screened razr 50 comes in Spritz Orange, Koala Grey and Beach Sand. The main display is a sizeable 6.9in pOLED screen, and the phones can be angled in a number of different ways for video calling, photography, etc.

The razr family both ship with a 50MP main camera, with added AI-powered computational photography elements in the ultra model. Finally, the company is also getting into the GPS gag market, with the announcement of a new ‘moto tag’, similar in function to Apple’s AirTag system.

Motorola’s AI-powered push includes a free three-month subscription to Gemini Advanced, as well as 2TB of cloud storage, effectively tying the razr family ever closer into the wider Google ecosystem. Both devices, the razr 50 and razr 50 ultra come with a pair of wireless moto buds earbuds.

Motorola razr 50, £799 (includes Motobuds+), Motorola.co.uk
Motorola razr 50 ultra, £999 (includes Motobuds+), Motorola.co.uk

Samsung Galaxy Z Fold6 and Z Flip6

Samsung also gets aboard the AI train with its new Galaxy Z Fold6 and Z Flip6, the latest evolution of a long-running series of folding screen devices. Samsung was very early into this market and suffered teething troubles as a result, but it’s now ironed out the issues that plagued early folding devices to come up with two of the sleekest smartphones on the market.

First up is the full size Galaxy Z Fold6, which somehow manages to cram two screens and a high-end camera into a device that’s just 5.6mm wide. Samsung has its own AI system to shill, Galaxy AI, and it makes much of the ‘circle to search’ functionality on the Z Fold6’s main 7.6in screen – you can also use the S Pen to highlight a word or image you want to search. All the functionality is also available on the 6.3in external screen.

Other innovations include Note Assist, which is an AI-driven transcription and summary service, and the rather more dubious Chat Assist (‘Need to write something in a hurry? Just type a few keywords to achieve full productivity.’). The time-crunched and productivity-poor can also indulge in Browsing Assists’ ability to summarise websites ‘in a flash’.

Skip over the questionable benefits of AI-driven chats, summaries and synopses and you’ll find some serviceable tools in the photography section, as well as a useful Interpreter function that can translate a number of languages on the spot. A new Snapdragon processor ramps up the CPU and GPU performance whilst extending the battery life to up 23 hours of video on a single charge.

If that pocket behemoth is too much, then the Z Flip6 might be a more suitable scale. Samsung’s pocketable flip phone is the only real competitor to the razr series, with the added benefit of Samsung’s AI-focus and easy pairing with the Galaxy Watch7 and Galaxy Watch Ultra.

In addition to the above, the company has also just unveiled Olympic editions of the Z Flip6, a special edition that’s been ‘exclusively designed and customised for all athletes competing at the Olympic and Paralympic Games Paris 2024’. Collectors and completists who haven’t made it to Paris might want to track down an example of these elegantly gold-etched phones with their bespoke graphics and presentation cases.

Samsung Galaxy Z Fold6, £1,799, Samsung.com
Samsung Z Flip6, £1,049, Samsung.com

Honor 200 Pro

Portraiture is the new hotness according to Honor, which has gone all out with the camera features of the flagship Honor 200 Pro. This has involved a tie-in with Sony, which supplies the sensor for the 50MP main camera, the results of which are displayed on a large 6.7in AMOLED ‘quad-curved’ display. The latter refers to the gently curved edges of the screen, which evoke the form of the early Samsung Galaxy phones.

In addition to the main portrait camera there’s also a 50MP Telephoto camera with 2.5x optical zoom and up to 50x digital zoom, and a 12MP Ultra Wide and Macro camera. The front-mounted selfie camera is also 50MP and the company has teamed up with Parisian photography house Studio Harcourt to conjure up some special lighting algorithms that evoke the golden age of portraiture.

Honor 200 Pro, £699.99, Honor.com

Is consumer-grade AI a solution in search of a problem? Take Google’s Gemini. The latest iteration of its public-facing AI tech, Gemini was originally known as Bard when launched back in February 2023. Since then, the chatbot has been constantly upgraded and reiterated, and is now available as a free app or web interface that you can use to supplement or replace regular Google search.

So what should we do with AI? In a very real sense, this is down to you. We spoke to Google’s Serge Lachapelle, a Director of Product for Google Workspace. The French-Canadian software engineer has been based in Stockholm since the 90s, lured by its pioneering high-speed internet. In 2007, Lachapelle was one of the founding members of the Google Sweden Engineering office, when the company acquired his video conferencing firm Marratech AB.

Integral to the development of products like Google Meet, Lachapelle now works for Google’s Outbound Product team, ‘liaising with Google’s most important customers and partners.’ This makes him well placed to talk about the ways in which Google’s pivot to AI-powered search and data management will evolve. ‘What has happened in the past 18 months to make AI so important?’ Lachapelle asks rhetorically, before answering that ‘computers can now understand us for the first time. We can create truly collaborative software experiences. We’re going from telling systems what to do to using them on a journey, for example.’

By way of illustration, Lachapelle uses Gemini to augment and supplement a hand-written packing list for a hypothetical family holiday. After photographing the list with his Google Pixel, Gemini decodes his handwriting and generates a neat list of things to bring, supplementing what is already there with suggestions for extra items based on the initial prompt (which specified a young family taking a few days’ holiday). ‘We’re trying to highlight the type of services we can offer,’ Lachapelle says, adding that ‘we’re at the very, very beginning’ of what AI-powered chatbots like Gemini can do.

In some respects, Google is playing catch-up, having been caught on the hoof by ChatGPT’s rapid rise to global prominence at the turn of the decade. Microsoft and Apple have also gone all-in on AI, but each company’s approach seems to reflect its pre-existing values and aspirations. Apple is doubling down on privacy, for example, while Microsoft seems to think that AI equates to a form of creative hand holding. Google, however, is all about delivering answers.

The packing list is a case in point, with the software effectively combining handwriting recognition with pre-existing online context-specific content like other people’s packing lists and travel recommendations, parenting blogs and trending products, with the result packaged up in a friendly list format. Interestingly, Lachapelle prefaced his prompt with the words ‘You are an amazing assistant,’ both prepping the AI for the type of response required – a helpful list of suggestions – and perhaps also an unconscious deference to the power of this unseen ‘ghost in the machine’.

The ins and outs of AI are largely impenetrable to the layperson and it’s impossible not to be slightly sceptical about the way in which the tech giants are operating. ‘Innovations’ are announced, then lightly walked back in the face of concerns about privacy, security and intellectual property. All the while, our smartphones are getting smarter and AI content is becoming unavoidable.

Lachapelle certainly has faith in the machine. ‘We’re asking Gemini to fetch some information from another app,’ he explains, as he experiments with getting the AI to retrieve travel itineraries for this hypothetical trip from Google Maps, parcelling everything up together in an easy-to-digest, clickable document. Remarkably, the Google engineer had never explored this functionality before, all made available by the heavy computational lifting being done behind the scenes.

‘Before 2017-18 this wasn’t possible,’ Lachapelle admits, ‘It works because of the ‘transformers’, code that mediates the infinitely available possibilities and limits the responses you get back.’ These transformers are part of Google’s Deep Learning Networks, which in turn have evolved out of the first-generation neural networks that could be trained on relatively simple tasks like image recognition or removing background noise from a video call.

And all this is available from your existing devices as AI is increasingly baked into our everyday technology. Thus far, attempts to squeeze AI into dedicated hardware have failed – the ill-fated Rabbit R1 and Humane’s AI pin, haven’t (yet) lived up to their billing. Instead, we’re reverting to the devices we already have on hand, our smartphones, tablets and laptops.

Google wants us to think Gemini as a benign assistant, a form of passive but proactive helper that works quiet magic in the background. ‘I used to think that cloud computing and mobiles, etc., would make us more productive, but they’ve just made us busier and busier,’ Lachapelle admits, ‘But I do believe this technology will give us back some space.’

But at what cost? The less than palatable truth is that AI's rampant energy consumption doesn't yet equate to the amount of time and effort it saves. At consumer level, where AI is being used for auto-generating shopping lists, itineraries and summaries, or even conjuring up novelty images (not in Gemini’s wheelhouse just yet), it’s hard to square the computational crunching required with the results.

Even when AI is scaled up to solve important logistical issues for companies and organisations, the energy demands will follow. A recent report showed that Google’s greenhouse gas emissions have increased by nearly 50% in the last five years, almost all down to the energy consumption of new AI-focused data centres. It’s not alone: Microsoft is seeing a similar spike in energy demand around the world.

Google wants Gemini to ‘help supercharge your creativity and productivity,’ but chances are you’ll be using the technology without even realising it within a few years, as the code, transformers, networks and language models blur into existing search functionality. We asked Gemini about AI’s potential pitfalls in an attempt to get an answer from a primary source. ‘AI bias, job losses, privacy risks, and lack of human judgment could lead to unfair, unsafe, and unsettling consequences,’ it replied, choosing to skip over the energy question altogether. Perhaps we should just pack our own suitcases for the time being.

Gemini.Google.com

The Orb, a new pavilion in Google’s Charleston East Campus, mesmerises and captivates. The installation, conceived as an ‘anchoring artwork’ for the tech giant, began life as an international, open competition for architects and artists organised by Burning Man on behalf of Google. The result, selected out of 45 semi-finalist proposals during a six-month process including a public vote, is set at the entrance of the company’s Mountain View, California complex. Designed by New York computational design experts The Very Many, led by founder and architect Marc Fournes, it elegantly marks the point where public and private space intersect.

'The Orb', Google HQ pavilion by The Very Many, USA

Standing tall and dramatic in its twisting, organic shapes that span 10m in height, the piece is made out of an ultra-thin, self-supported, aluminium shell structure in a crisp white hue. Its folds and myriad of tiny perforations create an intricate play of light and shadow. The ‘puzzle structure’s’ slender pieces were laser cut and powder coated in Europe and shipped to California during the pandemic – a logistical challenge in itself, Fournes points out.

Sat comfortably in the open plaza, the structure is meant as a moment of ‘productive distraction.’ ‘Underneath the airy and acrobatic minimal surface of The Orb, we carve out a moment of shade, where you can slow down even as you remain connected. Inside, the riveted surface and non-linear environment beckons attention and distracts you from your devices,’ the architect explained. ‘We call it “visual wandering” -- the journey your eye takes to understand an unfamiliar space. It’s our meditative challenge to the viewer, to figure out how it comes together, to see the continuities across parts, and to discover new details while finding unique perspectives each time you return.’

The newly unveiled commission was awarded to The Very Many in 2018. It makes the most of Fournes’ extensive experience in computational design, honed at architecture practices such as SOM, Ross Lovegrove and Zaha Hadid Architects, which blurs the boundaries between art and architecture.

theverymany.com

What did we glean from the 2024 edition of Google’s annual I/O conference? Last year, the planet’s dominant technology company upped the ante on AI-generated content and tools, introducing the Magic Editor photography software for its Pixel phones, along with the announcement that it was opening up its Bard AI model to global use. 

Bard has now been supplanted by Gemini and the I/O 2024 conference kicked off with a celebration of the past 12 months of rapid AI evolution, from smart assistants and generative systems of images, words, music and speech, all the way to large language models trained on areas of specificity like coding or medical knowledge.

So what does this mean for consumers? Expect AI to evolve in two distinct ways over the next twelve months. On the one hand, our daily searches are about to become blended with a new kind of AI assistant, a pocket polymath that uses our smartphone cameras as a portal. Google demonstrated Project Astra, a prototype system that uses vision and speech to respond to a series of vastly different questions – solving a code problem, coming up with a pun, finding your glasses.

Other innovations include Ask Photos, a new way of interacting with your own imagery using spoken commands – ‘show me my photographs of rainbows,’ or ‘where did I photograph that red Audi?’, for example. The more information in a data set, the more an AI can glean, and Google announced that the Pro version of Gemini (v1.5) can now sift through one million tokens (the units of data processed) at a time.

At the current rate of development and take-up, this kind of thing will happen seamlessly. Gemini is creeping into Google Workspace and will soon become a valuable part of Gmail. The example use case was a convincing one; imagine being able to ask for a summary of all lesson plans and events for an upcoming school term, a boon for busy parents.

Studies show that most people already use the search bar as if it was an all-knowing oracle, usually asking direct questions rather than strings of related words. Gemini, and the models that will follow, are spookily adept at corralling these queries into digestible packages – meal plans, shopping lists, itineraries, explainers, suggestions. And all this will be personalised, dished out by a well-spoken voice model that knows its way around a database that goes deep into your likes, dislikes, search, location and purchase history, and much, much more besides.

The other path is darker. Generative AI is already a divisive subject in the creative industries, despite it already coming pre-baked into essential tools like Photoshop. Google wisely enlisted a number of artists - Shawna X, Eric Hu, Erik Carter and Haruko Hayakawa – to discuss their use of Imagen 2, a generative model powered by Google DeepMind. Former Nike creative director Eric Hu drew parallels between AI’s ‘disruptive capabilities,’ and movements like the Renaissance and the origins of photography, a grandiose claim.

Google’s StyleDrop generator was then presented as an artistic short-cut, trained by the artists themselves using their work and descriptions. Judge for yourselves as the results can be seen at Google's Infinite Wonderland site (we can’t help but wonder whether instant access to artistic infinity would blow minds or break them). 

Donald Glover’s GILGA agency also popped up to help demonstrate how Google’s Veo technology might work as a form of instant cinematic storyboarding, generating photorealistic video from a simple prompt. ‘At the end of the day, all you really want in art is to make mistakes faster,’ notes Glover, but not everyone has his combination of skill, work ethic and well-trained eyes and ears – expect a whole load of lesser talents to trot our their ‘mistakes’ by the millions. ‘But it’s just play,’ you protest. Go, play, and then consider a world where human creativity and culture has lost almost all of its societal value: MusicFX, TextFX, ImageFX and VideoFX. 

The fear of an AI-driven web degenerating into a synthetic mush of lesser art and untrustworthy information is a very real. We’re in the discovery phase right now, as human creativity scrabbles up the steep slopes of the uncanny valley, with no-one to notice when it loses its grip. Much of the past decade has been about tech titans appearing to wilfully miss the points made by cautionary tales about technology, in comics, books, films and television.

There’s a mildly famous tech meme about this myopia from the turn of the decade, recounted recently in Scientific American. "In my book I invented the Torment Nexus as a cautionary tale,” says a Sci-Fi Author. A few years, a Tech Company announces enthusiastically, “At long last, we have created the Torment Nexus from classic sci-fi novel Don’t Create The Torment Nexus".

It's Google’s world now, and we all have to live in it, adapting our perceptions and expectations to fit what it deems to serve up. Even this article is a form of votive offering, effectively valueless unless the omnipotent algorithm deems it worth of sharing with the world. Google’s stated mission, ‘Organizing the world’s information across every input, making it accessible via any output, and combining the world’s information, with the information in YOUR world, in a way that’s truly useful for you,’ is a task both Sisyphean and irreversible: to pull the plug would be to cast humanity into darkness. AI, in short, means we are all in. 

More information at IO.Google/2024

A new smartphone is usually a good measure of the speed of technological advancements. In the time between the launch of Google’s Pixel 7a as an entry-level model and the arrival of the all-new 8-series Pixel models, the world has gone crazy for AI in all its forms, from photo editing through to the ability to screen unwanted calls. 

At just half the price of the excellent Pixel 8 Pro, does the 8a have everything the casual user needs? First up, Google bills this as a phone for beginners, i.e. young people. At a time when the correlations between smartphone use and age and general wellbeing are being scrutinised more than ever before, it feels a bit disengenous to pitch such a powerful device as the pocket equivalent of training wheels. 

This youth-orientated approach is evidenced by the relatively bold and playful colour set, more distinct and vibrant than the low-key palette of the ‘grown up’ models. Yes, there’s recycled materials, but also a new emphasis on resilience, with a scratch-resistant 6.1” ‘Actua’ display, metal camera housing and water and dust resistance. So far, so good. Like all Pixels (and modern smartphones in general), the 8a feels well weighted and substantial in the hand, only to have this tactility reduced by the addition of the (essential) case.

The on-screen experience has much in common with its pricier siblings, running the latest iteration of Android (14), with the more prominent addition of an in-built AI assistant, Gemini (formerly Bard). In theory, Gemini can be asked to create summaries of long documents or emails, or search items online simply by circling them on the screen. In practice, it’s little more than a glorified version of Google’s already excellent Lens application, which has been baked into Pixels since it debuted in 2017.

AI also underpins the 8a’s photographic skills. The device uses the Google Tensor G3 chip, just like the 8 and 8 Pro, but cuts costs by only having two front-facing cameras, a 64MP Quad PD wide camera and a 13MP ultrawide camera. Pixel cameras are some of the best in the business, combining quality hardware with unrivalled processing power. With excellent low light performance, 4K video from front and rear cameras, and a bunch of proven AI-driven tools like Photo Unblur, Magic Eraser and Best take, the 8a will serve casual photographers, power users and the selfie-obsessed equally well.

A host of security measures, including the Google One VPN and a promised seven years’ worth of software updates and supports, are also baked in, and the phone is available with 8GB RAM and 128 or 256GB of storage. Power users might be put off by the implication that the ‘a’ suffix implies a knocked-down version of Google’s flagship devices. For those unbothered by the smartphone status game, the Pixel 8a is easy to recommend as a straightforward but extremely powerful way to access the omnipotent Google eco-system.

Google Pixel 8a, from £499, Store.Google.com

There’s no denying that colour, like form and texture, inform how we understand our surroundings. It can evoke emotion and, according to the design team at Google, it can also be expressed through sound, taste, smell and touch, as much as visual perception.

The studio is mounting its third interactive exhibition at Milan Design Week 2024, in collaboration with Los Angeles-based art and research lab Chromasonic. The 'Making Sense of Color' installation activates all the senses as visitors move through 21 ethereal spaces delimited by scrim walls with responsive light and audio displays. They eventually reach a series of rooms more tangibly demonstrating how certain tones relate to specific sensations and are harnessed in the brand’s ever-evolving suite of products—phones, tablets and smart home devices.

Google: Making Sense of Color

'Colour resonates with vibrancy, embodying energy,' says Ivy Ross, Vice President of Design, UX, and Research for Hardware Products at Google, 'Color has both biological and psychological influence on us. Right now we are going through a lot of emotion as a society, so understanding the power of these natural forces and its different properties seems as relevant as ever.'

Chromasonic has created well-received immersive light and sound installations—such as Venice, Satellite One space in California—with the aim of promoting wellbeing. Ross and her team chose to collaborate with the practice because of its ability to make colour more experiential and physically engaging. The art and research lab has implemented its proprietary Chromasonic Refrequencing technology.

'Light waves are converted to sound waves and sound waves are converted into light waves in real-time; in essence, making light audible and sound visible,' says Harriet Girardoni, practice co-founder. 'Light and sound travel as one and accentuates our awareness of our presence within it and of others as they pass through, appearing and dissolving within and between the array of the installation's spaces.'

By merging the immateriality of light with the materiality of sound, this formula expands natural perception. Visitors can experience a deeper sense of presence within the synesthetic environment. 'Colour can evoke memory, inspire desire, and captivate us in the moment with a feeling of awe,” adds Johannes Girardoni, Chromasonic co-founder. “We spatialize colour and sound to create shapeshifting experiences of physical space. It is a means of intentional placemaking.'

For many design industry visitors touring an ever-exhausting Milan Design Week and Salone del Mobile furniture fair, Google’s installations offer rest, relaxation and contemplation. 'We do believe this year’s exhibit will provide guests the kind of respite that leaves them feeling both refreshed and revitalised,' Ross concludes. 'We started using the Salone to share our thought leadership in design and what inspires us, we love to create experiences that are presented to the design professional and the general public.'

Making Sense of Colour is on view from 15 to 21 April, during Milan Design Week 2024

Garage 21
via Archimede, 26
20129 Milan

store.google.com
chromasonic.com

With Mobile World Congress just around the corner, the start of the year is when manufacturers hope you’re getting a bit sick of the smartphone in your pocket and are starting to cast around for a replacement. At the same time, legislation and consumer sentiment are skewing towards products that last a little longer with each model cycle; the old emphasis on an annual upgrade is not sustainable, environmentally or economically. 

Early adopters have a lot to answer for, for they fuel the engine of innovation, paying a premium to get the latest technology into their hands. At this point, folding screens are no longer a novelty. However, they’re still very much a minority choice, despite a number of excellent models, from the Google Pixel Fold to Motorola’s Razr. 

This new offering from Honor, the Magic V2, has one genuine first up its sleeve: it’s the thinnest ‘inward folding’ smartphone, just 9.9mm thick. When stowed, this distinction matters a surprising amount, for the slender design is barely bigger than a conventional device, and if you’re just using the 6.43in external screen, it’s easy to overlook the interior screen altogether.

That would be a waste of the V2’s massive potential, of course, for the internal 7.92in display is one of the best we’ve seen on any modern smartphone. When switched off, the central crease is relatively prominent but happily it disappears in use. The tablet-sized device is perfect for editing film or video, composing music or just reading without having to squint.

It’s a great piece of kit, and whether you decide on sharing your digital life with the V2 depends on how handy you’ll find the dual functionality of the folding screen, as well as your propensity for inflicting accidental damage on your devices. Make no mistake, despite extensive durability testing (the titanium hinge should be good for 400,000 folds), folding phones are still way more fragile than the alternative.

Three front-facing cameras include a 50MP Ultra-Wide main camera, 50MP secondary camera as well as a 20MP telephoto camera. The Silk Black and Silk Purple finishes add another layer of distinction, while onboard there’s the latest version of Android. The Magic V2 is an undeniably premium product, so anyone investing in the device will need to make it last.

Honor Magic V2, from £1,699, HiHonor.com

The Google Pixel Watch 2 watch has been unveiled – alongside the new Google Pixel Pro and Pro 8 phones – a year since the tech behemoth made its first foray into the world of wearable devices. The new and improved version of Google’s ergonomically shaped timepiece continues to harness the power and potential of FitBit, which the company acquired in May 2022. Pixel Watch 2 brings together the best of both the Google and FitBit worlds. From personalised health and fitness tracking to new safety and productivity features, the new wellbeing-focused smartwatch is equipped with the most advanced heart-rate tracking, thanks to an all-new multi-path sensor that combines with Google AI, so that sleep tracking, stress management and even personal safety can be assessed to provide more support and insight into one’s daily life. 

Google Pixel Watch 2: new design, wellness and safety features

Pixel Watch 2 is lighter to wear than the previous iteration, and packs in 24 hours’ worth of battery life once fully charged. It charges faster too, with a 12-hour charge in just 30 minutes. 

Featuring an updated design that is focused on improving signal quality, the watch’s sensors use multiple LEDs and photodiodes to measure the wearer’s pulse signal from different angles and positions to provide estimates of a pulse rate. Even during vigorous exercise, heart-rate tracking is highly accurate, allowing Google AI to measure and assess a variety of body responses, be it from physical activity or in a resting state. 

These insights enable Fitbit to learn when your body is responding to potential stress or excitement, so that specific interventions and reflections are prompted, allowing users to monitor and become aware of signs of stress, whether it's from stimulants such as alcohol and caffeine, or illness. When a body response is detected, users receive a prompt to log their current mood and then receive suggestions on how best to mitigate things, such as starting a guided breathing exercise or taking a walk. 

‘You’re getting Google and FitBit experiences that you won’t find on any other smartwatch,’ said FitBit CEO and co-founder James Park during the launch event in New York last week. ‘We’ve updated the design and materials as well. People loved the sleek water-droplet look of the first Pixel Watch. We’ve upgraded our low profile design for Pixel Watch 2 with more durable cover glass and 100 per cent recycled aluminum housing that’s lighter and more comfortable to wear when you’re at play or at rest.’

Other impressive innovations in Pixel Watch 2 are the additions to safety technology to give all users greater peace of mind. Joining the fall detection and Emergency SOS already available in the previous model is Safety Check, which allows individuals to schedule a timer for specific situations where they might want their friends or family to know their whereabouts. After the timer expires, Safety Check will prompt users to confirm they’ve arrived safely, or if they’d like to start sharing their location or contact emergency services. If no response is received, Safety Check will trigger Emergency Sharing, which shares your real-time location and situation with your pre-selected emergency contacts. Medical Info, which can share personal health information with emergency services, like blood type, allergies, or conditions, is another feature designed to make users feel safe.

Pixel Watch 2 has got the looks too, with a host of new colour combinations, such as polished silver and bay blue, silver and porcelain, matte black and obsidian and champagne gold and hazel. They are further complemented by a robust assortment of new slim metal and active sport bands, and digital watch faces, so that each watch can be customised for a night out on the town or to hit the gym.

‘Our new sport design is more breathable. And Pixel Watch 2 uses the same simple band mechanism, so last year’s Pixel Watch bands still work great,’ said Park. ‘You’re getting the same Wear OS 4 experience with new apps like Gmail and Calendar, improvements to YouTube Music, Maps and Google Assistant, and more of the third-party apps you know and love. Pixel Watch 2 is a great companion on any adventure.’

Google Pixel Watch 2, available from store.google.com

Have we reached peak smartphone? The premium brands have had their annual launches – such as the Samsung Galaxy S23 and the Apple iPhone 15 – and offer only incremental improvements on what was available the previous year. Now it’s Google’s turn, with the debut of the Google Pixel 8 and Pixel 8 Pro. 

What’s most notable about the eighth iteration of the company’s flagship Android device is how AI has become much more embedded and present. Google’s AI systems have sneaked their way into search as well as generative systems like text and image generation, not to mention photographic ‘support’. 

Google Pixel 8 Pro and its AI revolution

It’s the last where the Pixel has traditionally excelled, but while the latest version takes fantastic photographs, it feels that the emphasis is shaping the world one sees, rather than displaying it as it is. Apple’s equally impressive photographic capabilities are pitched more at the traditional photographer, someone who will process after the shoot, rather than use the rather cruder tools in the phone itself. iPhones have been able to shoot RAW files for a while, whereas it’s a new option on the Pixel 8 Pro.

A smartphone isn’t a camera, of course, but a very sophisticated image processor. ‘Pro Controls’ aside, both of the Pixel 8 phones have a suite of AI-driven tools that are designed to buff out the rough edges of life. The Pro has four cameras, including a 50 MP main camera, an ultrawide, telephoto and 10.5 MP front camera. Photographic results can be shaped using ‘Best Take’, which blends a burst of similar images to ensure that everyone is smiling, or not blinking. 

There’s also the forthcoming Magic Editor (unavailable at time of review), something Google describe as an ‘experimental editing experience’. This builds on the Magic Eraser tool introduced in the Pixel 7 phones but doesn’t just allow for stray photobombers to be seamlessly and automatically banished. Instead, you can apparently reposition objects within the frame, change an overcast sky to a dramatic sunset and inflict all manner of trickery on even the most casual snapshot. 

It begs the question, what next? This will be an experimental feature, with the computations presumably taking place in the cloud (hence recent warnings about the burgeoning energy consumption of relatively trivial AI applications). Google is prefacing the feature with a warning, acknowledging that ‘… we know there are going to be times when the result isn’t exactly what you imagined’. This conjures up a potential hellscape of twisted AI fingers and unwanted excursions into the uncanny valley, all taking their place in your precious photo folder. 

Also available is a slightly gimmicky AI-generated wallpaper app, which conjures up backdrops based on a set of pre-loaded cues. Promised this week are even more AI-driven features, including Zoom Enhance, which lets you zoom into a photograph and use generative AI to sharpen up the details; a more flexible and powerful Magic Eraser tool, and the introduction of Audio Magic Eraser, which is designed to ‘clean up’ buzzy and blowy video soundtracks. More alarming still is the imminent arrival of Google’s conversational AI model, Bard, which can be used to generate descriptions, social media posts and other potential nuisances. 

The AI feature creep notwithstanding, this is properly premium device, especially the Pro model. A polished aluminium frame and matte back glass support a 6.7in screen, making it a fraction larger than the iPhone 15 Pro Max. If you can face covering this beautifully finished device with a case, then your Pixel 8 will undoubtedly last a while; another quiet advance is the fact that the Pixel 8 comes with seven years of software support, guaranteeing you software and security updates until October 2030. Pixel 7 Pro owners can say goodbye to new software from October 2025. 

This projected longevity brings us back to the first question; have we reached the point where always opting for an annual (or even biannual) update is simply too resource-hungry. It’s true that used phones cascade down through the second-hand marketplace for years, but the Pixel is very far from being a simple device to repair (although Google has promised to keep a stock of spare parts for seven years as well). It’ll be interesting to see how many buyers can hold on to their Pixel into the 2030s. 

The devices ship with the new Android 14 operating system, a stealthy upgrade that makes sure to flatter the required muscle memory and physical interactivity of previous versions so as not to put anyone off. Also new to market is the Google Pixel Watch 2, which majors in bolstered fitness and health tracking, along with better speed and battery life. 

Surprisingly, the Pixel range has a relatively small share of the overall phone market (about 5 per cent), especially given Google’s huge sway and overall control of the Android OS. It is undoubtedly a fantastic device, fast and powerful, and rich with features. However, it also offers the very first interaction with generative AI for huge numbers of people, potentially adding yet another layer of confusion and distraction to an already over-saturated world.  

Google Pixel 8 Pro, from £999, Store.Google.com

For a while, we were on the fence about foldables. The idea of shutting away that all-conquering screen made clamshell-style folding phones slightly more desirable, but phones that expand to twice their regular size? It seems excessive. After a few weeks with the new Google Pixel Fold in our pocket (following our Pixel Fold preview in May 2023), here’s what we discovered about this still niche approach. 

For a while, it’s as if Google had similar misgivings. The Pixel Fold is the company’s first step into this technological minefield, gingerly following behind pioneers like Samsung and Oppo, quietly hoping that its rivals will have taken the hit on crucial elements like endurance and durability. Put simply, the Fold takes the Pixel design language and incorporates it into a three-screen device, 5.8in on the front, and 7.8in when unfolded into a squarish tablet shape. 

Google Pixel Fold: pros and cons

Now we’ve had a chance to live with the Fold for a few weeks, it’s time to weigh up the pros and cons of this new flagship device. In 2023, owning a folding phone still sets you apart. We’ve reported before on the ups and downs of the nascent foldable market, but the fact remains that nearly four years after Samsung took to the plunge and introduced a hinged screen, the consumer take-up for these flagship devices is still a fraction of the billion-plus smartphones sold around the world each year. 

The Google Pixel Fold slots straight in at the top of the company’s hardware charts, a pricey item that’s meant to consolidate your digital life into one pocketable device. So is this a true flagship or still a work in progress? Our time with the Fold suggests it’s a device that reins you back from using its full potential 100 per cent of the time. Remember that the early, early adopters of touchscreen smartphones weren't always keen to whip out their black mirrored devices in public. It took mass adoption before people stopped getting side-eye on public transport for catching up with a box set on their commute. It’s a similar thing with opening up the Fold in public – you feel a little exposed. 

What stops this from being frustrating is the quality of the external 5.8in screen and accompanying camera. In many respects, it’s almost too good, because the Fold is fast enough – and thin enough – to do most on-the-move tasks without flexing the larger screen size. Your screen activity becomes more focused as a result, with the luxury of the unfolded device best suited to downtime, not periods of manic focus. 

There are other benefits to the Fold. For a start, it is its own tripod, propping itself up for selfies, video calls or just watching a video. Half open, it serves as a decent micro-scale laptop, with the keyboard appearing on the bottom screen. Google’s apps have been rejigged to exploit the larger screen and split screen function – dragging and dropping a photo from Google Photos into Gmail, for example. The hardware design is magnificent, with a solidity to the stainless steel hinge mechanism, as well as a remarkable thinness when closed. It snaps satisfyingly shut, even though one is always mindful of the possible fragility of this relatively new technology. 

Pixel fans will be instantly at home. However, there’s no escaping the fact that you can acquire both the excellent Pixel Tablet (currently £599) and the latest iteration of Google’s smartest smartphone, the Pixel 7 Pro (currently £849) for less than the price of the Pixel Fold. If you’re deadly serious about cutting down on screen time, then products like Motorola’s Razr 2022, newly released Motorola Razr 40 and Samsung’s Flip series take the more logical compact clamshell approach to shut distractions away as much as possible. For early adopters who don’t like to compromise, the Google Pixel Fold has much to offer.

Google Pixel Fold, from £1,749, Store.Google.com

Behind the scenes at Google’s design studio with Claude Zellweger, head of Industrial Design for AR and Phones

We spoke to Claude Zellweger, Google’s head of Industrial Design for AR and Phones, about the challenges of getting the Pixel Fold to market. 

Wallpaper*: What was the primary hardware challenge for Google, given that other manufacturers have been making folding devices successfully for several years? 

Claude Zellweger: We know – with Google’s services and capabilities – that we are uniquely positioned to deliver the best foldable experience. Our mission was to remove any friction for users to adopt this new and exciting product category. Historically, foldable devices would get you the benefit of a bigger screen, but with it came a clunky hardware experience. Our primary focus was achieving a size that matches the familiar proportions of a smartphone – we wanted the thinnest foldable on the market, without compromising great build quality. We loved the proportions of passports and used them as a blueprint for our design.

The compact yet rock-solid hinge had to be engineered to provide a satisfying, almost vacuum-like sensation when the device snaps closed. We wanted an element of surprise. The ‘spine’ of the hinge is made of stainless steel – we needed something that ticks both boxes in terms of fluidity and scratch resistance. But also something that looks and feels highly polished. 

W*: How long was the design and development process and how many prototypes were built? 

CZ: The total process was pretty lengthy and much longer than a typical smartphone given its a new category for us – close to five years in total. The hinge design in particular was a long dance between engineers and designers. It took a ton of iterations to get it extremely compact while retaining that satisfying experience when opening and closing the device. Halfway throughout the development we had a working product, but we ultimately decided to hold back as we felt we could do better. We had to make sure our first foldable would exceed market expectations.

W*: How does the expanded screen enhance the Google software experience? 

CZ: Rather than just adapting, we build our experience from the ground up for a large screen. Continuity is a major principle – not lose your place when you transition between postures – close, tabletop, dual screen. We know that people use foldables mostly when they are shut, so it was of course important to ensure that the user experience is seamless when the phone is shut. The ‘delight’ factor kicks in when users open the device, and suddenly they can watch their favourite movies or shows in a widescreen mode, or in tabletop mode.

W* Are there any compromises due to the fold? Conversely, are there any advantages that this format gives you? 

CZ: We wanted to make sure that the Fold had that distinct Pixel look, so we had to have discussions of how and where our camera bar would integrate into the device. Some key advantages of the dual screen include the rear selfie camera mode, which means you no longer have to compromise on quality for selfies with your friends. What’s more, dual interpreter mode (coming soon), will make the translation experience far more sophisticated when travelling. And clearly, who doesn’t love a larger screen when you watch a movie?

W*: Do you think foldable phones are still in a beta phase, much like the first wave of mobile phones in the 1980s? 

CZ: It’s been incredibly interesting to see the increase in demand for foldables in the last few years, and I think that we can only assume that over time the devices will improve and also come down in cost, similar to mobile phones in the 1980s. In terms of utility, we’ve definitely gone past the novelty phase to where we see a sharp rise in users for whom foldables are their ’daily driver’. For me as a designer, what’s been really interesting is how colour and materials can shift user perception of what a foldable can be. For example, in my opinion, the Porcelain colourway on Fold really takes the device from a technology-first product to a product that feels warm, personal, luxurious, and most importantly, to a product that people can visualise as their day-to-day mobile device. 

W* Would Google ever consider making a clamshell foldable? 

CZ: Right now, I believe the form factor of the Pixel Fold is optimised for what Google is great at – productivity and entertainment use. Having said that, we’re committed to this category and are naturally exploring all options. Ultimately, the most beautiful and successful products must feel personal to the consumer, and have to fit seamlessly into their daily lives. Technology adapting to people, not vice versa. This is something that we really hone in on at Google, and I think will continue to be a priority for designers in every industry. 

Is the new Google Pixel Tablet in it for the long haul? The company is the tech-world equivalent of that handsome rich kid at school who'll try anything once, however outlandish, and then face absolutely no consequences whatsoever when they crash and burn (there's even a whole website dedicated to abandoned projects, Killed by Google). As Google pivots towards creating hardware to better deliver the software that shapes, guides and controls our lives, it was inevitable that a dedicated tablet would be in the works.  

The first Google tablets were branded Nexus 7 and released in 2012, just as interest in the company’s Android operating system started to snowball. These days, Android is the dominant mobile OS, with over 70 per cent market share, and Android tablets are two a penny, whether they’re sleek premium devices from Lenovo and Asus, or one of the myriad knock-off designs of dubious origin and quality that clog up Amazon search results. 

When it builds hardware, Google pitches itself at the premium end of the market. Its Pixel Chromebook was of legendarily tough construction, and the current generation of Pixel phones are constructed to tough standards. The new Pixel Tablet feels similarly solid, although the rugged hardcase with built-in stand is an expensive extra. That said, you do get a Charging Speaker Dock, a welcome addition that transforms this device from simple media player to all-round smart home hub. 

The Pixel Tablet clips magnetically onto the dock, which charges as well as directs the sound through the large speaker. Then it’ll enter hub mode, which replicates the features of Google’s earlier Nest Hub, albeit with a bigger screen, better sound and the ability to take the screen with you. The size is pretty optimum as well, not so large as to be unwieldy.

Hub mode is where you access Google Assistant, that font of trivia, train times and weather reports, although you can of course set it to spool through a Google-curated gallery or your own photo reel. The addition of the dock makes this tablet a cut above the rest (although a spare USB-C socket would have been a nice addition to the cloth-coated base unit). 

Otherwise, this is a smart, snappy and thoroughly useful screen to have lying around. Powered by Google’s own Tensor G2 chip, it makes light work of streaming, with a crisp 2560 x 1600 resolution 11in screen and integral speakers that are more than sufficient for casual watching. The forward-facing camera works with Google’s Meet video calling system, and there’s the added bonus of being able to stream media from your phone to the dock with Chromecast. 

All in all, the Pixel ecosystem feels exceptionally mature and well thought out, with the 13th iteration of Android a smooth and minimal experience. Pixel Tablet is available in either Hazel or Porcelain colourways, with 128 or 256GB storage. The front and rear cameras are boosted by Google Photos’ impressive set of editing tools; compatibility with the latest USI 2.0 stylus pens also adds to the functionality. The only thing that’s missing is a keyboard case, possibly because Google is pitching the Pixel Tablet as a multimedia machine first and foremost. The aftermarket will surely conjure up some options before long. 

Google Pixel Tablet, from £599, Store.Google.com

Also available from amazon.co.uk

We’re slowly coming around to the utility of the folding phone, noting that this uncommonly complex device comes in two formats. The first, the clamshell, cleverly updates the must-have mechanism of the 1990s, condensing a conventional smartphone screen into a package that’s half the size. 

The second type of folding device has been much more contentious. Full-size foldables effectively double the available screen real estate by opening out like a book. Engineering a hinged screen that stays near flat, avoids a visible crease and can endure repeated use troubled many of the early adopters, most notably Samsung, while other firms, like Microsoft, did away with a folding screen in favour of two separate units. 

Now, Google is getting in on the act, indicating that the foldable market has finally come of age. The new Pixel Fold goes head-to-head with the current reigning device, Samsung’s Galaxy Z Fold 4, although it also has to beat the Oppo Find N and a new device from Honor, the Magic Vs. Here’s how the major players stack up.

The challenger: Google Pixel Fold

We have high hopes for Google’s first foldable, due to be shipped in June 2023. Preview images show a solidly engineered double-screen device, with the exterior following the familiar Pixel design language. Open it up and the interior contains a 7.6in screen with a relatively large bevel but a much slimmer overall profile. 

Google is calling the interior screen a ‘tablet’, rather than a phone, and we can assume that the company’s own eco-system will be tweaked to make the most of the space – with two apps side by side, you can drag and drop images into a messaging app, for example. Tabletop mode is designed for watching content and making video calls, and the rear holds the highest quality selfie camera the company has ever created. Android 14 – due later in 2023 – will bring a new ‘interpreter’ mode, allowing real-time translation across two screens. 

Google Pixel Fold, from £1,749, Store.Google.com

The champion: Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 4

Soon to be replaced by the inevitable Galaxy Z Fold 5, the Z Fold 4 is currently the top-rated pocket foldable. Samsung’s ongoing iterations have honed the form factor and done away with early teething troubles, and the Z Fold 4 reaps the benefits of this experience. Although Google has sensibly gone for a similar main screen size as Samsung, the latter still emphasises its support for Samsung’s S Pen stylus, even though there’s no dedicated slot to keep the pen when not in use. 

Samsung’s smoother design language allows the screen to be pushed closer to the edge of the unit and there are other enhancements like Dolby Atmos on board. This is the device Google has to beat. 

Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 4, from £1,649, Samsung.com

The wild card: Honor Magic Vs

Honor’s new Magic Vs undercuts both Google and Samsung but offers a similarly high specification. The Chinese brand is launching this ‘first foldable flagship’ with a focus on lightness, long battery life and physical durability. The fold mechanism has come in for particular focus, with durability testing showing it can withstand up to 400,000 operations, with a simpler, refined design. 

The interior display size just pips its rivals (7.9”) and folds completely flat when open, although you’ll have to use the company’s Android-derived MagicOS 7.1 software instead of Google’s admirably purist original.  The Cyan-coloured case is a departure from the usually sober smartphone colourways, marking the Magic Vs out as something a bit different. 

Honor Magic Vs, from £1,399, HiHonor.com

This is Google’s newest mid-price phone, the Google Pixel 7a. Joining the established Pixel 7 family, released in 2022, the 7a follows the established playbook of releasing a more affordable yet still impressively specified version of its current model line a few months after the original launch.

Sharing the same Tensor G2 chip as its pricier siblings, the Pixel 7a does all the things they can do, with savings coming from a less lens-packed camera array and a 6.1in screen (slightly smaller than the 7’s 6.3in screen and the 7 Pro’s large 6.7in screen). That said, the 7a doesn’t feel like a compromise. The processor enables the device to match the in-camera processor of the 7 and 7 Pro, with the Photo Unblur, Magic Eraser and Night Sight mode all present and correct. There’s also a long exposure mode for the first time in an A-series phone.  

Google’s much-vaunted albeit vaguely specified AI systems help run the search and audio quality on the Pixel 7a, and the fast chip speed also gives access to the essential audio transcription app and the ability to read out audio messages. Face and fingerprint unlock add to the security, with a bundled three months of Google’s own Virtual Private Network access.

Announced alongside two new additions to the Google device family, the Pixel Fold and the Pixel Tablet, the 7a is part of a big expansion of the company’s device eco-system. Boasting a day-long battery pack, five years’ worth of software updates, together with more than a fifth of the glass, aluminium and plastic casing being made of recycled materials, the Pixel 7a looks like a solid choice for a straightforward, no-nonsense device.

Google Pixel 7a available now from Store.Google.com, £449

To celebrate water, a powerful muse for its latest hardware design, Google Design Studio presents an immersive and intimate sensorial installation called ‘Shaped by Water’. It's a strong return to Salone del Mobile, after a 2019 installation based on the concepts of neuroaesthetics. 

Taking place in the vast Garage 21 space, the exhibition is co-created by Google’s vice president of Hardware Design, Ivy Ross, and the water, light, and sound artist Lachlan Turczan. 'We take water a little bit for granted,' says Ross. 'Many of us now think about clean water, or sustainable water, but we really don’t think at his properties.'

‘Google Shaped by Water’ at Milan Design Week 2023

The first seed of the project was the use of technology in conjunction with natural phenomena, explains Turczan, who has been developing his water-projection system over the past decade: 'It all started with light,' he says. 'As I wanted to work with light in a tangible way. Sound moves water, and water moves light, allowing you to see and feel vibrations in a physical way.'

The first artwork, Sympathetic Resonance, involves 11 shimmering cylindric bowls, their surface filled with water, scattered throughout the room. They are designed to hum in resonance with the visitor's proximity, and looking into the jingling metal allows not only interaction with the water, but also encourages a hypnotic relationship with the dynamic waves. As the public gathers and moves around the bowls, their presence is mirrored by wave patterns, like an empathic natural orchestra of reflections: 'I think sound is a sculptural tool and it works in a holistic sense as it affects everything at once,' explains Turczan. Creating the optical system and fabricating the bowls with perfect mirrored polish had been challenging, because to achieve this result, he underlines, all these aspects needed to be perfect.

In the second, dark room, guests are asked to sit back on vast circular couches, and relax as custom-choreographed music is used to create real-time wave patterns into small basins. The waves are reflected onto large discs overhead, a planetarium-like screen displaying ever-shifting imagery like a psychedelic yet relaxing natural movie. 'The organic display is similar to what we experience while cloud-gazing or when we stare into a fire,' says Turczan. The art project relies on cymatics, the science of making sounds visible. In this case music become visual, with the water creating the pattern on the water.

The last room presents the direct connection between the design of Google's hardware portfolio and newest products such as the Pixel Watch, and water close-up. 'We need technology that pushes us to be more creative, more imaginative,' says Ross. 'We are all looking at ways to alive our sensory system with the help of the nature. It’s what we are craving for, as a society.'

‘Google Shaped by Water’ is on view until 23 April 2023

Garage 21
Via Archimede, 26
Milano

store.google.com

In the post-pandemic world, things have shifted. Many of us have reverted back to simpler pleasures and are appreciating time spent really enjoying ourselves in the day-to-day. With this refreshing period of change, environment plays a key role, not least our apartment interior design. In a considered offering of luxury and convenience, interior design group Frenchcalifornia has collaborated with Google to feature its Nest smart-home devices in a series of showcase apartment interiors at Selene, Foster + Partners’ 63-storey residential tower in New York.

The skyscraper, completed in 2018 and rebranded in 2022, shares a street with SOM’s 21-storey Lever House and Mies van der Rohe’s 38-storey Seagram Building, and is inspired by its flanking modernist architectural landmarks. The two 1950s structures display the clean and classic New York grid-like exterior that make up many of the buildings in the city, and Selene has introduced a 21st-century feature to the family of iconic buildings. The glass façade has a gently folded structure, providing floor-to-ceiling windows to each apartment and introducing the thoughtful tone of its interior.

Delving into the space inside exposes us to a subtle story of ease of use and pleasing visuals. Frenchcalifornia has designed three fully furnished residences within the building as model apartments. The team reached out to the likes of B&B Italia, Cassina and Flos to decorate the spaces, while Gaggenau appliances are integrated into the kitchens and Foster + Partners has designed bespoke bathroom vanities. The spaces are well-lit and softly toned; windows with views, mirrors and lighting help create a feeling of openness, and artwork and intriguing textures punctuate the rooms with comfort and character. 

An additional layer of Frenchcalifornia's treatment of the spaces is the subtle integration of Google’s Nest smart-home products; the minimalist design of each home device allows them to fit into the relaxed decor, while the Nest Hub serves as a control panel. Nest Audio speakers are fitted on each of the Wi-Fi routers and, 75 per cent louder than their predecessor, clearly distribute crisp sound. The Google devices span security, entertainment and connectivity, and incorporate gesture and voice control for ease of management.

Along with the impeccable individual apartment spaces and the suggested Google Nest smart-home set-up, the Selene residences propose a holistic approach to living. A wellness space includes a pool, a gym, a spa and a yoga studio, while there are also business suites, Le Jardinier restaurant, and the Atlas Club & Library. The location, meanwhile, provides proximity to the Museum of Modern Art, amongst other New York hotspots), and the experience of daily living is at the heart of the project’s design approach. Frenchcalifornia, Google’s home devices and Foster + Partners have brought together design, architecture and convenience in these desirable contemporary homes.

Information

home.google.com

selenenewyork.com

frenchca.com

The Google Bay View Campus has opened. Architects Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG) and Heatherwick Studio have worked with Google’s own design and engineering teams for the new Silicon Valley campus, the first major campus the company has developed itself.

Spanning a vast 42 acres and located next to Nasa’s Ames Research Center, the campus encompasses 1.1 million square feet and is composed of 20 acres of open space, two office buildings, an events space that can hold up to 1,000 people, and short-term accommodation for 240 employees.

‘The idea of the “office” has been stuck for a long time,’ says Thomas Heatherwick, founder and design director of Heatherwick Studio. ‘Yes, people have done different aesthetic treatments. But there hasn’t been a fundamental questioning of the workplace at this scale. Our approach has centred on the emotions of individuals and the imaginations of teams and how you create a whole different atmosphere of work.’

This aesthetic takes shape in a building that balances the need for space to work with the opportunity for collaborative communication. A focus on greenery and access to natural daylight and views from every desk aims to increase the wellbeing of employees; clerestory windows ensure desks are in direct light, while automated window shades open and shut throughout the day.

A ventilation system, meanwhile, uses only air from outside, ensuring there is no recycled air, while a thorough vetting of products and materials keeps toxins in the environment to a minimum.

‘Our design of the new Google Bay View campus is the result of an incredibly collaborative design process,’ says Bjarke Ingels, founder and creative director of BIG. ‘Working with a client as data-driven as Google has led to an architecture where every single decision is informed by hard information and empirical analysis.

‘The result is a campus where the striking dragonscale solar canopies harvest every photon that hits the buildings; the energy piles store and extract heating and cooling from the ground, and even the naturally beautiful floras are in fact hardworking rootzone gardens that filter and clean the water from the buildings. All in all, it’s a campus where front of house and back of house, technology and architecture, and form and function have been fused into a new and striking hybrid.’

Sustainability is also a key element of the design, with an integrated geothermal pile system – the largest in North America – intended to reduce carbon emissions by approximately half, while the campus is also fully electric. Practical solutions such as above-ground ponds and wind farms will help realise Bay View’s aims of both fully operating on carbon-free energy and replenishing 120 per cent of the water it consumes by 2030.

The local environment also benefits, with over seven acres of natural land, including woodlands and marsh, helping to reestablish habitat in the area, while the public can enjoy access to trails around the Bay.

INFORMATION

big.dk

heatherwick.com

Mario Pani’s 107th birthday
29 March 2018

Mario Pani played a large part in shaping the design of Mexico City in the twentieth century, with this Doodle - created by his son, artist Knut Pani - paying tribute to them. Pictured is his extensive residential complex, the Tlatelolco Urban Centre in Mexico City, which houses 12,000 apartments in 102 buildings and is characterised by its curved element and triangular tower.

Saloua Raouda Choucair’s 102nd birthday
24 June 2018

Lebanese sculptor Saloua Choucair explored mathematical patterns in her artworks which interlocked together in intricate forms. Her series, ‘poems’, could be dismantled, the movable pieces comparable to the verses of a Sufi poem. Acclaimed throughout her life, at age 97 she was honoured by London’s Tate Modern who put on a retrospective celebrating her long career.

Wilder Penfield’s 127th birthday
26 January 2018

Montreal’s first neurosurgeon, Wilder Penfield’s work in mapping the brain led to new techniques to treat epilepsy. In experiments using electrical probes, he discovered stimulating certain parts of the brain prompted memory cues - such as the smell of burnt toast the Doodle depicts.

Gabriel García Márquez’s 91st Birthday
6 March 2018

Google bring the mystical world of Gabriel García Márquez to life with this Doodle which draws the lush tropical world of Macondo in the Amazonian jungle, the famous setting of his book, One Hundred Years of Solitude. Márquez combined fiction with political activism in a long and distinguished career.

Pi Day
14 March 2018

If you haven’t been marking Pi Day with a slice of pie - why not? The mathematical concept of Pi was recognised in 1988 by Larry Shaw, and represents the ratio between a circle’s circumference to its diameter. This Doodle, baked by Cronut creator Dominique Ansel, pays homage to a mathematical constant which is much more interesting to us when constructed in pastry.

Marga Faulstich’s 103rd birthday
26 June 2018

Next time you grab your shades on the way out the door, spare a thought for German scientist Marga Faulstich who devoted her life to glass chemistry, making your favourite specs possible. She found a way to change a gas directly to a solid without it becoming a liquid, meaning small glass objects could be coated with a vapour, allowing for a glass with anti-reflective coating which blocks UV light.

30th anniversary of the World Wide Web
12 March 2019

‘Mesh’ was Sir Tim Berners-Lee’s working name for the world wide web application, the invention which forever changed life as we know it. Originally a flowchart, it soon became a working model complete with the HTML language, HTTP application and the first Web browser and page editor. Two billion users now use it, hopefully for purposes in addition to reading about Google Doodles.

Erich Ohser’s 115th birthday
18 March 2018

German cartoonist Erich Ohser acted out his political ideology through cartoons and caricatures which depicted his disgust with the National Socialists. Throughout the twentieth century, he balanced his more politically-dangerous pieces with a popular and light-hearted comic strip about a father and son.

Stanisław Moniuszko’s 200th birthday
5 May 2019

Warsaw-based illustrator Gosia Herba paid tribute to Polish musician Stanisław Moniuszko on what would have been his 200th birthday. The director of the Warsaw Opera House, Moniuszko oversaw the production of many of his own works including Halka, which went on to become a classic of Polish culture.

Celebrating Seiichi Miyake
18 March 2019

In 1965, Seiichi Miyake invented tactile blocks to help a friend suffering with their sight. The blocks - one kind which came with dots, the other with bars - let the user know when they were approaching danger, and which way to go. Two years later, they were introduced onto the street in Japan and soon made their way into urban environments around the world, transforming the lives of the visually impaired.

Nowruz
20 March 2019

Google marked the spring equinox and Nowruz, the Persian New Year, with a floral tribute. The festivities, lasting for 13 days, begin on the first day of Farvardin, the first month in the Iranian Hijri calendar.

Parveen Shakir’s 67th birthday
24 November 2019

Pakistani poet Parveen Shakir won Pakistan’s President’s Award for Pride of Performance in 1990 for her Urdu poetry. The first poet to use the word larki (girl) in her work, she subverted male traditions by honestly depicting the female experience.

Nicholas Winton’s 111th birthday
19 May 2020

Sir Nicholas Winton organised the escape of over 600 children from German-occupied Czechoslovakia in the months before the Second World War, a fact he never revealed to anyone. It was only when his wife discovered documents in the attic in 1988 she learnt of his efforts in finding homes, raising money, forging documents and bribing officials, saving the primarily Jewish children from almost certain death.

Celebrating Falafel
18 June 2019

We all love a falafel - why not celebrate it? As India entered high season for the majority of the world’s chickpea crop, Google clearly agreed. Whatever you do with it - Egypt grind down fava beans and fry them, Germany top theirs with sauerkraut - it cannot fail to be delicious.

Tatyana Lioznova 96th birthday
20 July 2020

In a move rare for a female Russian director, Tatyana Lioznova achieved huge success in the twentieth century with her popular programmes, including the 12-part ‘Seventeen Moments of Spring.’ which followed the adventures of Russia’s answer to James Bond, Maxim Isayev.

Julius Lothar Meyer’s 190th birthday
19 August 2020

One of two scientists to discover the periodic law of chemical elements, German chemist Meyer’s periodic tables are ubiquitous in every school in the world.

Barbara Hepworth
25 August 2020

English sculptor Dame Barbara Hepworth hammers away at Google in her Doodle which marks the day she arrived in St. Ives in 1939. The seaside town would be instrumental in a career which saw her embrace natural, abstract pieces which were sensitive to the qualities of the raw materials she transformed.

Doodle for Google US winner
23 September 2020

Ten year old Sharon Sara was the winner of 2020’s Doodle for Google competition which invited tens of thousands of students in America to illustrate the prompt: ‘I show kindness by..’ Sara, with her Doodle showing how kindness can be shown through friendship and inclusion, was the lucky recipient of a $30,000 college scholarship, with her school benefitting from a $50,000 technology package.

Dr. Harold Moody
1 September 2020

Charlot Kristensen, a Dublin-based guest artist, depicted Jamaican-born British doctor and racial equality campaigner Dr. Harold Moody for his Doodle, marking the day Moody arrived in the UK from Jamaica in 1904. Moody went on to become the founder of the UK’s first civil rights movement after facing racism which denied him work. His kindness is represented by the children in the illustration, signalling the countless deprived young Moody would treat for free.

Google’s 22nd birthday
27 September 2020

Well if you don’t let everyone know it’s your birthday, how will they know to celebrate you? Google marked 22 years of Larry Page and Sergey Brin deciding to rethink the way people interacted with information on the Web with an appropriately restrained lockdown Doodle - never mind, we’re sure the real celebrations were saved for offline.

Professor Udupi Ramachandra Rao’s 89th birthday
10 March 2021

Professor Udupi Ramachandra Rao’s spearheading of India’s satellite programme led to the 1975 launch of India’s first satellite, one of almost two dozen satellites which addressed poverty by increasing communication to rural areas. In 2013, he became the first Indian to be inducted into the Satellite Hall of Fame, an accolade which coincided with the launch of a satellite which orbits Mars today.

Kuzgun Acar’s 93rd birthday
28 February 2021

Kuzgun Acar’s artworks in wire, nails and scrap metals rethought modern sculpture in Turkey in the twentieth century. After learning his skills at ship-dismantling workshops, he went on to produce classic pieces such as ‘Turkey’ - a relief in bronze - as well as producing steel and rubber masks for German theatre play ‘The Caucasian Chalk Office’.

Sir Giles Gilbert Scott’s 140th birthday
9 November 2020

Guest UK-based artist Jing Zhang paid tribute to one of the smaller creations from British architect Sir Giles Gilbert Scott. Scott worked on many large designs, including the Battersea Power Station and his first project, the Liverpool Cathedral, but it is the red telephone box he designed in 1924 which captures Zhang’s imagination.

Celebrating Johannes Gutenberg
14 April 2021

Lovers of the written word have German craftsman Johannes Gutenberg to thank. His fifteenth century movable type printing press, which replaced the wooden letters of traditional printers with metal type, made books affordable for the first time. Two decades later, his printing press was the largest in Europe, kickstarting a new direction for mass media.

151st anniversary of the Metropolitan Museum of Art
13 April 2021

Founded in 1870 by a group of American citizens, the Metropolitan Museum of Art was established in 1870, quickly collecting a Roman sarcophagus as its first work. Parts of its extensive eclectic collection can be seen in the Doodle, from a Byzante floor mosaic to the armour of Emperor Ferdinand I and a Tetin Sioux beaded dress.

David Warren’s 96th birthday
20 March 2021

Although his first prototype was in red, Australian research scientist Dr. David Warren’s life-saving invention is better known as the ‘black box.’ In the Fifties, he invented an almost indestructible recording device for aircrafts which caught conversations in the cockpit in real time, preventing recurring tragedies.

30th anniversary of Pac-Man
21 May 2010

‘Pac-Man seems like a natural fit for the Google homepage,’ said Marcin Wichary, senior UX designer and developer at Google, in May 2010. ‘They’re both deceptively straightforward, carefully hiding their complexity under the hood. There’s a light-hearted, human touch to both of them.’ The Doodle, which he created with in-house ‘Google Doodler’ (as they have become known)
 Ryan Germick was the first-ever playable doodle, and was on the homepage for 48 hours, because, said Wichary, ‘it’s too cool to keep for just one day’.

The Great Wave of Kanagawa
31 October 2010

It’s an odd thought: a 17th-century Japanese century woodcut going viral. The Great Wave was first circulated the old-fashioned way, via traders and tall ships in the 19th century. Since then, it has inspired Claude Debussy’s orchestral work La Mer, appeared in poetry and prose by Rainer Maria Rilke, and was animated by teamLAB at London gallery Pace. Levi’s and Patagonia used it in marketing campaigns. In 2011, it was preserved in cyberspace as a Google Doodle, and has since been turned into an emoji. Thanks, in no small part to the uncompromising powers of Google Search, it is an image that is as globe-spanning, and enduring, as the ocean itself.

Happy Valentine’s Day from Google and Robert Indiana
14 February 2011

This iconic Doodle (if you can call it that) was created by renowned artist behind ‘LOVE’, and it broke the trend of month upon month of interactive doodles, reverting back to a simpler, stationary symbol. Robert Indiana – poster artist of pop culture – is no stranger to having his work seen in unconventional settings by millions: the US Postal Service carried reproductions of his works on stamps in 1973 as part of its ‘love series’, and he created a work for Barack Obama’s presidential campaign depicting the word ‘HOPE’.

Courtesy of the Morgan Art Foundation / ARS, NY

First Day of Winter by Takashi Murakami
21 June 2011

In the San Francisco Bay Area where Google is based, its typically pretty mild all year round. Craving some seasonal differentiation, it turned to Japanese art superstar Takashi Murakami to ring in the summer and winter solstice in 2011 with a pair of doodles for the Northern and Southern Hemisphere, respectively. Google’s Ryan Germick said at the time, ‘The doodles feature some of Murakami’s quirky characters and signature bold colors. It was a great honor to collaborate with Murakami-san and his Kai Kai Kiki team, who create what must be some of our most “kawaii” doodles yet.’

Mies van der Rohe’s 126th birthday
27 March 2012

Along with Le Corbusier, Walter Gropius and Frank Lloyd Wright, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe is widely regarded as one of the pioneers of modernist architecture. To honour what would have been his 126th birthday, Google created this colourful interpretation of his Crown Hall at the Illinois Institute of Technology (1956). The glass windows are coloured like Google chars, in a way which also nods to Le Corbusier’s use of primary colours in the windows of Unité d’Habitation in northern France.

Jan Kaplický’s 75th birthday
18 April 2012

Only originally displayed on the Google homepage in Czech Republic, this Doodle depicts neo-futurist Kaplický’s highly controversial Prague National Library (nicknamed ‘the octopus’) which he designed before his death in 2007 at the age of 71. The commission, however, was canceled in 2008. As the octopus never got to stretch its legs, its with love that Google remembers its creator in this digital epitaph. 

Keith Haring’s 54th birthday
4 May 2012

In 2012, one-time subway graffiti artist Keith Haring was presented on a different kind of much-trafficked wall. The late-80s pop artist, whose work currently fills the sky-lit lobby of Amsterdam’s Stedelijk Museum, is here copied by in-house Google Doodlers. Widely recognised as creating his own visual language, his famous figures are here bent out of shape, to form a wobbly Google logo. 

150th anniversary of the London Tube map
9 January 2013

Frank Pick’s London Tube Map is a unique accomplishment of graphic innovation, and has become the subject of many artistic endeavours since its creation in 1863 – like Langlands & Bell’s renowned memorial unveiled at Picadilly Circus in 2016. This Google Doodle, a simplified version of the map, rendered in Google’s typical Sans Serif typeface, was only shown in the UK, so we hope its inclusion in this round-up gives the rest of the world pause to acknowledge this beloved symbol of British design prowess. 

Luis Barragán’s 111th birthday
9 March 2013

Even in the midnight hue of the sky, this Doodle transports us to Mexico City. It depicts the brightly coloured pool and pink stable block of Mexican architect Luis Barragán’s Cuadra San Cristobál, an equestrian and estate which is privately owned by the Egerström family since its completion in 1968.

Saul Bass’ 93rd birthday
8 May 2013

Here’s where things get meta. In 2013, Doodler Matthew Cruickshank was given the tricky task of creating a logo celebrating the logo design master Saul Bass. Cruickshank took Bass’ motto – ‘symbolise and summarise’ – to task with a short animated sequence that reimagines Google’s logo in the designers’ unmistakable brand of title credits, set to an upbeat jazz tune composed by David Brubeck. During his 40-year career, Bass, who died in 1996, collaborated with many of the industry’s most influential filmmakers: Stanley Kubrick, Martin Scorcese, and Otto Preminger, to name a few. He single-handedly revitalised title sequences in his work for Alfred Hitchcock’s films, devising a revolutionary type of kinetic typography that characterised the openings of classics such as North by Northwest, Vertigo and Psycho.

Kenzo Tange’s 100th birthday
4 September, 2013

Depicting the renowned Structuralist architect stringing up Google bunting across the Yoyogi National Gymnasium in Tokyo (1961-64), this doodle celebrates the life and work of Kenzo Tange, and was only displayed on the Google homepage in Japan. 

Niki de Saint Phalle’s 84th birthday
29 October 2014

Niki de Saint Phalle’s ‘Nanas’ took over the Google homepage for the French sculptress’s 84th birthday in 2014. Inspired by her pregnant friend, the ‘Nana’ sculptures were de Saint Phalle’s artistic rendition of the everyday woman and became a symbol of femininity. De Saint Phalle described her first ‘Nana’ house as a ‘doll’s house for adults, just big enough to sit and dream in.’

Wassily Kandinsky’s 148th birthday
16 December, 2014

This doodle was inspired by the work of Wassily Kandinsky – the man credited with creating the first ever purely abstract works of art – and was used with special permission of the Estate of Wassily Kandinsky, which is represented by Artist Rights Society. It depicts his pioneering use of expansive coloured masses, cluttered with near-spiritual irreverence, geometry and abstract lines, perhaps best described by The Rider, (1911). In typical Kandinksy fashion, it barely says ‘Google’ at all. 

Lygia Clark’s 95th birthday
23 October, 2015

Famed Brazilian painter, sculptor and teacher, Lygia Clark co-founded the Neo-Concrete movement, which sought to change art from a passive viewing experience to an engaging interaction. Her art pieces, specifically the ‘bichos’, were designed to be modified, re-positioned and folded into new configurations by participants – the participant here being Google. The logo has been stripped of its primary colours, and rendered in greyscale shades favoured by Clark, each letter folding in on itself like origami. These ‘critters’ represent Clark’s early attempts to bridge the gap between artist and viewer, alongside Google’s attempts to bridge the gap between searcher and host.

121st anniversary of the first published timetable in Japan
5 October, 2015

One of the seemingly obscure commemorative Doodles – the 121st anniversary of the publication of the first Japanese railway timetable – is actually more all-encompassing than it looks. It represents, says Google, ‘the advent of time consciousness, and the beginning of efficient and reliable mass transit’. That told us. Google continues: ‘To celebrate this achievement, we decided to create our own, unique schedule with invented names, destinations and times in homage to the humble train timetable. We wanted to reference as many traditional design elements, symbols and typographic styles as possible. To help out, we gathered as many "timetable geeks" as we could find in our Tokyo office. Our team of experts had many brainstorming sessions and came up with more ideas than we could possibly include in the final artwork.’

Yps Magazine’s 40th anniversary
13 October, 2015

Germany’s Yps Magazine published its first comic in 1985. Filled with tales of mystery, peril, and adventure, many would agree that the most irresistible aspect of the slim publication was the toy that came with it, and each subsequent edition. They ranged from the simple (spinning tops) to the sophisticated (kits to build functioning radios), and often the slightly bizarre (a package of Brine Shrimp eggs that young readers were encouraged to hatch and grow themselves). Artist Nate Swinehart endeavoured to recapture this sense of anticipation and mystery with a Doodle that changes each time you see it.

The 42nd Anniversary of Rio–Niterói Bridge opening
4 March, 2016

Brazil’s Rio–Niterói Bridge exemplifies the ingenuity of the human spirit – as captured by guest Doodler Patrick Leger, who crafted a recreation of the bridge on the bay with the Brazilian coast visible in the background, and shadowy Google lettering stretching out across the water. The structure met with great international praise when it opened in 1974 as the second-longest bridge in the world, spanning the vast Guanabara Bay. Its greatest accomplishment is connection. Carrying over 100,000 passengers daily, it unites Nieterói and Rio de Janeiro, cities with populations of 487,000 and 6.5 million respectively.

Juno Reaches Jupiter
5 July, 2016

On 5 July 2016, a NASA satellite built like a tank settled into polar orbit around Jupiter, the mysterious gas giant two doors down from Earth. Juno’s five–year, 500–million–mile journey will culminate in a treasure trove of new pictures and measurements taken by its nine instruments. The latest Juno images were delivered back down to earth successfully on February 7, 2018. Google celebrated this incredible moment of human achievement the best way they new how: with Space Invadors references. The emoji-tastic GIF captures the moment mission control received news Juno had entered orbit.

80th anniversary of the opening of the Moscow Metro
May 15, 2015

Matt Cruickshank’s Doodle celebrates the railway that shaped a city. The ‘Google doodler’ drew inspiration from vintage russian posters. He started with the map in the metro’s current lines colours and distinctive radial-circle structure but decided to combine the old with the new and ended up using sepia-toned fashion of a vintage Russian poster. He also added a classic train with ‘80’ on the front to pay homage to the anniversary.

Celebrating Zaha Hadid
31 May, 2017

The Heydar Aliyev Center, depicted behind a cartoon-style portrait of the late, great Zaha Hadid, sets itself in contrast to the block-like structures that surround it in Baku, Azerbaijan. The architects’ signature fluid style is captured in the endlessly curving lines of the drawing, and the almost-unreadable Google typeface. At the same time, this cultural centre takes inspiration from historic Islamic designs found in calligraphy and geometric patterns to create something entirely new. The building takes an open form to invite the public into its space. The centre has played host to modern art by Andy Warhol and Tony Cragg, and world-class performances from Kitaro and Alessandro Safina.

Meret Oppenheim’s 104th birthday
6 October, 2017

Created by guest artist Tina Berning, this Doodle celebrates Meret Oppenheim on what would have been her 104th birthday. The Doodle nods to one of her most known works, ’Object’ – a famously fur-covered bracelet which is in the Gems and Ladders collection – and honors the surrealist tradition of combining unexpected elements to create something new.

Celebrating the Studio for Electronic Music
18 October, 2017

Google felt the beat as it celebrated the 66th anniversary of the Studio for Electronic Music with this neon Doodle, by Berlin-based illustrator Henning Wagenbreth. It celebrates the noisy diversity of thought and imagination that built this studio, which was to transform the possibilities of music. Known as the first modern music studio, it became a haven for innovative musicians and producers from its base at the West German Broadcasting facility in Cologne, to the rest of the world.

Hokiichi Hanawa’s 271st birthday
23 June, 2017

When Helen Keller visited the memorial house of Hanawa Hokiichi in 1937, she said of the revered scholar, ‘I believe that his name would pass down from generation to generation like a stream of water.’ This Doodle celebates the intergenerational legacy of the thinker. Like a river originating from humble beginnings in Tokyo in 1746, his influence has stretched through law, politics, economics, history, and medicine.

Virginia Woolf’s 136th birthday
25 January 2018

Subject of many ponderous, self-absorbed English Literature dissertations (mine included), and subject of a new exhibition at Tate St Ives, Virginia Woolf is an icon of Modernist literature, and has sparked two centuries of artistic renderings. This year, a Google Doodle was penned by London-based illustrator Louise Pomeroy. It salutes with grace and symbolism Woolf’s minimalist style. Not tonally disimilar to the bust found outside her Bloomsbury residence, the portrait is surrounded by falling autumn leaves (a frequent visual theme in her work). In Woolf’s words: ‘
The autumn trees gleam in the yellow moonlight, in the light of harvest moons, the light which mellows the energy of labor, and smooths the stubble, and brings the wave lapping blue to the shore.’

American architecture studio CAW has just unveiled a colourful Google office in Mountain View, CA, close to Palo Alto. The design, a new home for part of the tech giant's services, is a workspace awash with light and playfulness. It is conceived to ‘promote workplace wellness, while also showcasing Google’s priorities in workplace design’, explain the Palo Alto-based architects. 

The architects worked around a number of key principles – a series of architectural gestures that promote the office design's main approach and the client’s ethos. ‘Biophilic design or biophilia’, was one, explain the team, who flooded the space with nature references and planting, and created a signature green wall in one of the employees’ main communal areas. Plant designer Sara Schoenberger from AddLife collaborated with CAW Architects in developing a colour palette and curating a family of species for the design, in order to create the right effect, and the right environment for people and nature alike. 

The architects also included a mural by artist Strider Patton – highlighting the concept of collaboration as another key driver in the overall design. The piece is situated in the kitchen area, woven into Schoenberger's living wall. This not only creates an alternative focal point for the room but also allows the eye to travel, creating the impression of added spatial generosity, in what in fact is a fairly compact space. 

Bringing in natural light was another central part of the design task. The space is long and goes deep into the building's floorplate, with the entrance and front façade being one of the few areas that can bring sunlight in. The architects made the most of that too, opening up views and routes towards the front, and allowing light to travel. ‘The now dynamic, yet modest, lobby appears like a prism refracting light deeply into the building and is washed in varying colours throughout the day based on the changing sun angle,' say the architects. Meanwhile, clever lighting design and skylights in the canteen ensure this area feels bright and comfortable too. 

CAW used dichroic film, colour, light and nature in clever ways throughout; from promoting wellness to creating a wayfinding strategy, everything is wrapped in a strong, single approach that defines this playful, colourful Google office interior design. 

INFORMATION

cawarchitects.com

Google’s release of its hotly anticipated Pixel 6 and Pixel 6 Pro phones underlines that the smartphone technology race shows no sign of abating. Flagship devices continue to be launched on a regular basis, boosting sales and profile and inducing upgrade envy.

It’s just over five years since Google released its first true home-grown phone, the Pixel, a replacement for the Nexus phones that were previously heralded as the ultimate implementation of the Android OS. From the outset, the Pixel impressed with its camera and industrial design, and the seamless integration with Android made it the go-to device for those who wanted the very latest iteration of the OS. 

Now it’s time for Pixel 6, available as a regular phone and as the slightly larger Pixel 6 Pro, with boosted photographic capabilities and other enhancements. Launched alongside Android 12, the Pixel 6 family is intended to be a showcase for the software’s new Material You theme and extensive customisation options.

We spoke to Ivy Ross, vice president of Design for Hardware Products at Google, and Philip Battin, Head of Seed Studio at Google, about the design process behind Pixel 6 and its integration of software and hardware. 

Ivy Ross on Google Pixel 6 and Pixel 6 Pro

‘Pixel 6 is a major evolution of the phone’s design language,’ says Ross. ‘It’s designed to deliver a much more fluid experience. It also houses a completely redesigned camera system – the phone has been designed around it.’ As sensors and lenses blossom across camera backs, Ross and her team have decided to group everything together in a raised band that runs right across the back panel.

Throw in a new processor unit, Tensor, Google’s first ever custom-built ‘System on a Chip’, and you have the most powerful, and most premium, phone ever to carry the Pixel name. 

Photography is the major area to benefit, with new features like an enhanced sensor system, a new Motion Mode for action and long exposures, and a telephoto lens in the Pixel 6 Pro. There’s also the spooky Magic Eraser, which can perform Soviet levels of picture retouching using AI, scrubbing photobombers from the background at the touch of a button.

There are other smart innovations, like Interpreter Mode, which can supply live translation over the air for more than 50 languages, as well as Google’s excellent Recorder app, which transcribes as you talk. The 6 Pro ships with 12GB of memory and the regular 6 has 8GB, while both can have up to 256GB of storage. They’re both capable of shooting RAW, stabilised 4K, timelapses, and slow-motion films; in short, everything you could possibly need. The fingerprint sensor is swift and accurate and the clumsiest among us will be happy to hear the phones are water- and scratch-resistant. 

Celebrating the camera

‘We designed the phone to celebrate the camera,’ says Ross, ‘so the lines are very clean and architectural.’ The official case is also designed to fit around the camera bar, with a translucent recycled material that allows the new colour choices to filter softly through. Ross explains that the Pixel 6 Pro comes in bolder colours than ever before. The colour combinations are playful and a world away from the drab utility of early mobiles.

The 6.4in Pixel 6 comes in Kinda Coral, Sorta Seafoam, and a more sober Stormy Black, while the larger 6.7in Pixel 6 Pro’s exclusive colours are Sorta Sunny and Cloudy White, along with the black. 

Ross also demonstrates how the slim recycled aluminium edging that marks the border between the Gorilla Glass screen and the rear panel and camera is subtly picked out in silver or gold. ‘In the past we covered up the materials but now we celebrate them,’ she says. ‘The Pixel 6 Pro is premium redefined. It was inspired by jewellery and watch design.’

Ross acknowledges that creating a smart phone is ultimately constrained by a relatively limited materials palette. ‘In the future, our ideal approach would be to invent materials. We’re already using recycled materials as much as we can. The fewer processes you use, the more responsible you are being.’ 

Ross also stresses how important it is that we keep our phones for longer. ‘The most sustainable thing we can do is improve the phone you already have,’ she admits. ‘We will support this phone for five years, as well as take back your old phone and recycle it.’ Android 12 is a big part of this push for longevity. Although the operating system is debuting on the Pixel 6, it’ll eventually be available to install on tens of millions of existing devices around the world, giving them a welcome refresh that should stave off the desire to upgrade.

A tweaker’s delight

Philip Battin says the integration of hardware and software was unique for a launch of this scale. The Material You theme is a tweaker’s delight, not least because the system can generate a palette from the selected wallpaper, adapting the entire UI to suit. There are even themed icons for a more unified homepage (although mixing and matching old and new icons can be a bit jarring), plus the team has commissioned new photography and art for the launch.

‘Our long-term goal is to have as many unique expressions as there are customers,’ says Battin. ‘There’s a very deep level of colour customisation.’ Text and icons are designed to be easier to read. ‘The new UI is also a truly universal and inclusive design system,’ he adds. ‘Accessibility isn’t just an afterthought. That’s a big responsibility as a designer.’

As a result, every attribute can be changed, whether it’s contrast, colour, size, or line thickness. The overall on-screen appearance is also flatter than before, with no drop shadows, faux 3D or skeuomorphic design elements. Subtle animations are triggered by actions like plugging in chargers, or scanning your fingerprint, giving you a more immediate, tactile relationship.

‘When you pick up the phone it should feel alive. These devices need to feel like they’re part of our lives,’ Ross says. ‘With Pixel 6, we have opened up a whole new design dialogue.’ 

INFORMATION

store.google.com

design.google

Google opened the doors to its first physical store, suitably located beneath its Manhattan headquarters in the Chelsea neighbourhood in New York City. Spanning a lively block of Ninth Avenue, the expansive retail space not only offers a holistic view of Google’s entire suite of consumer hardware, which ranges from its Pixel phones and Fitbit wearables to Nest Audio speakers, Stadia gaming consoles and Pixelbooks, it also provides a welcoming, yet in-depth snapshot of how all these products can work seamlessly together with Google’s other services.

‘You can learn about the products singularly online, but when you come to a physical space, one of the things you really want to understand, especially in a Google store, is that one plus one can equal four; what happens if I pair these things up?’ says Ivy Ross, the company’s vice president of hardware design, UX and research, and Wallpaper* Design Awards 2021 judge. ‘There are plenty of individual experiences, but we really thought long and hard about [bringing] offline and online together. People can come and just grab a box off the shelf and buy it, but what experience can we give them that they might not be able to understand well if you’re just shopping online.’

Google New York store: bringing experiences together

Fine-tuned using lessons learned from launching retail pop-ups since 2016, Google’s first store playfully brings together a range of experiences to appeal to a wide audience. 

‘Google is a great learning organisation, so we really experimented to learn what works and what doesn’t work,’ Ross continues. ‘We observed where people spent most of their time, and they wanted these different experiences. We kicked off with a brainstorming with my team and marketing, and then with the architect Suchi Reddy, we mapped out the baseline of must-haves, like a ‘here to help’ desk, and added how we could make it feel special and feel Google. We really wanted to make it a discovery and almost have an exploratorium-feel. The idea was to make people feel at home and relaxed, not overstimulated but also curious.’

Google store interiors

As visitors enter the industrial glass-fronted space, they are met by an inviting, neutral interior constructed from tactile, natural materials. Sustainability is a key focus here, so much so that the space has been awarded a Leed Platinum certification. Some of the design details include wood veneer walls made from a responsibly sourced hickory, energy-efficient light fixtures and carbon neutral floor coverings by Interface that have been deployed throughout. Even the building processes and mechanical systems were put through rigorous assessment to reflect the company-wide commitment to sustainability. Cork, a sustainable and renewable material, has been incorporated into the shop’s furniture designed by Daniel Michalik, which creates the feel of an adaptable blank canvas that still exudes warmth and texture.

‘We specifically did that because we wanted it to be very neutral and anyone could project that it could be their space,’ Ross explains, while explaining the thinking behind the store’s so-called Sandboxes, where products are presented in real life scenarios. ‘We have a kitchen, living room and kids area that feature suggestions of furniture in the abstract. There are projections that simulate a day in the life of. You see the sun coming in through the window, there’s a knock on the door from someone dropping off a package and it prompts you on what to do in order to experience how the products go together.’

Around the space’s periphery, interactive product displays known as Discovery Boxes feature animated visuals that enable visitors to understand the inner workings of each offering. Ross says, ‘In these spaces, you can get the layers of attributes of the product. It’s everything from individual functions to how three products might work together.’

In addition to an entire Nest product gallery wall (showcasing all 35 products) and a gathering space for teaching and events, the store also boasts a 17 ft tall circular glass structure that houses an Imagination Space made up of custom interactive screens. Opening with an exhibit designed around Google Translate, visitors can experience real-time translation of their speech into 24 languages and hear the results being whispered back to them. 

‘There are some people who will immediately look for a salesperson and there are some people who will want to explore on their own. People have different learning styles and I wanted to make sure that you didn’t need to be assigned a salesperson to be able to start to play,’ Ross concludes. ‘It’s all about options and the good news is that all the things that people care about more since the pandemic, the store had embodied regardless. It’s the spirit in which we design the hardware. It’s human, it’s playful and it’s smart.’ 

INFORMATION

For more information, visit the Google Store website

ADDRESS

Google 
76 Ninth Avenue
New York, New York

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There’s not much that the new Google Nest Hub can’t do, save make you a cup of tea. Think of the Nest as a sort of alarm clock on steroids, blending butler, personal assistant, trainer, and maybe even a psychologist into an all-in-one package. The innocuous form factor of this second-generation device conceals a wealth of sensors and speakers; in addition to the all-hearing microphone, you also have a set of smart radar-driven abilities that, amongst other things, can respond to gestures and even track your sleep.

For most people, the Nest Hub’s form factor and price point make it an ideal smart companion for kitchens and bedrooms. With a 7in screen and a powerful speaker embedded in the fabric-covered base, the recycled plastic device will do all the regular Googly things you ask of it, including answering trivial questions, picking up a podcast from where you left off, reading recipes, giving helpful weather and transport updates, cycling through picture galleries and even playing Netflix or Disney+. It’ll also connect to your Nest doorbell, play the radio and read out your calendar. Once you get your choreography right, the Nest Hub can respond to a set of gestures for controlling music, volume and more. No need to even speak.

For chronic insomniacs and the stat-obsessed, the Sleep Sensing function is ripe with potential. If you’re happy to have a little bedside radar watch over you at night, you can expect your every cough, snuffle and store to be logged, as well as breathing and general nocturnal restfulness. This data all gets stacked up and shared with Google’s Fit platform, ultimately giving you tips and suggestions about when to go to bed and the general state of your sleep health.

Google acquired Fitbit earlier this year, and the company’s long-term goal is to build a subscription-driven wellness service that dovetails what it knows about your mind, body and perhaps even spirit to make you feel a whole lot better. Who knows if the device can detect a shudder, because this kind of carefree data distribution isn’t for everyone, regardless of how well it all works. We’re entering a realm of wall-to-wall connectivity, with devices greedily gobbling up as much information about us as they can. The Nest Hub includes opt-outs aplenty, as well as the old-fashioned nuclear method of just cutting off the microphone, but the future of smart devices gets more and more uncanny. Perhaps future domestic tech will offer multiple tiers of ‘smartness’, so you can decide quite how clever the stuff that surrounds you is going to be. 

INFORMATION

Google Nest Hub, £89.99
store.google.com

2020 is likely to be henceforth known as the year we all brought our workplaces home with us. With this came the challenges of establishing a new work-life balance, re-evaluating our relationship with technology, and maintaining the human-to-human connection online, which everyone will continue to navigate in 2021 and beyond.

Ivy Ross, the vice president of design for hardware at Google, knows all about treading the line between technology and the human experience. Since forming the department in 2016, Ross has led her team to launch and establish Google’s family of consumer hardware products, which have collectively earned over 125 global design awards. From the Google Pixel smartphones – its fifth (and most recent) iteration is waterproof and packs in more technology and a better camera than before, at a more affordable price point – to the Nest line of speakers that boasts high quality sound with intuitive smart capabilities, Google’s product suite not only gives the competition a run for its money, but is distinctive in its bold, tactile and emotional design too.

Ross has been crucial in creating Google’s intuitive design signature. An accomplished designer and jewellery artist in her own right, she is passionate about combining art and science to bring ideas to life, and believes in the central role of human potential and relationships. In 2019, she placed the burgeoning field of neuroaesthetics at the heart of an interactive installation in Milan for Salone del Mobile (W*242). Created by Google in partnership with Johns Hopkins University’s Arts + Mind Lab, the experience was backed up with data to show that an aesthetically pleasing environment truly has a positive impact on the brain.

With these principles in mind, Google’s latest consumer products, launched in October 2020, are a welcoming vision of rounded edges, soft surfaces and soothing pastel colours like sage green and sky blue. From the seamless integration of Google’s smart technology in the Nest products (Google Assistant can be used, for example, to control lighting, start a playlist or even a morning routine that can involve skimming news headlines and brewing coffee) to the launch of Google TV, a new foray into entertainment that promises to take the pain out of finding something to watch by tracking trends and browsing behaviour, Google has re-tooled the ways we use technology in a bid to make daily life a little easier.

This, of course, was put to the test when Google, like so many other companies, mandated that all of their employees work from home from mid-March. Ross and her team had to rethink the way they finesse and deliver designs for products that will launch in 2021 and even 2022.

‘Design is about solving problems and what [our team] has done is figure out how to solve the problem of not being together. I’ve [only] been down to the design headquarters four or five times in the last year, when we absolutely had to be around the table at the same time, and then only with one or two folks in a building that was designed for 300,’ she shares, adding, ‘Everything [now] is just a little harder, especially since we’re manifesting physical objects. What really saved us is the ability to have prototypes either delivered or shipped from house to house. We’re such a need-to-touch-and-feel kind of group.’

Not long after California went into lockdown, Ross put together a group of 12 colleagues, who ‘would talk every week about this idea of regeneration, what we think this all means, and what would be the long-term outcomes.'

She says, ‘I then invited my whole team to write fairy tales from the future. A fairy tale starts once upon a time, it always has a happy ending and there’s a lesson in between. I invited them to create a fairy tale in five years’ time that looks back at this invisible virus that locked everyone in their houses.’

‘It's important we, as the creatives in the company, start putting our minds towards what we think the new normal should be. I have a very diverse team and I wanted to see where the patterns are. I got about 50 stories, I picked 20 of them and we produced a little book called Fairy Tales from the Future, which I gave to all the execs in the hardware group. People said it immediately helped set them up for the possibilities early on, rather than focus on the sorrow.’

Personally, Ross finds the notion of wellbeing to be the most pertinent issue arising from the global pandemic. ‘Since the Industrial Revolution, we’ve just kept working, optimising, producing more. We’ve flatlined as a society and have forgotten what makes us feel alive, what makes us happy, what’s essential, [and] what is life-reinforcing. The opposite of work for me is play. Playing is doing something different from what we do day in and day out but without an outcome. We just haven’t given ourselves permission to play enough.’

She continues, ‘Just as important is the wellbeing of the planet. We [haven’t] stopped to think about what we are doing to the planet in our different behaviours. In some ways this is a big warning. This is Mother Nature telling us, stop, go to your rooms, think about what you’ve been doing for the last 50 years and don’t come out until you have a more balanced perspective on a lot of things.’

It comes as no surprise then that Ross cast her votes with both sustainability and equality in mind. Her choice for ‘Life Enhancer of the Year’, the winning portable handwashing station by NMBStudio, impressed her not only with its simplicity in design but also ‘its ability to be fabricated locally by the community, for the community. We should be creating more designs that can manifest this way in the world,’ she says. 

Although returning to the office may still be varying widely across the board, a newly unveiled internal project at Google, known as the Immersive Spaces Series, is offering a roadmap on how to create restorative spaces in the workplace when the time does come. A work in progress since 2017, Google has been working with the American design practice, Office of Things, to design and construct five meditation chambers in the Youtube and Google offices in the Bay Area, adapted from an area of research which the practice has been investigating on its own. Conceived and designed pre-pandemic, the rooms’ philosophy of offering employees a place to acknowledge and restore their mental health could not come at a more relevant time.

The Immersive Spaces Series 

Each room in the Immersive Spaces Series has been designed to be used by a single occupant at a time. Inspired by the architecture and protective aspects of bunkers, the experience within each chamber is enhanced by augmented light and sound sequences which create a meditative effect that both grounds and cleanses on the haptic and psychic fronts. Each room is divided into three components: an entry, which focuses on helping the occupant leave behind the literal and figurative noise of the office and the outside world, the Ground; a spacious landscape of rounded edges, dark colours and soft textures, where occupants are invited to rest on the floor, against a wall or on a reclining bench, and finally the Sky, an ephemeral space that hovers above that allows the mind to relax and wander.

‘The first version of this room was for a temporary art gallery in Toronto that we built ourselves. It was a thoughtful learning experiment to help us understand how materials can come together, and what experience is created. Since then, as the spaces become more complex and refined, we’ve tried to evolve the designs accordingly,’ says Lane Rick, a principal at Office of Things, who led the project design. ‘These spaces are a crystallization of [our] exploration of the intersection of material tactility and the volumetric, ephemeral parts of placemaking; a grounded, soft texture to sit in, and an airy ceiling to look at. As the series evolved into an ensemble of spaces for meditation, the relationship between the elements has become more apparent to us.’

A ‘User First’ Approach

It was through seeing this early version of the meditation chamber that prompted Ryan Trinidade, a project executive at Google’s San Francisco office, to pursue a collaboration with Office of Things.

‘Wellness and inclusivity has been a priority for the company since its founding; it's one of the reasons we serve food. We've had meditation and prayer spaces well before I joined, but about five or six years ago I started a discussion with Office of Things about rethinking our meditation spaces,’ he shares. ‘Taking a "User First" approach, there were several pain points we sought to fix; acoustics, lack of ritual, privacy, and joy. The goal of the original meditation spaces and our current iteration, remains the same; to provide a break from meetings and screens, to take a moment for yourself.’

For the Youtube and Google offices, the studio studied the design and material qualities of anechoic chambers and sensory deprivation rooms. ‘We also adapted aspects of mindfulness meditation techniques to the experience of sitting and laying in the rooms, especially through the careful composition of the experiences for body and mind,’ adds Rick.

From the compressed entryway, which Rick says ‘resets the sensorial reverberations in the body’, to the way the ceiling has been designed ‘to maximize the effects according to the dimensions of the space [so] it is focused on creating a space of transformation and escape’, the rooms couldn’t be more conducive for getting away from the hubbub and reality of life. Acoustically padded walls, subtle changes in the lighting sequence and sounds emanating from the floor wash over the senses in a way that makes time feel slower.

‘At its core, the Immersive Spaces are physical environments that are augmented with technology,’ she concludes. ‘ The technology is hidden from eyesight, but introduces an element of change over time. For us, this experience is transformative and sublime; the small room gives way to a perceived immensity.’

INFORMATION
oo-t.co

The self-driving car industry is at a crossroads. After years of high expectations and lofty predictions, the futurologists can no longer confidently predict a world of hands-free, zero accident driving. Behind the scenes, however, the big players are pressing on with the tech, foreseeing a future where certain journeys – but not all – will benefit hugely from true autonomous vehicles. The autonomous vehicle is coming, no doubt, but right now, it is waiting, cogitating and calculating exactly who and what it's for.

Alphabet's Waymo Division is currently leading the pack. The project started at Google back in 2009, with a focus on engineering, software and sensors and it wasn't until 2015 that their first car appeared. The cute, bug-like Firefly briefly flew the flag for the new technology, serving as a testbed for the new era as it flitted around Google's vast Mountain View campus.

The company's Head of Design, YooJung Ahn, has spent nearly eight years at Waymo. Her team has worked closely with the engineers from the outset, finding out new ways of designing for autonomy. We talked to her about the latest version of Waymo's self-driving machine. ‘We sort of had a blank slate [with Firefly], but our biggest learning from the project was that when developing a car, scaling was a big issue,' Ahn says, ‘It was eye opening. So that's why we decided to work with OEMs.' In addtion to Firefly, Waymo's tech has been incorporated into Prius, Lexus and Chrysler platforms. Now it's the turn of an all-new car, the Jaguar I-PACE.

Ahn, who studied industrial design at Hongik University gaining a Masters in Design Methods from the IIT Institute of Design, oversaw all these machines. ‘The cars are all prepared for our use,' the designer says, ‘it's not just about making panels differently – it's about internal materials being more durable, creating new consoles, headliners, etc.' But most of all, it's about incorporating Waymo's arsenal of sensors.

At its core, Waymo is about software and sensors. As well as integrating the latter, Ahn has to bring a sense of unity, corporate coherence and functional simplicity. Waymo Driver number 5 is built upon the I-PACE platform, an accomplished pure EV. It was a natural choice for several reasons. ‘We wanted an EV platform with a lot of power,' Ahn says, ‘We also wanted to give our user group a bit of diversity. The [Chrysler Pacifica] minivan was good for families. But our role is to have maximum flexibility.' As well as the flagship I-PACE, of which the first thirty or so can currently be seen in Phoenix and the Bay Area, there are advanced plans for a Waymo-powered truck and a smaller delivery vehicle. As Ahn notes, ‘the technology is evolving every day,' and the Waymo approach evolves along with it.

While Firefly had a distinct character, the Waymo I-PACE is rather more explicit in its display of technical might. ‘When we started in 2013 people had no idea [about autonomous cars],' Ahn says, ‘We made our first car look friendly, not intimidating. It wasn't meant to be a "scary robot car". The I-PACE is a bit more sophisticated, with the recognisable essence of the Jaguar peeking out from beneath a carapace of sensors. We work closely with the engineering team from the beginning,' Ahn notes, pointing out that elements like layout, proportions, shapes and even the materials in the hefty roof pod are largely determined by the system requirements.

The sensors include a 360-degree LIDAR system, a 360-degree camera and long-range camera and 2 radars which are both forward facing. That's just on top; In total, the car has 29 exterior cameras, six radar sensors and five more LIDAR sensors around the vehicle. This is all proprietary technology – ‘we couldn't get off-the-shelf sensors that met our performance requirements,' says Ahn – and together they stitch together a vast open dataset (currently around 2TB worth and open to anyone to access) that is processed by the car's systems.

YooJung Ahn acknowledges that self-driving cars are still in their very early stages. ‘The service and branding is almost more important that the car itself,' she muses, pointing out the convenience of having the visual identifier on the roof and the custom displays in the interior. Waymo have an option to acquire up to 20,000 I-PACEs, taking the vehicles from Jaguar's factory in Austria and adapting them Waymo's Michigan facilities. When asked whether AVs need to be noticeably different from conventional cars, Ahn points out that ‘when it comes to safety, people don't really mind seeing sensors.' The balanced design also implies stability.

Regardless of the technology powering Waymo, the company is nothing without a valid business case. Building the Firefly was a bold first step, but also the realisation that car-making is not an easy task (something also discovered by Apple and, more recently, Dyson). Right now, Waymo's target market is short-hop urban transport, with short and long-distance freight following afterwards. But will the sudden surge in global unemployment make true autonomy a step too far? Or will the increasingly unpredictable requirements for social distancing make autonomous delivery systems an essential part of a new society? Uncertainty, it seems, is all part of the process. ‘People love technology but they don't want complexity,' says Ahn, ‘who knows what the next step will be?'

INFORMATION

waymo.com

‘Now more than ever, the home is that safe haven, literally,’ says Isabelle Olsson, lead industrial designer at Google who is hunkered down in sunny California. Home has been an integral part of Olssen’s design thinking, with the Google Nest smart home as one of her pivotal projects. This weekend, the tech giant is using this digital tool to motivate our moods.

Google was keen to identify how people are interacting with music during this extended period of time at home, and so they turned to cognitive neuroscientist Dr Diana Omigie at Goldsmiths University, London, to analyse this. Omigie found that individuals are using music as a meditative tonic, and listening peaked at certain times of the day. So how is the design of Google Nest products geared towards helping us at home? ‘We have been trying to shift from a design thinking role to a design feeling role,’ says Olssen on how they are navigating this time. ‘When we discuss a project or a product I asked the designers, how does it make you feel, not what do you think, because you get completely different answers.’

Multi-sensory design

Google’s design experience has always included all the senses. As with its 2019 Milan Design Week installation ‘A Space for Being’ that monitored cognitive behaviour inside different interior environments, the Nest Sessions hope to enhance meditative moments, and this ethos is embedded in Olssen’s team process when looking at colours and shapes for the hardware.

‘We talk a lot about blending in and fitting into people's lives. For example, for the design of the Nest Hub, we spent a lot of time making sure the footprint of it was tiny so that you can fit it on any shelf you wanted to without displacing a bunch of other objects or the screen itself adapting to the light in the room,’ Olssen says, reiterating that they have been trying ensure Google hardware designs continue to harmonise with the home. ‘Now more than ever I think that is extremely important.’

‘We have been working on this idea of how can technology be more like pieces of furniture, and how can a speaker almost be like that accent pillow and be as versatile as beautiful,’ says Olssen, who’s own home workspace is a melding of sensory analogue and digital tools – candles, flowers and a window, plus the Nest Hub with the screen rotating pictures of her children.

Designing from home

And how has being at home changed how the team are designing? ‘I've been having prototypes on my desk and I've been watching how the light changes throughout the day, and how it affects the form and the colour of the object and how I feel differently about it. And, you know, before we designed our offices to look more like homes and now our homes are offices.’

Virtual room dividers

With this shift of rooms becoming multifunctional – the kitchen and bedroom can now double as an office environment – the Google hardware team is focusing on the range of colours and materials that act as digital dividers around the the home. ‘[We are thinking about] how can we can create products that help people create different moods, whether the bedroom has a soothing mood, or in the living room where maybe you want to be more energised or where you want to socialise, or the kitchen.’

Those with a Nest smart speaker can start creating their sound zones around the house by tuning in this weekend to mood lifting sessions including talks, music performances and home activities. Just say: ‘Hey Google, talk to Nest Sessions.’

INFORMATION

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Tune into Nest Sessions on Google Store

It’s a still life with a high-tech twist: beneath a linen wall hanging, there is a wabi sabi teacup, a potted plant – and, in unexpected harmony, the minimal white lines of a Google Nest Wifi. This is just one scene among 100-plus exhibitions that make up the third edition of Designart Tokyo, a fast-growing annual festival which – as the name suggests – celebrates all things design and art related across the Japanese capital.

The idea of transforming a city into one vast, living museum is no mean feat – particularly when the metropolis in question is an urban sprawl packed with over 13 million residents. Yet this is the goal of DesignArt, which opened across 11 different neighbourhoods in the capital, with the Ginza and Shinjuku areas included for the first time. This year – the biggest to date – around 300 designers, artists and brands are showcased for ten days in museums, galleries, design studios and stores.

‘Comma at 21_21 Design’ in Roppongi, is an installation inspired by the pauses in modern day life, curated by trends forecaster Lidewij Edelkoort, and produced by Google Hardware Design Studio. Minimal linen wall hangings with abstract motifs by Dutch interior architect studio INAMATT echo new Google products (including a pebble-like Nest Mini of recycled plastic), all subtly set among everyday items, from soapdishes to teapots. ‘Yes, this is technology,' explains Ivy Ross, Google’s VP of hardware design. ‘But beautiful objects are not just about how they look, it’s also about how they feel.’

World Kita-Aoyama Building is the setting for ‘1% for Art’ exhibition – an initiative supporting one per cent of national construction budgets going towards public art projects. An eclectic array of pieces were on view, from Shigeki Yamamoto’s hole-punched bamboo furniture to Apical Reform’s hanging shoal of high-tech red piranha fish.

At the Nendo-designed Kashiyama Daikanyama complex, it’s all about rocks. ‘Earthscape,’ a contemplative exhibition by Okurayama Studio and designer Teruhiro Yanagihara, showcases richly textured Daté Kan volcanic stones dating back 20 million years. Sourced from Mount Zao in northern Japan, they are displayed simply in large wooden boxes, alongside photography by Yuna Yagi and stone products (including the minimal, layered Kon Pac table).

Other highlights include Raison d’Etre, by Wakabayashi Butsugu, the 19th century Kyoto Buddhist altar makers, at GUM in Omotesando. Here, bold modern takes on traditional home altars were showcased, as imagined by six Japanese creatives – from Kohei Nawa, whose fantastical still-in-progress wooden phoenix will soon be covered in gold leaf; to Satoshi Itasaka’s shiny, fluidly-curved altars in lipstick red laquerware (there’s even one for dead pets).

Meanwhile, ‘Swiss Design / Made in Japan’, curated by David Glaettli, features a raft of collaborative creations – including the curved Japanese oak Polar Chair, designed by Moritz Schlatter and produced by Karimoku New Standard and exquisitely sprayed Arita ceramics by Kueng Caputo.

Other small-scale gems include Koichi Futatsumata’s Kiulu Bench – inspired by wooden bathing buckets – in Artek’s window, alongside landscape photography by Nao Tsuda. At Bunkitsu Roppongi, ‘Nature as Metaphor,’ by Chialing Chang featured a wood tower and delicately fanned mulberry tree fibres, meanwhile at Espace Louis Vuitton, Christian Boltanski’s magical Animus films, one shot in Chile, the other on Japan’s Teshima island, are also screened.

‘It’s a city-wide platform to showcase Japanese and international designers using the city as a stage,’ explains Mark Dytham of Klein Dytham architecture – one of six Tokyo creatives behind Designart. ‘What’s most important is that it gives Japanese designers a voice both nationally and internationally, to be seen and discovered – something that has been lacking in Tokyo until now.'

INFORMATION

Designart Tokyo runs until October 27. designart.jp

Google: a brand known for turning itself into an adjective, and transforming the Internet into the intuitive beast it is today. Most recently though, our eyes have been drawn to its design initiatives, including the Made by Google hardware, which has just dropped its fourth collection.

Streamed live from New York City, inside The Shed on Hudson Yards, the keynote was presented with Google's ethos – ‘making life easier everyday’ – at the fore. During the presentation, sustainability entered conversation quite quickly. Rick Osterloh, senior vice president at Google, proudly noted the brand has been carbon neutral since 2007. Evidence of this appears in the 100 per cent recycled plastic fabrics that dress the newest digital assistant, Nest Mini –  each one equates to half a plastic bottle. Spearheading the design department, head of design Ivy Ross was sure to mention that conscious efforts doesn’t hinder her meticulous aesthetic, ‘design is about solving problems for people,’ she stated at the keynote.

From the new roster of products, it’s the gaming tool that has significant design appeal. Launching with Google’s Stadia software, its all encompassing gaming platform, the console is minimal and ergonomically built. ‘We wanted the controller to be comfortable in the hands of all gamers,’ Ross says, and to reach this, the team turned to a utilitarian tool for inspiration – knives and their handles.

In the midst of reitering its mission to not let technology interupt your life but enhance it, Google presented other new wares including its latest laptop, the Pixelbook Go. The ultra thin model (13mm) is made for a nomadic lifestyle, and exists in the ‘Just Black’ and ‘Not Pink’ hues, with a satisfying rippled texture at its base for extra grip.

‘What is a simpler form than a circle?’ asks industrial designer Isabelle Olsson when discussing the design of the new Pixel Earbuds that sees the original earbuds turned wireless and given a subtle reshape. The audio instruments fit flush with the ear, allowing you to forget they’re plugged in, while AI technology controls the volume for you, altering naturally against our noise polluted environments.

In April, Google’s blockbuster Milan Design Week exhibition combined neuroscience research with design, and showed the brand merging its tech innovations with other creative realms. This continues with its most recent collaboration with Annie Leibovitz, ‘I was very impressed how I relaxed with it, and glided with it,’ the photographer stated of the new Pixel 4 and its professional snapping capabilities.

Thanks to the work of Ross and her team, the Google hardware language is now identifiable against its competitors, and with this refresher toolkit, Google continues to embed its USP: ‘Our mission is to bring a more helpful Google today.’

INFORMATION

store.google.com

This weekend, Sonos is celebrating the much lauded arrival of the Google Assistant on its wireless music systems with The Brilliant Sound Experience: an immersive, multi-sensory installation in London's Soho. Also highlighting new music from The National and slowthai, the installation is set to uncover the key elements that make up Sonos' signature sound – inviting you to hear, and unusually, see it, first-hand.

Sonos' mission statement focusses on inspiring the world to ‘listen better', and as such, the exhibition will visually deconstruct the sonic experience, exploring how sound works, how it layers into music, and why it resonates with us on an emotional level. Guests will see real-time visualisations of their brain's reaction to the music, allowing them to physically step inside the sound.

The installation reads interestingly in relation to the one Google presented with Johns Hopkins University’s Arts + Mind Lab earlier this year at Salone del Mobile in Milan, which explored the ways in which design, lighting and interior architecture directly impacts on our inner calm.

In Milan, guests donned reactive Google-made wrist bands, which monitored heart rate, body temperature and moisture to track emotional response. At the London showcase, EEG headbands provide the scientific analysis, tracing the interrelation between brainwaves and soundwaves. To a backdrop of evocative songs from the Beggars Group labels – specifically chosen for their ability to spark reaction – guests can better understand their brain’s emotional responses through attractive visual maps, that look like fireworks of colourful neurons.

The second of two rooms asks: ‘When does sound become music?', illustrated by a dynamic composition by American band The National. The song layers the track ‘Rylan’ from new album I Am Easy To Find, and British rapper slowthai’s new single ‘Toaster’ from his debut album There’s Nothing Great About Britain. Visitors can expect to be immersed ‘both audibly and visually', explains The National's Scott Devendorf. Watch – and listen to – this space.

INFORMATION

The Brilliant Sound Experience, 2-4 August 2019. google.com; sonos.com

ADDRESS

Phonica
51 Poland Street
London, W1

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We all assume that an aesthetically pleasing environment can affect the brain positively. But thanks to a partnership between Google and Johns Hopkins University’s Arts + Mind Lab, a new installation being unveiled during Salone del Mobile has the data to prove it.

Spearheaded by Google, A Space for Being is a multiroom experience that is informed by the principles of neuroaesthetics, a field of neuroscience research being pioneered at Johns Hopkins. The installation builds upon last year’s ‘Softwear’ exhibition, which marked Google’s Milan debut, and investigates similar ideas of how design can impact our lives. Envisioned by Google’s vice president and head of design for all hardware products, Ivy Ross, and featuring specially designed spaces by architect Suchi Reddy, along with a selection of furniture and accessories by Muuto, the installation is set to prompt new discussions on how design and science can be used in tandem that will continue far beyond the week.

‘Our presence in Milan isn’t about selling products, it’s about being a thought leader in design. We wanted to be provocative,’ says Ross, a jewellery designer by background who has lead the launch of Google’s family of consumer hardware products over the last two years, and advises the Arts + Mind Lab as a Luminary Scholar. ‘With neuroscience now, you can prove the things that designers and artists have always known: that aesthetics – which is not just making things look pretty, but enlivening all the sensory systems through space, colour, texture, music and shape – affects our brain, our physiology and our wellbeing. Not everyone understands the power of that, but now neuroscience is able to show that.’

A Space for Being comprises several interactive spaces, including three different room environments for visitors to wander around. Simply named ‘Essential,’ ‘Vital’ and ‘Transformative,’ each of the spaces features a subtle variation of lighting, scent, music, artwork, materials and proportion that creates a distinct sensory experience. Before entering, visitors are fitted with a specially-made band designed by Google Hardware and its Advanced Technology and Projects division, which measures the person’s physiological responses along the way. Each band is equipped with four sensors that measure the wearer’s heart activity, breathing rate and skin conductance, temperature and body motion. The data is then downloaded and analysed at the end of the installation.

‘As an architect, I delight in practising an art that integrates the sciences,’ says Reddy, who oversaw the interior and architectural design. ‘This was a great opportunity to explore the poetry of architecture, with science as the driver of the design. Knowing that the goal was to create three different moods or feelings, I made particularly conscious choices for every element of the rooms, giving careful thought to the sequence of the experience as well. It was a fine balance of checking the work against published scientific research, and a good old-fashioned gut check of the aesthetic experience.’

In ‘Essential,’ she created an intimate, earthy feel, and included a specially commissioned panoramic woollen tapestry by Dutch visual artist Claudy Jongstra; ‘Vital’ is rather more playful; and ‘Transformative’ features a natural, refined feel with a neutral palette, as well as a minimal sculpture by the Rotterdam-based designer Sabine Marcelis.

The realistic, tastefully appointed interiors of A Space for Being makes the variety of results that each visitor will receive all the more impactful. While an individual’s responses are governed by their unique genetics and conditioning, some of the more widely proven data suggests it’s common to see positive reactions to artworks featuring faces or landscapes, and to natural scents such as lavender and sage.

Filled with furniture exclusively from Muuto, the different rooms have a common aesthetic, which further helps to focus each individual’s physiological reactions on the sensory stimuli, rather than allowing personal taste to get in the way. Ross says having spent a short period of time in each room, the visitor will find out ‘in which room their physiology appears to be the most at ease or comfortable, which I hope will be a surprise in some cases. Sometimes your conscious mind, your frontal lobe, walks into a space and says, “I love this”, but maybe your physiology is more relaxed in a different room than you think.’

Christian Grosen, Muuto’s design director, adds that ‘only a few people can explain why a given design makes them feel a certain way, or why they prefer one space over another. This is where this project is interesting; it’s like creating a new language around aesthetics that can help us express what we are not able to communicate in words.’

Susan Magsamen, executive director of the Arts + Mind Lab, explains: ‘Over the last 20 years, neuroscientists have really begun to look at how the brain changes with aesthetic experiences, looking at vision, smell and touch.’ What the lab is really interested in ‘is from an application point of view, how you can use the information to solve problems. Increasingly we are trying to get at personalised neuroaesthetics for health, wellbeing and learning. In physical health, for example, there’s the use of drumming or other kinds of movements to help sufferers of Parkinson’s disease.’

One particularly impressive application of neuroaesthetics has been the sensory healing room at the Brain Sciences Institute at Johns Hopkins. Currently being designed by Reddy in collaboration with the Arts + Mind Lab and due to be completed in 2020, the room facilitates the recovery of children suffering from disorders of consciousness by creating personalised sensory environments tailored to each patient.

A Space for Being will let the general public in on the action, too. It will give each visitor the unprecedented chance to receive feedback and insight into their personal reactions to different environments. To address privacy concerns, once the data from the band has been assessed, it is erased in front of participants straight away.

‘At the end of the day, we’re saying, design matters more than you think. I want everyone to know it,’ Ross concludes. ‘We are all striving for wellbeing and to be less stressed in our lives. There are choices we can make about the environments we surround ourselves with, which can actually enhance our physiology and put us into a more peaceful state. There’s no other agenda than that.’

As originally featured in the May 2019 issue of Wallpaper* (W*242)

INFORMATION

A Space for Being is on view from 9-14 April. For more information, visit the Google Store website, the Reddymade website, the Muuto website and the Arts + Mind Lab website

ADDRESS

Spazio Maiocchi
Via Achille Maiocchi, 7
Milan

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It’s a dizzying time to be in the market for speakers, with yet another new generation of smart systems vying for your attention. This time the AI-powered digital assistants are being paired with vastly improved sound quality. Both Bose and Sonos have partnered with Amazon’s Alexa, which is also promising to find its way into Audi’s coming generation of electric cars. Not to be outdone, Google has teamed up with Harman Kardon in order to fuse high fidelity with the undeniable convenience of having all the world’s knowledge at the tip of your tongue.

The new Citation 300 is a standalone room speaker, capable of filling a sizeable space and designed to blend into a contemporary interior. Although the device’s packaging doesn’t quite have Google’s new-found knack for simple presentation and a seductive unboxing experience, the unit itself is calm and unfussy, with a fashionable edging of rough textured grey fabric (from Kvadrat, no less). A lozenge-shaped touch screen sits at the top of the device to manage the various options and streaming services, while the Google Assistant will chip in with answers to your queries, diary updates and all the other data-driven minutiae you’ve chosen to migrate to the cloud.

Set-up is simple through the Google Home App, and if you’re a Google Play subscriber – and the company fervently hopes you are – then the Citation 300 dovetails neatly into your current set-up. The sound is excellent, adding a layer of detail and bass definition that you just don’t get with the pocket-sized speakers sold by the tech giants themselves. If you’re not a subscriber – or prefer to keep the eavesdropping mic on permanent mute – the Citation works just as well as an outsized Bluetooth speaker for streaming and casting. For smart home aficionados, the speaker can also connect with other smart devices.

We’re in the early skirmishes of an ongoing AI war, and the fighting is still focused on getting such devices embedded in consumers’ lives. For those who want to surrender to technology, hands-free convenience and algorithmic cultural creation has never sounded so good.

INFORMATION

Harman Kardon Citation 300, from £349.99. For more information, visit the Harman Kardon website

Two years ago, Google launched its first set of products under its new hardware arm Made by Google. The suite of digital tools arrived with game-changing software and AI that offered us a Google lifestyle that challenged competitors like Apple and Amazon. This year, the tech giant is celebrating its 20th anniversary, and with it, its third wave of life enhancing launches – Pixel 3, Google Pixel Slate and Google Home Hub.

Google shook things up this year, swapping its global conference location from the Mountain View HQ to New York City, but they still served up its ethos across multiple screens that this technology will ultimately help your life. The new collection follows on from the brand’s inaugural Salone del Mobile project earlier this year at Rossana Orlandi that firmed its place in the design world with a show on how hardware can seamlessly integrate with our lives. Spearheading the design department for the past four years, Head of Design Ivy Ross and her team were given appraisal early in this year’s hardware keynote in a video where Ross explains that Google’s design aesthetic has soft circles and curves for the user to get close to the technology that, she says, ‘will eventually be invisible.’

As the presentation continued, it became clear that Google isn’t ignoring the social climate and the need for a digital detox, shown in the launch of new wellness software for Pixel phones, dubbed Digital Wellbeing. Offering a smoother journey to the ‘do not disturb’ button, the software knows to mute notifications when the screen is facing the table, and allows us to monitor app usage time. Meanwhile the new wireless charging system, Pixel Stand, offers an ambient visual alarm system to appear on your phone slowly displaying gradient tones of the sunrise moments before the sound hits.

These wellness features join new hardware that includes the company’s first tablet, Google Pixel Slate, and Pixel 3, the latest smartphone that contains an impressive new wide angle camera among other nifty new functions, and Google Home Hub that is a compact smart home, but with a floating visual display. All the designs are imbued with soft edges, bespoke textures and muted palettes, plus playful extras like brightly hued buttons on the Pixel 3, keeping in line with Google’s well known vibrant design style that Ross describes as ‘bold and optimistic.’

Google is a relative newcomer to the hardware game, and it was sure to communicate that while the new technology could improve our lives, it was not here to take control; ‘we love working on really hard problems that make life easier for people, in big and small ways,’ mused Rick Osterloh, vice president of Hardware at Google.

INFORMATION

For more information, visit the Google store website

The summer of 1968 had a very distinctive flavour. The Beatles had just submerged the nation in their seminal animation Yellow Submarine, Pink Floyd’s ethereal riffs intoxicated a thousand-strong Hyde Park crowd and the Hayward Gallery had just hit London’s Southbank, conceived from a crumbling shell between Waterloo and Hungerford Bridge, and transformed into a hub of ambitious cultural finesse.

During its lifespan, The Hayward has played host to some of the most thrilling, provocative and star-studded displays of the previous half-century. A major Matisse retrospective christened the gallery with an ambush of primitive forms on a base of rigorous discipline. Francis Bacon’s body and soul were laid bare in a 1998 retrospective, revealing the artist’s trials, torment and turbulent struggle for identity through his series of dismantled and dissected bodily forms. More recently, Martin Creed asked ‘What’s the Point of It?’ in his 2014 solo show, which dominated the Hayward’s spaces with a seminal spread of installation work teetering on the rickety boundary between provocation and profundity.

To kick off the semicentennial celebrations, the Thameside brutalist Kunsthalle underwent a major facelift in January, involving a deep external clean and the installation of 66 new skylights; the original vision of the architects and their creative righthand, Henri Matisse. And now, with the aid of Google Arts and Culture’s project, Hayward Gallery at 50, users will be able to dive into a virtual archive of 1,000 artifacts, architectural plans, films, installations, sketches, and photographs – plus snoop behind the curtain at previously uncharted exhibition material harvested over the last half century.

To toast the occasion, entry tickets for the current exhibition, ‘Lee Bul: Crashing’ – the eerily dystopian display of critically acclaimed work spanning 30 years – will be available for 50p per person on Wednesday 11 July (the Hayward’s official birthday) with extended opening hours.

INFORMATION

For more information, visit the Hayward Gallery website and the Google Arts and Culture website

ADDRESS

Southbank Centre
337-338 Belvedere Road
London SE1 8XX

VIEW GOOGLE MAPS

After a decade languishing on consumer tech’s back porch, the smart home has started to enjoy mainstream success. Voice-activated butler bots such as Google Assistant and Apple HomeKit chime in 39 million American homes, while Ring, a video-activated doorbell, has been snapped up by Amazon for $1bn.

But has good tech turned fad? Tech firms are embedding remote-controlled capabilities into everything, from ludicrous ‘Laundroids’ to help fold your clothes to toilets such as Kohler’s ‘Numi’, which monitors the pipes in a little too much detail. Meanwhile, potentially worrisome tech that exists to siphon data from our day-to-day lives comes cloaked in a stylish shell – like the Yves Béhar-designed Hive View security system – so it doesn’t feel like an AI alien has invaded your home.

Inevitably, we’ll keep welcoming ever brighter AI into our living rooms. But if we fear smart homes will make us stupid, we could heed Elon Musk and the late Stephen Hawking, and seek out domestic design that’s a little bit dumber.

Read part two of ‘Next stop’ on the uprising of autonomous door-to-door travel

‘Next stop’ is a three-part series which looks to the future of technology, from domestic AI, to the daily commute, and luxury medical breaks

Read part three of ‘Next stop’, where we look to the future of the medical makeover

As originally featured in the June 2018 issue of Wallpaper* (W*231)

Selfridges has embraced its radical alter-ego in The Flipside, a side-stepping new exhibition aiming to define contemporary – and future – concepts of ‘radical luxury’. Housed a few steps from the department store’s storied, bright-white Accessories Hall, which was overhauled last year, is The Old Selfridges Hotel, a concrete maze of darkened rooms, activated by luxury technology, fashion and fragrance houses into a disorientating dystopia.

The Flipside takes notes from the Accessories Hall and turns them on their head. An antithesis of the Hall’s clean-cut aesthetic, with its half-moon shaped bar and distinctive, calming orb lighting, The Flipside employs high gloss black flooring, a multitude of mirrors, and neon strips that puncture the darkness. It’s as if, Stranger Things-style, we’ve slipped into the Upside Down.

Alongside installations by Louis Vuitton, Loewe and Thom Browne, Gareth Pugh presents a self-portrait film displayed on a corridor of mirrored screens, and Byredo looks to a future where fresh water will be a precious scarcity, through a collection of large, empty water butts, which echo the silhouette of its famous fragrance vessel. Elsewhere, Google has created a photobooth installation, where guests take selfies framed by their own definitions of luxury, showcasing the Pixel 2’s low-light abilities. The exhibition cumulates (via a fragrant make-your-own personalised cocktail room called The Libationary) atop a giant sundial, created by Selfridges in-house design team, where we are asked to contemplate the most in-demand of luxuries – time.

The Flipside is the second stop on Selfridges ongoing ‘radical luxury’ campaign trail, the most ambitious in its 109 year history. It launched earlier this month with a 60 second art-film, currently playing in cinemas across the country – the first film advert from the department store in 40 years. We also look forward to The Flipside hosting contemporary dance performances and panel discussions, all of which will attempt to define, question and dissect radicalism in the age of luxury.

INFORMATION

Until 20 May. For more information, visit the Selfridges website

The biggest week in the design calender is not necessarily known for its technology offerings. This year, however, tech hunters won’t have to look hard for beautifully designed launches, installations and collaborations, as the ever-merging worlds of technology and design continue to conflate. Here’s five of our favourites, and where to find them at Salone del Mobile.

Google

Google is making its Salone del Mobile debut, intertwining hardware with soft intuition in an immersive multi-room installation curated by Dutch trend forecaster Lidewij Edelkoort in Rossana Orlandi’s gallery. The Google event, titled ‘Softwear’, will display its tech hardware among everyday objects in comforting lifestyle scenarios.

‘Designing and producing our own hardware is a relatively new venture for us and something that is not widely known about especially globally,’ says Ivy Ross, Google’s vice president of hardware design, on why the software giant decided to show at Milan Design Week. ‘We believe that having a presence at Salone del Mobile and sharing our point of view is a great opportunity to connect with others especially in the design industry.’

The relationship between Google and Edelkoort is lengthy, and in a meeting last year, Ross remembers that ‘[Li] remarked how we were actually delivering on something she had forecast back in 1998... she was thrilled that in many ways, we were bringing that prediction to life without even realising it.’ Said forecast predicted a new way of engaging with technology, for it to seamlessly exist in our lives.

Softwear; 17 - 21 April. Rosanna Orlandi, Via Matteo Bandello, 14/16, 20123, Milan

Dassault Systèmes and Kengo Kuma

Sustainable design is set to be a hot topic at this year’s Milan Design Week, and this installation from architect Kengo Kuma with 3D experience company Dassault Systèmes, has the important theme at its heart. 

Breath/ing is a dynamic, architectural unit made from existing pollution-neutralising materials, addressing the growing global issue of air pollution. As well as being a striking immersive setting, its designers hope the installation inspires designers from across the world to tackle sustainability in their own work.

‘This collaboration is inspiring for me because we share similar values and a vision,’ Kuma explains. ‘I believe that the combination of design and technology can make a huge contribution to the world’s environmental issues.’ Dassault Systèmes also promises collaborations from Wallpaper* Design Awards 2018 judge Daan Roosegaarde, Wesley Goatley and Superflux.

Design in the Age of Experience; 17 - 22 April; Superstudio Più at 27 via Tortona, 20144, Milan

Panasonic Design

Continuing the theme of air pollution and sustainability, Panasonic Design is presenting an immersive, so-called ‘water-drop’ pavilion, which will reportedly contain the cleanest, purest air in Milan.

The pavilion marks Panasonic’s 100th anniversary. Instead of marking the milestone moment with product launches, it has instead looked outside itself, into the role design will play in improving our future physical environments and emotional wellbeing. The 20 metre-diametre droplet shaped installation is filled with Panasonic’s Nanoe X air purification ionization technology, and ‘silky fine mist’ another proprietary technology which micronises water with high pressured air (in other words, it’ll be a cooling, refreshing experience). Inside the dome, Panasonic’s ultra-super luminosity projector and high resolution fish-eye lens create highly realistic 4K projection mapping.

It’s quite the unexpected move from the tech titan, one that reflects the brand’s changing attitude and ‘philosophical ethos’. ‘Over the past 100 years, Panasonic has improved peoples’ lives through technology and physical products, from light bulbs to washing machines, explains Shigeo Usui, director of Panasonic Design. ‘Our new creative philosophy focused on the ‘culture of life’ will allow us to go beyond the physical and enrich the whole culture of a person’s life, including health, wellbeing, feelings and experiences.’

Transitions by Panasonic Design; 17 - 22 April. Pinacoteca di Brera, Via Brera, 28, 20121 Milan

Sonos, WeWork and Hay

Hay, WeWork and Sonos are joining forces to display their vision of the future of design inside the charmingly guilded Palazzo Clerici. For the installation, Hay and WeWork will present an office-like set up that will challenge typical working environments via some nifty research from the co-working titans and Hay’s new shelving and storage system. Expect a mesh of contemporary function with historic Milanese chic.

Sonos’ part of the launch is an exclusive new take on the Sonos One smart speaker, which was released last year. Custom designed to match perfectly with HAY’s existing color palette, the collection will come in shades of red, green and yellow (pictured above), and will be available for purchase from September 2018.

17-22 April; Palazzo Clerici, Via Clerici, 5, Milan

Sony

Like Google, Sony is keen to promote technology’s ability to seamlessly merge with our daily lives, comfortingly as opposed to intrusively. Its exhibition ‘Hidden Senses’ showcases possible interactions between people, objects and spaces, where technology melds beautifully, and functionally, into the background. ‘The experience we propose brings forward a more comfortable lifestyle, merging design and technology to create unique emotional experiences involving all of our senses,’ explains the tech titan.

The exhibition is composed of five case study areas, in which so-called ‘Hidden Senses’ are revealed step by step – from pure sound experience, to everyday furniture and lighting that helps us to visualise information.

April 17-22; Spazio Zegna, Via Savona 56/A, Milan

BeoPlay

Few do Scandinavian design with immersive sound better that BeoPlay. The Danish speaker stalwart this week introduced the latest portable to its growing family. Designed by friend of the brand Cecilie Manz, the P6 is (as with all BeoPlay products) built from premium materials. The cool pearl blasted aluminium enclosure ensures an even dispersion of its rich, True360 Bang & Olufsen signature sound.Meanwhile, the double layered leather strap offers a warm contrast to the metal and provides easy portability. Inspired by Bang & Olufsen’s Beomaster 6000, the control buttons are milled out of a single piece of aluminium.

‘With Beoplay P6, we redefined the archetype of working with aluminium by pushing the physical limits of the material, highlighting the three-dimensional shells and its hole pattern as much as possible,’ says Manz, who recently became Maison&Objet’s Designer of the Year. ‘This detail gives a distinctive character, such that the sound is spread evenly and shared with people around you in all directions.’

INFORMATION
Find all the Salone del Mobile best bits on our interactive map

Earlier this year, Google’s Arts & Culture app ignited a viral storm with its ‘art selfie’ feature – social media feeds were awash with selfies of users and their fine art doppelgängers. More recently, Google announced a follow-up experiment: Art Palette, which invites users to select a colour palette, and using a complex combination of computer vision algorithms matches artworks with their chosen hues.

The premise is simple enough – the results, addictively less so. The feature reveals how Van Gogh’s Irises shares a hidden connection of colour with a 16th-century Iranian folio and Monet’s water lilies, or that Ettore Sottsass’ ‘Carlton’ room divider has more in common with Bartolomeo Passarotti’s 1580 painting The Coronation of the Virgin than you might realise. More fun still, users can upload an image of their own – from home décor to fashion – and make visual connections to their immediate surroundings (even Sir Paul Smith’s given Art Palette a whirl).

In addition to Art Palette, the Paris-based Arts & Culture lab revealed two further experiments as part of its ongoing reseach into how AI can be used to enhance culture. LIFE Tags uses Google’s Image Content-based Annotation (ICA) algorithm to scan, analyse and tag over 4 million unpublished photos from the magazine’s archives, from the A-line dress to the zeppelin.

The technology giant also collaborated with the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) to create an art-recognising programme that used an algorithm to comb through over 30,000 exhibition photos, looking for matches with the more than 65,000 works in the New York institution’s online collection. Over 20,000 artworks were eventually matched, which the museum has used to create ‘a vast network of new links between our exhibition history and online collection’.

Google unveiled its first set of AI-aided cultural experiments in 2016. Since then it has collaborated with institutions and artists, including stage designer Es Devlin, who created an installation for the Serpentine Galleries in London that used machine learning to generate poetry.

It’s no secret we love a Google art remix at Wallpaper*. Last year we teamed up with photographer Brigitte Niedermair and designer Martino Gamper to celebrate textile brand Dedar’s 40th anniversary. The creative duo used Google’s Dominant Colour Lazy Loading – an algorithm that creates a series of placeholder boxes appear while the actual pictures finish loading in search – to render master artists’ work in a new hue, eventually adapting them into decorative wall-hung panels.

INFORMATION

For more information, visit the Google Arts & Culture website

Google is making its Salone del Mobile debut, intertwining hardware with soft intuition in an immersive multi-room installation curated by Dutch trend forecaster Lidewij Edelkoort inside the multiple rooms of Rossana Orlandi’s gallery.

Two years ago, Google launched its first range of hardware products, Made by Google. The second suite of products were then released last year, including headphones, laptop and Pixel 2. Now, Google is immersing itself in the design circuit by taking on the biggest week of the calendar. ‘Designing and producing our own hardware is a relatively new venture for us and something that is not widely known about especially globally,’ says Ivy Ross, Google’s vice president of hardware design, on why the tech giants decided to show at Milan Design Week. ‘We believe that having a presence at Salone del Mobile and sharing our point of view is a great opportunity to connect with others especially in the design industry.’

The relationship between Google and Edelkoort has been long term, and in a meeting last year, Ross remembers that ‘[Li] remarked how we were actually delivering on something she had forecasted back in 1998... she was thrilled that in many ways, we were bringing that forecast to life without even realising it.’ This was a lifestyle forecast that predicted a new way of engaging with technology, for it to seamlessly exist in our lives.

Wallhangings by Kiki van Eijk that feature Google’s hardware in a soft existence

The feeling is mutual with Edelkoort, ‘[Ross] is the most human-driven art director I have ever encountered,’ she says, noting that Google embraces textiles in the creative process, and this is akin to her own design ethos – ‘where high-tech and slow-craft come together as one.’

The Google event, titled 'Softwear' , will display the tech hardware amongst everyday objects in various lifestyle scenarios. This will be accompanied by bespoke wall hangings by the designer Kiki van Eijk that will encapsulate the different Google products, to create a ‘modern cocoon,’ as decribed by van Eijk, ‘a shell of protection in which we can live with honesty and fulfilment.’

'Softwear' aims to prompt a conversation about the future of technology and its place in our lives. ‘We believe that technology is here to stay,’ Ross comments, ‘so we must design it in a way that allows it to fit into our lives seamlessly, as opposed to getting in the way. Li has curated the exhibition in a way that brings that idea to life through different mediums.’

INFORMATION

’Softwear’ will be on view at Salone del Mobile from 17-22 April. For more information visit the Google store website

ADDRESS

Rosanna Orlandi
Via Matteo Bandello, 14/16
Milan
20123

VIEW GOOGLE MAPS

If good design is about creating a seamless experience, there are few who understand this better than Samsung’s executive vice president Don-Tae Lee, who spoke with Time Inc. executive editor Clay Chandler at the Brainstorm Design conference in Singapore on Wednesday 7 March.

‘We always think of how we can create sense of seamlessness and cohesiveness across our products so we can deliver a singular experience to consumers,’ Lee said. As the head of Samsung’s seven corporate design centre studios (only his second job, Chandler noted), Lee oversees a staff of over 1,500 designers working to harmonise Samsung’s diverse family of products — from smartphones and TVs to home appliances and computing devices. When a customer is using a Samsung product, Lee said, the experience must be identifiable as one that flows from a Samsung product. ‘That’s the kind of seamless experience we try to achieve,’ he told Brainstorm Design.

Lee joined Samsung in 2015 from London-based design firm Tangerine, his first stop in the design world. The company also famously produced Apple design mastermind Jony Ive.

Samsung was then reeling, battling smartphone rivals Apple in a costly lawsuit and seeing off competition from Chinese upstarts Xiaomi, and Huawei. The South Korean tech and electronics giant’s last quarter profits dropped 37 per cent in 2014, while reviews found its flagship smartphone a lackluster reboot of the S4.

Lee has since overseen a reinvention of Samsung’s design identity by helping ‘move the brand of Samsung’ from being a technology-driven company to being ‘a user-and life-style centric brand.’ The company is also stepping up to competitors Apple and Google in the next major tech battlegrounds: smart home appliances like the Frame TV, a new television that’s ‘designed as a beautiful object, whether turned on or off,’ Lee said, after Samsung learned that most consumers spend four hours per day watching TV — meaning 20 hours per day, the television was turned off. ‘We realised that the TV needs to be branded into the home environment,’ Lee said, by allowing users to customise their ‘off’ display with famous pieces of art, or family photos.

The Brainstorm Design conference is jointly organised by Fortune, TIME and Wallpaper*, bringing together more than 300 top speakers and delegates from 33 countries. See more here

INFORMATION

For more information, visit the Samsung website and the Brainstorm Design website

ADDRESS

Mandarin Oriental Singapore
5 Raffles Avenue
039797, Marina Square
Singapore

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‘How do you preserve the work of a curator?’ It’s a question that has long interested pre-eminent information age exhibition-maker Hans Ulrich Obrist. A new digital destination, created in collaboration with Google Arts and Culture and For Your Art, attempts to answer it.

‘We strive to create an oscillation between the exhibition and the respective venue,’ says Obrist. ‘The exhibitions change places, but each place also changes the exhibition. This website is, at last, an ever-evolving archive for my exhibitions on the move.’

‘Ways of Curating’ – the virtual ‘venue’ for Obrist’s work – is an experiment in idea organisation. Intended for researchers and the curious, the site is navigable both chronologically and thematically.

'Ways of Curating', by Hans Ulrich Obrist, Google Arts & Culture and For Your Art

Browsing in a conventional ‘Timeline’ view, visitors are accompanied by multicoloured scribbles drawn across the screen in the curator’s handwriting. We visit a student Obrist in his 1991 ‘The Kitchen Show’, in which he welcomed people into his home in an attempt to ‘organise an exhibition in an unspectacular setting’. We follow him through his vast exhibition network as creative director of the Serpentine Galleries, and flick through the paper scraps of his ongoing ‘Post_’ project, which collates handwritten notes from renowned art world practitioners.

If choosing to search thematically, visitors can scroll between conventional categories like that of ‘Architecture’ and ‘Literature’, along with those with more nebulous titles, like ‘Rules of the Game’ and ‘Protest against Forgetting’ – themes that provide a framework in which to piece together Obrist’s pervasive curatorial philosophy. ‘It is important that such work – similar to the work of artists – is preserved’, says Amit Sood, director of Google Arts and Culture, on his reasoning for supporting the project.

More than just a personal preservation tool for Obrist, this is an artful way of approaching public archiving. Acting as both database and toolbox, the information layered into ‘Ways of Curating’ is available to all, and has the potential to grow, adapt and change with Obrist’s shifting vision.

INFORMATION

For more information, visit the Ways of Curating website