When Samsung unveiled the Galaxy S8 and S8 to the public last Wednesday, it also introduced its new AI assistant, called Bixby. The Siri rival basked in the spotlight as Samsung officials talked about what makes it stand out and different from other smart assistants during the Unpacked event. Bixby is rumored to come to other devices, but it's hard to imagine how it would be implemented in older devices that do not have the dedicated hardware button found on the new flagship phones. Interestingly, some developers have successfully deployed Bixby on older Galaxy smartphones, most especially on the 1-year-old Galaxy S7. On the Android website XDA-Developers, software developers shared that hey got Bixby working on their Android smartphones with the help of Bixby's Android Package Kit (APK) that was shared by user takerhbk.

If you didn't know that LG was releasing its G6 flagship smartphone at Mobile World Congress, you must have not had Internet service for most of 2017. LG itself has been releasing bits of information about its newest smartphone for weeks, and a steady stream of leaks and spy shots have conspired to elucidate pretty much every aspect of the phone thus far. Well, now the G6 is finally here, and with an extra-tall display and Google Assistant built into the OS, it's every bit the flagship it was promised to be. Even without any surprises--and even with a soon-to-be-outdated processor--the G6 is a beast that puts LG back on the Android map. Why this matters: LG needs a hit.

Google's new Pixel phone is the successor to the Nexus line, and takes their place for getting new updates and features from Google first. We reviewed it favorably Google Pixel XL Review and Giveaway Google Pixel XL Review and Giveaway Google's first branded device delivers one of the best devices in the Android ecosystem: the $770 Pixel XL. The XL launched with similar specs as the $500 Nexus 6P, but is it worth $770? Read More, and despite the high price point, it's arguably one of the best Android phones you can buy right now. If you don't have a Pixel, you might feel left out since you can't access cool new features like Google Assistant, the new dialer app, and special icons.

Nest is improving both its apps and its camera smarts. An update to both iOS and Android apps (if your phones and tablets are on the latest versions) focuses on notifications, with Nest Aware subscribers getting the bulk of the benefits. Over the next few weeks, Aware customers will see automatic door detection appear on both their indoor and outdoor Nest Cam feeds. The cameras will attempt to recognize motion patterns over time, feeding the data into deep learning algorithms to make it all automated, automatically creating "activity zones" around doors it picks up. The cameras can then send you notifications when there's movement in that area.

Samsung has started rolling out Android 7.0 Nougat to its devices, with its flagship smartphones first in line for the software upgrade. Owners of the Galaxy S7 and Galaxy S7 Edge can update to Nougat from today, by navigating to About Phone and System Updates in the Settings menu. Android 7.0 Nougat isn't quite the latest version of Android – Google's own Pixel handsets run version 7.1.1 The giant human-like robot bears a striking resemblance to the military robots starring in the movie'Avatar' and is claimed as a world first by its creators from a South Korean robotic company Waseda University's saxophonist robot WAS-5, developed by professor Atsuo Takanishi and Kaptain Rock playing one string light saber guitar perform jam session A man looks at an exhibit entitled'Mimus' a giant industrial robot which has been reprogrammed to interact with humans during a photocall at the new Design Museum in South Kensington, London Electrification Guru Dr. Wolfgang Ziebart talks about the electric Jaguar I-PACE concept SUV before it was unveiled before the Los Angeles Auto Show in Los Angeles, California, U.S The Jaguar I-PACE Concept car is the start of a new era for Jaguar. Japan's On-Art Corp's CEO Kazuya Kanemaru poses with his company's eight metre tall dinosaur-shaped mechanical suit robot'TRX03' and other robots during a demonstration in Tokyo, Japan Japan's On-Art Corp's eight metre tall dinosaur-shaped mechanical suit robot'TRX03' performs during its unveiling in Tokyo, Japan Singulato Motors co-founder and CEO Shen Haiyin poses in his company's concept car Tigercar P0 at a workshop in Beijing, China A picture shows Singulato Motors' concept car Tigercar P0 at a workshop in Beijing, China Connected company president Shigeki Tomoyama addresses a press briefing as he elaborates on Toyota's "connected strategy" in Tokyo.

Google has finally launched an own-brand smartphone, the Pixel, to challenge Apple head on and provide a premium Android experience with the hardware tailored to the software by the people who actually make it.. The new smartphone succeeds Google's Nexus line of devices and the company claims that the Pixel is now 100% Google, unlike the Nexus devices where Google provided the software and had some input into the devices but not total control. The Pixel phone joins the Pixel C Android tablet and Chromebook Pixel as Google's first in-house devices. But for Google, the Pixel isn't just a smartphone, it's a referendum on whether Google as a brand sells. With an all-metal body, all-glass display, rock-solid build, fingerprint scanner and headphones socket, the Pixel ticks most of the boxes expected of top-end smartphone, except for a lack of waterproofing. How attractive it is as a design divides opinion.

Google's fascination with hardware stretches back years. Remember the early days of Android and the G1? It took Google a while, but that fascination turned into a sort of experimental hobby, and now into something far more serious. Software is Google's art, and the company has been working for a long time to craft the right canvases. Google has more control over the development -- and destiny -- of these two smartphones than it ever had with any Nexus phone. It's not surprising, then, that the company has turned to close friends to help chart this new course. Former Motorola Mobility CEO Rick Osterloh is back at Google heading up hardware after the search giant sold his company to Lenovo. HTC, which most recently worked with Google on the Nexus 9 tablet, is handling the Pixel phones' production and assembly. There's a palpable sense that Google wanted to round up its A-team for this project.

The Pixel XL is the first Android phone to deliver an emphatic, cohesive, surprise-and-delight experience. Samsung and the other Android phone makers have tried to give users something magical before, but they never quite made fetch happen. Even Google itself has toyed with a unified software/hardware gestalt via its Nexus phones, but those devices could sometimes feel like stripped-down vessels for disconnected software services. But in the Pixel XL we finally have an Android phone that directly competes with the iPhone in terms of holistic design. For this we can thank Google Assistant, which serves as a central entry point for all the Google services I've been using daily since I switched from the iPhone in 2014. It really ties the room together.

Google has been selling phones since the Nexus One landed almost seven years ago. In fact, there have been eight Nexus phones, one each year through 2014, and two last year. They have generally been good phones, especially in the last few years. But the Pixel is not a Nexus. With the Pixel, Google did more than partner with a phone maker to slap Android on an already-designed handset. It created its own hardware and software innovations on top of stock Android. The result is a phone that may displease Android purists, but should delight everyone else. This is Google's first real attempt to push a phone to the mass market, and the Pixel competes directly with the iPhone as well as pricey flagships from Samsung and LG. The Pixel is smaller, with a 5-inch 1080p display instead of the Pixel XL's 5.5-inch 1440p display. The smaller display--along with the Pixel's smaller battery--is the only difference between the two models. Nexus phones were built in partnerships with hardware partners like LG, Motorola, and Samsung.

Before we jump into a discussion about the Pixel XL, we wanted to set out our review methodology. We've had the Pixel XL in our office since Friday last week, and this is going out at 12.01 am on Thursday morning. We've had barely a couple of days with the phone between other things, and we think that a phone of this importance deserves more than just a few days before publishing a review. So, this time around, we've adopted a different strategy. First up -- and in today's post -- we're going to do a bit of a first look.