Google's Chromebook Successor Is Coming. Here's Everything We Know So Far Google has officially acknowledged the upcoming merger of Android and Chromebooks, and it may be coming in 2026. It's never fun to be in last place. Google has been coasting along with its Android tablets and Chromebooks for years, playing second fiddle to the bigger players in the game. But the company has a new card up its sleeve: the upcoming merger of its two platforms into something entirely new.

Qualcomm just announced the Snapdragon X2 Elite and X2 Elite Extreme, anticipated sequels to its game-changing PC chips. Qualcomm has announced its next generation of PC processors: the Snapdragon X2. It might not sound very exciting, but these chips continue to bring Windows laptops up to par with Apple Silicon-powered MacBooks . The company took the PC world by storm last year with its Snapdragon X chips, breaking the long-held duopoly of Intel and AMD powering most Windows laptops. Nearly every major laptop manufacturer was on board, launching a bevy of Qualcomm-powered laptops.

With Apple, Samsung, Microsoft and Amazon already having had their fall announcement events this year, Google's hardware keynote is ostensibly the last major launch of 2023. The company has more or less told us what it's going to be unveiling today, teasing us with trailers of the Pixel 8, Pixel 8 Pro and Pixel Watch 2. If the keynotes of the other tech giants told us anything, it's that we should expect Google to also pile on with a ton of updates about its developments in generative AI, in addition to the new phones and smartwatch. We'll also probably learn more about features coming to Android 14, and it's highly likely the Assistant gains some new skills as well. The show kicked off on October 4 at 10AM ET, and so far we've covered the release of the Pixel 8 series, including the Pro, Pixel Watch 2, Pixel Buds Pro, and new AI features. Stay tuned as we update this liveblog with even more news coming out of the keynote.

Google on Monday unveiled a new flagship Pixel smartphone powered by its first mobile chip to put artificial intelligence in people's hands. Pixel 6 models set for release later this year, with superfast 5G wireles capability, will debut Google's own Tensor chip crafted along the lines of processors it made for data centers to enable computers to think more like people do. "It's basically a mobile system on a chip designed around artificial intelligence," Google devices senior vice president Rick Osterloh said during a briefing at the company's headquarters in Silicon Valley. "We're really excited about it. We're setting the stage to really grow the business."

Rick Osterloh casually dropped his laptop onto the couch and leaned back, satisfied. It's not a mic, but the effect is about the same. Google's chief of hardware had just shown me a demo of the company's latest feature: computational processing for video that will debut on the Pixel 6 and Pixel 6 Pro. The feature was only possible with Google's own mobile processor, which it's announcing today. He's understandably proud and excited to share the news.

What do you do when advancements in software outpace those in hardware? You just start building the hardware yourself. Google said on Monday that its next flagship phones--the Pixel 6 and Pixel 6 Pro, both due this fall--will be powered by a custom-built processor called Tensor. Codesigned over the past four years with machine learning and artificial intelligence experts, it's built for all the Android-based wizardry in the upcoming Pixel phones. The move comes at a time when tech industry giants increasingly favor custom designs for the processors that power their phones, laptops, and other gadgets.

In a year of same-old smartphones, Google is pitching one that is sexy on the inside. The $800 Pixel 3 and $900 Pixel 3 XL, which I had a chance to try at Google's New York launch event Tuesday, can take pictures and screen calls for you. Believe it or not, it can make calls for you, too. Google's homegrown smartphone hardly challenges the status quo all-screen, jumbo-sized designs from Apple and Samsung. On the glass back, there is a fingerprint reader and one camera; on the front, there is a notch in the screen to hide its front-facing cameras. The one flourish: a brightly painted power button.

In a year of same-old smartphones, Google is pitching one that is sexy on the inside. The $800 Pixel 3 and $900 Pixel 3 XL, which I had a chance to try at Google's New York launch event Tuesday, can take pictures and screen calls for you. Believe it or not, it can make calls for you, too. Google's homegrown smartphone hardly challenges the status quo all-screen, jumbo-sized designs from Apple and Samsung. On the glass back, there is a fingerprint reader and one camera; on the front, there is a notch in the screen to hide its front-facing cameras. The one flourish: a brightly painted power button.

It's early in the morning on October 4, 2016, and in a few seconds, Rick Osterloh will present Google's latest gadget portfolio to the world. In April, CEO Sundar Pichai had tasked Osterloh with turning the software giant into a gadget maker that can compete with Apple. Osterloh has barely had enough time to sample all the snacks in the mini-kitchen, much less conceive of and ship a bunch of products. Yet here he is, tall and broad, clad in a gray short-sleeved Henley top, visibly nervous as he enters stage left and greets a roomful of reporters and analysts in a converted chocolate factory at the top of a San Francisco hill. It can't help Osterloh's nerves that minutes earlier, Pichai was out on the same stage making a grand case for the historical significance of this day.

Alphabet is folding Nest, led by CEO Marwan Fawaz (right), into Google's hardware team, led by former Motorola executive Rick Osterloh (left). Google is bringing gadget maker Nest back under its control as the search giant battles rivals Amazon and Apple in the rapidly expanding smart home market. A big part of the change: Making it easier to add Google's artificial intelligence technology and Assistant -- a digital helper that competes against Amazon's Alexa and Apple's Siri -- into new Nest products. The world's largest search engine has staked its future on building Google smarts into devices beyond smartphones. On Wednesday, Google said Nest was part of its plans and would no longer operate as a separate division that lived in the outer orbit of parent company Alphabet's "Other Bets" group of projects.