If you picked up the Google Pixel 7 or Pixel 7 Pro at launch, or during the Black Friday sales, you’ll be happy to know that the phones just got a bunch of cool new features.
Among the just-released features are free access to Google One VPN, more standardized privacy and security settings, Clear Calling and updates to the Pixel’s auto-backup recorder.
Google One VPN is one of the big additional perks Google announced during its Pixel 7 launch event Five years free access to the service. Without the Pixel 7, you have to sign up for the $10 per month Google One plan, which includes 2TB of storage, 10% off purchases made through the Google Store and other perks.
VPN for Google One is designed to offer an extra layer of security for your browsing experience. Although our testing found that the service didn’t let you choose a server yourself, or spoof your location to access foreign broadcast catalogs. This makes it less attractive when you have to hand over money. But if it’s free, you can also take advantage of everything on offer – right?
With the new Clear Calling feature, the Pixel 7 can clean up the audio on phone calls, reducing background noise to make sure you can hear what’s going on. This feature is powered by the Tensor G2, so unfortunately it won’t be making its way to older Pixel phones in the near future.
This is not the case with the Pixel Recorder, as the latest update is also coming to the Pixel 6 series.
I speak from experience when I say that Pixel Recorder’s auto-transcription is a great tool, but it doesn’t always produce the best results. A recent update should change that, as machine learning gives the app the ability to keep tabs on individual speakers and label speech accordingly.
If you record speech regularly, be it for meetings, interviews, school, or something else, this will make organizing your post-recording a lot easier.
As for the unified security and privacy settings, you will now be able to find both menus in the same place. Not only will this make it easier to find the right settings in your Pixel 7 settings, but new action cards will be able to notify you of any potential security risks and how to fix them.
This update has already started rolling out, and it should hit the Pixel 7 anytime now — assuming it hasn’t already. To check if the update is available on your Pixel 7, head to your phone’s system settings and check the Software update option.
[ad_2]
