Google’s Gemini Nano could launch on the Pixel 8a as early as next month

Google promised back in March that it would eventually bring Gemini Nano to the Pixel 8 and Pixel 8a although no one knew exactly when. Until now, that is, as the update may arrive “very soon.” 

Android Authority recently did a deep dive into the Pixel 8 series’ AICore app and found a pair of toggle switches inside the settings menu. The second switch is the main focus because flipping it turns on “on-device GenAI features.” Activating the tool presumably allows a Pixel 8 smartphone to harness Gemini Nano in order to power the device’s generative AI capabilities. 

It doesn’t actually say “Nano” in the accompanying text, though; just “Gemini”. However, we believe it is that particular model and not some stripped-down version, after all this is what Google said it would. Plus, the Pixel 8 trio runs on the Tensor G3 chipset and it can support the AI with the right hardware adjustments.

No one knows exactly what the AI will actually do here, though. Gemini Nano on the Pixel 8 Pro powers the phone’s “multimodal capabilities,” including, but not limited to, the Summarize tool in the Record app and Magic Compose in Google Messages.

Imminent launch

The other toggle switch isn’t as noteworthy – a screenshot in the report reveals it enables “AICore Persistent.” This gives applications “permission… to use as many [device] resources as possible”. 

Android Authority states that the sudden appearance of these switches could mean Google is almost ready to “announce Nano support for the Pixel 8/8a ”—maybe within the next couple of days or weeks. The company typically releases major updates for its mobile platforms in June, so we expect to see Gemini roll out to the rest of the Pixel 8 line next month. 

According to the publication, the toggles will likely be found in the Developer Options section of the smartphone’s Settings menu. However, it's important to note that this could change at any time.

Technically-minded users can find the switches by digging around the latest AICore patch. The software is available for download from the Google Play Store; however, your Pixel 8 model may need to be running Android 15 Beta 2.1. 9To5Google, in their coverage, claims to have found the AICore toggles on a Pixel 8 with the beta but not on a phone running Android 14.

As for the Pixel 8 Pro, it's unknown if the high-end model is going to receive the same update although there's a chance it could. Android Authority points out it's currently not possible for Pro users to deactivate Gemini Nano, but this update could give them the option.

Be sure to check out TechRadar's list of the best Pixel phones for 2024.

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Microsoft reveals new Copilot Pro subscription service that turbo-charges the AI assistant in Windows 11 for $20 a month

Microsoft is taking Windows Copilot to the next level with Windows Copilot Pro and bringing Microsoft 365 Copilot to businesses of all sizes. 

Windows Copilot and 365 Copilot are Microsoft’s newest AI digital assistants to help users with all kinds of tasks and projects that we were introduced to last year, and they’re getting a major boost with higher-tier AI functionality. 

Microsoft is officially debuting Copilot Pro, available for individual users to subscribe to for $ 20 per month (per user) starting today January 16. 

This version of Copilot will allow individuals to upgrade their productivity and user experience with the best Copilot has to offer in terms of AI features, capability, performance speed and being able to access Copilot at peak times. 

This will also grant users with a Personal or Home subscription access to Copilot Pro in Microsoft 365 apps like Word, Excel, OneNote, and available for PowerPoint on PC, Mac and iPad. This is similar to the existing Microsoft 365 Copilot made for enterprise customers, which requires an enterprise subscription, but now these Copilot AI capabilities will be available to Microsoft 365 Personal and Family subscribers as well. 

The crème de la Copilot on offer

If you choose to sign up for Copilot Pro, it will grant you priority access to the latest OpenAI models, like the state-of-the-art GPT-4 Turbo from OpenAI, and enable you to build and tailor your own Copilot GPT bot to a topic of your choosing. 

Copilot Pro will give users greater agency in how and what they Copilot Pro by allowing them to toggle between models and try out different options to optimize their experience. 

Users will be able to build and mold these personalized Copilot GPTs in a brand new Copilot GPT Builder (similar to the commercial version launched last year) by answering some straightforward prompts, and Microsoft assures us it’s coming soon. 

You can also look forward to an upgrade to the AI image generation from Microsoft with Image Creator from Designer (formerly known as Bing Image Creator). With Copilot Pro, you’ll get one hundred boosts (accelerated image generation processes), greater image detail and quality, and the landscape image format.

Along with the introduction of Copilot Pro for individual use, Copilot for Microsoft 365 will be available to more types of commercial customers, particularly small- and medium-sized businesses. From now on, there’s no employee minimum, lower prerequisites, and more availability of Copilot subscriptions through Microsoft partners.

New upgrades to Copilot and a new Copilot app

Copilot imagery from Microsoft

(Image credit: Microsoft)

For those users that want to continue experimenting with Copilot for free, there’s something to watch out for as well. The free version of Copilot is getting Copilot GPTs that allow you to customize and tailor a Copilot that you can discuss a particular topic of your choosing. Today you should be able to see some of the topics already available, such as fitness, travel, cooking and more.

Along with these developments, Copilot is getting an iOS app and an Android app, and Copilot is coming to the Microsoft 365 mobile app. With these new apps, you’ll be able to have a single AI run across your devices, able to analyze information from your web usage, your PC use, and the apps you use to make its help more context-specific.  

The Copilot app is equipped with the same powerful tools that the PC version benefits from, such as GPT-4, Dall-E 3’s image creation capabilities, and the ability to input your own images into Copilot and have it respond to them

Copilot will be added to the Microsoft 365 app on both iOS and Android devices over the course of the next month for users who have a Microsoft account, and these users will be able to export the content that they generate as a Word or PDF document. Microsoft’s vision for this is that you’ll be able to summon Copilot almost instantly, as soon as you need it, and no matter what device you're currently using.

Microsoft is just getting started

It also looks like there are plenty more Copilot Pro features in the pipeline – similar to how we’ve seen multiple improvements to the standard version of Copilot in Windows 11. Divya Kumar relayed this while speaking to The Verge, referring to Microsoft’s recent release schedule as a “rolling thunder.” 

With Copilot Pro, Microsoft is aiming to catch the attention of “power users like creators, researchers, programmers and others” that might be interested in the latest innovations that it, with its collaborator OpenAI, has to offer. 

Microsoft has recently overtaken Apple as the most valuable company in the world, and it’s not showing signs of losing steam. Yusuf Mehdi, Microsoft’s Executive Vice President and Consumer Chief Marketing Officer, claims that Copilot empowers “every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more.” If there’s a reason that you might want or even need assistance or advice digitally, it’s clear how eager Microsoft is to be there to meet it.

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Windows 11 Moment 3 is coming to all PCs next month, whether you like it or not

Windows 11’s feature update known as Moment 3 arrived last month, didn’t it? Well technically, yes, but the update hasn’t been piped to everyone, only some users; it’ll fully roll out next month.

So, what exactly is going on here? As Windows Latest points out, the folks who have already got Moment 3 features as part of June’s cumulative update (released 10 days ago) are those who have turned on the ‘Get the latest updates as soon as they’re available’ option (under Windows Update settings).

What seems to be happening, going by other reports and user feedback we’ve seen online (on top of Windows Latest’s findings), is that this is a gradual (phased) rollout, with those who have flicked that particular setting on being prioritized. Others are getting the June update but without Moment 3 features enabled.

However, come next month, everyone is going to get Moment 3 features fully enabled on their Windows 11 PC, with the July cumulative update (due on July 11, ‘Patch Tuesday’).

Windows Latest observes: “We have also spotted references to Patch Tuesday of July 2023 having the Moment 3 improvements turned on by default.”

Indeed, the same is true for the optional update for June, which is about to turn up. That’s the July patch in test (preview) form, so it’s the same content, but with the proviso that it might come with some bugs (as with any early release).


Analysis: many Moments so far…

If you’ve been reading about Moment 3 and its raft of new features – and some of them are pretty cool, including our five favorites we picked out here – you might also be wondering why you hadn’t got these yet.

Well, now you know, and it’s not long before this phased rollout will be opened up to everyone running Windows 11. You’ll have Moment 3 features by mid-July at the latest.

Since Microsoft introduced the idea of Moments – which are feature updates outside of the big annual feature drop, and are necessary since the two major feature updates per year cadence (H1, H2) was reduced to one (H2) – the company has been pushing them out at some pace. We only had Moment 2 in February, so it was just four months afterwards that the Moment 3 rollout kicked off.

Of course, all attention will now be turning towards 23H2 – the major annual update for this year – which should bring in all sorts of goodies. Including, we hope, ‘never combine’ for the taskbar, and maybe Microsoft’s Copilot AI, which is certainly rumored for inclusion (though we have our doubts – that’ll likely depend on how well testing goes, which should start later this month).

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Windows 11 lost users this month – should Microsoft be worried?

Windows 11 has slipped with its market share over the last month, at least going by a report from one analytics firm.

According to Statcounter’s figures for May, Windows 11 fell to a market share of 22.95% (across all Windows versions). That’s only a touch lower than April, during which Windows 11 stood at 23.11% – but it’s a real surprise to see Windows 11 effectively stall at this point (we’ll discuss why shortly).

Windows 10 rose very slightly to hit 71.9%, and it remains by far the most dominant version of Windows, even though Windows 11 has been around for a year and a half now.

Microsoft’s newest operating system has made slow progress, and particularly with this latest small stumble, that must be something of a concern for the company.

Elsewhere in the stats, Windows 7 remains fairly static on 3.6%, and Windows 8 versions amount to 1.09%.

Windows XP, believe it or not, still has users out there, holding a 0.32% niche market share. (There are reasons some might be forced to use Windows XP, as we chewed over recently – that said, though, if you are running the ancient OS, you really should be keeping it fully offline for obvious reasons).


Analysis: Trouble ahead for Microsoft?

The reason why Windows 11 slipping slightly for adoption is so surprising is because recently the operating system has been taking some sizeable strides forward (with Statcounter’s figures for earlier this year).

Now, granted, some of that was due to Windows 7 finishing its extended support period, meaning a bunch of users were then forced to migrate – initially more to Windows 10 than 11, but both platforms saw a boost.

However, even after Windows 7’s userbase settled at its new lower level (just under 4%), where it’s been for a few months now, Windows 11 has been up by a significant market share over the last two months – about 2% for both March and April in fact.

This led us to believe that the OS was having something of a surge, and would finally start making serious headway towards that 30% mark – but now, in May’s figures, we see Windows 11 having stalled.

Why might that be? The irony is that Microsoft announced the end of feature updates for Windows 10 at the close of April, a move that was clearly designed to persuade folks to migrate to Windows 11 (if they want any new features at all – except for minor tweaks). And yet during May, Windows 11 has suddenly floundered compared to the rest of 2023.

Is that an element of pushback, people digging their heels in – rather like our reaction to the end of feature updates for Windows 10? Perhaps there’s a touch of that here.

Windows 11

(Image credit: Unsplash)

More likely, though, this could be bound up in faltering laptop sales, with fewer new pieces of hardware being sold – cost of living crisis, and all – resulting in less progress for Windows 11, maybe? That’s certainly a compelling possibility, as the current PC slump is being seen to hit some laptop makers hard (in the consumer and business arenas).

It’s possible, too, that we could be starting to hit a wall in terms of the number of PCs that are actually capable of being upgraded to Windows 11 (at least without changes to meet the more stringent hardware requirements, like adding a TPM module – and folks may not want to be bothered with that kind of hassle). Combined with lower sales of new PCs, this could be a recipe for a poor outlook, at least in the shorter-term, for Microsoft.

That said, all this theorizing aside, we shouldn’t get carried away with one month, and a single set of figures, from one analyst firm. Let’s keep an eye on Statcounter next month, and if Windows 11 once again flails around, then it’ll be time for Microsoft to be concerned about how its new OS is being received. After all, with the recent announcement of the Copilot AI – and killing off Cortana in Windows 10 (where it won’t have Copilot as a replacement) – Microsoft will doubtless be expecting to generate more footfall of users heading towards Windows 11.

If not, then Windows 11 is likely to have a tough time of things until we get closer to the end for Windows 10 starting to come into view (2025). Either that, or the current PC sales slump starts to ease off…

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Pay as little as $2.75 a month to protect yourself online with CyberGhost’s VPN deal

Thanks to the fact that many of us are now stuck at home, it's only natural that we'll be using our computing and mobile devices more than ever – whether that be for work or play. That means that it's even more important to ensure your online life is safe and sound, and that's where getting a VPN becomes crucial.

Fortunately, VPN provider CyberGhost currently has a scarily good deal for new customers on its 36 months plan. Sign up now and you pay as little as an effective $ 2.75 (£2.10) a month for 3 years of the service, plus the provider is throwing in an extra two months absolutely FREE!  

Click here to get this fantastic VPN deal from CyberGhost

On top of that, CyberGhost has a 45-day money back guarantee – so you can always try it and then cancel it within that generous period if you change your mind.

Not only is this an incredible VPN deal, it's coming from one of the best providers out there. CyberGhost unblocks Netflix and iPlayer, has speedy customer support and boasts an effective kill switch.

If you need more information or you want to know more about CyberGhost, then make sure you keep scrolling as we've got this deal and the service detailed below for you.

  • Not sure if CyberGhost is the VPN for you? Check out our best VPN guide

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Read more about this fantastic VPN deal:

Is CyberGhost a good VPN provider?

In one word – yes! We rank it in our top five best VPN services, which given all the thorough tests and analysing we do on VPN services, is pretty ace position to sit in.

If your concern is streaming – CyberGhost unblocks both Netflix and BBC iPlayer meaning there's a whole new world of content for you. Or if privacy is your main reason for purchasing a Virtual Private Network, then you'll be happy to know that it has an effective kill switch, blocks malicious ads, trackers and websites. 

Not to mention the automated HTTPS redirection will ensure you have the most secure connection possible to every website you visit. 

If you need more information on the provider, make sure you check out our full CyberGhost review.

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  • Doing lots of streaming? Make sure to check out our best Netflix VPN guide
  • Need something for your company? See our best business VPN list
  • Discover more of the world's current best VPN deals

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EE’s Black Friday SIM only deal returns – 60GB of data for just £20 a month

Is it a coincidence that EE brought back one of its best ever SIM only deals on Valentine's Day…? No. No it's not and we cannot stress this enough…SIM plans aren't romantic.

However, while this doesn't scream love, it does at least quietly chant bargain as this marks the return of one of EE's best SIM plans. Offering up 60GB of data for just £20 a month, the last time we saw this promotion from EE was over Black Friday.

Considering EE isn't exactly the cheapest network around, usually costing more than its three main competitors – Three, Vodafone and O2 – anytime we spot the big name retailer going big on its deals, it's always worth jumping on.

For you or for a gift for your partner – you can't say we didn't try and deter you – we've listed everything you need to know about this EE SIM only deal down below. You'll also find details of the closest competing offers.

EE's big data SIM only deal:

What other SIM only deals are available right now?

One deal EE will have difficulty beating comes from Three. Offering an unlimited data cap for just £18 a month, Three currently has the market beat. 

Or, on the cheaper side, Smarty Mobile is rocking a 50GB data plan at a price of just £15 a month. And with this deal, you'll be on a 1-month rolling contract meaning you can stay for as long as you want and leave when you like.

Just want something cheap and cheerful? iD Mobile's 2GB of data for £6 option could be ideal.

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