Tech giant Google on Tuesday unveiled its new Pixel 9 smartphone series, which includes artificial intelligence (AI) technology, announcing that they would hit Taiwan shelves on Thursday next week.
The Pixel 9 series could help consumers better envision the potential of artificial intelligence, analysts said.
The phones are also expected to boost Google’s competitiveness against Apple Inc, which has teamed up with OpenAI to develop AI applications for iPhones, they said.
Photo: Reuters
The Pixel weaves users more tightly into Google’s online services, taking a page from Apple’s strategy with the iPhone and App Store.
The Pixel 9 models use Google’s Gemini AI capabilities, offering consumers an alternative to the iPhone’s Apple Intelligence AI.
The entry model Pixel 9 with a 6.3-inch Actua display, the more advanced 6.3-inch Pixel 9 Pro, and the 6.8-inch Pixel 9 Pro XL, would be available in Taiwan at starting prices of NT$26,490, NT$33,490 and NT$39,990, respectively, Google said.
The Pixel 9 Pro Fold — the second generation of Google’s foldable smartphone — is scheduled to go on sale in Taiwan on Sept. 4 with a starting price of NT$56,990, the company said.
Pixels account for a tiny sliver of the global smartphone market dominated by Samsung Electronics Co and Apple, but Google said that its new line is a chance to answer what — after all the hype — AI can actually do for customers.
“I understand people’s skepticism,” Google senior vice president of devices Rick Osterloh said at the company’s campus in Mountain View, California, on Tuesday.
“There have been so many promises, so many ‘coming soons,’ and not enough real-world helpfulness when it comes to AI — which is why today we’re getting real,” Osterloh said.
However AI-infused Pixels also raise questions about how well Google is safeguarding personal data and how regulators would react to the tech giant’s push to make users even more dependent on its platform.
A US judge last week handed Google a major legal blow, ruling in a landmark antitrust case that it has maintained a monopoly with its dominant search engine.
Google said it has prioritized privacy, from protecting data used by its AI to letting users create password-protected private spaces for apps and other content.
Pixel 9 models let Gemini AI handle personal requests, sending no sensitive information off the device, it said.
CAUTIOUS RECOVERY: While the manufacturing sector returned to growth amid the US-China trade truce, firms remain wary as uncertainty clouds the outlook, the CIER said The local manufacturing sector returned to expansion last month, as the official purchasing managers’ index (PMI) rose 2.1 points to 51.0, driven by a temporary easing in US-China trade tensions, the Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research (CIER, 中華經濟研究院) said yesterday. The PMI gauges the health of the manufacturing industry, with readings above 50 indicating expansion and those below 50 signaling contraction. “Firms are not as pessimistic as they were in April, but they remain far from optimistic,” CIER president Lien Hsien-ming (連賢明) said at a news conference. The full impact of US tariff decisions is unlikely to become clear until later this month
With an approval rating of just two percent, Peruvian President Dina Boluarte might be the world’s most unpopular leader, according to pollsters. Protests greeted her rise to power 29 months ago, and have marked her entire term — joined by assorted scandals, investigations, controversies and a surge in gang violence. The 63-year-old is the target of a dozen probes, including for her alleged failure to declare gifts of luxury jewels and watches, a scandal inevitably dubbed “Rolexgate.” She is also under the microscope for a two-week undeclared absence for nose surgery — which she insists was medical, not cosmetic — and is
GROWING CONCERN: Some senior Trump administration officials opposed the UAE expansion over fears that another TSMC project could jeopardize its US investment Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) is evaluating building an advanced production facility in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and has discussed the possibility with officials in US President Donald Trump’s administration, people familiar with the matter said, in a potentially major bet on the Middle East that would only come to fruition with Washington’s approval. The company has had multiple meetings in the past few months with US Special Envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff and officials from MGX, an influential investment vehicle overseen by the UAE president’s brother, the people said. The conversations are a continuation of talks that
CHIP DUTIES: TSMC said it voiced its concerns to Washington about tariffs, telling the US commerce department that it wants ‘fair treatment’ to protect its competitiveness Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday reiterated robust business prospects for this year as strong artificial intelligence (AI) chip demand from Nvidia Corp and other customers would absorb the impacts of US tariffs. “The impact of tariffs would be indirect, as the custom tax is the importers’ responsibility, not the exporters,” TSMC chairman and chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家) said at the chipmaker’s annual shareholders’ meeting in Hsinchu City. TSMC’s business could be affected if people become reluctant to buy electronics due to inflated prices, Wei said. In addition, the chipmaker has voiced its concern to the US Department of Commerce
RSS