Google brings Gemini to Wear OS, gives one year of AI Pro free to Pixel 9 owners by Usama Jawad AI is all the rage these days, and companies investing in this space want as many paying customers as possible. Sometimes, this strategy also involves offering what are essentially free trials of AI tools to customers to vy them into purchasing the full package once the trial expires, since they have become so accustomed to it. A very recent example of this is the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold7, which launched today and gives six months of free access to Google AI Pro. Now, Google is sweetening the deal even further for its direct customers by offering a year of AI Pro subscription to Pixel 9 owners. It is important to note that this is the same package that packs its impressive Veo 3 video generator, and is valued at $199.99/year. As a part of its surprise Pixel drop this month, the company has also begun rolling out Gemini to Wear OS smartwatches. Google says that this will offer customers a consistent and more intelligent experience when interacting with the AI assistant, especially in a hands-free manner. Gemini can also handle relatively more complex, multi-step tasks much quicker as compared to its predecessor, including tasks like summarization of emails, creation of a customized workout playlist, addition of events to the calendar, and finding directions to your desired destination. Gemini's rollout has already begun and should be available to Wear OS 4+ users in the next few weeks. Finally, Google is enhancing the Circle to Search experience, now available on more than 300 million Android devices. AI Mode is being integrated with Circle to Search, so that when users trigger the latter, an AI Overview will be surfaced. When you scroll to the bottom, you will see the Dive Deeper with AI Mode option, which you can utilize to converse on the topic further with the AI model. In the same vein, AI Mode is being brought to Lens too, and customers in India and the United States can start taking advantage of both these experiences right now. Circle to Search will now be helpful to gamers too, as those with access to it can simply activate it during their playtime and then get an AI Overview based on what is being displayed on their screen. Overall, AI Overviews should now surface responses that are much easier to understand, too, thanks to the latest advancements in Google's Gemini models.

Given that everything runs in the cloud, you can only trust them when they say it's secure. When it comes to email, running your own email server is a nightmare. And emails you send are only going to be as secure as whatever the recipient is running. So I'm going to stick with a cloud service for email, but I'll go with a company that has a focus on privacy over a company that has a history of invading privacy. And yes, I would still avoid using email for private communication whenever possible. But while I use Proton for email, I have no interest in Proton Drive. For file synchronization, I can run Nextcloud on my own hardware that I have control over.

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Will have to see how the Watch8 Classic is received first and maybe upgrade from the Watch6 Classic to it.

Disregarding that this is what it is, given the nature of the software I am concerned about what else the installation might contain — in terms of malware.