Daily Authority: 🗣️ Dear Google, all Android users need this feature.

🤖 Good Morning, Daily Authority readers. It’s been a mundane week till now as tech companies are taking a short breather before the madness begins all over again, starting with the Consumer Electronic Show (CES) in January next year. Don’t worry, I still have some interesting tech bits curated for you from the day gone by. So let’s get the show on the road.

Dear Google, all Android users should have this feature.

Ever since Google launched the Pixel series of smartphones, it has kept some Android features exclusive to the devices. That means if you’re a non-Pixel user, you won’t have access to these features unless Google decides to roll them out widely. Well, my colleague C. Scott Brown thinks there’s one such feature that all Android users deserve to have.

• On-device typing is a feature exclusive to the Pixel 6 and Pixel 7 series, and that’s the one we want Google to bring to all Android phones.
• If you use the voice-to-text feature on a non-Pixel phone, you’ll face many limitations.
• First, you’ll need to speak a little slower so that your phone can accurately process the words.
• Second, you’ll have to dictate punctuation, such as “period” or “comma.”
• The third is that you’ll most likely need to go back and fix things when you’re done talking.
• Meanwhile, the voice typing feature on the Pixel 6 and Pixel 7 doesn’t face these problems.

What Pixels do better

• The Google Assistant on the Pixel 6 and Pixel 7 phones can handle punctuations automatically as you speak.
• You can talk at a normal pace, and errors are less frequent.
• As an added bonus, you can even fix things manually as you go without needing to disable and enable voice typing again and again.
• You can even type an emoji just by describing it!
• In our testing of the Pixel 7 Pro, we found that we tend to use the voice typing feature a lot more because it’s just so good.

What Google can do to help

• If ported to all Android phones, it could fundamentally change the way we interact with our devices.
• While Google’s Tensor chips make the feature possible on Pixel phones, Google should help bring it to the masses.
• We reached out to the company about the feasibility of this port. Google dodged answering our question directly.
• It did confirm that it builds its applications on the Android NN API, which, in theory, would allow these applications to run on other platforms, including Qualcomm, MediaTek, Samsung, etc.
• In simpler words, it seems that this is possible, but Google would need to make it happen.
• People who find it hard to type for whatever reason — arthritis, injuries, permanent mobility problems, etc. — should be able to use high-quality voice typing.
• Better voice typing also encourages people to put down their phones while they’re driving.
• Google has every right to launch exclusive features for Pixels, obviously, but locking better accessibility behind a paywall isn’t an ethical way to go about that.

Roundup

📱 First apparent leaks of the Pixel 8 series show codenames, some expected specs (Android Authority).

🤍 New Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 4 special edition gets exclusive UI and accessories (Android Authority).

🏠 The Google Home app public preview is live. Here’s how you can sign up. (Android Authority).

🎮 Microsoft admits Xbox vs PlayStation war is over (Android Authority).

🎵 Prime members complain that Amazon Music is “unusable” and in “shambles” (Business Insider).

🛴 F1’s Top Team Gets Into the E-Scooter Game (Gear Junkie).

✅ Twitter’s revamped verification scheme will have two checkmarks, and one isn’t for sale (Engadget).

🚫 Meanwhile, some Twitter users say their blocks on Musk’s account were lifted without their consent (Bloomberg).

🐦 Still don’t know the whole Musk-Twitter story? Here’s a quick recap for you (Android Authority).

🐤 Tired of Twitter? Here are your best alternatives (Android Authority).

📧 Still using the old Gmail? Your time is up. (Android Authority).

⌚Garmin’s latest hybrid smartwatch is built like a tank with stellar battery life (Android Authority).

📺 40 percent of US Disney Plus subscribers picked the bundle with ESPN Plus and Hulu (The Verge).

🚘 Tesla recalls 40,000 cars in the US over power-steering fault (BBC).

👀 Mysterious company with government ties plays a key internet role (The Washington Post).

🔍 Microsoft’s $69 bn Activision bid faces EU antitrust probe (Reuters).

Wednesday Weirdness

Blood grown in a lab has been injected into humans for the very first time (h/t The Verge). While it may sound super weird to have fake blood running flowing through your body, if all goes well with the trial, it could be a game-changer for people with blood disorders and rare blood types.

• In a world first, two people were injected with red blood cells grown in a lab as part of a clinical trial.
• It’s a first step toward seeing if lab-grown blood cells are safe and work in the body.
• “This world-leading research lays the groundwork for the manufacture of red blood cells that can safely be used to transfuse people with disorders like sickle cell,” said the Medical Director of transfusion for the National Health Service Blood and Transplant in the United Kingdom.
• The cells used in the trial were grown from stem cells taken from the blood of adult donors.
• The research team needed 500,000 stem cells to create 50 billion red blood cells.
• The infusions were part of a clinical trial run by NHS Blood and Transplant, which is looking to see how long lab-grown cells last in the body compared with donated blood cells.
• If lab-grown cells last longer in the body compared to donated cells, it could mean people who need regular blood transfusions wouldn’t need them as often.

Isn’t science amazing, even when it’s weird?

For more weird science, you can check out our pick of the 10 best science apps for Android.

Have a nice day,

Adamya Sharma, Editor.