Top Stories: Google Assistant Becomes Super Saiyan, More

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In this week’s top stories: we help Google Assistant become Super Saiyan in Dragon Ball Z easter egg, take a look at an upcoming Nova Launcher redesign, catalog the best new features in OnePlus’ OxygenOS 11.0 update, and more .

The Google Assistant sparked a bit of glee and nostalgia this week as people discovered voice AI won a Dragon Ball Z themed Easter Egg. Just tell your Google Assistant device “Go Super Saiyan “and the Assistant will give you a interesting war cry. For the best effect, be sure to say “Hey Goku” to trigger the wizard.

Your assistant will try to scream during the transformation process, but there is a bit of warping when it reaches a full power level. As AP Note, this is probably a nod to the first time Goku actually “goes” Super Saiyan at this very moment in the anime, but it’s a little throwback to the series and the associated manga.

This week our Damien Wilde took the time to give a preview of the upcoming rewrite and redesign of Nova Launcher, one of the most popular alternative Android launchers of all time. While there is still a long way to go before Nova Launcher 7 is ready for prime time, it is exciting to see the progress and improvements that have already been made.

Before the official announcement of the Samsung Galaxy S21, after almost every aspect of the device leaked online, the packaging of the device made waves. Following the trend established by Apple, the Galaxy S21 comes in a slim and uncluttered box, made possible by the exclusion of the charger brick.

Additionally, Samsung has decided to omit a pair of wired headphones from the box. It’s not particularly surprising, however. Samsung also took the headphones out of the box with its Galaxy Note 20 and Galaxy Z Fold 2 last year. Still, it’s a shame to see them go even though many users have switched to truly wireless headphones. The Galaxy S21 will also launch alongside the Galaxy Buds Pro, which could ease the blow for some users as well.

The owners of the Pixel 2 have bad news this week, as the ability of these devices to upload unlimited original quality photos to Google Photos ended as of today, January 16. Now all original quality photos uploaded from a Pixel 2 will count to your Google Account. global storage quota.

Notably, this comes with the end of Google Photos unlimited compressed storage on the horizon. Starting this year, Google Photos will count all imports towards your account total, even if they are not of original quality.

The Pixel 3, the last Google phone with this photo offering, will also lose its free storage benefit in about a year from January 31, 2022.

While a shiny new flagship phone is released every year, not making good use of your old devices – or at least recycling them – is just plain waste. This week, Samsung announced an effort to allow its older Galaxy phones to gain new life as smart home accessories like a baby monitor or part of a security system.

Samsung has not gone into details on which devices are eligible for this or how software updates will arrive (whether it’s the system or just apps). Either way, there are some cool ideas here, and extending the useful life of electronics is always a good idea. However, it appears that this program will begin this year.