Today was the start of Google‘s yearly developers conference, Google I/O, and, of course, they started with their keynote speech.
The keynote is meant to talk about some of the biggest new additions to Google’s services, apps, and more. This year wasn’t any different, with a variety of different executives and employees walking out on stage and debuting new features baked into services that Google has introduced in the past.
This year wasn’t as exciting as last year’s, as far as new features or services are concerned, but it did bring plenty of new features to what is already available from Google. That includes things like Google Photos, Google Assistant, and Google Photos. All-in-all, Google was just doubling down on its services, building them out, making them better, and providing new reasons to keep using them.
So, here we are with a quick roundup of what Google announced today at Google I/O 2017:
With the standalone Google Assistant app, iPhone owners will be able to enjoy the same functionality that Google Home and Android users enjoy. This includes being able to control their home automation devices, music systems, TVs, lights, and other compatible devices.
Smart Reply was available to Inbox users so far. The feature had first made its way to Inbox app in 2015, with the web version getting the feature last year.
Similar to how it has worked in Inbox, Smart Reply in Gmail will also provide you with three responses depending on the content of the email you have received. Since the feature makes use of machine learning, it will learn from your typing habits and improve over time.
Google Lens will let users use the camera in their smartphone identify objects, dates, businesses, and much more. Google showed a variety of examples, including being able to identify a flower, use Google Lens to buy tickets for a concert just by identifying a marquee publicizing the event, and letting people get contact info for a business.
Inside Google Photos, Google Lens will identify the noteworthy buildings in a new area, even pull up directions for a location, and learn more about a painting and an artist when you see it out and about. With Lens, users can also use the camera to learn the phone number for a business they might not be near.
Google Lens in Photos will roll out later this year.
Google Lens will roll out to Google Assistant first, and then beyond the digital personal assistant at a later date.
-
Google Home
Google Home is getting an update that will bring Bluetooth support to the smart speaker, so users an stream audio content from their smartphones and tablets right to it. In addition, Google Home is also seeing Spotify integration, as far as the free tier is concerned, so they can stream their playlists more easily. The smart speaker will also see Deezer integration in the future, as well as other streaming music platforms.
And Google confirmed that Home will be made available in a variety of new regions in the coming months. Specifically, the smart speaker will arrive in Canada, Australia, France, and Japan before the end of the year.
Finally, Google Home is also getting support for making phone calls. Google announced that its smart speaker, Google Home, will support calling phones in the United States and Canada for free. What’s more, Google Home supports recognizing each user, so if you call your mom, Google Home will recognize your voice and call that associated number.
All existing Google Homes will get this feature over the next few months. No set up required, call anyone including personal contacts and businesses, and dial out with your personal number if you prefer that.
Google announced new features being baked into Google Photos. That includes a new shared library feature, as well as a new way to easily share photos between friends and family members.
Suggested Sharing will automatically recognise the people in your photos and recommend you to share it with that person. This way, the best photo of a person at a party that you accidentally clicked will no longer just end up being in your library. When you share photos with the suggested person, they will automatically get a notification or an SMS message. If they are not on Google Photos, they will still be able to view and download the photos on their device.
As for Shared Libraries, it allows one to share their photo library with their friend or family. This way, one does not have to keep manually sharing photos of their family with rest of the family members as all the photos will simply show up under the shared library.
These new features will be rolling out to Android and iOS users soon.
-
Android O
Android O is the next iteration of the operating system, and while Google wasn’t quick to reveal too many new features, or even the official name, they did opine on a few new features. The main talking point was “Notification Dots,” which will show a small dot on an application that has a notification tied to it. This can be dismissed by dismissing the notification within the Notification Shade or accessing the app directly.
In addition to that, Google released the public beta program for Android O, so those interested can take a look at the pre-release software months ahead of its launch.
This is a new program from Google to make sure that Android works on low-end devices, basically for emerging markets.
Internally called Android Go, the project will be based on Android O. To make the OS run smoothly on low-end budget devices, Google will be optimising the System UI and other aspects of the OS to ensure that there are no performance issues on devices with 512MB and 1GB of RAM.
Additionally, Android Go devices will come with smarter Google apps with multilingual support. For example, Chrome’s Data Saver feature will be enabled by default on Android Go devices so as to save data usage. Similarly, the normal version of the YouTube will be replaced with YouTube Go on these devices, which is lighter and consumes less data than the normal app. It also features Offline Sharing and the ability to save videos for offline viewing.
Lastly, Android Go will come with a version of Play Store that will highlight apps optimised for budget devices. Android Go’s version of Play Store will come with dedicated new categories that are suited for low-end Android devices.
-
Google Daydream
Google didn’t have a lot to talk about when it comes to Augmented Reality (AR) or Virtual Reality (VR), but the substance was there. The company confirmed that it is indeed working on standalone VR headsets, for instance, and that companies like HTC and Lenovo will be joining them in the effort.
Additionally, Google also announced that two major players will be supporting the Daydream VR platform moving forward. Samsung will be updating the Galaxy S8 and Galaxy S8+ to support it, and LG’s next flagship phone (probably the V30), will also support Daydream VR out of the box.
That is the general gist. What do you think of Google’s latest I/O announcements?
