At the Google Developers’ Conference I/O 2017 winds up at Mountain View California, the tech giant unveiled a slew of newbies one can hope to see and experience as the rest of the year unfolds.
The essence of the presentations through the two days of the conference relates to some exciting prospects on Android-run devices by using the Google Assist platform and seeing more application of VR and AR to enhance the overall user experience.
And what were they? Here’s a low-down of all that was shown at the conference
The Google Lens/ AI Combination
Imagine you are standing in one of the main streets and you feel hungry. You see a number of restaurants, but you are not sure which one offers what kind of cuisine. Just pull out your phone and point the lens at the restaurant’s name and you will get all the information about the restaurant in an instant. This can be done to identify rare flowers or plants. Basically, Google has built on the image recognition technology and built this feature where Google Assist goes and fetches the information about the image in focus.
Android O and Android GO
Some of the developments related to the next Android version O, which most observers feel will be called Oreo. Its beta version is now available and the developers attending the conference would have already taken a hard look at that. While many new changes are being brought it over the Nougat version, the one that seemed to make heads turn is the proposed picture in picture feature the new OS will allow. You can retain a minimized window of something you are watching and carry on with other activities like sending a mail or messaging. The bottom line would be to make the OS strive towards reducing the power usage, particularly by apps which work in the background.
The developments in the Android GO should be of special interest to Indian consumers. This OS is being specially developed to run on low end phones, even if the RAM is just 512MB and the connectivity is 2G. This development has the potential to go on and kill the feature phone market and convert all phones into smartphones.
Google Photos
One of the other announcements coming out of I/O 2017 relates to the changes proposed in the app. Now Google can identify photos you click and suggest to you to share them appropriately. If you have clicked photos with your phone of your kids on different occasions and with your partner separately, there will be a suggestion to store them all in one album. This makes your work easy and you don’t have to be searching for family photos to group them. Google will do it for you. Again, this concept integrates the Google Lens technology for image identification and intelligently connecting up.
Google Home
The Google Home concept will be further built upon and already the smart speaker seems to be doing a great job using the Google Assist feature and the AI technology to anticipate human requirements and making daily household tasks easier to manage.
VR /AR Application
This can be considered a single new device announcement at the event. Though most information about the device is already available in public domain, the I/O 2017 was used as the platform to make the official announcement of these Bluetooth headsets which don’t need to be coupled with a smartphone to watch videos.
Image: Google I/O Keynote