Google’s opening keynote address at its 2017 Google I/O developer’s conference was, as usual, the time for the company to announce some new products and developments.
These include :
- Virtual and augmented reality announcements such as working with HTC, Lenovo and other developers for standalone virtual reality headsets that will sense your movement and, unlike Google’s current offerings, not require users to insert a smartphone. Google also announced an expansion of its augmented reality program for education.
- Google Lens which allows your phone camera to recognize physical objects and take appropriate actions. Take a photo of a venue marquee and it will look up what’s playing and give you a link to buy tickets. Point your camera at a restaurant and you’ll get information about it.
- Google is taking an even deeper dive into artificial intelligence with its google.ai program. The company is applying AI to “real world problems,” such as helping doctors diagnose breast cancer and creating automatic translation systems. “Cloud TPU” is a new cloud-based is a cloud service for machine learning and artificial intelligence. It’s all related to Google’s open source TensorFlow machine learning software.
- Google made some Android announcements including the release of its beta developer’s edition of Android O, which will include Picture-in-picture, notification Dots, Autofill with Google, Smart Text Selection and enhanced artificial intelligence. Google also talked about Android Go, a project to bring Android to very low cost phones in the developing world.
- Google Assistant is coming to the iPhone (it’s already on some Android phones) and the Google Home advice, which is similar to the Amazon Echo, will get hands-free calling to any phone number with free calls to the U.S. and Canada. It’s also getting Proactive notifications with reminders on Google Home and your phone for things like flight delays and traffic alerts and you’ll be able to get visuals from Google Home on your phone, PC or TV.
- Google also talked about Play Protect that provides greater security and more visibility to app security on Android app.