The Most Important Announcements of Google I/O 2018
2018 chapter of the Google’s annual developer event, Google I/O 2018 has just been concluded. It is the event that showcases all the latest technologies and innovations unleashed by the company for its worldwide audience comprising developers and users of Google products.
This year at the Google I/O, the tech giant has revealed an array of most sophisticated technologies and innovations that can have far-reaching implications for the well known Google platforms and already popular technologies. In the event, Google revealed outcomes of some of its much-awaited projects across the board.
Let us explain here all the important technologies revealed by Google at the I/O 2018.
Google Assistant will be able to respond to “continued conversation”
To make Google Assistant more natural in its response to users, a new feature was added called “Continued Conversation”. This new feature will allow you communicate to the digital assistant app continuously and in a more natural way by relentlessly using commands. Instead of saying “Hey Google” prior to a command or ending it with “OK Google” you can continue making new commands for desired actions. You can also ask Google multiple questions at one go. All these together will make your interaction with the Google Assistant more natural with an easy flow.
Android P public beta
Android P, the latest Android OS update is now ready. But, since the whole OS will take some more time to be fully available for developers worldwide, Google launched a Beta version of the OS for the Android developers to build their apps in the meantime addressing the enhancements offered by this new OS update.
Gesture-based navigation is a big enhancement that is coming with the new OS update. Apart from this, there are several crucial UI enhancements that would make the mobile interaction further easier and effortless. The new OS update of Google is focused to allow users doing more with fewer interactions and inputs. The new OS will also offer an array of customisation options for the users.
Android P has been made available by a public beta version by Google, and it will be unleashed for the first time on an array of devices including Google Pixel, Mi, Sony, Essential, OnePlus, and Oppo.
Google Gmails smart compose feature
Google has also provided more power to its Gmail app with the new AI-powered smart compose feature. Thanks to this feature now users can reply to emails quickly with ready to use templates individualised as per the user. It would also be able to make you compose emails easily by suggesting sentences as per the context and the recipients.
New AI-powered Google Photos
Google Photos will be more intelligent with a lot of value additions, as the photo app has been given AI boost this time. From creating collages of snaps automatically as per the contents and context to fixing issues with images like adjusting colours, contrast and brightness to suggesting delicate changes like the orientation, the new AI-powered photo app of Google will provide little t if values with your snaps.
Smart Displays for Google Assistant and YouTube
Smart Display has already been subject to much hype and buzz for some time. After being announced in the CES this year, Google worked on it all this time and ultimately made it available for both Google Assistant and YouTube. It is scheduled to launch in July for both platforms. For Google Assistant thanks to this new feature, the users will have a visual-first interface.
Google Assistant joining hands with Google Maps
One of the big revelations of the event is about making no Google Assistant available for Google Maps. With the introduction of the AI-powered Google Assistant, the Google Map will be able to offer better recommendations to address the user needs, based on location and context. This new integration of two prominent Google technologies will incorporate device features like the camera also no with technologies like computer vision, and Google Maps equipped with Street View.
Google News redesigned and given AI-power
One of the crowd-pulling announcements of the event is the new revamped and redesigned Google News with AI power. The new news app will help users to keep track of the news stories and headlines they most care about. It will also help to customise the featured news items as per the preference of the users and their regular browsing habits. People will also get summary of their preferred news items in a highly customised manner.
Google reveals a new SDK for integrating AI
In the event, Google also revealed a new SDK called ML Kit, which will help to add AI-powered smart UI elements and features to the iOS and Android apps. This SDK will give developers more ease in delivering more powerful machine learning based models for their apps. Thanks to this SDK, the new apps will be able to integrate features like barcode scanning, text recognition, natural language processing, face detection, image labelling and recognition of location and landmark more easily.
The wrap
The Google I/O event this year mostly focused on helping users to do more with existing technologies at their disposal. It focused on making Google Assistant more powerful and integrating AI into several Google apps.
Dhruvil is a Writer & Marketeer for Nimblechapps, joined in December 2014, based out of Sydney, Australia. He has worked briefly as a Branding and Digital Marketing Manager before moving to Australia. At Nimblechapps, he worked on Social Media Marketing, Branding, Email Marketing and Blogging. Dhruvil studies Business at University of Western Sydney, and also handles Operations for the company in Australia.