Today at Google I/O there was a ton of news so let’s get started….
Google products are crazy popular.
Google announced 2 Billion users on Android and 500M on Google Photos.
With seven unique products with over one billion monthly active users each, there were a lots
of new stats in the ‘billions’.
One of I/Os first big announcements was Google Lens, which leverages computer vision to bring
smarts to your phone’s camera.
Basically, you can point your camera at things and Google will tell you the info it knows
about it like the name of the restaurant or type of flower it is.
To help you better manage all those pictures you are taking, Google announced three new
updates for Photos.
The first is Suggested Sharing which is a lot like Facebook Moments.
Google Photos identifies who from your Google Contacts is in your photo and then gives you
a nudge to share your album with them from the app.
The second is Shared Libraries.
Shared Libraries makes it easier to share with the select people in your life who you’re
close with.
You can now turn on a setting that will automatically share photos with say, your mom or best friend
so you don’t selfishly keep precious moments stored on your phone all to yourself.
Then there’s Photo Books.
Google Photos will be able to identify your best photos and offer them up as physical,
printed photo books.
It’s fast and quick with no curation needed.
Home, Google’s helpful counter-top AI, got some updates.
With hands-free calling, you can now call any landline or mobile phone in the US or
Canada for free just by asking your Google Home to make a call.
Proactive Assistance lets Google Home talk to you and give you updates without having
you prompt it.
And there were also a bunch of updates to make streaming music and video easier.
In other exciting news, Google Assistant is now available on the iPhone.
You won’t be able to replace Siri, but you’ll be able to use the feature in Google’s dedicated
app.
It can answer much more complicated queries than Siri, and it has third-party integrations.
Google also made Assistant more conversational and you can also type your queries instead
of speaking them out loud.
Android O Beta starts shipping today.
It’s been available for a few months as a developer preview, but now the rest of us
can finally get our hands on an upcoming version of Android.
Also announced, was Android Go.
It’s a lightweight version of Android for crazy cheap phones.
And on the opposite end of the computing spectrum, Google is bringing machine learning to your
phone with TensorFlow Lite.
Now let’s talk VR.
Google teased that it will be working on Daydream all-in-one virtual reality headsets with partners
like HTC and Lenovo.
These headsets will be able to tell the position in space relative to the environment around
it, which no one has quite figured out yet, and are slated for release in late 2017.
In the nearer VR future, Daydream VR support is coming to Samsung’s Galaxy S8 and S8
Plus this summer AND Google also announced LG’s latest flagship device is adding Daydream
support as well.
Who needs GPS, when you could use VPS instead?
It is exactly what you’d think: a visual navigation system that offers detailed indoor
location positioning.
Utilizing this new technology, you will never find yourself lost in a mall or concert hall
again.
I wonder if they designed this for the Googleplex, which is huge and has oh so many conference
rooms.
Well, that is most of it.
There were more announcements that developers are likely to be excited about like Research
Cloud, Kotlin support, and Google.ai.
You can find our full event coverage on TechCrunch.com.