(electronic music)
- All right, welcome to Google I/O.
I'm Alex Dobie with Android central,
Florence Ion.
- That's me.
- Jerry Hildenbrand.
- What up?
- So we just got done with one
of the main keynotes of the day.
So we had the VR keynote.
We had the Android yesterday.
We had the main keynote.
A lot of great announcements.
We're gonna focus mostly on Android O--
- Yeah.
- In this little video segment.
And we've kind of seen that a little bit before,
but we got stuck into one of the main features
of O this time around, starting off
with some changes in notifications.
So notification dots, they're finally here.
We got little icons that show up next to your icons,
so you can see exactly what is there.
You can long press on them.
You get a little window that pops up.
That whole UI has changed a lot in O.
And just making it easier to see what exactly is going on
if maybe you're like me or your standard notification
layout is a bit of a mess.
- [Florence] So it's like an evolution
of what we saw on pixel launcher.
You long press, you have the extra,
I mean it's gonna be useful.
- It's a little platform, and you can do more with it.
- That's true.
- Mm hm.
- And it, you know, gives people what they want
or a way to make what they want.
- Hopefully they can discover it though
because it's such a new habit of getting
into on the launcher as it is.
- [Jerry] Yeah, they're definitely gonna see dots
and maybe they won't know what they are
and what they can do with them.
- Well I know my mother will be happy
because she keeps complaining she doesn't
have notification words, so (chuckles).
- And it's not just notification
(speaker drowned out by interference)
because they're actually changing that UI.
You can get to widgets from there now.
Big part of discoverability in Android Widgets,
they want, developers want users to use
widgets in their apps more.
So just a win-win for everyone there,
and it's just building on that UI
that we first saw back in N.
- But one of the great things is they haven't really messed
up the actually notification notifications
because they got those kind of really good now.
- Yeah.
- They can get messy, but that's because not all developers
follow the best practises.
But for the most part I they're the best notifications
of any platform.
- Oh I agree.
- Desktop or mobile.
So I was worried how bad are they gonna mess them up.
And they didn't.
- It's different colour now.
It's now a light grey.
People are losing their minds over that.
- [Jerry] I'm a fan of light grey.
- [Florence] Grey is nice.
It's neutral.
- So what else?
We had picture-in-picture mode itself isn't used
in Android TV for a while.
It was demoed for the first time here at I/O.
It works very much like if you've used it on an iPad.
You can bounce it around.
You can drag it around the screen.
- [Jerry] If you instal the O beta, I found the easiest
trick, a whole lot easier than entering any code.
Go to Google Play, find YouTube, uninstall YouTube.
And it gives you the default that you instal with O beta
and you get multi err picture-in-picture.
- Oo that's awesome because--
- And it's that easy, so.
- Yeah, and that's what you want to do
like on the long screen on the GS8.
I like to have a little (clicks) you know.
- If you instal the O beta,
you definitely need to try that.
- [Florence] It's gonna be really useful
for people with tablets too even though we didn't hear
a lot of tablet stuff at the keynote, which I mean--
- There is something going on at Google with tablets.
We just need to wait.
I hope it's the biggest surprise with Android
jumping out of cakes and whatnot.
I don't know what's going on,
but there's gotta be something.
They didn't just throw that category away.
- No they're not throwing it away.
And I told you guys yesterday that they were using Nexus 7s
for us to sign up for our free photo books.
- [Alex] It's just so sad, so sad.
- It is the best tablet ever.
You can actually type with two thumbs.
It is.
Please another, while we're here another seven inch tablet.
- And so we don't know anything about that just yet.
But we do know there's a lot of these features on the phone
side that will work really, really well on a tablet,
so we'll just have to see what happens later.
Google is due a new tablet.
It's been two years since the Pixel C.
We'll just have to see what they do there.
- I'm excited Android apps on a Chromebook
with picture-in-picture.
That's where we're heading in O, yeah.
- I have to mention, just because it is possibly the most
important development we had this week,
new emojis in Android.
- I appreciate that actually because I would like to be able
to switch--
- [Jerry] The way they're doing it.
It's awesome.
You can download them flow.
You don't have to wait for Samsung or LG or Google
or whoever to send you an OTA.
You just download them from a server.
- Yeah, and it supported back-set
all the versions of Android as well.
That was a big thing.
Like emojis would come with a new version of Android,
and if you were like a year behind
you wouldn't get you know.
You wouldn't be able to send taco emojis.
- [Florence] Or a middle finger.
- [Jerry] That and I can certainly see
that this server may be like the iPhone emojis.
The way they look better than the An--
- [Florence] Yeah, it's true.
- [Jerry] You'll be able to download those.
- [Alex] Or touch wiz, you know you're not
gonna get Google blobs anymore.
They're a bit less blob-ish now.
They look more of a smiley face thing going on.
- I like the Google blobs.
- I want an alligator holding a taco.
- Well Jerry now you can have that,
probably going all the way back to lollypops.
- Yes I will hack one in.
I'll get out my old phones--
- Speaking of devices, is this a good segue
into kind of like some of the VR stuff,
life for instance the announcement that the Galaxy S8--
- Galaxy S8 getting Daydream VR support.
Huge deal there.
- Yes.
- The next LG phone, probably the V30 we imagine
will be getting Daydream
- [Florence] Some time this fall.
- [Alex] So we don't know it'll be the V30 but yeah.
It's huge to get those two on board
because especially in the US the market
is just dominated by LG and Samsung.
And on the other side, on the non-phone side on VR,
we had the announcement of standalone Daydream headsets.
- Yes.
- Huge deal there.
- Inside out tracking, correct?
- Yup, yup.
Much improved tracking based on cameras
on the outside of the thing.
They're working with Qualcomm to build reference platform
for it, and we're also going to have HTC and Lenovo
getting in there with consumer hardware.
- [Jerry] Right, and their AI platform ties into that.
So the outside tracking, you know the indoor outside
tracking, it can remember what it sees,
and it's only going to get better and better.
- It's insane.
That's like the same technology NASA is using, for instance
like with Tango, is being used now
for our entertainment purposes.
- [Jerry] Which is a much better use.
- [Florence] Absolutely.
- [Alex] So on the VR side we just came out
the VR keynote, a couple of interesting announcements there.
We have Chrome in VR now, which is huge.
Jerry why is that huge?
- Because that's PornHub on your Daydream headset.
- That's true, nobody has to know you have it installed.
- I mean I know people have been wanting a way to do that.
Well now you have a way to do that.
You can go to Github and download it.
We'll round up the links for you and you can instal.
It's just an app.
- [Florence] Can you use it in incognito mode?
- [Jerry] I am gonna assume you can.
If not you just make a fake account,
use your brother's name.
- [Alex] So what else, we had a lot of interesting
gaming stuff going on in that VR keynote.
Seurat was really interesting to me.
That's the system where it's very technical and kind of like
wave of my head, but it basically lets you run PC quality
VR on a headset.
- [Florence] High fidelity graphics.
- [Alex] You define a volume that you can move
around it, and it optimises it.
So you can have like a Star Wars level CGI in something
that's strapped to your head.
- All the developer tools are, Google is serious.
Google is not playing games with Daydream.
It's what you see is what you get, Daydream programming now.
It refreshes on the screen while you're programming.
If you've done any, you know how amazing that is.
It's just Google is serious.
- Especially the high-end.
You have AI.
You have Daydream.
But at the low-end, that was also hugely important
for developing markets.
We had Android Go announced this week.
So a new version of Android that is gonna be based
on O and up, designed for devices
with as little as half a gig of ram.
This is gonna work on helping you consume,
helping you control the rate which you consume data,
and also highlight apps that are
much better for entry-level devices.
- It's great stuff.
That's what a lot of people need.
Something affordable that can get them on the web,
keep them in touch with their family and friends.
- Yeah.
- Watch YouTube without using up all of your precious data
which is like currency in other countries.
- YouTube, Facebook, they're gonna be all in on this.
- Oh absolutely because they want
people to use their services.
- Even companies like Evernote.
This is gonna get, you know, there's some traction here.
- So we're not gonna see this until 2018,
so it's gonna be kind of way out in the future.
But they are commencing, going forward,
this isn't just gonna be a one off.
Every new version of Android from O onwards is
gonna be doing this.
- [Florence] Right.
So I'm really excited about the photo stuff
that was announced because I mean
in the grand scheme of things it's kind of small thing,
like now we're using machine learning to remind us
to share our photos with people that are in our photos.
But that little thing is just Google's little way of saying
tell everybody about the service that we're offering.
Tell everybody that we can make their photo sharing,
photo storing lives, you know, simpler, better.
- Yeah and you can have automatic sharing as well.
So if I take a picture of a dog I can automatically
share it with Daniel Bater who loves dogs.
It's pretty fantastic.
We also had, what else, let's think.
Photo books.
So taking Google photos from existing just digitally
to having something that you can print out.
- [Florence] It is, especially cause if you wanna get,
you know, I want to say older generations
who maybe aren't on board
with having everything digital,
you know, give them incentive.
- We've got a new baby in the family.
I'm gonna make a nice little photo book--
- A lovely little present too.
- 15 years from now, here.
- It's true.
- This is you when you were a newborn.
- It's very true.
- And that's hard to do digitally.
You know, I can hand somebody an SD card and say here.
- Not the same.
- But a photo book is, it's just better.
- That's not the same.
- So what else, we had Google Photos,
and obviously that ties into AI.
Kind of an offshoot feature of that is Google Lens.
- [Florence] Yes, I was gonna, yeah.
Which in photos you'll be able to use
by the way to edit it, if you need to.
- [Alex] Yeah, to edit it.
- [Jerry] Google Lens is gonna be huge.
It's gonna be amazing.
- [Florence] It's a super hit, maybe, of I/O.
- [Alex] Yeah I think it was probably one of the top three
things that was announced here at I/O.
I mean if you look at Assistant, Assistant has been
a slow burner for sure.
But if you just compare it to what Samsung is
doing with Bixby, and as much as that was hype,
this is like that feature done right I think.
- Well yeah, it's Google behind it.
And no offence to Samsung, but you know Google
you know them as a search company.
You know what they do with machine learning and AI.
You know that this is something that they put a lot of
research and development into.
And so instinctually I am more willing to hand over my trust
to that just because I already have experience with it.
- And they gave us Assistant a year ago.
- Precisely.
- It wasn't very functional,
but we were willing to play with it,
millions and millions of us.
This is machine learning.
When you have millions of people using a service,
it gets really good really fast.
And we saw the fruits of that today.
- And also the Google Homes that are being passed
out here to developers.
The idea being like Assistant is what we're putting
our money into, like code for it.
- Yes, if you're a fan of Android and Google services,
and you don't have a Google home,
that needs to be your next purchase.
That's what we're seeing here.
- And that's growing on the visual side as well.
To be able to control your TV over Chromecast.
To be able to send, you know if you want
a map or something, pops up on your TV.
So yeah it's growing a whole lot, and I think we're
going to continue to see it grow,
especially with Lens in the next year.
- [Jerry] Phone calls on Google Home.
- [Alex] Yeah.
- [Jerry] We kind of thought that was coming when Amazon
released it a week before I/O.
- [Florence] It's needed.
It's a small little thing that's needed
because then it gets those people who maybe aren't
you know super technologically inclined to get this little
speaker that they can just literally speak to.
- It's not what I wanted to hear about project five,
but it fits in very nicely because that's my phone number.
- That's true.
- So I can make phone calls from the couch,
even though I could before.
I still like it.
- And you can scan things in your home on Google Lens
and buy more of them.
- From the couch.
- Yeah, absolutely.
- I could scan the couch.
- You could buy another couch, yeah.
So let's go around, top favourite features either
of Android O or anything Google did here.
Flo, what's your top pick?
- This morning I got about excited about VR in Chrome.
So, VR in air in Chrome because I don't have any room
on my Pixel for these things.
So I appreciate just being able to load it
when I want to get into it.
Oh, and guys we forgot to mention
that now you'll be able to do sharing.
Content sharing of your virtual reality experience.
- [Jerry] I know Russ will really want that.
_ [Florence] Me too because I want
my friends to interact with me.
I don't want them to just stare at me going
uh this is amazing.
- [Jerry] Well it depends if you're PornHub.
- [Florence] That's fair.
- [Alex] That's an experience where you don't want to share.
For me, I'm kind of biassed.
I've just come out of the VR keynote,
a lot of interesting stuff in there.
But I think Seurat is really interesting,
just the ability, I mean that's always the barrier
with anything that's strapped to your head that's mobile.
It's power consumption.
It's the computational side of it.
Just he ability to have that level of graphical power
in something, you know it handles in a smart way,
and it's something that you wear.
I think it could be huge.
And we're just seeing the start of this.
- I gonna have bigger ramifications down the line I think.
- Yeah, and between you know the optimization
that's happening in Seurat and just chips becoming
more powerful in general, that's I think gonna be
very interesting to see over the next few years.
Jerry how about you.
- Kotlin.
- Yeah Kotlin.
- If you were here, the developers stood up and cheered.
- Yeah they did.
- Why did they cheer Jerry?
What is Kotlin?
- [Jerry] Kotlin is an existing programming language
that's better and easier than what they have been using now
to write Android apps, and now it's fully supported
in Android Studio.
You just instal it and code.
No weird conversions or anything,
and if you could hear the developers cheer
because writing apps for Android can be a chore
with the old, with Java, let's just say it.
It can be a chore.
That makes it better.
Better for developers means the apps get better,
and that means they just continue to get better.
And I want to see every app in the Playstore as polished
as the Gmail app.
- Is Kotlin going to make it easier for maybe newbies,
newcomers to the programming world to--
- A little, you know Kotlin is not difficult to learn.
You can read if when you write the code you can read
it and tell what it's doing.
And that helps a lot.
- Yeah it does.
Like HTML that's--
- Yes, yes.
But uh it's it's long overdue.
We needed a big change in the way we can build these apps,
and now we have it.
- [Alex] So I think we're just sort
of scratching the surface here in this like
15 minutes of just all the major things we've seen in O,
and we've seen in I/O this week.
But we have much more on the site at androidcentral.com.
Go there, it's a pretty good place I think.
- I think so.
- It's pretty good.
- Um, we're gonna have more from the show.
Few more videos coming up, so stay tuned for those.
Until now, from I/O,
from behind the giant Android Statue in Mountain View,
thanks for watching, see you next time.
(electronic music)