Google’s annual I/O developer conference kicked off at Shoreline Amphitheater in Mountain View, California. Google I/O 2018 is the annual Google developer conference of 2018. It is Google’s biggest event of the year till now. At Google I/O each year, Google takes users to the journey of the company’s efforts to push the boundaries of consumer technology. The company is always quite open about its core focuses, and Google I/O 2018 was a showcase of all the key areas of concentration at Google. Here are the top 10 announcements at Google I/O 2018:
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Android P at Google I/O 2018:
Google is known to introduce its new Android versions for users at the Google I/O. Just like some previous years, Google unveiled the first Android P beta preview at the Google I/O conference. The Android P beta will be available for Google’s own Pixel devices, and also smartphones from seven other OEMs. The new Android version includes a lot of new features. Android P also got a new and refreshed look. The new Android version says goodbye to the three-button navigation system available for previous versions. Google is replacing the standard navigation icons with gestures and creating a native support for notch.
Google Photos:
There was also an announcement about Google’s cloud-based photo service Google Photos. It is already using a bunch of new and smart AI features. At the I/O 2018, Google also introduced new AI tools that will allow improved image recognition. The AI will also deliver suggestions to enhancing the images for the users. With new updates, Google Photos will also allow users to color their old black and white photos. The app can now also automatically recognize documents and images to help users easily convert them into PDFs.
Smarter Gmail:
Google recently also rolled out a new User Interface (UI) for Gmail. The email service is now getting a slew of new AI-based features. Google introduced a new “Smart Compose” feature at the I/O 2018. This new feature will help users to auto-complete their emails as they type. The new feature is an extension to the Google’s “Smart Reply” feature which provides suggestions to users for auto-responses. Gmail’s will be rolling out the new features for users over the next few weeks. The new feature will also be available for G suite customers in the coming weeks.
Digital Wellbeing:
Google also introduced a new initiative that is mainly aimed to help users curb their addiction to their smartphones. The company has introduced a set of tools that help users control their time spent on applications. Google has introduced a digital well-being Dashboard for Android P. The Dashboard is meant to show how users are spending their time on the device.Users can even set time limits for individual apps. This will help them to cut back on compulsively staring at their phone at any moment of downtime.
New Google Assistant Voices:
Google also introduced some new voice varieties for its virtual assistant. Now with new voice variety users will get to pick from six additional, natural sounding voices. Apart from that, there is the original one too with which users are probably familiar with. Google calls the previous and original voice “Holly.” Also, a new voice variety John Legend is coming for the Assistant later this year.
Google Duplex:
The company also introduced a new feature of Google Assistant i.e. Google Duplex. This new feature uses the text to speech, deep learning, AI, and more. With the new features, Google Assistant can be a real assistant very soon. In a demo shown by CEO Sundar Pichai at I/O 2018, Google Assistant also made a real call to a hair salon. the Assistant also had a back and forth conversation with an employee and ultimately it also booked an actual woman’s haircut appointment in the time span requested by the user. This feature is not expected to roll out anytime soon, but it is something that Google is working very hard to develop for both business and consumers.
Smart Displays with Google Assistant coming soon:
With Amazon’s Echo getting a step further with its smart displays feature in its Echo devices. Now its time that it faces some competition from the similar devices running Google’s software. Google in the I/O 2018 announced that a new Smart Displays with Assistant built in is going to start it shipments from July. A demonstration by Google on stage showed the display pulling up Jimmy Kimmel Live on YouTube TV.
New and Improved Google News:
Google also rolled out a new version of its Google News at the I/O 2018. Google News uses the company’s AI and Machine Learning tools to serve credible and relevant news to users. The service will now also include a new “full coverage” feature. This feature aims to deliver a complete picture of how a story is reported from different sources. This will include headlines from different sources, videos, local news reports, social commentary and many more.
Google Maps:
Google Maps also gets some new feature at Google I/O 2018. A new feature in the Map will provide a new For You tab to the users that shows them new businesses in their area as well as restaurants that are trending around them. Google also added a new Your Match score to display the likelihood of user liking a new restaurant based on their historical ratings. These new features are expected to roll out for users very soon.
Google Lens can now copy text into user’s phone:
Google also introduced a new feature for Google Lens. Now users can point their phone’s camera at any text from the real world and then use it on their phone. For example, users can point their phone’s camera to a written down Wi-Fi password and grab that text. After that, the user can easily paste them into a text field on their smartphone. Google is also introducing a new style match feature that will allow users to scan something by pointing the camera towards it and then it will help them to buy it from internet retailers.