The Google I/O developer conference 2018 was held in the Shoreline Amphitheater in Mountain View, California. Here Google unveiled the latest features to its existing gamut.
Let’s take a look at the major announcements from Google I/O 2018.
Android P
Google’s Android P operating system is a blend of a trio – intelligence, digital wellbeing, and simplicity. It will utilize artificial intelligence and machine learning to manage settings on the smartphone.
Check out some of the notable features this new Android OS has to offer.
Adaptive battery
By partnering with DeepMind, Google has created Adaptive Battery, which uses machine learning to identify the apps that you use frequently and the ones you use infrequently to restrict its background processes and save battery.
Adaptive brightness
Also, another feature called Adaptive Brightness learns a user’s brightness preference in diverse ambient lighting setups to improve the auto-brightness settings.
App actions
This feature in Android P predicts and offers smarter suggestions depending upon the usage pattern. For example, if you search for a hotel in Google, you can instantly get an app action that offers Priceline for you to book your room from.
Slices
Slices will provide a deeper look into your favorite apps for more information. For example, if you are searching for Uber in Google search, it will show you the price and available cabs for a trip.
Android dashboard
With Android P’s Dashboard, you can see a user-friendly classification of how you have spent your day on your device and desktop. So, based on those controls, it will help you to limit your usage of certain apps.
Shush mode
An improved DND (Do not disturb) mode will stop visual, audio, and vibration notifications. The new “shush” feature will automatically enable Do Not Disturb once you place your phone turned face down on a table. Important contacts will still be able to call, even if the Do Not Disturb mode is on.
Wind-down mode
The new wind-down mode will dim the display to grayscale when you are using your phone late at night.
New system navigation
The navigation feature is now overhauled in Android P. Swipe up on the home button at the bottom and a new app switcher will get opened. Swiping again will open the app drawer which is horizontal and resembles more like the iPhone app switcher in iOS 11.
The good news here is that this is not only for Pixel devices but for Sony Xperia XZ2, Xiaomi Mi Mix 2S, Nokia 7 Plus, Oppo R15 Pro, Vivo X21, OnePlus 6, and Essential PH‑1 as well.
Smart compose in Gmail
This product has been redesigned using artificial intelligence (AI) which enables smart compose. The machine learning will suggest sentences, phrases in real-time while you are composing your email message.
Google Assistant
This voice assistant of Google is made better using WaveNet technology (from DeepMind) which supports six different voices. Besides that, now Google Assistant focuses more on raw audio, allowing its voices to understand the human voice, natural pauses, and syntax providing an assistant that is more natural to talk to. The continued conversation feature will allow you to talk to this voice assistant without giving voice commands (“Hey Google”) again and again.
Google Duplex
Duplex uses Google Assistant to make phone calls and talk to a human at a hair salon, restaurant, or at any office reception to schedule an appointment, and its details will be shared with you. Using deep learning, AI, and text-to-speech, Google Duplex is infused with the ability to handle phone conversations with appropriate voice modulation, by understanding complex sentences, and respond in a human manner. Google is still working on this feature and will roll it out as an experimental feature.
Smart Displays
Smart Display, powered by Google Assistant is voice search combined with a visual experience. Using Smart Display you will be able to ask any of the questions you already ask your phone or Google Home. Now, since you have a large screen available, you will be able to use Smart Displays to watch a video presentation of recipes, live episodes on YouTube TV, and access the full YouTube app.
Google News
Google has upgraded its News app with rich AI integration, because it uses particular AI techniques to gather continuous flow of information as it comes to the web, analyze its authenticity in real time and arrange it into a story like format. Apart from that, the app has a ‘For You’ section where users can find updated news on topics of their choice.
Google Photos
This feature makes use of AI to make photos better. Now Photos will be able to recognize the type of document and convert them into PDF files. It will also automatically adjust brightness, convert black and white photos into color ones, recognize faces and desaturate the background.
Also, Google Photos with the use of machine learning algorithms will make sharing easier. The suggested sharing will recognize a person in a photo and share the pictures with that person according to your sharing pattern.
Google Lens
Now integrated with your phone camera app, Google Lens will give you information about reviews, rating, and price when you point your camera at a particular item. Lens also allows smart text selection, which can be seen through your phone’s camera and you can copy and paste text from the real world in your phone.
Google Maps
Google Maps will now give personalized recommendations to suggest locations like nearby theatres, gardens, and restaurants. The maps will be integrated with your camera, directions, and street view to provide augmented reality walking directions.
Soon you can send your friend a short list of hotel options to choose and quickly decide where to stay. Once that is decided, you can book your room with a few clicks.
Also, to quickly see information like business hours and phone number, all you have to do is point your camera at that restaurant, museum, or storefront.
Waymo – Self-driving cars
Waymo is coming up with a driverless transportation service that works just like the ride-sharing services of Lyft or Uber – where you need to open the app and select where you want to go. By using deep learning algorithms Waymo is aiming to decrease pedestrian detection error rate by 100x. Moreover, it is using AI algorithms to recognize the pedestrians and other vehicles on the road to avoid collisions.
The final say
These are the big announcements the search giant made at its event this year. It goes without saying that such advanced features are going to help users in many ways. What’s more, we are excited to try our hands on these amazing features and upgrades by Google.
