Google I/O 2018: Android P Rolls Out, Assistant Gets Smarter
Live updates from Google I/O 2018 keynote hosted by CEO Sundar Pichai.
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Google I/O 2018 Keynote Highlights
- Android P beta rolls out to 11 phones (but we still don’t know what P is)
- Google Assistant gets continued conversation feature
- Google smart displays coming in July to compete with Amazon’s Echo Show
- Google Duplex allows assistant to make calls to a real person, like a real person
- Google Maps can send ETAs to friends, integrates street view with directions
- Android Dashboard helps relieve phone addiction
- Google Lens integrated with camera app, can read and save real-life text
Google’s annual developer conference, Google I/O 2018 is taking place in the United States on May 8 & 9, 2018. Sundar Pichai, CEO, Google kickstarted the proceedings with his keynote speech, revealing everything the technology giant has been working on since last year.
You can watch the live stream in the link below:
At the event Google revealed its new Android flavour - Android P, although it still didn’t tell us what P stands for. It also revealed a host of other features that will make its way to Android users later this year.
Keynote comes to End
And we’ve come to the end of the Google I/O 2018 keynote. Strangely Pichai didn’t do the honours of closing the session. But that’s it from us with this live blog. Stay tuned for a detailed analysis and stories of what Google had to reveal on Tuesday.
Google's Self-Driving Car Project - Waymo
Probably for the first time, we’re seeing a segment on self-driving cars at the Google I/O keynote.
Google believes it has found the right formula to let cars drive without any human intervention. Well, Google, that might work in countries like the United States, but definitely not in India.
Google is so confident with its self-driving cars, that it is going to offer cab services with Waymo cabs, which can be booked via the Waymo app. The Black Mirror episode is finally reaching its real conclusion.
Google Lens Spreads Its Wings
As expected, a host of brands are now partnering with Google to expand the reach of Google Lens.
This means all the camera features that were only available to Pixel phone users till now, will come to OnePlus, Motorola, Sony and Nokia among others in the coming few weeks.
Navigation With Street View comes to Maps
If you’re wandering around on the street, Google Maps will soon let you identify your destination with a 360-degree view of your directions. Maps will also be visually able to recognise popular spots around you and guide you towards them.
Analyse Phone Usage With Dashboard
Google seems concerned by how much people have become addicted to smartphones.
And as strange as that sounds, Google is keen on making sure users know what they’re doing with their phones all this while. Users can also make use of features like Do Not Disturb, with the ‘Shush’ feature. Digital wellbeing seems to be on top of Google’s agenda at the keynote this evening.
All these features are releasing via Android P Beta with a slew of devices, including the Google Pixel.
Time for Android P
After all the heavy-duty stuff, it’s time to know what Android P will be called. Dave Burke says that it has been 10 years since the first Android-powered phone was revealed.
Looks like Google wants Android phones to become better with battery management (about time). Android P will cater to that, make sure only the apps you need, will function all the time.
If you’re lazy (or a couch potato already), Google is hell bent on making you one now. It is bringing this feature called App Actions, that will be able to predict which app you would want to use, depending on a user’s usage patterns. This will also be powered by Google’s machine learning kit.
For instance, if you plug in your headphone to your phone, the phone will open up the music app, playing the album, which you had paused earlier.
Google Revamps News
Google will be investing over $300 million in the next three years to ensure news that reaches to the people has strong credibility.
Google is keen to partner with media establishments and journalists to provide them with in-depth information on various subjects. The latest version of News will help to conduct programs with its partners and work on sanitising the news for everyone’s sake.
With Google Newscasts you can scroll sideways and find related content that goes with the news like tweets, podcasts or videos in your news feed.
Google Newsstand feature, which allows easy subscriptions to digital publications, is releasing to all users on Android, iOS and Windows in over 127 countries from Tuesday onwards.
Android Dashboard For Users Wellbeing
We all use our smartphones for more than 10 hours (or maybe more) in a day. Google wants to make sure we cut down on that (yep, that’s right). The search-giant wants people to enjoy life and for this it has developed an Android dashboard. Google is also launching a digital wellbeing site later this week.
Assistant Makes Your Parlour Appointments too
If you thought Google is done showing what Assistant can do. Then you’ve got it wrong.
Assistant will soon let businesses take appointments and the way it talks, you’ll actually start wondering if it was a machine talking or a human. Scary it is, but that’s where our future is headed! This feature will be rolling out in the coming weeks, says Pichai.
Food Delivery Comes to Google Assistant
Assistant will now let you order food from popular food joints like Starbucks and Domino’s among others. Until now, it only showed you directions to the nearest Burger King or any another restaurant. Not anymore.
Google Reveals Echo Show Rival
Amazon’s video-laden Echo Show and Spot finally get some competition from Google. Unlike its rival, Google is relying on hardware help from brands like Lenovo, LG and JBL for now.
What all can you do with it? Use Google Assistant for starters, watch YouTube videos and surely you can make video calls with Duo. The devices will start shipping from July.
Google Assistant Can Carry On Chatting With You
Finally, it’s happening. Google Assistant on devices like Google Home will continue talking with you without using the wake word, ‘Hey Google’.
Amazon has been talking about this feature but Google seems to have taken the lead here. This way, voice commands will now look more natural and that’s always been the plan.
And if that wasn’t enough, Google wants to make sure the kids learn their manners. They’re introducing Pretty Please – which makes questions a little more polite, especially to teach children good manners.
Google Assistant gets New Voice Avatars
The Google’s voice assistant gets new additions. Six new voices will be made available, and more than anything else, it’ll be able to understand more accents. Let’s hope the Assistant becomes smart enough to understand languages in a country like India.
And, Google is offering a surprise Assistant voice avatar. John Legend will soon be available to users, later this year though.
Photos Put into Action!
Pichai claims that over 5 billion photos are viewed on Google Photos every day. And just to make the product sweeter, now you’ll be able to tweak the brightness of the photo, (again, with the help of AI) just in case it’s not looking right.
You can also click photos of documents and they will be converted to PDF files automatically.
Smart Compose Comes to Gmail
Looks like Google is keen to bring all your mobile-friendly, social media features to Gmail. The popular mailing client will now be able to smartly detect the context of your reply to a mail, and help you with filling the blanks.
All this will be enabled by Google’s massive machine learning computing solution. This feature will be rolling out in the coming months.
Google's Effort to Push AI into More Areas
Google will deploy artificial intelligence (AI) for diagnosis treatment in the healthcare segment. Another area where AI can help is to assist doctors with pre-empting when a patient is likely to fall sick. With these data points of a user, Google is sure of becoming more accurate with its analysis in the future.
Disability is another avenue where AI can play a big part, says Pichai. “We are confident of enabling people with special abilities to function with our solutions,” he says.
Pichai is Here
The Google CEO is here and the keynote begins on a light note. Remember the Burger emoji saga with cheese on the wrong side? Well, Google’s fixed that. That’s how the event begins. Nicely done, Sundar.
“Expectations of technology vary depending on where you’re located. Whenever someone gets access to a smartphone, they get empowered. We have trained over 25 million people, and expect to connect over 60 million in five years,” says Pichai.
Not Far Away from the Kick Off
Just 15 minutes to go before Sundar Pichai, CEO, Google takes the stage to begin the Google I/O 2018 keynote. A lot is expected from the event (as always) and we’ll keep you posted on all the stuff that’s announced in the 90 minutes session.
Android P Will Get Its Name
As far as the naming rituals go, Google I/O is the event where Android versions mature to become a full-fledged product that is ready to interact with developers for mobile devices through the year.
There have been speculations about Android P getting named Popsicle, or even Peppermint this year. Going by the recent history of Nougat and then Oreo in 2017, don’t be surprised if Google has something sweet to offer.