The blog of Viswanathan Sellamuthu
Google held its big annual I/O event on Wednesday to show fans and developers alike what it’s been up to in the last year.
During the event, Google announced updates and improvements to existing products and services, and introduced brand new ones.
Here’s everything Google announced at I/O 2016.
Google Assistant is basically a way to use Google as if it was a personal assistant.
Leveraging the power of artificial intelligence and Google search, you can ask questions, give commands, and basically have a conversation.
Part of what makes it look exciting is that it can understand your natural conversational way of speaking. That means you don’t need to learn a new set of commands to make it do what you want it to.
YouTube
Google Home is a voice-controlled speaker hub that wants to control your connected smart home devices, like smart lights and Google’s own Nest thermostat.
What’s special about it? It uses Google Assistant, which is like having the power of Google in a tiny, stationary butler.
Apart from controlling your smart home, Google Home and Google assistant will let you search the web, play music, control your Chromecast, and basically help you do anything you do over the internet by simply using your voice.
Google’s new Allo smart messaging app is much more than a regular messaging app.
It learns over time the way you communicate textually with people, and it’ll make suggestions for your next short reply to a message so you don’t have to type.
Within Allo, you’ll be able to search Google and do basic things like make restaurant reservations. It’s also fully encrypted and has its own incognito mode.
Duo is essentially Google’s own version of Apple’s FaceTime app for video calling.
One of its interesting features is that it shows a live video preview of the person calling you before you even pick up the video call, a feature Google calls “Knock Knock.”
Tech Insider
Google announced a bunch of Android features we can expect in its upcoming version, called Android N.
We already knew about most of the features from checking out early beta versions of Android N, but Google also announced some new ones on Wednesday.
It might seem like a minor upgrade, but it looks like Android N will be even easier to use than the current version, Android Marshmallow.
Oh, also, you can suggest to Google what sweet treat you want “N” to be named after.
Google is integrating a “VR mode” into Android N so you can use your Android phone as a virtual reality machine, provided it meets the required specs.
In Google’s new VR platform “Daydream,” you can play VR games, apps, and videos.
Google released a recommended headset design for developers for free so they can ensure their headsets work well with Google’s new VR platform. Google’s design looks a lot like theOculus Rift VR headset. Even the white remote control that comes with it looks extremely similar to the Oculus Rift’s remote control.
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With Instant Apps on Android phones and tablets, you can basically benefit from efficient, better-looking, personalized Android apps without ever having to downloading them.
When you want to buy something online from a specific store, for example, Instant Apps can seamlessly download the specific part of the store’s mobile app so you can browse and buy right there. The obvious benefit is the ability to use aspects of applications without ever having to download them, and apps are often better optimized than mobile websites.
In the picture above, Google demonstrated how to view and buy a backpack via the B&H app, even though the phone doesn’t have the B&H app installed on it.
The fresh, new updated version of Android Wear doesn’t actually look all that different to the first, but now it’ll show you data from any app right on the watch face. It might not seem like much, but it’s filling a huge gap that was missing from the first version.
In the picture above, the watchface is showing data from a calendar app, fitness app, and a stocks app.
Google also added the ability for you to write a short reply to a message with your finger. And (very) strangely, it also added a keyboard you can use, which seems like a crazy thing to put on a smartwatch’s screen. We’ll have to try it for ourselves to know for sure.
