A Walkthrough of the Recently Held Google I/O 2017 Event

Google’s annual developer conferences known as Google I/O are always awaited events as Google shares in depth information about current and upcoming upgrades related to various Google products and services. Developers are always enthusiastic for such events so that they can have comprehensive understanding about what are the upgrades, what they are intended for, when there will be the actual roll out and how can they be ready before the roll out.  Google I/O 2017 was held during 17th May, 2017 to 20th May, 2017 in San Francisco. Please find the keynote highlights here.

Smart Reply

With the help of Machine Leaning, Smart Reply is now officially rolling out to Gmail users. The text of arriving message gets scanned by Smart Reply first. Then it comes up three primary reply suggestions for the user. Initially, it is rolled out in English. Then it will be available in Spanish and eventually, there will be options for other languages as well.

Google Assistant:

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Google Assistant is a brilliant feature using the technology called Google Lens

• Once the smartphone camera is pointed at something, Assistance will furnish the related contents including relevant information about the place or object
• This digital assistant will also help in translating words or sentences just by pointing out the camera at text. If you have pointed the camera at the name of a flower written in another language, Google Assistance will translate it and furthermore if you ask the question, how it looks like, and the image of that flower will be displayed on your mobile screen.
• Assistant will also support finger print approved payments
• Google Assistant will be available to iPhone as well.
• Makers of various products such as speakers or toys will also be able to use Google Assistant in their products.

Google Photos:A remarkable progress has been made for Google Photos. Three features have been added to bring Google Photos experience to the next level.

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  • Suggested Sharing: To enable sharing of photos as well as to offer recommendations who to share with. It also and incorporates the feed of shared images.
  • Shared Libraries: You can create shareable photo libraries. Once you have shared a library with someone, you will be able to share the photos automatically through it. The other user can also add photos automatically to this shared library, if they want. Choice for Auto saving of photos is also available
  • Google Lens:  Apart of Google Assistant, Google Lens will make impact to Google Photos as well. It will be able to identify buildings in image and get the information such as location directions and working hours. It will also enable to tap and call to contact details from a screenshot.It is feasible now to remove the additional or unwanted barrier kind of part of image just through a tap or two. For example, if the photograph has been taken from a window and it is including window grills or so, the user can tap the window grill and remove it.

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• You will be able to create hardcopy and soft copy Photo Book of your favorite photos.

           Google Home: As expected the capabilities of Google home has been extended.

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• The smart speaker would not only assist in making calls but also will act like a phone. You just simply tell Google Home to make call to the particular contact and it will do it for free without using your phone. Initially, free calls will be applicable to USA and Canada and Home will use Private Number as caller identity with the choice of linking it with a particular mobile number.
• Google Home will be able to provide time-sensitive notifications which will help you in keeping the track of routine life events such as meetings, traffic information, flight or train status etc.
• Google Home will support Bluetooth.  as well and it will also be able to send visual contents such as images to TV (via Chromecast), smartphone or tablet.
• Google partnered up with Spotify, Deezer, and SoundCloud for better Google Home performance. Video streaming will also be made easy through partnership with prominent video partners including HBO

YouTube Enhancements: 360-degree video for TV and Super Chat API

• 360 degree video for TV apps: You will be able to bring video contents to the largest screens with optimum quality through YouTube App. You can use your TV’s remote for panning as well.
• Super Chat API: This will help in monetizing your YouTube videos as the audience can make their comments Featured on YouTube streams by paying for them

Android O and Android Go:

• The first developer preview of Android O was launched in March, 2017 expressing higher focus on battery life, security and speed. Few enhancements were announced such as:
• Picture-in-picture video support
• Smart text selection that can be used for copy and paste
• Notification improvements like flexibility to snooze notifications, Notification channels to enable different notification categories within the apps, Notification Dots and detailed view of notifications etc. Flexibility to set distinct background color to differentiate notifications will also be there.
• Auto Fill feature for most used apps
• Improved battery life and security

Android Go  – The low end mobile device focused new operating system which is actually a lightweight version of Android O got launched. It aims less resource use through scaled back version of Android apps. Android smartphones with 1GB RAM will automatically run Android Go and the phone user will be capable of checking the usage of data on its notification settings panel.

Google AI:

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One of the most important announcements was launching of Google.ai which is actually the cluster of products and teams aiming to explore the maximum possibilities of artificial intelligence and machine learning application developments.

Standalone VR headsets

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It has been one year since Google had announced Daydream View platform. Now, it has announced Daydream compatible handset which even doesn’t require a phone device along with phone partner names. This handset is a standalone wireless VR set and it has potential of positional tracking as a built in feature. Google communicated about visual positioning service using Project Tango as well.

Several other significant announcements:

• The coding language Kotlin will now be supported in Android
• Enhanced capabilities of Google Play Protect and Play Console Dashboards
• Google Jobs, the job search engine will be launched to help job seekers in checking various job postings and once enrolled; the seeker will be able to apply for the job as well. Initially, it will be launched for US

Conclusion:

Statistics about Google prevalence shared in Google I/O 2017

• Google’s products have over one billion active users.
• Google Photos users upload 1.2 billion photos daily.
• Google Maps users navigate over one billion miles per day.
• Android now has over two billion active devices.
• YouTube viewers view over one billion hours of video per day.
• Over 800 million monthly active users on Google Drive.
• 1.2 billion Photos uploaded to Google every day.

Being one of the most popular, prevalent and proactive technology company, Google generally always has something new to offer. Several announcements of Google I/O 2017 are the assurance of its technological innovation approach and visionary business strategy.