The 10th annual Google I/O developer conference, held once again at the busy Shoreline Amphitheater at Google's Mountain View headquarters, featured a series of announcements during the first day's keynote, including the Google Assistant and the new communication service Allo. The auto-reply feature in the new Android Wear 2.0 also utilizes some machine learning. Regarding virtual reality, Google finally introduced VR Ready specifications for its hardware, clearly stating the specifications for a good VR experience.
Artificial wisdom
At this year's developer conference, Google kicked off its presentation with the launch of Google Assistant, a new digital assistant service built on the integration of knowledge graphs, neural network-like systems, and machine learning. This showcased Google's evolution from helping users find answers through search to providing straightforward, simple answers. The company now hopes to further assist users with everything from asking questions and searching to executing results through Google Search, a goal Google Assistant aims to achieve.
Extending beyond mobile phones to the home, Google hopes to integrate the Google Assistant service into Google Home, allowing users to free their hands and communicate with it through a more intuitive and easy spoken conversation, allowing Google Home to assist with daily tasks. While many have criticized Google's design as similar to Amazon's Echo, which incorporates Alexa Voice voice recognition technology, the underlying technologies and cloud computing resources differ significantly, ultimately depending on individual needs.
For example, many people believe that since the Google Assistant service will be integrated with mobile phones, the basic usage mode of using the mobile phone to perform operations may make life more convenient, so the design of Google Home may not be attractive to them.
Google also further integrated artificial intelligence (AI) applications into its new communication service, Allo, by integrating the Google Assistant. It also added a machine learning-based auto-reply feature to Android Wear 2.0. The presentation concluded with a detailed explanation of Google's vision for the development of AI, hoping to make it more convenient for people.
virtual reality
Although the keynote speech still focused a lot on the new Android N version, there is still some time before the actual release of the update. At the same time, the preview version has been opened for experience, and the actual code name has been decided by public vote. Therefore, the focus of the Android operating system this year is mostly on virtual reality applications. Google also proposed the VR Ready specification for mobile phone hardware for the first time, allowing mobile phone manufacturers to design the best products based on this, and also allowing users to easily identify mobile phone models suitable for virtual reality applications.
Compared to the past emphasis on any mobile phone can be used to experience virtual reality content, Google has begun to set hardware thresholds for specific usage scenarios such as games, multimedia audio and video, emphasizing that the display effect must at least meet the requirements of less than 20ms latency. It also cooperates with mobile phone manufacturers to provide mobile phone products that meet the standards, thereby defining the differences in virtual reality experience. This shows that Google will further attach importance to the development of virtual reality models with different presentation effects.
However, although virtual reality is currently a hot topic in the market, many manufacturers and content providers are still in the early stages of exploration. As a result, many people are full of imagination about the development of this technology, but many are also more pessimistic.
From Google's perspective, while Android market distribution can indeed expand VR user base through low-cost Cardboard VR technology and Cardboard Viewer, true VR market growth still requires a clear scale of usage scenarios. This is why Google hopes to natively integrate its VR platform, Daydream, into Android N. This will allow more heavy content users and avid gamers to enjoy a better VR experience, thereby helping to expand the VR market.
Instant Apps
Another key point of the keynote was Instant Apps, designed with an open architecture. This allows users to directly access app content stored on Google Play through a link without having to download or install it first. Users can even directly access mobile phone data through the Android API. For example, after accessing a shopping service app through a link, they can directly call the Android Pay service data on the phone to quickly complete online payments.
This approach actually has a good chance of connecting with the vast online and physical shopping channels, and can even allow game companies to promote new game content in a faster way, without having to worry about users being unwilling to spend extra time downloading and installing. In this promotion model, users can experience the content in the fastest way possible, and when they are satisfied with the experience, they can actually download and install it through an internal link. Otherwise, it will not take up personal mobile phone storage space during use.
For detailed report content, please refer to the following link:
- California artist paints Google's self-driving car without a steering wheel
- Google launches new digital assistant service with voice interaction
- Google Home, the digital assistant speaker, will be launched in the second half of the year
- Google launches new online chat service Allo using artificial intelligence
- Google announces seamless video calling service "Duo"
- Android N adds several enhancements, names will be decided by voting
- Android N adds "Daydream" VR mode and pushes display accessories
- Android Wear 2.0 to be released in autumn with more practical features
- Google will promote business applications through Instant Apps design
- HTC 10, A9, and M9 confirmed to be upgradable to Android N
- Google updates Android and App development tools to improve efficiency
- Xiaomi Mi Box confirmed to introduce Android TV, targeting US and Taiwan markets
- Android Auto updates will be developed similar to mobile platforms
- Google builds custom TPU processor for machine learning
- Google accidentally revealed that the Google Play Store is coming to Chrome OS
- Google's new messaging service, Allo, will differentiate itself from Hangouts users
- Google's hot air balloons fly in the sky
