T TECH NOW
O, look at what Google is up to nowHERE are just over 7bn people living on planet Earth at this moment.
And there are 2bn devices actively running Google’s Android mobile operating system out there right now. More than one device for every four people on the planet.
You might say that Android is popular.
This startling fact was tossed out in a short intro to the opening presentation at this week’s Google IO developer conference in California by the company’s CEO Sundar Pichai. It was, perhaps, the most significant of all the announcements that day, but given that huge number of users, any changes Google makes to its software offering are big news.
Most of what was revealed during the presentation hasn’t happened yet, but will happen ‘soon’ – Google is notoriously vague about release dates, but there were some things revealed across Google’s line of software that will have a big impact.
Some will feature in the next update to Android – which is named Android O until a more suitable name can be thought of. O should be out and about in the ‘third quarter of this year’. That’s the autumn to you and me.
GOOGLE LENS
GOOGLE has developed a system which allows it to use artificial intelligence to recognise objects you show to its camera – in the demo, Lens was able to identify the type of flower being photographed.
The Lens technology will be built into the Google Assistant app, which will be able to suggest actions based on what it sees, and into the Photos app. Eventually developers will be able to use it in their own apps.
This technology has all sorts of potential uses – you might show your phone a poster for an upcoming gig, and the Assistant (which is also coming to iPhones soon) will offer to buy tickets for it.
Anyone who has ever had to type a ridiculously long wi-fi password (usually several times) will also appreciate how useful the ability to show your phone the password sticker on the bottom of the router and have it log in without you having type in anything at all. Google Lens can do that, too.
GOOGLE PHOTOS AUTO-SHARING, AND PRINTED BOOKS
GOOGLE Photos is something of a smash hit – the company says people upload around 1.2bn images to the service every day. So, they’ve come up with three new ways to help you share those images.
First up is suggested sharing – Photos will recognise who is in your images and quickly suggest you share the best ones with them. One touch of a button and it’s done.
There will also be shared photo collections, which can be tailored just to share the images you want with whoever you want. You invite someone to see your pics, and can then let them see only, say, pics of your dog, and those images will be shared in real time as you take them.
There is some seriously complicated machine learning going on there – and the computing power required for Google to analyse all those 1.2bn photos to decide what’s in them is immense.
If that all sounds a bit technologically advanced for you, you might like the third method of sharing – Google will now be able to print your photos in a bound book and you can pass them around like its 1996 again…
HOME CAN NOW BE USED AS A PHONE
AN UPDATE will bring the ability to interact with the Assistant via the Google Home smart speaker in new ways – like setting up calendar events, or asking Home to display your calendar itself on your connected TV screen.
Home will also soon be able to act as a phone – you can make calls just with your voice. Home will be able to host several different accounts (and associated phone numbers), and recognise which person is making the call, and so be able to make it from the right phone number.
Home will also become proactive – not just interacting with you when you ask it too, but when it thinks it needs to. The demo showed Home’s warning light flashing, and when asked what the issue was, it had noted the user needed to be in a certain place at a certain time on their calendar, but knew the traffic was worse than usual, so wanted to warn the user they had to leave home earlier than they had planned.