DIALING UP COMPETITION
Google capitalizes on buzz around virtual capabilities of its latest phone,
Google is expected to reveal new phones Tuesday that will power a new virtual reality platform and possibly other smart-home devices.
Now that the buzz has reached a football-stadium roar, here comes the hard part: Living up to the hype.
Google has been teasing Tuesday’s event in San Francisco as one for the history books. A tweet Monday from Hiroshi Lockheimer, the company’s senior vice-president of Android, Chrome OS and Google Play, turned up the volume.
“We announced the 1st version of Android 8 years ago today,” Lockheimer wrote in the tweet that has been retweeted more than 2,200 times. “I have a feeling 8 years from now, we’ll be talking about Oct 4, 2016.”
In the days since Google sent out the invitations to the media, the company has set up a website, madeby.google.com, and put up large billboards in New York and other cities featuring the silhouette of a phone centred around the hashtag, #madebyGoogle.
Google has gone so far as to erect statues with the rectangle outline in Brooklyn and Sydney, Australia.
What does this all point to? A likely candidate: New phones from manufacturer HTC, taking on the Pixel brand the company used with its Chromebook and tablet efforts. Rumours and leaks point to devices with large displays — five inches for the Pixel and 5.5 inches for the larger Pixel XL, fast processors, improved cameras and sleek aluminum and glass designs. Both phones are expected to have headphone jacks, according to the website Android Police, which has provided many of the leaked details around the phones and Google’s event.
A Google spokesperson declined to comment.
It is through Pixel that Google will likely make its biggest play yet for consumers when it comes to phones.
Mobile is also the path Google is taking as it preps its new virtual reality platform called Daydream, foreshadowed at its May developer conference as a big move up from the Google Cardboard-based VR experience that helped consumers experience early VR at a low cost.
Google has said it will release new headsets for Daydream that will work with powerful Android phones that have enough processing power to solve image delays. That arrangement would follow a similar model to Samsung’s Gear VR headsets that work with certain Samsung phones.
The new platform puts Google into sharper competition with Facebook’s Oculus, the HTC Vive and Sony’s forthcoming PlayStation VR, due for release the week after Google’s big event.
Stoking the competition between the two tech giants: Oculus has its own major developer event the following day on Oct. 5.
In recent days, Facebook has faced some heat from software developers over Oculus founder Palmer Luckey’s financial backing of a pro-Donald Trump alt-right group that has smeared presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.
Oculus’ struggles could open a door for Google if Daydream lives up to the growing hype. Since announcing the virtual-reality platform earlier this year Google has provided few details on it.
Another area of major interest: Google Home, the Amazon Echo rival smart-speaker. Whereas phones may be the emphasis for getting to users wherever they go, Home is the target for keeping them connected to Google when they are at home.
By integrating the company’s artificial intelligence-powered Google Assistant, users can do everything from control Internet-connected lights, adjust thermostats or play music using nothing but their voice.