Wear OS by Google is getting a supercharged Google Assistant experience, the company has announced today, with the rebranded smartwatch platform adding new voice control features. The new integrations were revealed ahead of Google I/O 2018, the company's annual developer event set to take place in San Jose, CA next week.
This morning Google posted their event schedule for Google I/O 2018, showing the many ways in which they'll invigorate their developer masses. The schedule is set for Monday the 7th of May until the 10th of May, 2018. The first day - the 7th - will be exclusively all about pickup of badges. There won't be any keynotes about how to pick up one's badge, as developers are expected to know how to pick up their badge as a basic everyday user skill - it's easy.
While warmer weather is enough reason for most of us to look forward to summer at the present moment, today Google gave us another reason. Google announced the dates for its annual IO conference today, essentially letting us know when we can expect the company to reveal the next version of Android. Though Google doesn't really delve into what we can expect from the show, we can still look to past ones to guess at what we might see.
This week the folks at Google release the full collection of Google I/O 2017 talks in video form. That includes a selection of videos which identify the newest features in Android. That's Android, the operating system quite likely on the device you're reading this with right this minute - dive in and make the most of it!
Blocking apps from being used on rooted smartphones is about to become standard practice. As we found out this morning, Google's latest update to the Google Play Console, as updated during Google IO 2017, includes a Safety Net toggle. This toggle is one of many which give developers a very simple way of allowing some features to be compatible with the apps they make, and others to be kicked from the pack.
In Google's brave new world of virtual reality, every comment troll's favorite place to spam their misspelled wares, YouTube, is getting a VR version. Announced at Google I/O 2017 this morning, YouTube VR will do away with text comments in favor of projecting 360-degree video directly into your headset. It's part of the software giant's attempts to drive adoption of virtual reality and augmented reality, preferably through its Daydream platform.
This morning Google revealed the second major iteration of their VR platform Google Daydream. This second age in the software and hardware platform includes updates in five major categories: Audio, Graphics, Performance, User Interface, and Tracking + Input. This update will be coming for all Daydream hardware - so it's not limited to only the future of the platform, but it is optimized for a couple of new processors, so watch out for that.
Google is turning the Google Assistant into a personal bank teller for sending and receiving payments, potentially lighting a fire underneath Venmo and Square Cash. Set to roll out as an update over the next few months, it'll allow for direct person-to-person transactions, like when you need to settle up a split check for dinner. The news comes as Google expands Android Pay to a number of new markets.
At a Google I/O where the Google Assistant held center stage, it was a service I'm already deeply committed to, Google Photos, which arguably made best mainstream use of the growing AI. Like Google's most successful products, the integration between the Assistant and the cloud photo service ignored technological showboating in favor of just plain useful features that address real sharing hassles users experience every day. Indeed, as nudges to sharing goes, it's hard to see how Google Photos could now make it any easier without bypassing the human user altogether.
Machine learning was the pervading theme of Google's keynote at I/O 2017, and it has found ways to inject it into almost every nook and cranny possible. Case in point is the "all new" Google Play Protect, which uses machine learning to weed out malicious Android apps and keep them from harming your device. As impressive as that might sound, this something Google has actually been doing on Android for years now. At least those Android devices with Google Play Services.
Android may have spread to the dashboard, but Google won't be happy until its OS fully colonizes the auto industry. At Google I/O 2017, it's showing off the next phase of that plan, cars from Audi and Volvo running the new Embedded Android for Automotive. In the case of this gleaming metallic orange Audi Q8 sport concept, that means the German automaker's regular MMI infotainment system has been cast out and replaced with a new, Android-based alternative. We clambered inside the hybrid SUV concept to check it out.
Google is launching a new Android Assistant App Directory, aiming to make Google Assistant-compatible apps easier to find as well as allow users to more seamlessly integrate their favorite apps with the AI. The new directory will serve as a highlight to the conversational services which use chat rather than traditional UIs, with Google telling I/O 2017 attendees that it believes this will significantly boost discoverability. However, it'll also allow those already taking advantage of the Assistant to streamline interactions with their most commonly-used services.