Google I/O Keynote — helpful and for everyone!
Attending Google I/O keynote in person was a different experience altogether. It was a carefully curated experience, something like a perfectly choreographed play. Like actors on stage who play their part and leave, each one of the presenters played a critical role in taking the keynote forward and at the end of it all, it was a splendid show. It drove home the point that Google’s going to roll out great releases this year, cared more about user experiences and being helpful to people albeit being very developer friendly.
Sundar Pichai set the ball rolling by saying “Google is moving from a company that finds answers to a company that gets things done”.
I particularly was intrigued by Archana, as she showcased the immense possibilities when 3D animations jump out onto our drawing boards. With various use cases, she highlighted how assistant, camera, lens and search were coming together to solve and simplify the problems we encounter everyday. The translation and the text reading features are really thoughtful additions along with the best dishes highlighting in the restaurants. You can listen to her here.
Remember how the Google assistant initiated a restaurant reservation in the last I/O ? That was Duplex. Now it has been trained to not only initiate but even complete tasks with minimum intervention from us. Isn’t it amazing to see the assistant complete a task online on our behalf? It surely has seen immense adaptability from businesses and individuals alike.
Then it was Scott telling us about the “Next generation Assistant”, our very own Google Assistant which would be ten times faster than what it is now. Without the need to say “Hey Google” each time, we could shortly talk to Assistant as if it was our buddy and it would execute tasks for us — write mails on our behalf, play songs, make calls and reservations and even helps us with a seamless driving experience through Android auto. Tap into this part of the I/O here.
“Building a helpful google for everyone” is a powerful tag line. ‘For everyone’ represents the inclusivity of Google and features like “Live transcribe” “Live captions” and “Live relay” are indeed amazing. The part on decoding of speech for people with speech disorder was a huge inspiration. I had goosebumps all over my body thinking of how technology was impacting people with disabilities and how Google was prioritising the differently abled by solving specific challenges for them. You can hear about Dimitry’s case study known as Project Euphonia here.
This season saw the launch of version 10 of Android — Android Q. It has a host of features which we always yearned for. Stephanie Cuthbertson spoke at length about a new category of devices called foldables, which bend and fold from phone to tablet sized screens. She also spoke about 5G connected phones and on device captioning. Really cool feature was that the device gets updated without reboot of the device. And though my kids won’t approve of it, I loved the parental controls part :) Please, listen to her here.
Speaking about Android and announcing a number of releases for Kotlin, Chet Haase pointed out that it was the fastest growing language on Github and was widely used by developers in Google (Are you all listening??). He also spoke about Jetpack, android studio, app bundle and in app updates. Check out his talk here.
Talking about Google Assistant, Chris Turkstra spoke about how people all over the world have started to intertwine their lives around the Assistant, be it in their devices, cars or homes. I especially loved the voice activated app trigger that starts off the run in Nike app. Heres the link.
The keynote also saw the launches of Nest Hub, Nest Hub max and Google Duo and Pixel 3a with specific features in each of them. Check them all out.
Advancements in AI for the accurate recognition of patterns in nature for forecasting calamities as well as applications in medicine is a challenge Google is trying to solve. Good care and accurate diagnosis is something every doctor cares about. Many case studies from India have been depicted with specific mention of eye problems in diabetic patients and also for cancer screening. Check it out here.
Accurately predicting flood timing, location and severity through AI is already helping millions in India save their lives and property. The day saw the expansion of scope of prediction through AI, neural networks to the Ganges and Brahmaputra basins.
The developer keynote in the afternoon session had great talks too.
I was very motivated to see Tal Oppenheimer speak about open source Chromium project. Though she looked fragile and dainty with her amputated limb, the confidence she oozed on stage was stunning. Speaking about the latest improvements in Chrome developer tools, she spoke about creating faster experiences, powerful capabilities and building user trust. Being in the web development space for some time, I can vouch how important the faster experiences matter. The new “lazy loading tag” is something to watch out for. Hear her here. You’ll be glad you did.
The ML and AI talk by Anitha Vijaykumar was super cool and I resolved to first hit those sandboxes to see the cool technology in action. She along with her team showcased how Google was using AI and ML to make user experiences more helpful and delightful. You can hear her talk at length about ML kit, Google cloud and Tensor flow libraries here.
And finally Christine spoke about how mobile and web app development was made easier with Firebase. If building better apps for your users, improving their quality and engaging users effectively is your key area, you should check out her talk where she also showcased a demo.
All in all , my keynote experience has been phenomenal. I learnt a ton of things and am super excited to share them with friends and community.
