Google I/O 19 — Quick Recap
We all are aware of the festival renown among the developer community, organised by Google every year — Google I/O which was recently celebrated in its 2019 edition. The event featured some phenomenal announcements for various technologies and we also got introduced to some jaw-dropping, newly released features specifically in the field of Machine Learning, Flutter and Android.
In this post, I’ll try and cover most of the announcements that were worth noting and would be doing it technology-wise. I’m attempting to cover 3 days of coverage in a single post. So, it might be a little longer. But I promise to keep it as interesting as possible. So, let’s get started.
What’s new in…?
Machine learning — It won’t be wrong if I say that this year’s Google I/O was mainly focused on Machine learning and why shouldn’t it be, anyway? That’s the future, right?
- Duplex technology, introduced last year, gets a major update beyond its voice feature. Duplex on Web feature will help the assistant fill out forms based on your information, complete a purchase on your behalf and provide users with a summary of the process. Users can just get things done using one-tap.
- With advances in deep learning, much more accurate natural language processing, capable of parsing various kinds of speeches, can be introduced on mobile devices.
- Advances in algorithms can help reduce the size of language-processing databases from 500 GB to 0.5 GB. These can then be used on every device making them AI-powered. Heights of awesomeness, my friend! :D
- Live Relay — A research project which helps people with hearing and speaking difficulties to attend phone calls seamlessly. Assistance speaks for users and it displays the conversation in the message format. Users can type in their responses using the keyboard. That’s something very thoughtful!
- Live caption — This AI-ability introduced on Android can help people caption their video in real time, adding a lot more meaning and context to videos.
Android —As Android is the domain I work with, this point might get detailed :D. But announcements in this domain are worth all the description.
Android Q: Google induced Q OS a few months back and it has already hit beta.
- There are about 50 changes in the OS focusing mainly on security. Users get more control over the sensitive information that they share with the application. Let’s talk about location, a dangerous permission. OS will now allow users to provide their location to an app only when it is in use. If the app accesses the user’s location in the background, the OS will notify the user to keep him aware.
Such features are already available on iOS since long, I know! :) But consider this for android => iOS-like security + Open source + Biggest user base = Happier and Secure world. :D
- Dark theme — Android Q allows users to enable dark mode, a great battery saver.
- Digital wellbeing — This feature provides a parental control right in the OS instead of downloading an extra app for it.
- CameraX — Android developers can now get their hands on a very easy and robust API to use camera into their app instead of complex camera1/camera2 APIs. Thank god! :D
- This API provides a great abstraction layer over camera2 API, manages all the device-specific workarounds by its own and is compatible back till lollipop devices. It uses camera2 legacy API to support camera1 API as well. This is what heaven feels like! (Android developers will feel me here). On top of these, it also supports device-specific modes like Night, HDR, Portrait and Beauty with just 2 lines of code.
- In-app updates — Android developers can now allow users to update the app in the app itself while using it and when it gets updated, users get a reload option inside it to start using its newly updated version.
Augmented reality — With AR in Google Maps, there also have been noticeable improvements in ARCore SDK. Let’s look at a few in detail.
- Google search now supports AR. Users are prompted with an option to plot the 3D model of their search results in the real world, whenever possible. This is a great way to learn and explore things.
ARCore — ARCore, an SDK for developers to integrate AR into their apps, is now released in its 1.9 version and has a couple of noticeable features to look out for apart from various fixes.
- Moving augmented images — It had a feature to track an image in the real world and plot the model on top of it. Now, it can also track moving targets, making this feature a lot more useful.
- Improved light estimation — ARCore’s latest SDK has a feature to understand the provided environment in a much better way and under its hood, it adds light reflections and shadows on the 3D models placed in that environment making them feel as an actual part of the environment. This works in changing environment conditions as well. Evidently, few 3D models, showcased at Google I/O, did manage to fool some people thinking the models were actually a part of the environment. That’s a great achievement!
Flutter — Let’s talk about the future of everything — Flutter. Why I call it future of everything? Let’s see its new updates which will justify my statement.
- Web and desktop support — Flutter v1.5 is a huge step forward in the technology as Google is working on supporting websites and desktop apps in flutter. We can write a single code and can run it on almost all types of digital environments out there including mobile(Android, iOS), desktop(Windows, Mac, Linux), smart watches, web browsers(chrome is supported currently) and more. This is insane! I came to know about it a couple of days back and I’m still trying to believe the fact. :D
- Dart v2.3 — Dart language is one of the reasons in expanding flutter to such an extent using all the cool widgets and controls it has to offer. Many widgets/tools that can track mouse hover events in a browser, keyboard press event and operators like spread operator(adopted from javascript) are now supported in Dart too which make coding fun, easy and compact.
Hardwares and other technologies — There have been huge improvements in Google Hub, Google Lens and we have a huge surprise. Let’s cover these quickly.
- Google Nest — All Google Home devices are now labelled under Google Nest including Hub, Home Max and more. Google Home Hub or should I call it Google Nest Hub, gets a nest cam which supports gesture controls and a face-match feature for people recognition. Nest Hub will be available for $299 later this summer.
Google Lens — Lens gets a major update. Let’s look at what it has to offer.
- It can scan the restaurant and with the use of Google’s database, it can tell what is famous about that restaurant. It can also scan the menu and points out popular dishes in that restaurant. Tapping on pointed dishes brings us detailed information about them. It can also allow users to split the bills. This is the next level of technology, isn’t it?
- It can look at a recipe and can play a video, about preparing it, right on the recipe.
- Pixel 3A — This is the surprise that I talked about before. Google launches a new mobile device, Pixel 3A at $399 without compromising its Pixel 3-like performance. This is great news as now people can buy a high-end phone with all the latest features at such low rates instead of investing thousands of dollars in expensive devices with similar features. Here’s something that explains about its performance. :D
There have been a lot of other announcements too in Firebase, Material theming, TensorFlow and much more. If you wish to watch any of the video sessions about Google I/O 19, here is the complete list.
If I include all the topics here, it’ll add 10 more pages to this post :D. So, in order to avoid making it too boring, let’s wind it up here. I hope you gained something from it. Happy Googling!
