All the news from Google I / O 2018
This week, in week 19, the Google I / O 2018 will take place in Mountain View, California, an annual developer conference of the search giant. We have picked out the most interesting news and summarized them here.
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Google Assistant
This year, too, they have further developed their own language assistant internally. This now receives six new votes. Including some of the stars, such as John Legend's. In addition, more images are now to be displayed for search queries in order to get an even better impression of what you are looking for. A feature that is currently still at the beginning of the development phase is that the Google Assistant can make phone calls on its own. For example, you no longer have to make an appointment with the hairdresser yourself.
Google calls this feature "Google Duplex" - in concrete terms it should look like this in the future:
Smart Compose for Gmail
CEO Sundar Pichai was quite proud of a new feature for Gmail called Smart Compose. “Smart” because this is where AI will come into play. With this innovation, you shouldn't have to write so much text yourself, as the AI suggests additional parts of the sentence based on a few written words. It remains to be seen how well it actually works in the end. It certainly looked pretty promising in the demos.
AR for Google Maps
It's still a pretty big one at the moment Proproblem that the navigation needle in google maps quite often shows some nonsense, especially for pedestrians. At this point, Street View AR, which conjures up directional arrows in the real world, should come into play. Simply activate the mobile phone camera and the service will take care of the rest itself. At this point in time, however, it is still unclear when exactly this feature will come. Another innovation for Google Maps will be that you will be able to share your location with friends.
Rollout of the first public beta for Android P
In addition to the developer preview, there is now also the public beta for Android P, which brings some interesting new functions with it. Particularly in the foreground are the new gestures for navigating through the UI, which are quite similar to those of the iPhone X. A swipe upwards now opens the new multitasking. Instead of vertical, you can now only swipe horizontally through the open apps. A simple tap takes you to the homescreen, a quick swipe to the side enables you to switch apps quickly. In addition, you will now be able to copy text directly from the windows in multitasking and paste it into another app via the same. In addition to the new gestures, the Always On Display and the volume control have been revised.
Improvement of Google Lens
Last year, Google Lens was integrated into the Google Assistant, but unfortunately you needed one of the Pixel devices. Now you should be able to implement this service as a manufacturer in your own camera app. There he is now even more helpful in identifying things in his environment by taking pictures with the camera.
JBL link bar
The JBL Link Bar emerged from a cooperation between Google and the audio manufacturer JBL. The Link Bar is no ordinary soundbar. In addition to the Google Assistant, Android TV is preinstalled, which you can enjoy on your own television in up to 4K via an HDMI cable. The assistant is used for control, there is no remote control. In my opinion, maybe not the optimal overall package for many people, since most TVs already have Android TV ex works, but an interesting concept.
Revision of Google News
In addition to all the other services, there is also a strong focus on the Google News app. This now has a new design, which is very similar to that of Google Tasks. In addition, you should now be able to see more personalized news. In order to be able to provide as detailed information as possible on topics, the app draws information from several sources and combines them with tweets and Facebook entries. To sort the entries and record the reading behavior of the users, artificial intelligence will also be used here in the future.