Google I / O 2016 in detail: prospects and technology
Hi, Habr! On May 18, in California, in Mountain View, our annual conference for developers was held. In case you missed the live broadcast (or just love the text format), we prepared a special post with the most important and interesting thing that was shown at I / O 2016.
We held the first Google I / O conference 8 years ago, the first conference for developers focused on our products and services 10 years ago, and 17 years have passed since Google was founded. By human standards, a little more, and companies will sell beer. ;) But in the same 17 years, technology has leaped far forward, and few could have imagined then how modern IT would work today. At the time Google was founded, Internet users were about 350 million, the main method of connection was DialUp via telephone lines, and a typical device was a desktop computer with a 400-600 MHz processor, 64-128 MB of RAM and a display with a resolution of 800x600 or 1024x768 pixels.
According to optimistic estimates, the number of network users today exceeds three billion. Most of them prefer smartphones to receive information, plan their day, get from one place to another and be constantly in touch. You have 4-8 cores in your pocket, working at frequencies that were not dreamed of by desktops of those times, and the amount of RAM exceeds the size of an average hard disk in 2001. Almost every Internet user has a photo and video camera, a music player, a navigator and a small personal computer that fits in the palm of your hand, and all this in one device. In a world where mobile phones allow us to remotely manage day-to-day tasks, and each user generates dozens of megabytes of information daily, Google’s mission is to “streamline information around the world and make it accessible and useful” is more important and relevant than ever.
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Each Google Search user loves him in his own way, for the features that are important to him personally. For some, it is, first of all, cards, telling in detail about a person, a historical event or a term in the first call, “Ok, Google!”. For others - the notification that the flight is delayed. For the third - timely tips on traffic jams, information about the match of your favorite team, selections of interesting articles, information about subscriptions ... In any case, today Search is much more than just 10 blue lines of search results. Its development is largely due to the improvement of machine learning technologies and artificial intelligence, especially in such areas as natural language processing, voice recognition and translation. These technologies helped us create a system that helps users every day and continues to improve themselves. It is thanks to them that Google’s speech recognition is the most accurate in the world, and you, for example, have the opportunity to take a picture of the Chinese character and see its translation into Russian.
Progress in the development of recognition systems has reached the stage that we believe - the time has come to launch our new service. People are increasingly interacting with Google in a natural way: they are not just looking for information on the global network, but are also waiting for Google to help with everyday tasks. That is why we are very pleased to introduce Google Assistant.
Our Google Now system today has ample opportunities, and voice search has long been learning to understand human speech. A long and careful study of the issues that worried users, self-learning speech recognition systems, progress in the research of neural networks and the close integration of our products allowed us to create an Assistant that works in conversation mode - continuous dialogue between you and Google. He understands what is important to you and helps to cope with affairs. For example, using it makes it easier to buy movie tickets on the go, find the perfect restaurant for a family dinner before the movie and get to the cinema. Google will do all this for you according to your request. Working with a personal assistant is intuitive, and the function itself will be available on any device and will come in handy in different situations; you can count on Google help no matter where you are. On the way and at work, your smartphone is always with you, and at home will take care of you ...
Google Home is a voice-activated device, the “heart” of the smart home system in which Google Assistant lives. It will help you enjoy your vacation, do your daily tasks and get answers from Google - all in dialogue. Using a simple voice command, you can ask Google Home to turn on the music, set the oven timer, check the departure time, or turn on the lights.
The design of the device is customized, so that you can always enter this high-tech gadget even in the interior made in Victorian style.
If Assistant is able to understand a person and his needs, then Allo is his text-based interface, designed in the form of an instant messenger that is clear to any user. That is, you can chat with the virtual assistant directly in the chat - own or group. Your assistant understands how your world works: you can clarify what is planned for your day, or ask to see photos from your last trip. If you are planning to meet with friends, simply ask the virtual assistant in a general chat about which restaurants are close to you.
If you are busy, you can not be distracted to write the answer personally - Allo will help you out with the "smart answer" function, which offers answers to messages based on context. Of course, the usual ways to diversify communication with photos, emoji and stickers will not go anywhere either. Not without its popular privacy function: the messenger is available incognito mode, which allows you to use end-to-end encryption of transmitted data, hide notifications and delete messages.
The Duo application is designed to complement the capabilities of Allo: with its help, you can make direct one-to-one video calls. The new protocol and video compression algorithms should ensure good quality of communication even with a slow or unstable Internet connection. An interesting feature of the Duo is the “Who's there?” Function: it allows you to see the person who is calling you in real time before answering. So no more secret agents disguised as your girlfriend. : D
Both Allo and Duo are tied to your phone number - so you can communicate with any user, regardless of which platform he prefers - Android or iOS, registration is simplified to the maximum, and getting unauthorized access to your accounts becomes more difficult. than with the classic registration and authorization schemes. Both applications will be available this summer, but now more information about them can be found here.
The main innovations and possibilities of Android N will be released a few days ago a separate material, but not to mention the features of the new version of our mobile OS would be just a crime. The most interesting and important thing is support for the Vulkan API, which should give game developers the capabilities that were previously available only to game consoles; reducing the load on the battery and the memory of the mobile device due to the reworked JIT compiler; background download of system updates and a "transparent" move to a new firmware version without a long wait when updating; small but important changes in the UI; more flexible notification settings and a new application build system that brought Android Instant Apps . With this service, you can work with some Android applications (for example, those that you have not used before or that you need once) without installing them on your device. And for fans of rock art and ancient Egypt - updated Emoji, including 72 absolutely new.
By the way, we are looking forward to your help in order to come up with a name for the N version, which will be the “sweet” successor to Marshmallow. All the details on the site Android.com/N .
A couple of years ago, the development of AR and VR systems was far from the concept of “affordable”. We created Cardboard and brought VR to the masses. Today we are taking another important step towards the popularization of VR - based on Android N we have created Daydream , a platform for working with the most advanced virtual reality technology on mobile devices. To successfully work with VR, we had to climb deep under the hood of our mobile OS and perform a thorough tuning there: it’s not enough to ensure high performance and “brute” computational power, besides this, we need to minimize the possible system response delays, make VR responsive and instantly responsive to your actions .
Daydream is a synergy of software and hardware: together with the manufacturers of Android devices, we are working on new models of smartphones and sharing with them the specifications, the reference design of VR devices and the controller. The close cooperation of the mobile industry leaders will allow virtual reality to become even more real, and will make the process of immersion simple and intuitive.
Your favorite apps and games will also be available on the Daydream platform. In particular, YouTube, Street View, Google Play Movies, Google Photos and Google Play have already been ported and “sharpened” for VR and the corresponding controls. More services will be available this fall.
Wearable electronics platform - Android Wear 2.0 - also received an update. New input methods, work offline, adaptive interface of dials, expanding opportunities for applications ... And no matter how far your phone is, and whether it is turned on.
A major update is waiting for our comprehensive back-end mobile app service Firebase . The updated Firebase is a platform that allows developers to quickly create high-quality applications, increase the user base and make more money using iOS, Android and the entire mobile Internet.
Machine learning and artificial intelligence not only change the way data is processed, but also make it possible to start working with problems that previously seemed unsolvable. Every day we strive to make the world a better place, and therefore we have opened access to our machine learning developments. Just imagine what we can do if we start using these technologies together to solve the problems of global climate change, healthcare or education! With the development of machine learning technologies and artificial intelligence, new opportunities appear on the horizon. And we were lucky to live in this amazing time!
That's all for now, wait for details on the main sections as soon as possible.
About scales and numbers
We held the first Google I / O conference 8 years ago, the first conference for developers focused on our products and services 10 years ago, and 17 years have passed since Google was founded. By human standards, a little more, and companies will sell beer. ;) But in the same 17 years, technology has leaped far forward, and few could have imagined then how modern IT would work today. At the time Google was founded, Internet users were about 350 million, the main method of connection was DialUp via telephone lines, and a typical device was a desktop computer with a 400-600 MHz processor, 64-128 MB of RAM and a display with a resolution of 800x600 or 1024x768 pixels.
According to optimistic estimates, the number of network users today exceeds three billion. Most of them prefer smartphones to receive information, plan their day, get from one place to another and be constantly in touch. You have 4-8 cores in your pocket, working at frequencies that were not dreamed of by desktops of those times, and the amount of RAM exceeds the size of an average hard disk in 2001. Almost every Internet user has a photo and video camera, a music player, a navigator and a small personal computer that fits in the palm of your hand, and all this in one device. In a world where mobile phones allow us to remotely manage day-to-day tasks, and each user generates dozens of megabytes of information daily, Google’s mission is to “streamline information around the world and make it accessible and useful” is more important and relevant than ever.
')
Google Assistant
Each Google Search user loves him in his own way, for the features that are important to him personally. For some, it is, first of all, cards, telling in detail about a person, a historical event or a term in the first call, “Ok, Google!”. For others - the notification that the flight is delayed. For the third - timely tips on traffic jams, information about the match of your favorite team, selections of interesting articles, information about subscriptions ... In any case, today Search is much more than just 10 blue lines of search results. Its development is largely due to the improvement of machine learning technologies and artificial intelligence, especially in such areas as natural language processing, voice recognition and translation. These technologies helped us create a system that helps users every day and continues to improve themselves. It is thanks to them that Google’s speech recognition is the most accurate in the world, and you, for example, have the opportunity to take a picture of the Chinese character and see its translation into Russian.
Progress in the development of recognition systems has reached the stage that we believe - the time has come to launch our new service. People are increasingly interacting with Google in a natural way: they are not just looking for information on the global network, but are also waiting for Google to help with everyday tasks. That is why we are very pleased to introduce Google Assistant.
Our Google Now system today has ample opportunities, and voice search has long been learning to understand human speech. A long and careful study of the issues that worried users, self-learning speech recognition systems, progress in the research of neural networks and the close integration of our products allowed us to create an Assistant that works in conversation mode - continuous dialogue between you and Google. He understands what is important to you and helps to cope with affairs. For example, using it makes it easier to buy movie tickets on the go, find the perfect restaurant for a family dinner before the movie and get to the cinema. Google will do all this for you according to your request. Working with a personal assistant is intuitive, and the function itself will be available on any device and will come in handy in different situations; you can count on Google help no matter where you are. On the way and at work, your smartphone is always with you, and at home will take care of you ...
Google home
Google Home is a voice-activated device, the “heart” of the smart home system in which Google Assistant lives. It will help you enjoy your vacation, do your daily tasks and get answers from Google - all in dialogue. Using a simple voice command, you can ask Google Home to turn on the music, set the oven timer, check the departure time, or turn on the lights.
The design of the device is customized, so that you can always enter this high-tech gadget even in the interior made in Victorian style.
Allo and duo
If Assistant is able to understand a person and his needs, then Allo is his text-based interface, designed in the form of an instant messenger that is clear to any user. That is, you can chat with the virtual assistant directly in the chat - own or group. Your assistant understands how your world works: you can clarify what is planned for your day, or ask to see photos from your last trip. If you are planning to meet with friends, simply ask the virtual assistant in a general chat about which restaurants are close to you.
If you are busy, you can not be distracted to write the answer personally - Allo will help you out with the "smart answer" function, which offers answers to messages based on context. Of course, the usual ways to diversify communication with photos, emoji and stickers will not go anywhere either. Not without its popular privacy function: the messenger is available incognito mode, which allows you to use end-to-end encryption of transmitted data, hide notifications and delete messages.
The Duo application is designed to complement the capabilities of Allo: with its help, you can make direct one-to-one video calls. The new protocol and video compression algorithms should ensure good quality of communication even with a slow or unstable Internet connection. An interesting feature of the Duo is the “Who's there?” Function: it allows you to see the person who is calling you in real time before answering. So no more secret agents disguised as your girlfriend. : D
Both Allo and Duo are tied to your phone number - so you can communicate with any user, regardless of which platform he prefers - Android or iOS, registration is simplified to the maximum, and getting unauthorized access to your accounts becomes more difficult. than with the classic registration and authorization schemes. Both applications will be available this summer, but now more information about them can be found here.
Android N and its elements
The main innovations and possibilities of Android N will be released a few days ago a separate material, but not to mention the features of the new version of our mobile OS would be just a crime. The most interesting and important thing is support for the Vulkan API, which should give game developers the capabilities that were previously available only to game consoles; reducing the load on the battery and the memory of the mobile device due to the reworked JIT compiler; background download of system updates and a "transparent" move to a new firmware version without a long wait when updating; small but important changes in the UI; more flexible notification settings and a new application build system that brought Android Instant Apps . With this service, you can work with some Android applications (for example, those that you have not used before or that you need once) without installing them on your device. And for fans of rock art and ancient Egypt - updated Emoji, including 72 absolutely new.
By the way, we are looking forward to your help in order to come up with a name for the N version, which will be the “sweet” successor to Marshmallow. All the details on the site Android.com/N .
VR to masses
A couple of years ago, the development of AR and VR systems was far from the concept of “affordable”. We created Cardboard and brought VR to the masses. Today we are taking another important step towards the popularization of VR - based on Android N we have created Daydream , a platform for working with the most advanced virtual reality technology on mobile devices. To successfully work with VR, we had to climb deep under the hood of our mobile OS and perform a thorough tuning there: it’s not enough to ensure high performance and “brute” computational power, besides this, we need to minimize the possible system response delays, make VR responsive and instantly responsive to your actions .
Daydream is a synergy of software and hardware: together with the manufacturers of Android devices, we are working on new models of smartphones and sharing with them the specifications, the reference design of VR devices and the controller. The close cooperation of the mobile industry leaders will allow virtual reality to become even more real, and will make the process of immersion simple and intuitive.
Your favorite apps and games will also be available on the Daydream platform. In particular, YouTube, Street View, Google Play Movies, Google Photos and Google Play have already been ported and “sharpened” for VR and the corresponding controls. More services will be available this fall.
Android, which is always with you
Wearable electronics platform - Android Wear 2.0 - also received an update. New input methods, work offline, adaptive interface of dials, expanding opportunities for applications ... And no matter how far your phone is, and whether it is turned on.
Firebase
A major update is waiting for our comprehensive back-end mobile app service Firebase . The updated Firebase is a platform that allows developers to quickly create high-quality applications, increase the user base and make more money using iOS, Android and the entire mobile Internet.
Solving global problems with smart tools
Machine learning and artificial intelligence not only change the way data is processed, but also make it possible to start working with problems that previously seemed unsolvable. Every day we strive to make the world a better place, and therefore we have opened access to our machine learning developments. Just imagine what we can do if we start using these technologies together to solve the problems of global climate change, healthcare or education! With the development of machine learning technologies and artificial intelligence, new opportunities appear on the horizon. And we were lucky to live in this amazing time!
That's all for now, wait for details on the main sections as soon as possible.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/301504/
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