Google I / O 2016: impressions

Our colleagues are actively involved in the life of the Google community: they arrange technical meetings and large conferences, promote the latest technologies, and simply write a pretty darn good code. Therefore, DataArt representatives are not the first to send a message to the main Google event in the world - the I / O conference. This year, DataArt in Mountain View was represented by Elena Fedorova, PR director of the Voronezh office, and Konstantin Mars, one of the leaders of the GDG community in Dnipro and an evangelist of mobile technologies. We would like to share the impressions of our colleagues and friends who attended the conference.

GDG community representatives from around the world come together.

Konstantin adequately represented Ukraine.

And Elena - Russia.

Konstantin Mars, Senior Mobile Developer DataArt.

Large-scale and impressive, the 10th Google I / O conference was held quite recently. And she remembered her participants, among whom I was, in the first place ... in turns :).

Yes, 10 parallel threads did not save from having to queue for 20 -

30 minutes before the presentation. And this indicates not only that there were a lot of people willing to listen to the speeches of famous Google experts, but also that there really was something to listen to and see.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BFka0YNThbJ/

Despite the fact that at this conference I had neglected the opportunity to take selfies with several well-known “googles” in order to attend as many sessions as possible, I still managed to visit about 20. At the same time, 158 recordings of speeches were already on Youtube.

Keynote

This Google I / O was not surprised by the emergence of revolutionary new devices - Android Wear, Cardboard and Project Tango are known for a long time. The main focus of this year’s conference was smart home, smart search and virtual reality.

https://www.facebook.com/elena.fedorova.71/videos/10204853626900818/

Technology unite. Thousands of people are waiting for new announcements from Google.

The first novelty is Google Home . It is an intelligent voice activated assistant designed to create a “smart home”. His brain is powered by Google Assistant technology - a search engine similar to Google Now, but working exclusively with voice input.

Allo and Duo. Messenger and video chat, charged smart tips. Time will tell how much they manage to replace Hangouts. But today they are at the turn of the top messaging technologies. Allo will emphasize emotions with the size of the emoticon that you are sending, will prompt the best response options, based on the context of the conversation, thus speeding up your answer. And even analyze the picture that you sent, and offer answers based on the recognized image from the chat. For example, in response to a picture of a puppy, he will offer to answer “wow,” “nice dog,” or even indicate the breed of dog.

Duo allows you to see the emotions of the person calling you more as an icon on the incoming call, thus helping to quickly get the context of the future conversation.

Android N is already familiar to everyone who was interested, and many have already tried Android N Preview. With the new version, the updated JIT Vulkan API compiler with improved OpenGL support, multiple windows, improved security, updated notifications and, as usual, with many major and minor improvements, are entering the arena.

VR has now gone further than the already familiar CardBoard. Google introduced Daydream - a new platform for implementing VR. Along with it, a new VR helmet and a VR controller are also introduced.

Android Wear 2.0

The main revolutionary new product of Google I / O for me was the new version of Android Wear 2.0. This version was the first full wearable-operating system, independent and independent of the phone. What previously needed to be done using the DataItems and Messages API can now be directly implemented using HTTP REST requests directly from the clock. In addition to WiFi, the new watch versions will support a SIM card with 3G / LTE. Added support for two more input methods out of the box - now, besides voice input, you can use handwriting input and a mini keyboard. Google has officially published an API for implementing Complications - they are already present in many Watch Faces, but now their implementation is standardized, which significantly speeds up development.

There is one more good news - now Google Fit recognizes exercises that a person performs in a watch, for example, lifting dumbbells for biceps or deadlifts. Thus, the collection of statistics went far beyond the simple analysis of walking / running.

Android Instant Apps . A new unique technology introduced by Google - launch applications without pre-installation.

Android Studio 2.2 Preview - a preview of the new IDE version includes many improvements, the main ones being the radically redesigned visual editor with support for Constraints, an improved Instant Run that works even faster, and built-in support for the SDK, including. Firebase SDK.

Firebase is one of the most trending products of this Google I / O. It is positioned as a universal tool for building dynamic databases, authentication, online storage, etc.

And, of course, were not forgotten at this conference Machine Learning and the Google Cloud API .

What is left behind the curtains?

Google I / O 2016 was full of specially organized codelabs and sandboxes, both dedicated to certain technologies and purely gaming, allowing you to win small prizes. Also, on specially designated sites, it was possible to communicate in the office hours with representatives of Google on certain technologies, and see demo projects that won in the Android Experiments competition.

Somewhere among the stands that were not scheduled, it was possible to leave your idea on the wall of “Big Idea Wall”, simultaneously testing link exchanges using NFC tags and creating a group dedicated to the idea in the new Spaces conference application.

Robographer, dance and other adventures on the second day of Google I / O.

https://www.facebook.com/elena.fedorova.71/videos/10204858964634258/

While some developers are relaxing in the fresh air ...

... others are exploring the power of Google Fit.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BFmi71ozhYX/

In the evenings, the participants were waited by a concert, a party with light swords and game rooms, which brought together new 3D photos, Google Cloud Vision API, the Tango project and robotics.

Those who wished even had time to take part in dances around the man-made symbol I / O, made of lightsabers on the lawn near the Amphitheater.

Special mention deserve the new improved rubber ducks for swimming pools, which provided Google. Here it is, the future!

Summing up , I will say: it is impossible to cover the whole amount of available information during the conference. Much has remained behind the scenes, much is very interesting in terms of technology and organization. The scale of the conference is exciting, and most of the products shown here will be available on the market only in the fall. In this regard, Google I / O, as always, has become a prediction conference for the future :).

And, of course, the recording sessions with the Google I / O 2016 can be viewed on Google Develpers channel in the YouTube: https://www.google.com/appserve/mkt/p/f46sAfLDhvBk512NesRIi9nUlFxd7AyYJckOSVk2hSpLefpfwuDmyEs2eLBi9oJjtFwLv-cA2MH0Gnfv_20_9TXJ8kPd8PFWG4KgCOR1Wk9dSlBGr6RqJw==

Zviad Kardava, Google Developer: IoT.

Initially, I was somewhat upset about how few sessions were devoted directly to IoT. There were only two of them, but IoT experts were promised a small surprise at keynote. This surprise was Google Home, a smart device that allows voice to communicate with the new Google assistant. You can ask him to place an order or postpone a meeting. The device can also control other smart devices in the house: you can, for example, turn on the lights or music in another room. The device itself is small, and its appearance can be chosen to your taste. The Google Home market will be released this year. In fact, this is a competitor to Amazon Echo, which is already on sale a little earlier.

Very interesting, in my opinion, was the presentation about Instant apps. The essence of the idea is that now we have the opportunity to use the application without installing it! The user can get a link to the content, pay for parking or just try the application before installation. Instead of installing a full-fledged application, its light version is loaded, in which the main functionality is available, including the ability to make payments. The full application can be easily installed directly from the Instant app. You can get the link in a variety of ways: using Physical Web, QR code, nfc, just plain text, etc. It’s even more interesting that they promised support from Android 4.1+ (API 16) and higher. This is a great solution in a world where smart devices and services are becoming more and more. We will be able to use almost everything that surrounds us without the need to install applications, and companies and developers will receive a new way of delivering content and services to users.

Also pleased with the announcements of the updated Firebase and Android Wear 2. Firebase received a bunch of new features, some of which are also free. This is a great solution for the Internet of things and not only. A wearables can now work autonomously, without a phone, and run separate standalone applications. Also Android wear 2 received new input methods.

There is good news for us, the developers, another Android studio update. Together with version 2.2 we will get a lot of acceleration in work and many more new things, but I especially liked that we finally improved the NDK dev tools, added CMAKE and improved the C ++ debugger, which was always a problem before. Can't wait to try.

In general, despite the problems in the organization of Google I / O, I liked the event, I was able to listen to interesting reports, but, more importantly, I was able to communicate live with developers and managers of various products. It was from the communication that we managed to get answers to questions and more valuable information.

Vadim Kotov, CTO Surf , active participant GDG Voronezh.

On Google I / O announced a lot of topics, but several major ones really stand out: VR, Firebase extension, Google Assistant. VR demos are very impressive, the guys from Google conducted over 60 experiments with various applications. I think many ideas are worth taking note of and create a popular VR app.

Firebase from a purchased startup — a cloud-based database has evolved into a whole platform with separate tools. If earlier it was worth trying as an experiment, now you have to use a lot of cool features.

Google Assistant fits perfectly into the current wave of chat-bots-nature language processing. I am waiting for the possibility of integrating individual features into my applications, I hope this will happen.

In general, Google IO in nature like. It was possible, however, not to get to all the interesting sessions for me. I asked experts from Google a bunch of questions, and you should go here for this! We were pleasantly surprised by the stands with Google Experiments and various demos.

Boris Nikiforov, Head of Mobile (email & portal), Mail.Ru Group.

Android has not become a major topic this year. This is expected, but caused a rather disappointing mobile developer. VR, AI, ML - areas in which dramatic changes are already taking place and technologies are widely used. The main competitor here is Facebook, which invests heavily in these technologies. If you look closely, there is a lot in common between the facebook f8 conference held in April and Google I / O.

Google Assistant is a Facebook bot, but the discovery mechanism is different - a single entry point. Firebase conceptually repeats a set of Facebook features for a developer. There are many sessions on how to create applications for emerging markets, for the next billion new mobile Internet users.

Android also received an evolutionary update in which there are no cardinal innovations.

Alexander Denisov, senior developer, Netcracker, leader of GDG Nizhny Novgorod.

“I received very mixed impressions from my first visit to Google I / O. But generally positive. So much new and interesting information you will not get anywhere else. There are, of course, disadvantages: huge queues for the most interesting performances, heat and wind. But all this is offset by the fact that all the top Google developers gathered in one place. With proper patience and desire, you can catch the person you are interested in and talk directly with him. Firebase, physical web, IoT, Android - all the news can be found first hand, and it's just great. I think that in general, Google has completed its task. Now it's up to us - you need to bring to the followers everything new that we have learned here, hold master classes and share experiences. "