Google IO 2016 news
Update: Google IO 2016 is in the books, folks, and what a week it was.
While the last day of most conferences is reserved for early flights home, Google went ahead and revealed more about Project Ara and Project Jacquard, two far-out projects from its ATAP division, on Day 3.
We have a full rundown of Google’s jam-packed keynote below. Android N, Google Daydream, Android Wear 2.0, Google Home and the new Allo and Duo apps were the stars of the kickoff session, though there was plenty more to sink our teeth in the days that followed.
You’ll find a full breakdown of the major highlights from the keynote below, and be sure to check out our round-up of the 8 biggest announcements from Google IO 2016 for the news you can’t miss.
We also saw the Google self-driving car for ourselves, and snapped plenty of pictures to prove it (and, of course, to show you what it’s all about). Check out 17 photos of the Google self-driving car to get up close and personal with it.
Here’s the latest from Google IO:
All the news from the Google IO 2016 keynote
Google isn’t sure what to name Android N, so it’s inviting the public to submit ideas. It does reserve the right to pick the winner, however, so don’t expect the new Android to be called “Namey McNameface.”
Android N is also getting improvements on the graphics and runtime performance front, security enhancements (seamless updates and file-based encryption, namely), and easier multi-tasking. A full-blown version of Android N will be available to everyone later this summer.
The first major reveal was Google Assistant, a new personal AI for users. It lets users ask queries much as they would in the search engine, but in a Siri-like set-up.
You can ask for Pablo Picasso’s first name, sports scores and to play a song you’ve had stuck in your head all day.
Just where is Google Assistant going to live? In Google Home, of course.
Pichai gave a shout out to Amazon Echo in announcing the new device, which is a white-and-gray Wi-Fi speaker that helps you handle everyday tasks. It plays music and lets you control smart home devices, including Nest products. You can, of course, ask Google Home anything you want to know, a la Google search.
Search is built in, drawing on 17 years of innovation to “answer questions difficult for other assistants to handle.”
You can check a restaurant reservation, and, if it needs to change, have Google Home message a friend that you’ll be having dinner later than expected. You can also “enjoy your entertainment more easily than ever,” set alarms, and other tedious tasks you’d rather have a personal assistant handle than yourself.
Google Home will be available later this fall.
Google went right into its next announcement, a new app called Allo. It includes Google Assistant integration, smart photo recognition and a focus on emoji. It taps into neural networks and Google search to smarten up your text conversations.
Allo taps into your conversation history to come up with suggestions of what it thinks you want to say as a response. Responses will be personalized based on how you converse as well.
It features an Incognito Mode, which includes end-to-end encryption, message expiration and private notifications. If you shut down the chat it’ll be deleted and gone forever, perfect for private conversations.
Allo will be available later this summer for iOS and Android.
Then came the announcement of Duo, a simple one-to-one video calling up for everyone.
Duo is the video companion to Allo, and includes a feature called Knock-Knock that lets you see a stream of whomever is calling you before you answer. That way, Google says, you can see who’s calling you and what they’re doing before you start a conversation.
Duo will be available later this summer for iOS and Android.
Google has announced Daydream, a new VR platform built on Android N that will arrive this autumn. Similar to the home view you find inside of Oculus Rift, Google Daydream is an all-in-one experience that brings games, apps, movies and even the Google Play Store in its entirety into a VR headset.
There was no Android VR headset to show off, even on Day 2 of Google IO, though Google has come up with a reference design for other manufacturers to build off of as well as compete with. It’s the same idea as its Nexus phone devices.
Google also displayed a small, Wii-like remote that provides motion control 15 different ways to interact with VR games so far, meaning this prototype hardware could evolve down the line.
Several Daydream-ready devices will be launching this year from the likes of Samsung, HTC and other popular manufacturers. That Huawei VR headset we tested out last month may have been an early preview of what to expect from third-party Daydream VR designs.
You’ll soon be able to download Android apps via the Google Play Store on Chrome OS computers, confirming rumors that Google’s two operating systems would play together nicely at Google IO.
All of a sudden, those best Chromebook laptops look like real solutions to your everyday computing tasks thanks to the addition of millions of useful Android apps.
At the start, apps work with a trio of touchscreen-enabled laptops: ASUS Chromebook Flip, Acer Chromebook R11 and the latest Chromebook Pixel. There’s more cross-compatibility to come, too.
Oddly, while this feels like the beginning stages of the Android being folded into Chrome OS, the big news didn’t get announced on stage at the Google IO keynote. Glad you read this, right?
The next major announcement was Android Wear 2.0. Developers can download a preview of it starting today, and it will come to all users in the fall.
Some improvements include the ability to show any app data on any watch face, improved handwriting recognition, and a big update for Google Fitness. Even better news for fitness fans is Google will now allow apps to talk to one another – so if you bring in calories in your nutrition app, you can offset that with your running app.
Finally, Google announced Instant Android Apps, which lets you instantly access an app without needing to download it.
Android Instant Apps takes Google’s concept of Accelerated Mobile Pages, which loads webpages near-instantly, to Android apps. Users will no longer need to download an app in order to use its features.
It’s only in preview as Google says it will take a lot of time to get right, but it holds exciting possibilities.
Pre-Google IO 2016 news and predictions
Update: The Google IO keynote is a wrap! You can catch up on everything that was announced on Page 1 of this hub. Below you’ll find pre-IO news and predictions.
What to expect at Google IO 2016
We’ll learn more about Android N
One of the most shocking developments heading into IO is that Google let the veritable cat out of the bag by announcing Android N early. It’s available now in a Developer Preview, and we have a full breakdown of what the new mobile operating system brings, including multi-window support and Doze Mode 2.0, in our Android N update: release date, news and features hub.
We still don’t know its official name, however, so that could be a bit of news Pichai shares during his keynote. We’ll also likely hear when it will head to consumer devices, and might see new Nexus handsets that will carry vanilla Android N baked in.
HTC is rumored to be developing two new Nexus phones – could we see the so-called Marlin and Sailfish breach the surface at IO? It’s certainly possible.
Despite revealing a lot about Android N pre-IO, Google will still have plenty to share during its three-day dev conclave. With the official Google IO 2016 schedule out and reports swirling about a new Android VR platform, we have even more to digest.
Say hello to Android VR
One of the strongest rumors heading into Google IO centers around Android VR. It’s unclear if it’s a standalone headset, a platform for others to iterate upon, or both, but whatever it is, we’re 99.99% sure we’ll see it unveiled during the conference.
Reports have suggested Google is working on a standalone VR headset, and head of VR Bavor indicated in an recent interview with Popular Science that the company has learned valuable lessons from Cardboard (mobility is a huge consideration), and may have something new to share based on its findings.
The hints didn’t stop there: On May 10, a reference to “Android VR” was made in the release notes for Unreal Engine 4.12 Preview 3.
As if that wasn’t enough, Android Police spotted Android VR in the Google Play Developer Console, right next Android Auto, Android TV and Android Wear.
Eagle-eyed Android N developer preview testers have spotted several mentions of VR in the underlying code, which could be a hint in itself that Android VR won’t arrive until Android N is on more phones than just the latest Nexus devices with which it will likely debut.
Google goes for the Home… again
Just hours before the IO 2016 keynote, word came that the company plans to announce its first foray into the voice-activated home device space with a product called Google Home.
Google Home will reportedly be in the vein of Amazon Echo, according to The New York Times, able to answer simple questions and perform similarly basic chores.
Though it seems all but confirmed Google Home will be announced during the keynote, the product apparently won’t come to market until the fall.
The device first hit the rumor mill in the week before IO, described as a virtual assistant/speaker combo and codenamed Chirp.
Also in the days leading up to IO, Alphabet-owned Nest revealed it’s introduced new Works with Nest partnerships that bring a whole new level of Nest integration to third-party products. Developers have already created new capabilities for such partners as AT&T, August, Belkin Wemo, LIFX, Lutron, Misfit, P&G, simplehuman, SkyBell and Waxman. While the news is out now, it’s a sign that we’ll hear more about the smart home – and Nest specifically – during the keynote Wednesday.
Let’s just hope all of Google’s new smart home initiatives go better than Android@Home.
What’s cooking with Google Cardboard
Of course, Google already has a VR headset in Cardboard, which is doing quite well for itself.
Several IO sessions are devoted to VR, including one on Day 2 called, simply, “VR at Google” and hosted by Google’s head of VR, Clay Bavor.
During this session, Bavor will tell attendees “what we have built, what we have learned, and where we are headed”, according to the session description. That’s broad, yes, but it means we should get insight into how Cardboard is progressing, what Google’s learned from making cheap, mobile VR and what it has planned next in the space (i.e., Android VR).
There’s also a “VR & Cinema” session that should provide insight into VR film and give us a look at how the entertainment industry is evolving – literally – right before our eyes.
Google announced its professional-grade Jump VR camera rig at Google IO 2015, and with Samsung and Facebook now in the 360-camera game, the stars could align for the company to unveil a more affordable version for homegrown content creators at this year’s conference.
With over 5 million Cardboard units out in the wild, Google will use IO to make another pitch to developers about why they should create apps, games and entertainment for its VR platform(s). This year, it has the numbers and ecosystem – and possibly a whole new headset – to back it up.
Project Tango phone for consumers and mapping ambitions
Another part of Google’s new-reality push is Project Tango, its augmented reality tech that allows devices to register where they are in the world and generate experiences in real time based on that positional understanding. Think of it like Microsoft HoloLens, just housed on your phone or tablet.
Google already has a Project Tango tablet and phone, though for IO, the handset – announced at CES, built in partnership with Lenovo and aimed at consumers – seems to be the device it’s championing.
During a session entitled “What’s New with Project Tango”, Google “will explore the vision of Project Tango and how it will come to life with the launch of our first consumer phone, announced earlier this year.”
Lenovo is set to launch the first Project Tango phone at its own conference in June, though it sounds like we’re in for a preview – or a full-blown reveal – at IO 2016.
The company is also reportedly pushing to map the entire world with Project Tango, but not in the way you may think. It apparently wants to use Tango to map inside buildings, letting developers create experiences like games, educational programs and advertisements using these 3D maps, according to Bloomberg.
It will apparently show off its progress during IO, so stay tuned for much more on Tango.
Artificial intelligence takes center stage
Another topic we expect Google to devote a large chunk of time to is artificial intelligence, or AI.
Sundar Pichai recently laid out in the Google’s 2016 Founders’ Letter that he expects us to move from a mobile-first to an AI-first world, which he also noted during the company’s Q1 2016 earnings call on April 21. Here’s what he said in the Founders’ missive:
“Looking to the future, the next big step will be for the very concept of the ‘device’ to fade away. Over time, the computer itself—whatever its form factor—will be an intelligent assistant helping you through your day. We will move from mobile-first to an AI-first world.”
AI can take many forms, but the mostly likely one for IO, based on what Pichai is saying, is bots. We’ve seen a surge in bots that perform helpful though not mind-blowing tasks in recent weeks from the likes of Facebook and Microsoft. It sounds like Google is primed to start offering intelligent assistants in Android devices in a similar vein.
Google also saw its AlphaGo supercomputer take down a human champion at one of the most complex games on the planet, so it may devote some time to talking up the power of its AI platform. However, we expect Google to focus on more real-world (i.e., less terrifying) AI applications than defeating humans at various tasks.
The company is having its neural network read romance novels, indicating whatever AI it shows will be a lover, not a fighter.
Chrome OS might begin its Android merger
One of the hottest rumors in the weeks leading up to IO is that Google plans to merge Chrome OS with Android, essentially killing its computing platform and baking the remains into the mobile operating system.
This supposedly won’t happen until 2017, but word is Google plans to show off an early version of this Frankenstein OS sometime in 2016. And, if we were a betting tech website, we’d say Google IO would be the perfect time to do so.
There are also strong signs that Google will open up the Google Play Store to Chromebooks, bringing over one million Android apps to the laptop line. This would be a huge step towards blending the two OSes, and likely the first move towards a larger migration.
Recent IOs have emphasized unity over division when it comes to Google’s various platforms, and we think it’s only a matter of time before these OS merger rumors become fact. IO 2016 seems like the time to start that transformation.
And everything else!
As for what else Google has on tap, the majority of the sessions revolve around Android (naturally), though the cloud will get lots of love as well.
Somewhat unexpectedly, there’s a dearth of sessions devoted to games and the living room (sorry, Android TV). There’s one session planned for Android Auto, though it doesn’t sound like it will be chalk full of new information.
In the days before Google IO, the Mountain View firm announced a new Spaces app for small group conversations around a particular topic. Spaces will have a showcase of sorts during IO, so expect to hear plenty about how it works IRL (including from us).
That doesn’t mean we won’t hear about cars, however…
More Google IO 2016 predictions
Now that we’ve run through the more solid news and predictions revolving around Google IO 2016, here are a few theories that aren’t standing on as-solid ground yet still well within the realm of possibility.
Read on for more of our Google IO 2016 predictions.
Self-driving cars
Though there are no sessions that scream “self-driving cars”, there’s been enough news and rumors about Google’s autonomous cars that we’d be surprised if they didn’t get a mention… or more.
Google will likely give a report on the development of the little koala car’s software as well as address safety concerns (even though stats show every self-driving car accident has been the fault of human drivers).
Google mentioned in September that it, as a company, didn’t actually want to manufacture physical cars to sell to customers, so it’s also possible that we could see Google announce partnerships with major auto companies who might want to use Google’s technology.
In fact, we already learned of one such partnership with Fiat Chrysler to put its self-driving tech into minivans this year.
The locale of IO is also a sign that we could see some self-driving car demos: a large concert venue, Shoreline Ampitheatre has ample parking lots for giving curious devs a ride around in an autonomous vehicle. Just sayin’.
Android Wear
Though conspicuously missing from the Google IO session schedule, we doubt we’ll make it through the keynote without an Android Wear word.
A number of updates were released to Android Wear over the last year, not least of which was iOS compatibility. Still, Google could easily unveil an improvement to Android Wear on iPhone as it’s nowhere near the level of Android-to-Android yet.
It’s also possible Android Wear will receive Windows Phone compatibility, which would be a great announcement to make.
Other updates that we’d like to see include better voice control, more standalone features and perhaps even gesture-controls.
Google recently announced new Mode interchangeable bands for Android Wear, so it could discuss these a bit further at IO as well as plans to continue making the lineup of watches more customizable.
Android Auto
Again, despite a lack of sessions devoted to it, we doubt Google won’t make an announcement or two related to Android Auto.
Since Google IO 2015, a number of automakers have jumped onboard with the in-car platform, either offering the infotainment system in current models or planning to include it in future vehicles. We wouldn’t be surprised if major car makers who haven’t announced Android Auto compatibility use Google IO 2016 to do so.
Google will also likely announce more third-party apps that will make it to the platform, as well as similar voice control updates as we’ll (probably) see with Android Wear.
Project Ara
After coming out of the gate hot and fast, things have slowed considerably for Project Ara. We’re optimistic about Google’s modular phone, though, and think IO 2016 is prime time for Google to break its audible silence.
Not only that, but Google has offered us one little hint that it will announce Project Ara-related releases at IO, with the company sending out a simple tweet in August saying “When? 2016” along with the hashtag #yeswearelate.
Sure, that gives us a window of a whole year, but what better place to make an announcement than when everyone is watching? Whatever it is, it won’t be an announcement Google will want to make quietly.
So what exactly will we see when it comes to Project Ara? Well, Google will probably either release the Project Ara phone to one or more markets, or at least reveal when it plans to do so. It’s also likely that the company will announce hardware developments that it’s made of late, including a better camera, improved battery life, and a new system for how the components connect to the phone (remember the #FailedTheDropTest joke?)
Google Chrome and Drive
Google can’t let IO pass without talking about Chrome. The G team has slowly molded how it wants Chrome to look over the past few months, removing a few features like the “Ok, Google” voice command, and tweaking how much RAM it takes up, especially when it comes to use on OS X.
It’s very likely that we’ll see Google update cross-compatibility features, such as enabling users to access files and information on their mobile devices through Chrome.
Also keep an ear out for better productivity features related to Google Drive. With Microsoft and Apple both making a push to helping users do work better, Google won’t want to be left out of the productivity patter.
Smart home
The smart home is primed to be a focus at Google IO 2016. The company already planted the seeds for a successful smart home platform with OnHub, its wireless router.
There’s more to OnHub than wireless connectivity, however: It’s also set to be the base for Google to build its own Internet of Things platform, as announced in this OnHub release blog post.
The company also recently rolled out If This Then That (IFTTT) integration to OnHub, allowing users to create “recipes” that command the router to perform smart-home related tasks. This makes OnHub the first router to support the protocol.
With Apple having gotten a head start in the smart home space and Google really only having made a few, minor announcements related to the smart home at IO 2015, we expect it to put a much stronger focus on intelligent appliances and the like at IO 2016. It does own Nest, after all.
Project Fi
Google’s Project Fi wireless service made a splash when it was deployed earlier this year, but buzz around Fi has been relatively quiet ever since. At Google IO 2016, Google may look to change this.
Currently, the program is only available to a select number of devices, so Google could announce an expansion to more phones and tablets. We doubt it’s ready to go global yet, so any Fi news will likely revolve around adding more devices rather than more countries.
This page written by Christian de Looper and Michelle Fitzsimmons
Source: techradar.com