Google I/O is one of the biggest tech events of the year, and this year was no exception. The event was filled with exciting announcements, demos, and keynote speeches, giving attendees a glimpse of what the future of technology holds.
The future of Google Maps: Immersive view for routes
One of the most exciting announcements made at Google I/O was the introduction of Immersive View for Routes on Google Maps. This new feature will allow users in select cities to experience 3D street views as they navigate their way through the city. With Immersive View, users can get a better understanding of their surroundings, making their navigation experience more immersive and intuitive.
Immersive View for Routes is made possible by Google’s Street View technology, which has been around for over a decade. However, the addition of 3D views takes the experience to a whole new level. Users can now see the buildings, signs, and landmarks around them in more detail, making it easier to navigate and orient themselves. This feature is particularly useful for tourists and travellers, as it can help them explore new cities and countries more easily.
Google Maps has come a long way since its launch in 2005. It has evolved from a simple mapping tool to a comprehensive platform that offers a range of features, including real-time traffic updates, public transit information, and local recommendations. With the introduction of Immersive View for Routes, Google Maps is taking another step towards becoming the ultimate navigation tool.
Magic Editor: Now AI-powered
Google’s Magic Editor has been a popular photo editing tool for many years, and now it has gotten even better. During the keynote day, Google announced that Magic Editor is now AI-powered, which means that users can make more complex photo edits than ever before. With the power of AI, Magic Editor can now detect and correct flaws in photos, making it easier for users to achieve the perfect shot.
Magic Editor uses machine learning algorithms to analyse photos and identify the areas that need improvement. For example, if a photo is too dark, Magic Editor can automatically adjust the brightness and contrast levels to make it look better. Similarly, if a photo is blurry, Magic Editor can use deblurring algorithms to sharpen the image.
AI-powered photo editing tools are not new, but Google’s Magic Editor is one of the best in the market. It is intuitive, fast, and accurate, making it ideal for both amateurs and professionals. With the rise of social media platforms like Instagram and TikTok, photo editing has become more important than ever before. Magic Editor is a tool that can help users stand out from the crowd and make their photos more engaging and visually appealing.
Magic Compose: A new tool for creative writing
Another exciting announcement from Google is the new feature called Magic Compose. This feature uses AI to rewrite texts in different styles, making it easier for users to come up with creative content. Magic Compose can be used in various applications, including Gmail and Google Docs.
Magic Compose is similar to predictive text, but it goes beyond just suggesting words and phrases. It can rewrite entire sentences and paragraphs, changing the tone, style, and voice of the text. For example, if a user is writing a formal email, Magic Compose can suggest more professional-sounding sentences. Similarly, if a user is writing a creative blog post, Magic Compose can suggest more colourful and descriptive language.
Magic Compose is an innovative tool that can help users save time and effort when writing. It can also be a useful tool for non-native English speakers who may struggle with writing in English.
PaLM 2: Google’s latest large language model (LLM)
Google’s large language models (LLMs) are at the heart of many of its most popular products, including Google Translate, Google Assistant, and Google Search. LLMs are designed to understand natural language input and generate output that is both grammatically correct and semantically meaningful.
At Google I/O 2023, Frederic wrote about PaLM 2, Google’s newest LLM, which will power Google’s updated Bard chat tool. Bard is a chatbot that can converse with users in natural language, helping them find answers to their questions, complete tasks, and provide recommendations.
PaLM 2 is a state-of-the-art LLM that has been trained on a massive amount of data, including web pages, books, and other text sources. It has been optimized to generate high-quality text in a variety of domains, including news, sports, entertainment, and more.
One of the key advantages of PaLM 2 is its ability to generate text that is not only grammatically correct but also semantically meaningful. This means that it can understand the meaning of words and phrases in context, allowing it to generate more accurate and natural-sounding text.
Google is also planning to use PaLM 2 to improve other natural language processing (NLP) tasks, such as machine translation and sentiment analysis. By training PaLM 2 on a diverse range of text sources, Google hopes to improve the accuracy and quality of these NLP tasks.
Other key announcements from the event
Workspace
Google’s Workspace suite is getting the AI make-over, with added automatic table generation in Sheets and image creation in Slides and Meet.
MusicLM
MusicLM is Google’s new experimental AI tool can convert text prompts into original music. For example, if you want to listen to some relaxing music while working, you could simply type “ambient piano music” and the tool will create several versions of an original song.
Search
Google Search has two new features surrounding better understanding of content and the context of an image the user is viewing in the search results.
Sidekick
Sidekick is a new tool unveiled by Google designed to help provide better prompts. While continuously reading and processing your entire document as you write, it can provide contextual suggestions that refer specifically to what you’ve written.
Codey
Codey is Google’s new code completion and generation tool.
Google Cloud
There’s a new A3 supercomputer virtual machine in town. This A3 has been purpose-built to manage the considerable demands of resource-hungry use cases.
Find My Device
Google introduced its own series of improvements to its own Find My Device network, including proactive alerts about unknown trackers traveling with you with support for Apple’s AirTag and others.
Pixel 7a
Google’s Pixel 7a goes on sale May 11 at $100 less than the Pixel 7 ($499). Like the Pixel 6a, it has the 6.1-inch screen versus the 6.4-inch Pixel 7.
Project Tailwind
Project Tailwind is an AI-powered notebook tool that will automatically organise and summarise all your notes.
Wear OS 4
Google debuted the next version of its smartwatch operating system, Wear OS 4 with improved battery life and functionality and new accessibility features, like text-to-speech.
Universal Translator
Google is testing an impressive new translator that can translate video audio while also synchronizing the speaker’s lips with words they never spoke. This “Universal Translator,” takes an input video, transcribes the speech and translates it. It then regenerates the speech, matching style and tone, then edits the video so that the speaker’s lips sync with the new audio.
Pixel Tablet
The Pixel Tablet is finally here, featuring smart home controller/hub, teleconferencing, and video streaming.
Pixel Fold
One of the big announcements from Google I/O 2023 was that Google used May 4 (aka “May the Fourth Be With You” Day) to unveil a foldable Pixel phone.
Firebase
Firebase, Google’s backend-as-a-service platform will be getting AI extensions powered by Google’s PaLM API. Firebase extension marketplace will also be made available to more developers.
Health Connect
Health Connect, Google’s platform for storing health data, may be in Beta currently, but you can start to see it be a part of Android and mobile devices with the release of Android 14 later this year.
Android Studio Hedgehog
Android Studio is getting an AI upgrade with Android Studio Hedgehog. Studio Hedgehog will provide a new conversational experience to help developers write code, fix bugs and answer general coding questions.
ML Hub
ML Hub is a new all-in-one resource for developers to find guidance on training and deploying ML models.
Project Starline
The last prototype of Google’s 3D teleconferencing video booth.
Google I/O 2023 highlights
Google I/O 2023 was a showcase of Google’s latest products and technologies, as well as a platform for discussing the future of technology and its impact on society. From immersive Google Maps features to advanced AI-powered editing tools, Google is clearly pushing the boundaries of what is possible with technology.
Perhaps most exciting of all is the progress being made in natural language processing and understanding. With new large language models like PaLM 2, Google is paving the way for more intelligent and natural-sounding chatbots, translation tools, and other language-based applications.
Overall, Google I/O 2023 demonstrated that Google is still at the forefront of innovation in the tech industry. With its commitment to developing cutting-edge technologies and improving the user experience, Google is poised to continue shaping the future of technology for years to come.
