After Android, Google's future is to add artificial intelligence to everything

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Google's annual developer conference is now in its ninth year and is larger than ever before, having moved from the previous indoor convention center to the Shoreline Amitheater, which can accommodate more than 20,000 people.

There are also 10 outdoor booths and product experience areas set up around the venue, and the event will be held for 3 consecutive days.

This year's Google I/O moved the main venue outdoors. Image from Visual China.

But in such a grand event, Android is no longer the protagonist. The opening speech lasted two hours, and the new system Android N only took 17 minutes, which was not as long as the new chat application Allo.

Two months before the conference, the beta version of Android N was released, and Google did not leave any suspense about it at the conference. The conference did not even mention the latest number of Android users.

So what future does Google describe this year?

What is Google betting on this year?

Sundar Pichai. Image from Visual China.

The words that Google CEO Sundar Pichai repeated most at the event were natural language processing (NLP, allowing computers to understand what you say), artificial intelligence, and machine learning (artificial intelligence training method).

Unlike in the past, the first product released by Google was not a new Android operating system, but a virtual assistant, The Google Assistant, which can be used on mobile phones, TVs, watches and even home devices.

Sound like Siri? Yes, but better.

In Pichai's live demonstration, Google Assistant's recognition of natural language is very good. For example, these sentences can return good results:

• Is Jungle Book a good book? (Show book reviews)

• Is this restaurant child friendly? (Shows restaurant reservations and reviews)

• Who is the director of The Revenant? (search results)

Google Home smart speaker

Next up is the Google Home speaker, a voice-controlled smart speaker that will be available in the second half of this year.

Google Home. Image from Visual China.

The functions of Google Home are exactly the same as those of Amazon's Echo smart speaker, which was launched earlier and is currently very popular in Silicon Valley.

Key features include:

• Music and Video: Play music from services like Spotify and Pandora, and videos from YouTube.

• Handle daily tasks: alarms, to-do lists, changing restaurant reservations, and notifying flight changes.

• Google Search: Basically what Siri does, but judging by the demo video and the performance of Google Now, it will be much better.

• Control smart furniture: Directly control smart bulbs, Nest and other smart home products.

Amazon Echo. Image via CNET.

Google Home's main advantage over Amazon Echo or Siri may be better voice control and search capabilities.

However, access to third-party services is currently communicated directly by Google and is not open to developers.

At the meeting, Google executives said that Google Home will be the entrance to Google's future smart home. This new product comes from the Chromecast team, and the smart home platform built around Nest was not mentioned at all.

Virtual Reality Development Platform - This Fall

Two years ago, the I/O conference released the paper VR (virtual reality) glasses Cardboard. Now the Cardboard application has been downloaded 50 million times.

Google believes that the future of VR must be linked to mobile phones, rather than a device connected to a high-performance PC. What Google has done this time is to create a platform for mobile VR, which is still a few years away from the market, called Daydream.

The entire DayDream platform is divided into three parts:

• Hardware standards: Only smartphones that meet the requirements for sensors, displays, and processors can pass the DayDream Ready certification.

• Helmet design: The picture shows a reference design of a helmet similar to Samsung GearVR, equipped with a remote control.

• Software: Android is optimized for VR, and the Play Store is ready for apps.

In addition, Google has also developed its own VR applications. Street View, Google Movies, Google Photos, and YouTube will all have VR versions.

Allo - This summer

Google is making another chat app, and this time its selling point is artificial intelligence.

In addition to allowing you to more conveniently post emoticons and zoom in and out of emoticons to help express yourself, the biggest highlight of Allo is "Smart Reply", which will learn your language habits and automatically write your answer, which can be text or emoticons, and can be sent with just a tap of your finger.

Relying on Google's artificial intelligence, Allo can recognize the photos sent by the other party. In the demonstration, the other party sent a photo of a dog.

Allo automatically pops up three reply options: "What a cute dog!", "Aww!", "What a beautiful Bernese Mountain dog".

There are more convenient ways to get rid of people, not just "Haha", "I'm going to take a shower", "..."

What’s more interesting is that Google has also put functions such as restaurant booking and location display directly into the Allo dialog box, and restaurant selection can also be selected and booked directly in the conversation. In the conversation between you and your friends, you can also call the Google Assistant at any time.

The direct competitors of this app are Facebook's WhatsApp and FB Messenger, which have more than one billion users worldwide.

Video chat app Duo - this summer

Just one instant messaging app isn't enough, Google today also released Duo, a video chat app for iPhone and Android.

The main feature is that before you answer the call, the real-time image of the other party will be displayed on your phone. In the words of the presenter, communication starts in advance.

Duo comes from the team behind the web communications protocol WebRTC.

Android N

This is the tenth year that Google has been working on the Android operating system. Since Android N had already released a developer preview version in March this year, it only took about 15 minutes today to repeat the new features of this time:

• Faster underlying architecture reduces application opening time by 50%;

• All files are encrypted to protect your privacy;

• Seamlessly and automatically update the Andorid system, without having to manually perform security updates;

• Double-click the multitasking button to return directly to the previous task;

• Multi-window, originally intended for tablets, is now also available on mobile phones;

• 72 new emoji expressions have been added, such as avocado and politically correct female occupation emojis;

• The health center unifies heart rate, weight and other data for other applications to use;

• After receiving the notification, you can reply to the other party directly in the notification bar.

• Android Instant App: No need to download and install the app, just click the link to try it out.

Smartphones are already very mature, and Android and iOS have been copying each other's functions for two or three years. Most of the new features brought by Android N this time are also made by iOS.

Google I/O: From Developer Conference to Android Conference to Future Conference

Looking back at the first conference in 2008, Google executives spent most of their opening speech talking about web application development tools.

Until 2010, the conversation context at Google I/O was based on the developer perspective, and the purpose of the event was to encourage them to develop more applications.

But since 2011, this event has gradually become a stage for Google to draw up a blueprint for the future. In addition to developer tools, Android, network services and hardware products, which have more to do with consumers, have taken up more and more time.

• In 2011, Google focused on Chrome, Chrome OS, and Chrome Book.

• In 2012, Google Glass smart glasses were released, as well as Google Now and Google Nexus Q.

• 2013 Google Play, new version of Google Plus.

• In 2014, Android One, Android Wear, Android Auto, Android TV, and Cardboard VR.

• In 2015, Android Pay, Project Brillo, and Project JUMP (a VR camera that ties 16 GoPro cameras together).

Why is Google in such a rush to find a new future?

Since its first developer conference in 2008, Google's market value has nearly quintupled, and it is currently competing with Apple for the top spot in global market value.

Eight years ago, the first Android phone was launched, and the market response was mediocre. Today, including Chinese-made Android phones stripped of Google services, the number of Android users is approaching 2 billion. Through search engines and Android, Google affects the lives of billions of people.

But it is also a thorough advertising company, with 90% of its revenue coming from advertising marketing. This is similar to the impact of the iPhone on Apple, where a single source of revenue supports the entire company, and as global Internet users outside of China are using Google services and smartphones, there is little room for user growth.

On the other hand, unlike the PC era, smartphone users first open each specific application instead of searching. Social products, in particular, are occupying more and more time of users. Globally, Facebook and its WhatsApp and Instagram take up most of the time. In China, WeChat plays this role.

In short, search engines are becoming less and less important. This is reflected in the changes in mobile advertising revenue. The growth rate of Facebook and WeChat advertising is much higher than that of Google and Baidu. Just a few days before the conference, Facebook announced that it would provide video advertising for multiple major media, directly stealing Google's job.

Relying on the Android store and the previously untapped mobile advertising market, Google's revenue growth will continue for some time, but there is no doubt that it will reach a ceiling if it cannot find new sources of revenue.

Therefore, we have seen Google continuously launch new products in the past few years, from the Google+ social network to new hardware platforms such as Google Glass, all in search of the future.

This year, Google showed the future of artificial intelligence in everything, as well as VR.

A future where every tech giant is involved in VR.

Compared to Oculus' belief in high-performance, high-priced PC VR head-mounted displays, Google believes that mobile VR based on mobile phones is the future, even though the performance of mobile phones is far from enough.

VR won't become popular anytime soon, and what Google is doing today is to ensure that when it becomes popular, it won't bypass itself.

But more important is artificial intelligence.

"Voice assistants, Amazon Echo, communication apps, this is the Other Idea Conference 2016." The Verge writer Casey Newton commented during the conference.

This is not wrong. The conversation between the voice assistant and Siri is essentially the same, every promotional point of Google Home is the same as that of Amazon Echo, and Allo with the addition of a chatbot is also like WhatsApp in many ways.

But Google Photos, which was released last year, is nothing new - albums for saving photos are not uncommon. However, Google Photos has attracted 200 million users in just one year.

Google Photos is successful because it relies on artificial intelligence to provide features that other companies don't have. For example, it can recognize images and automatically categorize photos of buildings, pets, and specific people; it can automatically help you edit a video; it can automatically help you edit photos, crop photos, and add filters...

This is true for all new products released by Google today, all of which use artificial intelligence to improve a category of products and try to attract users with a completely different experience.

Artificial intelligence, the technology that Google has always talked about as its advantage, has moved out of the laboratory and into more mature, everyday products. Day after day, year after year, trillions of searches provide Google with opportunities for artificial intelligence training that no competitor has.

Gmail, Search, and Maps each have more than one billion users worldwide, allowing Google to understand everyone's information and habits - your itinerary, preferences, address, work location, word usage habits... are all organized and used in the latest products.

Artificial intelligence cannot guarantee the success of every product.

But today, no company is better positioned to advance artificial intelligence and enable it to permeate the products we use every day.