Just because there’s a full blown pandemic, that doesn’t mean that life comes to a complete standstill. Companies and people will still go about their day to day activities as much as possible. Google too adopted a similar approach. With their flagship Google I/O not being held last year due to Covid-19, we went on an entire year without hearing about the new stuff Google was working on. But fret not, for Google I/O 2021 took place from the 18-20th of May and along with it, Google finally gave us a peek into what they were working on.

Android 12 – It’s Big and Bold

In most cases, the primary reason for anyone to watch Google I/O is to see the latest version of Android and the new features it brings. Android 12 boasts a new Material You design language. This basically means you have new ways of customizing your phone to make it more “you”. There’s a new dynamic theming option that updates your phone’s color scheme based on the wallpaper you’ve set. Android widgets get a major facelift with the update as well.

There’s also improvements to device security with Privacy Dashboard, Private Compute Core and clipboard access alerts. You can even use your Android phone to unlock your car (but you’ll need to have a select Pixel or Samsung Galaxy device for this). Developers can also make use of the Performance Class API that can identify how powerful a device is, and scale the features and performance of their apps accordingly.

While previous Android betas were available only on Pixel devices, Android 12 beta releases are available from 12 OEMs such as Asus, Oneplus, Oppo, Realme, Sharp, Tecno, TCL, Vivo, Xiaomi and ZTE.

Better ways to work together

Google I/O also gave viewers a brief look into Smart Canvas. With the pandemic, more and more people are opting to work from home. This has its fair share of obstacles to overcome. Smart Canvas makes it easier to work between various Google apps such as Docs and Sheets. You can even bring a Google Meets call to your Google Doc and keep on working. Google hasn’t told us when Smart Canvas will be available but we can keep our fingers crossed.

 

Wear OS meets Tizen

If you are familiar with wearables, you’ll know that Wear OS and Tizen were somewhat different to each other. While Wear OS ran on most Android wearables, Tizen was the brainchild of Samsung. Now, Google is teaming up with Tizen to create one giant super platform simply called “Wear”. From Samsung’s side, this means the company now has access to the multitude of Google’s APIs which they can add to their devices. This is a good way for you to entice more developers to join Samsung’s wearable division.

Google is also attempting to make Wear more customizable. Think of the different skins that Android has for devices such as Xiaomi, Samsung and Oneplus, for example. By using the same approach for wearables, Google can give more variety for users.

Smile! You’re on (Google) Camera!

We’ve seen how powerful Google’s camera software is. In fact, it’s so good that there are modified versions of it for almost every phone OEM that doesn’t have Google Camera preinstalled. Google is now working to enhance their camera software even more. For example, developers are working on making their cameras more accurate for people with darker skin tones. Google is also revamping its selfie algorithm, allowing for better mapping for curly and wavy hair types, which means your curly haired selfies will look even better.

 

With “Cinematic moments” Google will take sets of images you have captured (say a burst shot where you wanted the best one) and create an animation from it. The feature exists to a certain extent in Google Photos, but this is expected to be a hefy improvement.

Closing the distance between your loved ones

Due to the Covid 19 pandemic, the amount of travelling we can do has been greatly cut back. As a result, we might not get to see our loved ones as much as we would like. But Google has a solution for this. Project Starline or simply Starline is a new spin on video conferencing. Think of it as Google experimenting with 3D holograms of your loved ones. Basically with Starline, you can create  a 3D model of your family member and talk to them as if they were right next to you. Starline uses custom-designed booths that have a number of depth sensors and cameras that are used to create a 3D model of a human.

The technology isn’t quite perfect. There have been instances of random artifacts appearing and a slight movement to the left or right while in the booth can change the image you see, according to Wired, who got a first look at how Starline works. Could this be the future of video conferencing? It quite could be. But then again, how expensive would it be and how long would it take to be commercially viable? These remain to be seen.

But wait, there’s more

Google also demonstrated LaMDA, a conversational language model built on the company’s neural network architecture codenamed Transformer. How LaMDA sets itself apart from the rest is that it is trained on dialogue rather than answering queries. This means that it can engage in free-flowing conversation on basically any topic.

Google Maps is set to get more eco-friendly routes, and safer routing. The former will help reduce environmental footprint by giving the user routes that would use less fuel. With safer routing, Maps will use AI to suggest the safest route to a destination taking into account traffic, weather and road conditions.

With security being of utmost importance, Google Chrome will now alert you when it detects any of your passwords have been compromised and can even help you in resetting them.

Google appears to have been waiting an additional year to unveil all these new features to their ecosystem and it is definitely something worth waiting for.

Android 12 – It’s Big and Bold In most cases, the primary reason for anyone to watch Google I/O is to see the latest version of Android and the new features it brings. Android 12 boasts a new Material You design language. This basically means you have new ways of customizing your phone to make it more “you”. There’s a new dynamic theming option that updates your phone’s color scheme based on the wallpaper you’ve set. Android widgets get a major facelift with the update as well.There’s also improvements to device security with Privacy Dashboard, Private Compute Core and clipboard access alerts. You can even use your Android phone to unlock your car (but you’ll need to have a select Pixel or Samsung Galaxy device for this). Developers can also make use of the Performance Class API that can identify how powerful a device is, and scale the features and performance of their apps accordingly.While previous Android betas were available only on Pixel devices, Android 12 beta releases are available from 12 OEMs such as Asus, Oneplus, Oppo, Realme, Sharp, Tecno, TCL, Vivo, Xiaomi and ZTE.

Wear OS meets Tizen If you are familiar with wearables, you’ll know that Wear OS and Tizen were somewhat different to each other. While Wear OS ran on most Android wearables, Tizen was the brainchild of Samsung. Now, Google is teaming up with Tizen to create one giant super platform simply called “Wear”. From Samsung’s side, this means the company now has access to the multitude of Google’s APIs which they can add to their devices. This is a good way for you to entice more developers to join Samsung’s wearable division.Google is also attempting to make Wear more customizable. Think of the different skins that Android has for devices such as Xiaomi, Samsung and Oneplus, for example. By using the same approach for wearables, Google can give more variety for users.

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