Check out highlights from the 2022 Google developer conference here. (Image Source: Google)Google’s annual developer conference has now concluded its opening keynote, but the conference continues till May 12. The keynote brought a number of software and hardware announcements this year including a sneak peak at future announcements as well.
This includes the Google Pixel 6A, a $449 smartphone that brings the Tensor powered Pixel 6-series experience to a more affordable segment. We also witnessed the launch of the Pixel Buds Pro, a pair of $199 premium earbuds that bring Active Noise Cancellation and a long battery life of up to 11 hours.
We also saw a sneak peak at the Pixel 7-series, the Pixel tablet and the Pixel Watch, all of which will be launching this fall. Meanwhile, Android 13 saw few changes to user safety and privacy, while improving Material You to make the operating system even more customisable. Check out a recap of the opening keynote below.
The Google I/O 2022 opening keynote has come to an end. Check out all the annoucnements from the company below.
Google also revealed the first look at new hardware products that it will be launching this fall. This includes the new Pixel 7 and Pixel 7 Pro, which now get a new camera design at the back. The phones will also come with Android 13 out of the box. The company also showed us our first look at the Google Pixel Tablet, an iPad competitor that brings the Pixel experience to the large screen.
Meanwhile the Pixel Watch will feature a round, bezel-less dial and come with WearOS.
Google announced the Pixel Buds Pro which offer active noise cancelling powered by a new custom audio processor. The earbuds will also come with a transparency mode for when users want to hear what's going on outside.
The Pixel Buds Pro will offer 11 hours of battery life or 7 hours with ANC turned on.Integration with Google Assistant will also be a highlight of the new earbuds. The earbuds will also get a Spatial Audio via an update later this year. Google's Find My Device app will also be able to locate your Pixel Buds Pro when lost.
Google has announced the new Pixel 6A, a $449 smartphone that offers the Pixel 6-series two-tone look along with a compact 6.1-inch screen. There is also an aluminum frame and a 12.2MP main camera on the back along with a 12MP ultrawide camera. The phone is powered by the same Tensor 5G chip with the same security architecture as the Pixel 6 and Pixel 6 Pro.
The Pixel 6A comes with magic eraser, nightsight and other premium Pixel camera features. Magic Eraser in particular can now also make the colours of unwanted objects blend more with the surroundings.
The Pixel 6A also gets Live Translate and Titan M2 security chip. The phone also gets an under-display fingerprint scanner and 5 years of security updates. The phone will be available from July 21 and the phone will be available in three colours.
Google has announced Android 13. The new Android update will focus on new key areas like privacy and and user safety. Material You now offers more cutomisation like using different languages for different apps.
Android 13 is also better optimised to work with large-screen devices and foldables, now allowing smart features that make the most of the extra screen real-estate. Google will also be updating over 20 apps like YouTube Music, Messages and Maps to look and work better with large-screen and foldable devices.
Google also announced a new Google Wallet that securely stores your payment cards. The Wallet app can now also store other important documents like digital IDs like driver's licenses and more. The app will be rolling out to Android and WearOS devices in the coming weeks.
My Ad Centre will give users even more control over ads they see across YouTube, Search and other Google services. Users can choose what categories they would like to see more or less ads from.
Google also introduced a new content renewal policies that will help users address issues like their personal contact details being publicly visible on Google Search. The feature will be available in the Google app in the next few months.
Google is putting $10 billion into bettering user safety online. Google services will also now offer better protection against phishing attempts, detecting them automatically and taking the user to safety automatically. Google is also making multi-factor authentication better with easy-to-use one-tap authentication that does away with six digit codes. '
Google is also taking initiatives towards making passwordless sign-in a reality. Google is also working with players like VISA and MasterCard to roll out Virtual Cards, a new feature that keeps your card details safe during online transactions.
Google's LaMDA 2 powers new features including adding the abilities to converse in real-time on any imaginary topic, and also stay on topic.With a Live Demo, LaMDA 2 also demonstrates the ability to create automated lists and sub-lists. The demo is also capable of generating tips for the user. Google is also accepting feedback by opening access to AI Test Kitchen in the next few months.
Google also revealed its advancements with the PaLM language model that opens new possibilities including real-time answering of questions while translating to other languages, all at once.
Google Assistant brings a new feature called 'look an talk' to look at a device and start speaking. The feature will use face-match and voice-match in real-time to get quicker results without having to trigger Google Assistant separately first.
The feature will also completely work on-device, so face and audio data remains on users' devices, safe and secure. This is powered by six different machine learning models, and also is designed to work efficiently with people of all skin tones.
On Pixel and Next devices, the feature will also let you do more via 'Quick Phrases' like turning lights on and off, all without the trigger word.
Google reveals that it is testing the Monk Skin Tone Scale, or Monk Scale to represent better results in elements like images to show a range of skin tone diversity. This helps people of all skin tones find relevant results that they can relate to. Google will also release 'Real Tone Filters' later this year in Google Photos, which allows more people to get better results with in-app editing.
Google is also making the Monk Scale open-source, helping it reach more developers and users for their own tools.
'Multisearch Near Me'
Google has combined data across multiple inputs to power features like Multisearch earlier this year. Later this year, Google will announce 'Multisearch near me', which will allow users to click pictures and search for items like food, groceries and more near them. The feature is powered by Google's multi-modal understanding, powered by millions of pictures and reviews powere by other users. the feature will release later this year and will add more languages later on.
Scene exploration
Google's new scene exploration features will allow users to scan not one but multiple items all at once in one real-time picture scan. The feature will then provide users will relevant information without them needing to search for individual products separately.
A new handy feature comes to Google Docs that will allow the popular writing tool to summarise entire documents automatically. Pichai also revealed that the featrue will also come to other Google services.
Google Meet meanwhile, get improved audio and video quality powere by project starline. The service also gets studio quality luighting effects that will help with darker settings during video conferences.
Google's video service YouTube will now enable 10x more videos to get auto-generated captions. Auto translated captions in 16 languages also comes to YouTube soon.
Pichai also reveals that Google Maps now reveals more buildings in regions in Africa, as well as other countries like India and Indonesia using newer, advanced technologies. Pichai reveals that the new 3D mapping technologies are helping power a new Maps experience called 'immersive view'.
The feature allows users to head to select cities and check weather forecast, hear the local traffic and even check inside local cafes, all straight from Google Maps. Google Cloud stream will allow the featrue to run on any smartphone.
Google Maps also gets eco-friendly routing. The feature, already available in US and Canada, will now be available to mroe regions includign Europe later this year.
Google CEO Sundar Pichai opens the event keynote by highlighting the tech giant's efforts during the pandemic, the Russian invasion of Ukraine and other times of crisis throughout the year. Pichai pointed out how tools like Google Translate helped make people's lives better.
On those lines, Google reveals its new monolingual advancements in Translate. The company has added 24 new languages to Google Translate which together are spoken by over 300 million people.
A new eleventh-hour leak by tipster Evan Blass (@evleaks) has revealed a full look at both the design and specifications of the Google Pixel 6A. Check it out below.
The I/O 2022 developer conference kicks off in a few minutes. Time to grab some snacks, sit back and get ready for the event.
Google will kick off the latest edition of the I/O developer conference in one hour. Watch this space for live updates from 10:30pm IST.
Android 13 is expected to launch today at the Google I/O 2022. However, if you want a taste of Android 13, the beta of the latest Android version is now going live for a number of smartphones. One of them is teh Realme GT 2 Pro.
Realme CEO Madhav Sheth recently announced via a tweet that the phone is eligible for the same. Check it out below.
There is a strong rumour that Google will launch the Pixel Watch at the annual I/O 2022. The smartwatch will run Google’s Wear OS 3 and will include features like a heart rate monitor, step counting, and the ability to pair with your favourite Fitbit devices. The Pixel Watch is seen as legit competitor to the Apple Watch Series 7.