Google has held a new edition of its Google I/O event, its annual conference for developers, which presents the main news and developments on which the company is working.
Google has launched new cell phones, tablets and AI developments at the new edition of Google I/O.
In the 2023 edition, along with new mobile devices, the undisputed protagonist has been Artificial Intelligence.. With its name pronounced on dozens of occasions by Sundar Pichai, CEO of Google, AI is at the center of the development of the company’s products and services. For the company, it is strategic to set itself up as the standard bearer of this new technology in a context in which more and more companies are working with it and struggling to implement and market their AI-based services.
That is why, at Google I/O, most of the announcements have focused on showing how AI can improve access to knowledge and expand users’ learning. Also, how people will be able to boost their creativity and productivity and how developers and companies will be able to build their own products and services based on the innovations that AI provides.
In this video you have access to the two-hour keynote, in which Sundar Pichai, along with other leading executives of the firm, presented the new features discussed in this article.
By way of summary, these are the main announcements made by Google at the annual I/O developer conference:
New Google Pixel 7a
In terms of devices, Google has taken advantage of the annual developer conference to showcase the latest phone in its A series, the Google Pixel 7a, which is already available in stores at a price starting at €509.
It is a cell phone with Google’s Tensor G2 processor that also incorporates the Titan M2 security chip. With aluminum housing and 100% recycled material, it incorporates facial unlocking, a new 13-megapixel ultra wide-angle lens – as well as a 13-megapixel front camera – and a super high-resolution zoom of up to 8x. It also has 8 GB of RAM, a Smooth Display screen with up to 90 Hz and wireless charging.
As it could not be otherwise, the Google Pixel 7a also employs Artificial Intelligence. For example, it incorporates the Assistant functions to make and receive calls and the screen tells you who is calling you and why before accepting the call. For its part, the Clear Calls function optimizes the voice of your interlocutor and reduces background noise, while the Wait Time function gives you an estimate of the time you will be on hold when calling a company.
Google Pixel Fold and Google Pixel Tablet
Google has unveiled the new Google Pixel Tablet, which also wears Tensor G2 and has an 11-inch screen to which Google’s own tools are exceptionally well adapted. Its price will be around 550 euros.
Alongside it, it has also presented the Google Pixel Gold, its flexible cell phone, which will be priced at 1,899 euros, and for the moment will only be sold in the United States, Germany, United Kingdom and Japan.
Google Bard and PaLM 2
Another major news presented by Google is the launch, practically imminent, in 180 countries, of Google Bard, its intelligent chatbot that competes with ChatGPT.
At the moment, access can be made through this link and must be used in English, although the launch in Japanese will also take place in the coming days. The company has indicated that more than 40 languages will be added later this year.
Although Bard is still an experiment, which will not replace Google’s search engine for the time being, it has been demonstrated at the I/O 2023 keynote that its development is strategic for the company and that it is its main Artificial Intelligence development.
For example, Google Bard – which debuts a new dark mode – now integrates Google Lens, so that the AI can identify all kinds of objects or people and texts can be produced automatically with respect to the image sent.
Adobe Firefly, the main competitor of the image-generating artificial intelligence DALL-E, is also integrated, and Google Bard will soon reach practically all Google applications and services, allowing you to export text directly to Gmail or Google Docs, for example.
Many of its improvements are based on PaLM 2, Google’s new, more powerful language model with support for more than 100 languages. Thanks to it, Google Bard will be able to perform intelligent reasoning and provide more appropriate answers in all areas, including mathematics and programming.
AI applications in Google products
The development of Artificial Intelligence will reach in a practical way many Google applications, which release novelties. For example, as already mentioned, Gmail will allow automatic writing of e-mails thanks to the new “Help me Write” function.
It will not be the only Google service to release new features thanks to Artificial Intelligence. For example, Google Maps will soon incorporate the visualization of routes in 3D.
For its part, Magic Editor will arrive to provide Google Photos with a very simple tool that will improve the user’s images almost automatically.
Google’s search engine, of course, will also receive improvements. Thanks to the use of generative AI, it will be possible to perform searches in a “simpler and more intelligent” way. Snapshots with related information will be displayed next to search results, and the new conversational mode in searches will allow a dialogue with the searcher to refine searches and improve the experience.
AI will also allow to improve the experience for users of the Android mobile operating system who, for example, will be able to create custom wallpapers from emojis. The company has presented Android 14 beta 2, as well as new native apps for Wear OS, the operating system for smartwatches.