What innovations did Google I/O 2024 bring?
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Google I/O 2024 is over: As expected, the company presented many new features in the area of artificial intelligence at the developer conference.
We summarize the most important announcements for you.
Google I/O 2024: Artificial intelligence takes center stage
Right at the beginning of the Google keynote, CEO Sundar Pichai started with what is probably the most important tech topic of the past few months: AI.
One of the application scenarios is the »AI Overview«, which uses Gemini AI to ensure a better search experience by providing additional information even for longer and more complex searches.
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However, the feature is not completely new, as it was already presented at the last Google I/O:
At least the AI Overview is now also available without a separate registration. Users in the USA will initially be activated, other countries will follow at an undisclosed date.
The Gemini AI will also be found in the Google Photos app in the future. In the app, users can use »Ask Photos« ask more generally about images and request some kind of smart sorting or filtering.
An explicit example was the search for a child's swimming progress.
With “Ask Photos” the photo album is intended to become even more personal. (Source: Google)
An application that is still in a fairly early stage of development is »Project Astra«.
Here, DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis presented a kind of app in a video that uses the camera of the respective Android smartphone to identify the recorded objects and answer extensive questions about them.
Google showed the principle before the actual developer conference:
Link to Twitter content
Project Astra can obviously also remember objects that were in the image at an earlier point in time.
This was demonstrated using glasses that bore a suspicious resemblance to the “Google Glass” AR glasses that the company actually scrapped last year…
In addition to many new, business-focused features, Google is bringing the native Gemini app for smartphones is up to date – however, information about an official German release is still missing.
Here too, US users are ahead and have been able to use the AI assistance since February.
In terms of features, the Project Astra mentioned at the beginning will be added, otherwise little that is relevant will change compared to the regular web version.
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Google Bard is now called Gemini
The keynote also gave an outlook on the upcoming update Android 15 – albeit an extraordinarily small one.
Android 15: Artificial intelligence at its heart
Of course, the new version of the operating system cannot be completely without new AI features – Gemini alone will ensure that, which will serve as a replacement for the Google Assistant in the future.
The “Circle to SearchThe feature is getting smarter, as Google promises. For example, a translation function or support with homework is mentioned, the explanations of which can be searched for with a simple gesture.
In addition, additional devices will be enabled for the search feature; However, the company has yet to provide an exact list.
By the way, that's not the only thing Google owed on the evening of the developer conference. Contrary to I/O tradition, there was simply no further information about Android 15.
Concrete details about the second beta of the upcoming update will only come on Wednesday – let's wait and see whether something interesting happens to Android then.