MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. — As I watched Google's many unveilings this week, I could sense a certain confidence in the proceedings. That was no doubt partly because the company was, for the first time in 10 years, hosting its Google I/O developer conference at its headquarters in Mountain View instead of San Francisco, so the executives and project managers were literally playing in their own backyard.
But I think there was something else at play. Looking back at the opening keynote, CEO Sundar Pichai decided to kick things off with two interesting — and related — products: the so-called"assistant" that seeks to proactively offer help as you navigate Google's many services, and Home, an Amazon Echo-like speaker that infuses the assistant in your house as a kind of ambient presence, ready to help the moment you utter the activation phrase ("OK, Google," of course).
It's hard to imagine two products that better epitomize Google itself. The assistant, which is powered by Google's artificial intelligence platform, can ingest and analyze your data, compare it to data from the world, and suggest actions. can range from the trivial (figuring out you're looking at a picture of a dog, and coming up with phrases to respond with) to the practical (nudging you about when it's time to leave for a flight).
Taking it to the next level is Home, which gives Google's assistant a place to live. Talk to Home, ask it the weather or how to translate a word or what your calendar has today, and it'll just tell you, connecting with Google services and the web as necessary. It can even talk to other devices, changing the temperature on your Nest thermostat and relaying YouTube videos to a Chromecast.
0 comments:
Post a Comment