Google was founded by Larry Page and Sergey Brin in 1988. It is referred to as the "most powerful company in the world" and is an American multinational technology company that focuses its attention on artificial intelligence, online advertising, and e-commerce. The company has grown rapidly and offers a multitude of products and services that extend beyond Google Search and hold dominant market positions. These include email (Gmail), navigation (Maps), web browsing (Chrome), language translation ( Translate), etc. Google is known for solving humanity's biggest problems. It has made highly ambitious technological innovations. Google conducts an annual, developer-focused event to announce its software changes and updates, known as Google I/O. It took place from May 11th to 12th, bringing some significant changes along with it, which are as follows:
Google Translate is adding new languages.
All around the world, Google Translate has been an important tool for newcomers and residents trying to adjust and communicate with one another. It has been of immense help to the Ukrainians, giving them hope until they are able to return home again. There is a long tail of languages that are not represented adequately on the web, and translating them is cumbersome. 24 new languages have been added to Google Translate, including the first indigenous languages of America.
Google Maps gets a new immersive view.
For over 15 years, Google Maps has created rich and useful representations to help us navigate. Sundar Pichai, CEO of Google, demonstrated a new immersive mode in Google Maps. With the help of 3-D mapping and machine learning, Google has fused billions of aerial and street-level images to create a new and high-fidelity representation of a particular place. If someone is thinking of visiting Big Ben, he or she can check if there is traffic, the weather forecast, and how busy it is.
Google Wallet
Google declared its first wallet app back in 2011, which underwent many changes and ultimately transformed into Google Pay in 2018. Google aims to replace the physical wallet of users by allowing them to store their debit and credit cards without requiring a real wallet. It also features certain preset passes like boarding passes, gift cards, and vaccination cards. Users can expect Google Wallet to be out on the Play Store very soon.
Visual Improvements to Google Meet
Google Meet is an online video calling app that allows up to a hundred participants. Project Starline was introduced at I/O last year and it has been tested across various Google offices for feedback and to improve the technology for the near future. It has led to powered image processing to automatically improve the image quality in Google Meet, and it is very flexible as it can be used on all types of devices. Features like adjusting the light position and brightness have also been included so that one is visible even when he/she is sitting in a dark room.
"Hey, Google" is no longer required to activate Google Assistant.
In order to make Google Assistant more accessible, we can now make use of a new feature called Look and Talk, where a person needs to look at the Nest Hub Max and start talking. The Google Assistant waits for the person to ask a question after looking at the screen.
Help people be more efficient with Google Workspace
People often spend a lot of time reading documents. Hence, automated summarization of Google Docs has been introduced, where the words are parsed automatically, thereby highlighting only the main points. This is a big leap taken toward natural language processing.
LaMDA 2 debuts in the AI Test Kitchen
Google's LaMDA AI tool, which is a generative language model for dialogue applications that can convert on any topic, is getting its very own AI Test Kitchen app. There are three ways for users to interact with LaMDA. One of the three modes can be used: Imagine It, Talk About It, and List It. Access will be opened over the upcoming months.
To conclude, Google’s aim is to make the world’s information universally useful, accessible, and approachable. Google's software updates and changes have not only made the entertainment industry better, but they have also changed the way people live.
