While discussing the future of Android at Google I/O, Dave Burke, a VP of engineering, announced a new version of TensorFlow optimized for mobile called TensorFlow lite. The new library will allow developers to build leaner deep learning models designed to run on Android smartphones. As Google rolls out a greater number of AI-enabled services that run on Android, it makes sense to use a… Read More
Today, at Google’s I/O developer conference, the company teased that it will be working on Daydream all-in-one virtual reality headsets with partners like HTC, maker of the Vive VR headset, as well as Lenovo. These headsets will be coming in “late 2017.”
The big announcement is that these headset will have positional tracking which means that the hardware can tell the… Read More
There are 2 billion Android devices currently in use around the world. Google is now thinking about the next 2 billion devices. In order to do this, Google has a new project called Android Go. It’s a lightweight version of the upcoming version of Android (Android O) with optimized apps and Play Store.
Google focused on devices with very low specs, users with limited connectivity and… Read More
Onstage at Google I/O, VR Head Clay Bavor announced that Daydream support for the Galaxy S8 and S8 Plus will be coming this summer. Last year, when Google announced that Samsung would be a partner on Daydream, many expectedly guessed that the upcoming Galaxy S8 would add Daydream support. Well, Samsung finally appears to have gotten on board, perhaps only to give its Gear VR platform a period… Read More
Google today announced that it is making Kotlin, a statically typed programming language for the Java Virtual Machine, a first-class language for writing Android apps. Kotlin’s primary sponsor is JetBrains, the company behind tools like IntelliJ. It’s 100 percent interoperable with Java, which until now was Google’s only primary language for writing Android apps. Read More
It’s already been available for a few months as a developer preview, but now the rest of us can finally get our hands on an upcoming version of Android. Android O Beta starts shipping today, if you point your browser over to android.com/beta. The company used the opportunity to show a number of features that have already been available in the developer preview. Notifications have… Read More
Google today announced an upgrade for its popular Google Photos application, which is now being used by 500 million people every month. The app now has a new social feature called Suggested Sharing, which uses facial recognition to suggest which photos you should send to your friends and family. Another option called Shared Libraries will allow you to automatically share either all your photos… Read More
Home is about to get a lot more powerful with voice-calling, new notifications and response systems and a bunch of new music/video services.Google’s Rishi Chandra announced a bunch of new additions to the company’s home voice assistant onstage at I/O. Perhaps the biggest addition was to Home is hands-free calling. You can now call any landline or mobile phone in the US or Canada… Read More
Today at TechCrunch Disrupt NY actor Judah Friedlander, maybe best known for playing Frank Rossitano on 30 Rock, took the stage to announce a new show that will air right here on TechCrunch. Titled Judah vs. The Machines, the show follows Judah Friedlander as he meets the “world’s smartest AI robots”. This trip takes him to places like Facebook HQ and the University of… Read More
On the stage of Google I/O, CEO Sundar Pichai announced Google.ai, a new initiative to democratize the benefits of the latest in machine learning research. Google.ai will serve as a center of Google’s AI efforts — including research, tools and applied AI. The new site will host research from Google and its Brain Team. It also allows anyone to quickly access fun experiments… Read More
Google today announced at its Google I/O developer conference that the Google Assistant, the company’s virtual personal assistant that’s available on devices like the Google Home and Pixel phone, will soon get more conversational. Read More
Actions on Google – the voice-activated apps that are Google’s answer to Alexa’s Skills – are expanding to the new platforms of iOS and Android, the company announced at its I/O developer conference this afternoon. Currently, Actions are available on Google Home devices. The company had promised earlier that Actions would be available on Google’s Pixel… Read More
Watch out Siri, there’s a new kid in town. Google just announced at its I/O developer conference that its personal assistant is coming to iOS. You won’t be able to replace Siri with Google Assistant, but you’ll be able to use the feature in Google’s dedicated app. Read More
Not everyone wants to place a heart-rate monitor on their chest or wrist. Sometimes you want a meaty sensor, something that won’t drain your battery and something that also carries your phone using a system of magnets that keeps your phone safe from harm. Sometimes you want the Shapeheart. I saw the Shapeheart last week. Basically it’s a very usable, very clever heart-rate monitor… Read More
At Google’s I/O developer conference, CEO Sundar Pichai announced a new technology called Google Lens. The idea with the product is to leverage Google’s computer vision and A.I. technology in order to bring smarts directly to your phone’s camera. As the company explains, the smartphone camera won’t just see what you see, but will also understand what you see to help… Read More
Onstage at Google I/O in Mountain View, CEO Sundar Pichai announced that earlier this week the company surpassed 2 billion monthly active users on the Android platform, continuing its reign as the world’s most popular mobile operating system. The company has added nearly 400 million users to its mobile operating system since September of 2015 when it last gave an update. By comparison,… Read More
When Google launched Inbox, its more experimental next-gen email client for Gmail, one of its flagship features was Smart Reply. With Smart Reply, Google’s machine learning algorithms look at your incoming emails and then suggest short, three- or four-word replies (think “Sure” or “Yes, thank you”). Until now, this feature was only available in Inbox and the… Read More
Google announced its next generation of its custom Tensor Processing Units (TPUs) machine learning chips at Google I/O today. These chips, which are designed specifically to speed up machine learning tasks, are supposed to be more capable than CPUs or even GPUs at these tasks and are an upgrade from the first generation of chips the company released at last year’s I/O. And speed up… Read More
Facebook’s leverage over news publishers can be worrisome, but today it’s putting its muscle to good use. The social network is bringing its battle against clickbait abroad, getting more precise about which link headlines it downranks in News Feed, and starting to demote individual posts instead of just web domains and Facebook Pages. The updates are part of a News Feed… Read More
We’re going to be bringing you updates live from the Shoreline Amphitheater in Mountain View, CA, just a stone’s throw away from Google’s main campus, where the company is hosting its 2017 I/O developer conference. At 10 AM PT (1 PM ET) on May 17, the conference opening keynote kicks off the event, and it tends to be packed to the gills with product and software news.
Live… Read More
