Google I/O 2018: Image changes, more artificial intelligence and more “notch”

Great week in the technological sphere which starts next Monday. After the start of the Microsoft Build 2018, it is another titan who has his big day of the year and for that reason it is worth reviewing what we expect from Google I/O 2018, which is celebrated from May 8 to 10.

Google I/O 2018

As has happened with other similar events, the target audience in practice has expanded, going far beyond the developers. For these it is a key conference, but the announcements interest us many to go beyond development kits and even software, and also when Google speaks, the bread is usually for one thing or another.

Android P Preview 2

After the O comes the P, and after Oreo will come another sweet if those of Mountain View do not break the historic tradition with the nomenclature of its mobile operating system. A name that also in a traditional way has been revealed in this conference and we do not expect to know, but there is a new beta, the Android P Developer Preview 2.

In it, we hope to see “improvements in the notifications and add support to double and triple cameras”, which is probably propitious in the short term now that the Huawei P20 Pro may have opened the ban. And speaking of this and of the fashions, we already saw that those of Google contemplated the adaptation of the notch and probably we will see more on this.

If we cite the ‘notch’ comes to mind the iPhone X, and apparently Google will implement a gesture navigation system similar to the one with this phone are Home button. As it is deduced from the animations of Android P, at least there would be a gesture to go back (slide from the left) and another to multitask (slide up from the right of the bottom edge).

It also seems that there will be improvements at the level of biometrics, with a faster and more secure performance of the fingerprint reader. And augmented reality (AR) would not forget either, incorporating a positioning in closed environments aimed at it.

Therefore, we hope to see what more new features are added to a new operating system (whose name they do not want to tell us) whose first beta version was already well crafted in Engadget Android. Update that will be available via OTA on the platform’s website, making it more convenient for users.

New version of Material Design

When it will be four years since the last major design change at Google, the company is expected to present Material Design 2. An update that was leaked a few months ago in which we will see new color palettes for websites, tabs and favicons that seem to mark a new trend towards darker and colder colors.

In addition to the colors, the corners will be rounded in boxes. What is also expected is that there is a new element to facilitate the tactile touches in the applications, for a commit that referred to something called IsTouchOptimizedMaterial ().

Services that are updated

If last year was Google Photos which received a good dose of updates, this year is aimed at Google News. The service seems to be renewed (both on the web and in the app), incorporating a section for YouTube and integrating the digital magazine Google Play Newsstand and pulling AMP (Accelerated Mobile Pages) so that the articles load quickly.

Google Assistant and artificial intelligence

Perhaps with a “better late, than never” but firmly. This is how the Mountain View burst with Google Assistant in the field of voice assistants, who last year learned to speak Spanish and who this year appears repeatedly in the contents of the agenda for the event of developers.

The assistant has a key role in the domestic assistance, which we saw materialized in a Google Home that at the moment has been updated in its max and mini versions but we met in the Google I/O 2016. It is expected that the assistant has more integration and new commands.

Assistant is also part of the application that the technological giant intends to make artificial intelligence (AI), the role (in the process of development) of mobile fashion for which Google has already presented the open platform Tensorflow. For this edition it is expected that there will be an expansion of its tools and applications, such as the use of machine learning in medicine.

Talking about Google Home and Assistant is, therefore, talking about the Internet of Things (IoT). And in this field it is expected to have new things with Android Things, the platform to enhance these “smart” products of the home, specifically a full version 1.0 and based on Oreo to enhance smart screens with the assistant.

Spinning with the assistance and artificial intelligence is one of the main applications that we are seeing of the AI in mobiles: the recognition of objects and the actions that each manufacturer decides to apply by pulling algorithms. Google was not left behind in this and presented Google Lens, which LG pulls on its latest flagship, the LG G7 ThinQ.

In fact, in the presentation of the terminal it was confirmed that we would see new capabilities of the tool in the I/O 2018. Hence, what is expected is that there are important developments, including that there is support for more languages (up to 30 of the current 15).

Wear OS

The darkened interface of the new design also came to the preview for Wear OS, the renowned Android Wear of which a new version is expected in this year’s I/O. There is a session oriented to the novelties in this platform, so there are probably new features besides the dark theme.

And what about Fuchsia OS?

The clues about this operating system of Google have been dripping with increasing intensity. Fuchsia OS will be compatible with Android applications and games. However, it seems that this Google I/O will not be the occasion chosen to reveal great news about the new system given its apparent prematurity, leaving probably the focus to Chrome OS in addition to Android.