This past week was Google I/O, the annual developers conference. Last year’s event was cancelled, and this year it was entirely virtual. As of this writing you can still go on an I/O adventure, collect swag, watch demos, learn about Google’s updates for developers, and play a few games. If you have a website, be sure to check out the Web/Chrome dome. Or if that is too silly for you, you can get most of the content on the Google I/O website.
Google I/O highlights
Collaboration and productivity:
Smart Canvas
is a new improved design for Google Workspace applications. This means more
flexible and “smart” formats, and deeper integration between products. And
yes, most of these features will be available to free personal accounts.
- Present from Google Docs, Slides or Sheets directly to an active Google Meet call. This will be rolling out over the next few weeks.
- Google Meet will be coming into Docs, Sheets and Slides this fall. See the demo.
- Meet will have captions in more languages, and live translations of captions. This is coming “later this year”.
- Docs has a new pageless format that fits your screen, and isn’t limited to the dimensions of a physical sheet of paper.
- “Smart chips” in Docs, which let you insert people, documents and meetings by typing @. Mentions of people are already available, and smart chips for documents and meetings are rolling out.
- Insert checklists or table templates (including project trackers and topic voting). Checklists are currently rolling out.
- A Doc template for meeting notes that imports relevant details from a Calendar event.
- More smart suggestions in Docs, including warnings about offensive words and language.
- Timeline view in Google Sheets for tracking tasks.
- Create and edit Docs, Sheets and Slides in Google Chat Rooms. This is already available for Docs and Sheets.
- Formula suggestions are coming to Google Sheets.
Google Photos will start
highlighting “little patterns” in Memories, personalized to you. There will also be more controls for titles and which
images will be included.
Private by design
Google is adding more privacy features to current products and services, and
adding AI-enhanced features to Android devices that use on-device processing,
so it doesn’t pass through Google’s servers.
- Quick delete in Search, so you can delete the last 15 minutes of your search history with one click.
- A passcode protected Locked Folder in Google Photos. This can be used for sensitive images (copy of your passport, sexytime photos) which will not appear while scrolling through your photo library or be synced with your Google account.
- Privacy dashboard in Android 12, so you can see when apps accessed your microphone, camera or location.
Improved Password Manager
The Google Password manager is now available on iOS, as well as Android and
Chrome. It has several new features:
- Import passwords from other password managers.
- Better integration on Chrome and Android to make it easier to automatically fill in a password.
- Get an alert if your password has been compromised in a third party breach, and an easy way to fix compromised passwords in Chrome with one tap.
Google Lens has an improved translation filter, which lets you use your mobile phone’s camera to copy, listen to or search
translated text in over 100 languages.
AI understanding conversations
Language Model for Dialogue Applications (LaMDA) is a “research breakthrough” that can help chatbots better understand the
meandering course of conversation. For search there is a new
Multitask Unified Model (MUM), which can understand information across different types of media (like
web pages and images) and different languages.
The future of video calling
Project Starline
is a Google research project to make a video call seem almost like actually
being in the same room. It uses advanced hardware and software for 3D imaging
that doesn’t require a headset. The long term goal is to make this affordable,
and possibly integrame some of the technical advancements into Google’s
current communication products.
More
- New features for smart navigation in Maps and updates to Google Maps Platform.
- Improvements to Google Shopping for merchants and shoppers
- Android 12 beta, with Material You, the pretty new personal design language for Android.
- Use your Android phone as a remote control for your TV or unlock your car.
- Google collaboration with Samsung is breathing new life for Wear smart watches.
- Using AI to diagnose dermatology issues and screen for tuberculosis.
Upcoming
There are a number of changes coming to Google products and services in June. Make sure you have made any necessary updates before then.- May 31: If your YouTube channel is in the YouTube Partner Program, and you are outside the United States, you need to submit your US Tax information. In June Google will start withholding taxes on earnings from US viewers. If you do not submit your tax details, Google will withhold 30% of your entire earnings.
- June 1: The new YouTube Terms of Service go into effect outside the United States (where they have been in effect since last November). The biggest update: YouTube claims a new "right to monetize" videos on channels that are not in the YouTube Partner Program. But the only way to be paid or control the ads is through the YouTube Partner Program. See if your channel is eligible.
- June 1: Newly backed up Google Photos will start counting against your Google Account storage. This does not include photos you have already backed up.
- June 1: Newly created or edited Google Docs, Slides, Sheets, Jamboard files, Drawings or Forms will start counting against your Google Account storage. This does not include docs you have already backed up. Note that Google Workspace accounts will not be affected by this change until February 2022.
- June 1: Support for Chrome Apps on Windows, Mac and Linux ending. If you use the Hangouts Chrome App, you can switch to the Hangouts extension.
YouTube
- YouTube Partners will now see more frequent updates to estimated earnings in YouTube Studio Analytics. This will give a better picture of estimated revenue before it is finalized.
- New features coming to Creator Studio: Improved upload defaults, upload from Google Drive, pre-publish checks for mobile uploads, auto-generated titles, and enhanced thumbnails.
Web Publishing
- Chrome is experimenting with a “Follow” feature that lets you follow a blog or news site’s RSS feed. Maybe they can call it Google Reader? The test is limited to Android devices in the United States with Chrome Canary.
Meetings
- Present from Google Docs, Slides or Sheets directly to an active Google Meet call.
- Microsoft Teams now offers personal features for free. The usual limit for group calls is 100 people and 60 minutes, but that limit has been waived “in light of COVID-19” until further notice. Currently frere personal accounts can host meetings of up to 300 people for up to 24 hours.
Events
- Twitter will soon be launching paid ticketed Spaces events, starting with US users. They also launched scheduled Spaces.
- Facebook is expanding paid live events to sports.
- Zoom Events will launch this summer, with tools for registration and ticketing and multi-session events.
Photo: "Selfie" from inside the Google I/O Adventure
Anyword that Google Docs will be formated better so you can write a blog post using Google Docs and then put it in Blogger?
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure what you mean by better exactly? But if you copy paste from Docs to Blogger, which I often do, it does require stripping a lot of the extraneous formatting and then reformatting it.
DeleteI don't know of any updates that will make that better.
The current focus seems to be on using Docs as is, so not formatting it for other platforms. But I don't really know.
I would love for there to be a way to publish directly from Docs to Blogger, but that's probably just a dream.