The Google I/O Keynote took place virtually on May 18, 2021.
The Google I/O event is an annual developer conference that it uses to inform the world of hardware and software updates, among others. For 2021, it is taking place between Tuesday, May 18, and Friday, May 21.
At the event’s keynote, Google announced updates to Maps, which now offers safer routes and eco-friendly routes. Next, it revealed Smart Canvas: a tool which improves collaboration between teams. With it, teams can have their video app, Meet, on one side, and their documents on the other. It also improves the audio with a noise cancellation feature and the video with a lighting algorithm, among others.
The keynote also introduced LaMDA, an NLP-AI technology that improves Google Translate and Google Photos. Next, the company revealed AI advancements to searching, such as Maps and videos.
Privacy was another big focus and the company unveiled its many new features geared towards improving it. For instance, the company has updated Password Manager; it’s also introduced phone-based authentication, among others.
There’s also a new search model that’s 100 times more powerful than the previous one. With it, users can find information in photos and screenshots, too.
Other developments are Google AR, a source vetting tool to identify fake news, improvements to online shopping, and a card-checkout feature. There’s also Google pattern, which is a new feature that groups similar images together. Furthermore, there’s a feature that pseudo animates images with small movements.
Apart from these, Google announced updates to Android 12, the new OS that makes users co-creators. It features an improved and redesigned UI, a privacy dashboard that shows which apps have access to what, an inbuilt TV remote, and a Car Key.
To learn more about Google’s announcements at the Keynote, watch the video below.