- 20 May , 2024
- AI
Introduction
Hey there, fellow tech enthusiasts! Tuesday in Google I/O , Google make big announcements , especially in AI and how it will be integrated into their services. All these innovations is serving one goal: “build a universal agent that will be useful in everyday life,” as Demis Hassabis, the CEO and co-founder of Google DeepMind, says. Let me show you how in this article.
Astra
So, Astra is what they named this virtual assistant. But what she can do ?
In this demo , we see a girl asking questions on her phone like “what does this code mean” or “do you recognize this place?” and Astra was able to answer .
It’s really awesome how we can transform our phone into an assistant and for free ! And yet I wasn’t that excited. Why? It’s a simple question of timing. Just yesterday, I saw ChatGPT doing the same thing in a more impressive way . So this AI seem so “ordinary.”
Except for one thing ! Astra was able to remember where the glasses were even after being out of frame. I don’t know if it only remembers from the current session or if it can recall information even in future uses, but that’s sound interesting.
Imagine what this virtual friend can do if “she” knows everything about you. It’s like having a personal coach that makes everything faster and easier, helping you build the perfect life. But on the downside, goodbye privacy.
Speaking of making life easier, they integrated Astra into smart glasses. Again, the demo wasn’t great; I’m sure they could show us better examples to demonstrate the power of combining smart glasses and Astra.
Gemini Area
But anyway, Astra wasn’t the only big news from this event. Like I said in the introduction, Google is on a mission to create a whole new era called “Gemini Area.” And contrary to the demo of Astra, the trailer was so good , it got me really excited.
Google Search
Okay, so Google wants to make our lives easier, right? Well, that starts with finding what we want quickly. After all, let’s not forget that Google is, first and foremost, a search engine. Text generation has revolutionized the way we find answers. We can ask Gemini anything and boom, we have the answer directly in the chat. That’s amazing ! But it also makes the search engine less useful. So Google needed to find a new way to keep people using its search engine. And that’s how AI overview was born.
It gives the search engine eyes and ears to provide faster and more relevant answers. How? Let me give you a concrete example:
In the video from YouTube of the Google Keynote , we see at (50:53) a woman taking a picture of her DJ mixer and asks why it’s not working properly. And guess what? Google provides a list of possible reasons based on what it “sees” in the photo! Now, that’s what I call a lifesaver!
And this is just one example among many others. Here are some other examples from their blog post: “With a voice or a hum, find your new favorite song; or even Circle to Search for those cool new shoes you might want to buy.” All these examples seem awesome and really helpful.
Google Services
But Google isn’t stopping there. Gemini can also search stuff in popular services like Gmail or Google Photos. Close to an assistant, it can summarize emails, answer questions about our emails, and even draft a reply! Can you believe that ?
The same goes for Google Photos. Just tell it what you are looking for, and boom, it will show you the photos you want, no more endless scrolling. An example? In the demo, a mom asks: “When did Luca learn to swim?” And then Gemini answers and shows pictures of her son in the pool !
AI Generator
Oh, speaking of photos, Google also announced AI generators to create new pictures, videos, and even sound with simple text prompts! Ilamen 3 is for generating high-quality and more realistic images.
Google Veo is for generating videos. It creates realistic, high-quality, and high-resolution videos longer than a minute. Apparently, it can also understand terms like “timelapse” or “aerial shots of a landscape” for more control over cinematic styles. The videos generated in the demo are really amazing. It seems to be Google’s answer to OpenAI’s text-to-image model, Sora. I can’t wait to try them both.
They even have an AI for audio called MusicFX DJ, to generate sounds from text prompts.
In addition to these generators, Google also developed a tool called SynthID. All images and videos generated will have digital watermarks. Don’t worry, it’s not a visual one; it’s more like a hidden signature that helps verify the origin of AI-generated content.
##Conclusion
And that’s all the big news that Google announced. Wow, there are so many cool features. Some of them are already available; for others, we need to wait. But one thing is certain: Google has big plans, and it’s just the start. AI is reshaping our society, and I can’t wait to see where all these evolutions will bring us.
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