One of those living room devices will be Google Home, a small speaker/voice assistant that (as previously reported) competes with Amazon’s Echo line.
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In Google’s demo, the remote is used to select apps in VR System UI, toss objects in virtual world, flip pancakes, and even cast your digital fishing rod. After you get the app installed, it’ll ask you to personalize by choosing the areas of interest to you. Google Assistant can do everything that “OK Google” can do, plus it can work with your own preferences.
Google Vice President of Product Management Mario Queiroz shows the new Google Home during Google I/O 2016 at Shoreline Amphitheatre on May 19, 2016 in Mountain View. The tech company showcased Google Daydream, which will stand as a unifying VR platform for Android devices.
Google’s Ellie Powers suggested a potential use case-you’re late for a meeting, find a parking space, and the meter suggests paying with a parking app, but you don’t have time to download the app. Updating to Android N using this process won’t affect the data stored on your smartphone, but Google advises that anyone looking at upgrading backs up their phone first.
The device, a voice-activated speaker called Google Home forms the centre of a Google plan to use artificial intelligence in computing to help give every user “their own individual Google” by becoming personal to them, according to the firm’s chief.
But Apple’s iPhone carries more cachet with affluent consumers and often introduces features that Android copies. Because of this, it’s investing as much as it can into building upon the design principles of Cardboard into its newest standards of VR hardware and software. There will be a optimal spec for VR, leading to Daydream-ready phones, with Bavor confirming that big companies like Samsung, HTC and LG will have Daydream-ready phones, some available by Autumn 2016. Google is also distributing guidelines for a new controller with a few buttons, a touchpad and sensors to track its orientation and where it’s pointing.
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“VR should be mobile, approachable, and for everyone”, executive Clay Bavor said on stage at Google’s I/O developers’ conference on Wednesday. It has not said when Google Home or Allo will be available. In all likelihood Google might also update VR in the form of a software update and although the experience might not be as good as the DayDream it will still substantiate as a basic VR feature.
