Pichai in Bengali

It was a sundor moment as Alphabet and Google CEO Sundar Pichai discussed PaLM or Pathways Language Model with example sentences in Bengali. First, what’s PaLM? It’s a model that can solve complex math word problems and answer questions in new languages with very little additional training data. Basically, it shows how AI thinks through questions. Pichai offered examples. And one of them involved a search in Bengali for the best pizza in New York. What the model does is scan through queries in English but offers information that Bengali-speaking users will understand. He also offered examples where a question gets asked in Bengali and the answer is in Bengali as well as in English. During his presentation, he showed on the screen “Kiwi pakhira kothai baash kore?”

‘Ctrl-F for the world around you’

New enhancements for Lens Multisearch tool is coming our way. Google senior vice-president Prabhakar Raghavan announced that you will be able to conduct a search with just an image and a few words. There will be a new mode called “near me” that will allow users to take a photo of an object and then find results locally, which means you can easily find a restaurant while searching by the picture of a dish. All this and more — scene exploration. Explaining the feature, Raghavan said that if you walk into the chocolate section of a supermarket and scan a shelf packed with chocolates, the overlays will provide “helpful insights”, like reviews about each object. And then he delivered the best punchline of this year’s Google I/O edition: “This is like having a supercharged ctrl-F for the world around you.”

Pixel tablet

Pixel tablet is coming

Set to be one of the most-awaited products of 2023, Pixel tablet is coming, which in a way is a successor to Pixel Slate from 2018. Lately, the company hasn’t taken tablets seriously to the point that many of the apps don’t run properly on tablets manufactured by other companies. Though not much is known about it, the tablet will act more like a companion to the Pixel phone and the focus will be on maximising the Android experience. After all, we are living at a time when the lines between the tablet and phone are continuously getting blurred. The placement of the front camera will be similar to that on Samsung tablets, that is, on the centre of the long right bezel, making it perfect for videoconferencing.

Pixel 6a

There is, of course, Pixel 6a

Everybody knew that it’s coming. It’s now official that Pixel 6a will be here this summer. It will have more or less the same design as the Pixel 6 but only slightly smaller. The company is promising excellent all-day battery performance and in Extreme Battery Saver mode can even last up to 72 hours. The Pixel 6a will come with five years of security updates and will use Google Tensor.

Here comes Pixel 7 and 7 Pro

What we like most about Google is they like to talk about products, even if they are coming in the future. The company has teased Pixel 7 and Pixel 7 Pro, which will ship with Android 13 and the next-gen Google Tensor chip. On the back of the Pro model will be the Pixel “camera bar” and there appears to be three cameras, so expect standard wide, ultra-wide and telephoto configuration. They will likely be released in October.

Pixel Buds Pro

New sound cans

Coming in July is the new Pixel Buds Pro earbuds, which will have noise cancellation and that should make it a direct competitor to Apple’s AirPods Pro. The earbuds have beam-forming mics, a voice accelerometer and wind-blocking mesh covers to allow for clearer calls. There will also be support for spatial audio.

Google Pixel Watch

It’s true

There is a Google Pixel Watch and after several leaks, Google has confirmed it. It will integrate Fitbit’s technology, helping users track their sleep, heart rate and workouts. The watch runs Google’s Wear OS software and users can also get directions with Google Maps or connect it with their smart home devices. We don’t have a price yet but it will be available in the fall.

AR glasses

AR glasses

It was a decade ago that Google Glass made its debut at I/O 2012. The company is now working on a new set of augmented reality glasses, which was teased through a short clip. The early prototype allows transcription of a conversation in real-time, effectively providing captions for the wearer.

Pictures: Google