Remote collaboration tools; enhancements for privacy, security; and a lot of artificial intelligence: there is a mirror of the life of the last year, distorted by Covid, but also a window on the future in the annual developer conference.
The news on the search engine and artificial intelligence
The future may be closer than we expect. At I / O, the annual developer conference, Google unveiled an innovation that can change the way we search the internet. Through artificial intelligence, in fact. It’s a new technology called the Multitask Unified Model, or MUM, which allows Google to better understand much more complex questions and needs. In the future, less research will therefore be required to complete an activity such as planning a trip online. MUM not only understands language, it generates it.
As Google explained, “imagine a question like ‘I walked Mount Adams and now want to hike Mount Fuji next fall, what should I do different to get ready?’ A question that would hinder search engines today, but in the future MUM could understand this complex task and generate an answer, indicating highly relevant results to delve into. We have already started pilot projects with MUM internally and we are excited about its potential for improvement for Google products ”.
MUM is trained in 75 different languages and many different activities simultaneously, thus developing a more complete understanding of information and knowledge of the world than previous models. MUM is multimodal, so it understands information through text and images and, in the future, it can extend to more modalities such as video and audio.
It is not new that we will see immediately on the search engine. Google will gradually test it, over the next few months, on some specific searches, as happened for the other innovations arrived in recent years, always animated by artificial intelligence.
Google has also announced other improvements to the search engine, daughters of this time. “To be useful, information should be credible and reliable: especially at times like a pandemic or elections, people turn to Google for reliable information,” the company said in a statement.
As is well known, online disinformation has polluted elections in various places around the world and the fight against Covid. “Our positioning systems are designed to prioritize high-quality information, but we also help you evaluate the credibility of sources, right in Google Search. The About This Result feature provides details about a website before you visit it, including its description, when it was first indexed and whether your connection to the site is secure ”.
The other services
Artificial intelligence will also improve other Google services, such as Maps and Shopping. On Maps, route updates will come to reduce the likelihood of hard braking when driving “We believe this feature can eliminate over 100 million hard braking events on Google Maps guided routes every year.” “And if you’re looking for things to do, our more personalized map will highlight relevant places based on the time of day and whether you’re traveling or not. Live View enhancements and detailed street maps will help you explore and fully understand an area as quickly as possible. And if you want to know how crowded certain neighborhoods and areas of a city are, just open Maps ”.
Artificial intelligence is also behind a tool, also revealed to the I / O, with which it will be possible to use the smartphone camera to analyze the condition of our skin and any dermatological problems. Google specifies that the tool does not replace the work of doctors but can serve to push the user to further examinations.
New remote tools
The new addition to Google’s work tools is called Smart Canvas: it creates a shared workspace where colleagues can combine ideas, manage the tasks of each collaborator and have access to the necessary resources for projects. For business video calls, Google is also about to integrate Meet into Google Docs, with background noise cancellation and zoom on people’s faces.
Security and privacy tools
On the security and privacy front, Google has updated the password manager built into Chrome and Android: it now allows you to set a random password for most websites with a single tap. The new function will arrive first in the US and to us in the coming months.
For the same purpose, Google has announced the Private Compute Core, a new partition, or dedicated space, within the Android system, to contain data for machine learning. The goal is always to improve privacy. Ditto the new Locker Folder function, to hide private images in an area protected by password, pin or biometrics.
Android 12
Finally, Google showed the news of Android 12, which will also have a Privacy Dashboard, with which the user can keep an eye on which apps have had access to the various system permissions. It is the equivalent of App Tracking Transparency, which allows users not to give consent to apps to track their data for advertising purposes. A turning point in terms of privacy that has made giants like Facebook turn up their noses. According to a recent survey, after the release of this feature, only 1 in 20 users agreed to be tracked. Proof that the wind is changing and the big tech companies have to adapt to user requests.