Author Archives: A Googler

Google Play Best of 2020 Winners for India


It’s that time of year where we celebrate the best of Google Play in India! More than ever before, this year we were brought together by our favourite apps and games, even when we were apart. And this time around, we’ve added a few goodies in our Best of Play picks including new categories that you’ll find especially relevant and useful, such as special picks for the best apps for personal growth and everyday essentials.


There’s also a callout to the ‘App for Good’, which you’ll find particularly useful in these times. This app happens to be by an Indian developer, as does the Best App of 2020! 


You also rocked the vote to crown your favorites… and the tallies are in.  And so, it’s time to celebrate the year’s top titles across Google Play.


Your 2020 Users’ Choice winners for games and apps are World Cricket Championship 3 – WCC3 and Microsoft Office: Word, Excel, PowerPoint & More.


Explore the complete lists below to see what the Google Play editors loved and what topped the charts in India this year. And check out the full lists in the Best of 2020 section of the Play Store.

 

BEST APP OF 2020

 

Best apps for Fun

 

Best apps for Personal Growth

 

Best apps for Everyday Essentials

 

Best Hidden Gems

 

Best App for Good: InnerHour Self-Care Therapy - Anxiety & Depression



BEST GAME OF 2020

 

Best competitive games

 

Best Innovative games

Best Casual games

 

Best Indie games


Posted by Brett Bouchard, Global Head of Editorial, Google Play

Updating Google Photos’ storage policy to build for the future

We launched Google Photos more than five years ago with the mission of being the home for your memories. What started as an app to manage your photos and videos has evolved into a place to reflect on meaningful moments in your life. Today, more than 4 trillion photos are stored in Google Photos, and every week 28 billion new photos and videos are uploaded. 

Since so many of you rely on Google Photos to store your memories, it’s important that it’s not just a great product, but also continues to meet your needs over the long haul. In order to welcome even more of your memories and build Google Photos for the future, we are changing our unlimited High quality storage policy. 

Starting June 1, 2021, any new photos and videos you upload will count toward the free 15 GB of storage that comes with every Google Account or the additional storage you’ve purchased as a Google One member. Your Google Account storage is shared across Drive, Gmail and Photos. This change also allows us to keep pace with the growing demand for storage. And, as always, we uphold our commitment to not use information in Google Photos for advertising purposes. We know this is a big shift and may come as a surprise, so we wanted to let you know well in advance and give you resources to make this easier. 


Existing High quality photos and videos are exempt from this change 


Any photos or videos you’ve uploaded in High quality before June 1, 2021 will not count toward your 15GB of free storage. This means that photos and videos backed up before June 1, 2021 will still be considered free and exempt from the storage limit. You can verify your backup quality at any time in the Photos app by going to back up & sync in Settings.


If you back up your photos and videos in Original quality, these changes do not affect you. As always, your Original quality photos and videos will continue to count toward your 15 GB of free storage across your Google Account. 

If you have a Pixel 1-5, photos uploaded from that device won’t be impacted. Photos and videos uploaded in High quality from that device will continue to be exempt from this change, even after June 1, 2021. 


There’s no action you need to take today


This change does not take effect for another six months, so you don’t need to do anything right now. And once this change does take effect on June 1, 2021, over 80 percent of you should still be able to store roughly three more years worth of memories with your free 15 GB of storage. As your storage nears 15 GB, we will notify you in the app and follow up by email. 


Understand and manage your quota


To understand how this impacts you, you can see a personalized estimate for how long your storage may last. This estimate takes into account how frequently you back up photos, videos and other content to your Google Account.


And in June 2021, you’ll be able to access a new free tool in the Photos app to easily manage your backed up photos and videos. This tool will help you review the memories you want to keep while also surfacing shots you might prefer to delete, like dark or blurry photos or large videos.


If you decide you want more space, you can always expand your storage through Google One. Plans start at $1.99 per month in the U.S. for 100 GB of storage and include additional member benefits like access to Google experts, shared family plans and more.

 

Thank you for using Google Photos and we hope to continue to be the home for your memories. You can learn more about this change in our Help Center.


Posted by Shimrit Ben-Yair, Vice President, Google Photos

An update to storage policies across your Google Account

Over the past decade, Gmail, Google Drive and Google Photos have helped billions of people securely store and manage their emails, documents, photos, videos and more. Today, people are uploading more content than ever before—in fact, more than 4.3 million GB are added across Gmail, Drive and Photos every day. 

To continue providing everyone with a great storage experience and to keep pace with the growing demand, we're announcing important upcoming storage changes to your Google Account. These changes will apply to Photos and Drive (specifically Google Docs, Sheets, Slides, Drawings, Forms and Jamboard files) and will enable us to continue investing in these products for the future. We're also introducing new policies for consumer Google Accounts that are either inactive or over their storage limit across Gmail, Drive (including Google Docs, Sheets, Slides, Drawings, Forms and Jamboard files) and Photos, to bring our policies more in line with industry standards. 

These storage policy changes won’t take effect until June 1, 2021. However, we wanted to let you know well in advance and give you the resources to navigate these changes. Google Workspace subscribers, and G Suite for Education and G Suite for Nonprofits customers should refer to our Google Workspace Updates post to understand how these changes may affect them.

As always, every Google Account will continue to come with 15 GB of free storage across Gmail, Drive and Photos, which we estimate should last the majority of our users several years.  Because the content you store with these apps is primarily personal, it’s not used for advertising purposes. We’ll also continue to give you visibility and control over your storage, and provide tools to help you easily manage it. 


New content that will count toward your Google Account storage


Beginning June 1, any new photo or video uploaded in High quality in Google Photos will count toward your free 15 GB storage quota or any additional storage you’ve purchased as a Google One member. To make this transition easier, we’ll exempt all High quality photos and videos you back up before June 1. This includes all of the High quality photos and videos you currently store with Google Photos. Most people who back up in High quality should have years before they need to take action—in fact, we estimate that 80 percent of you should have at least three years before you reach 15 GB. You can learn more about this change in our Google Photos post.


Also starting June 1, any new Docs, Sheets, Slides, Drawings, Forms or Jamboard file will begin counting toward your free 15 GB of allotted storage or any additional storage provided through Google One. Existing files within these products will not count toward storage, unless they’re modified on or after June 1. You can learn more in our Help Center.


A new policy for accounts that are inactive or over storage limit


We’re introducing new policies for consumer accounts that are either inactive or over their storage limit across Gmail, Drive (including Google Docs, Sheets, Slides, Drawings, Forms and Jamboard files) and/or Photos to better align with common practices across the industry. After June 1: 

  • If you're inactive in one or more of these services for two years (24 months), Google may delete the content in the product(s) in which you're inactive. 

  • Similarly, if you're over your storage limit for two years, Google may delete your content across Gmail, Drive and Photos.

We will notify you multiple times before we attempt to remove any content so you have ample opportunities to take action. The simplest way to keep your account active is to periodically visit Gmail, Drive or Photos on the web or mobile, while signed in and connected to the internet. 

The Inactive Account Manager can help you manage specific content and notify a trusted contact if you stop using your Google Account for a certain period of time (between 3-18 months). Note that the new two year inactive policy will apply regardless of your Inactive Account Manager settings. 

You can learn more about these changes in our Help Center.


How to manage your storage


To help you manage your Google Account storage, anyone can use the free storage manager in the Google One app and on the web, which gives you an easy way to see how you’re using your storage across Gmail, Drive and Photos. You can keep the files you want, delete the ones you no longer need and make room for more—all in one place.



In addition to helping us meet the growing demand for storage, these changes align our storage policies across products. As always, we remain committed to providing you a great experience and hope to continue to serve you in the future. You can learn more about this change in our Help Center.


Posted by Jose Pastor, Vice President, Google Workspace, and Shimrit Ben-Yair, Vice President, Google Photos

Reflecting on our Google News Initiative work in India

Today, we reflect on the past two years of the Google News Initiative as we publish our first GNI Impact report. Our efforts have reached every corner of the world, including India, and we’re proud of the work we’ve accomplished in those two and a half years with our partners. 


We’ve learned that the Indian media industry is truly a unique ecosystem, and we must work with all tiers and types of players to be representative and have real impact. To solve for Indian media’s business issues, there is a need to develop bespoke local solutions that are data-driven and also that the industry must work together - from news outlets, to news associations and technology platforms like ourselves. We cannot succeed without each of us working together towards the common goal of creating a sustainable media ecosystem. 


But we also learned that crises can be unexpected and require unprecedented support. That’s why when the COVID-19 pandemic swept through the world, we pivoted our efforts. Through the Journalism Emergency Relief Fund, we were able to provide financial support to 228 news organizations across the country, with recipients able to use the fund in whatever way would help them navigate the crisis. For example, Minnambalam was able to keep their newsroom going, the funding giving them the confidence and financial support needed to carry on with their work.


As we look back to all we have accomplished beyond this unprecedented year, here is the highlight of our India work, which spanned three key areas:


Elevating quality journalism

Supporting newsrooms in delivering quality reporting sits at the heart of the GNI’s mission, and our work in India is deeply rooted in supporting editorial talent, especially in the fight against misinformation. In June 2018, we launched the GNI India Training Network, in partnership with BoomLive, DataLeads and Internews. The program has trained over 20,000 Indian journalists trained in-person or via virtual live workshops in 10 languages, touching 1,000+ news organizations and 700+ universities.


These skills were especially critical in providing quality information to Indian voters during the 2019 election. And it is why we also supported the launch of PollCheck, a pan-India training series on online verification and fact-checking, journalist digital safety and security, YouTube for elections coverage and data visualization for elections.


But it’s not enough to arm the journalists with the right skills - citizens need to be trained, too. Having the skills to assess and validate information is key to preventing the spread of misinformation online. That’s why we provided a US$1 million grant to support FactShala, a first-of-its-kind news literacy program focused on first-time internet users in non-metro cities in India. 250 journalists, fact checkers, academics and NGO workers are rolling out a media literacy curriculum in 7 Indian languages to help internet users assess online information.


Empowering sustainable business growth

Readers’ consumption habits have changed, and media have had to adapt to this ever-evolving environment. To reach new audiences, media have to play with new content formats, and we’re here to help. Just recently, we brought visual and immersive Web Stories to Discover, which helps users find some of the best visual content from around the web. Last year, we contributed to helping Indian media better understand readers by launching Question Hub, a tool where we provide users’ unanswered questions to publishers, so they can use these insights to create richer, better content for their audience. 


We provide free tools that the media are able to use to boost reader engagement -- and Dainik Jagran did just that using Realtime Consumer Insights. They used the tool to monitor Google Trends and Twitter conversations during the 2019 general elections. The tool helped their newsroom understand voter questions about the political race, prioritize covering and promoting the news stories that mattered most to their audience and build loyalty with readers over time. Those strategies resulted in a 450 percent boost in traffic, 180 percent increase in the time readers spent on their site and 300 percent growth in ad revenue on election day.


We also partner with media on tailored solutions, such as with the Economic Times Prime to implement Subscribe with Google. This solution makes it easier for readers to subscribe to premium content online, and retain access through platforms, to ensure a seamless experience. We are in discussions to roll this feature out to more publications in India.


We also work with Indian media through participation in regional GNI programs, whose lessons are then shared to help more publishers. Recently, The Hindu and Bloomberg Quint were selected as part of GNI APAC Subscription Lab, a program to help news publishers strengthen digital subscriptions capabilities and grow reader revenue. 


Empowering newsrooms through innovation

Finally, while the media may face many challenges today, continuous innovation should be front and center -- and we have seen the innovative spirit through our interactions with Malaysian publications and reporters. Last year, two journalists from News18.com and The News Minute were chosen as part of the 12 Fellows for the Google News Initiative (GNI) Newsroom Leadership Program, a collaboration between GNI and the Columbia School of Journalism, to develop the business and product expertise of emerging newsroom leaders from the Asia Pacific region. The journalists were chosen among hundreds of applicants from across the region, evaluated on the quality and potential of their proposed projects.


Between our GNI APAC Innovation Challenges and GNI YouTube Innovation Funding, programs to fund projects that inject new ideas into the news industry, we awarded a total of 16 Indian media outlets. With the funding, Khabar Lahariya has created a new subscription model around a video series about young people in rural India. Meanwhile, Factly used digital video to make complex government policies and processes accessible to a broad audience, which resulted in a 50% increase in watchtime, and NDTV aligned TV and digital video to drive platform interactivity and audience engagement - driving a 150%+ increase in engagement metrics.


What’s next

We also recently launched the GNI Digital Growth Program in the region, which has been designed with industry experts and news publishers across the world to help small and medium sized news organizations grow their digital businesses. We invite Indian media to course through a range of free playbooks, interactive exercises, digital workshops and labs.


As the world grapples with the implications of the pandemic on society and businesses, the significance of quality journalism has never been greater and we are committed to leveraging the power of technology to support it and help it reach wider audiences. 


Posted by  Rohan Tiwary, Head of Media, News & Entertainment

Dive into Diwali at home with Google Arts & Culture

Every autumn, millions of people around the world come together for firework displays, feasts, prayer, and festivities in celebration of Diwali -- the festival of lights. Millions of clay lamps illuminate homes and public spaces. Floors are covered with cheerful rangolis to bring good luck. With the food, family and festivities, Diwali is all about the experience of coming together, and the vibrant spectacle of color and light, but the global pandemic changes how we celebrate this year. Google Arts & Culture has created a virtual Diwali experience that everyone can be a part of, wherever you are in the world.


Festive lights in Augmented Reality

To recreate some festival fervor, try out a new Augmented Reality experience. Decorate your space virtually with diyas (lamps), detonate virtual anar (firecrackers), for some explosive, playful fun, and to learn more about these important cultural traditions.

Dive into Diwali from home

Google Arts & Culture has partnered with over 20 cultural heritage organisations to launch Diwali @ Home. Striking images and immersive online stories weave a journey through the festival of lights, its legends and folklore, and dive into the sights, sounds and smells of an iconic festival.


Month of Kartika from the collection of Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahalaya

Dokra Diya from the collection of Banglanatak

Radha and Krishna Watching Fireworks in the Sky from the collection of National Museum, New Delhi


The color, food, festivities and nostalgia of Diwali are shared through new online exhibitions from partner institutions including Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahalaya, Indian Museum, National Museum and many more.

Interactive art coloring book for family fun

There’s also plenty of hands-on fun for families with interactive coloring books -- in artworks inspired by traditional Indian paintings in a specially developed coloring book! Find it with Google Search, simply by searching for “Diwali” on your phone.

Lady Lighting a Lamp from the collection of Salar Jung Museum, and a page from the interactive Diwali art coloring book

Finally, watch a video conversation between Amish Tripathi, author and Director of The Nehru Centre, and art historian broadcaster and former museum director Neil MacGregor on Diwali and why it’s particularly special this year.

So, with the help of a little Google magic, we hope our Diwali @ Home experience adds to your festive cheer as you celebrate in your own way this year, on the Google Arts & Culture app for iOS and Android.

Posted by Simon Rein, Program Manager, Google Arts & Culture

Dive into Diwali at home with Google Arts & Culture

Every autumn, millions of people around the world come together for firework displays, feasts, prayer, and festivities in celebration of Diwali -- the festival of lights. Millions of clay lamps illuminate homes and public spaces. Floors are covered with cheerful rangolis to bring good luck. With the food, family and festivities, Diwali is all about the experience of coming together, and the vibrant spectacle of color and light, but the global pandemic changes how we celebrate this year. Google Arts & Culture has created a virtual Diwali experience that everyone can be a part of, wherever you are in the world.


Festive lights in Augmented Reality

To recreate some festival fervor, try out a new Augmented Reality experience. Decorate your space virtually with diyas (lamps), detonate virtual anar (firecrackers), for some explosive, playful fun, and to learn more about these important cultural traditions.

Dive into Diwali from home

Google Arts & Culture has partnered with over 20 cultural heritage organisations to launch Diwali @ Home. Striking images and immersive online stories weave a journey through the festival of lights, its legends and folklore, and dive into the sights, sounds and smells of an iconic festival.


Month of Kartika from the collection of Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahalaya

Dokra Diya from the collection of Banglanatak

Radha and Krishna Watching Fireworks in the Sky from the collection of National Museum, New Delhi


The color, food, festivities and nostalgia of Diwali are shared through new online exhibitions from partner institutions including Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahalaya, Indian Museum, National Museum and many more.

Interactive art coloring book for family fun

There’s also plenty of hands-on fun for families with interactive coloring books -- in artworks inspired by traditional Indian paintings in a specially developed coloring book! Find it with Google Search, simply by searching for “Diwali” on your phone.

Lady Lighting a Lamp from the collection of Salar Jung Museum, and a page from the interactive Diwali art coloring book

Finally, watch a video conversation between Amish Tripathi, author and Director of The Nehru Centre, and art historian broadcaster and former museum director Neil MacGregor on Diwali and why it’s particularly special this year.

So, with the help of a little Google magic, we hope our Diwali @ Home experience adds to your festive cheer as you celebrate in your own way this year, on the Google Arts & Culture app for iOS and Android.

Posted by Simon Rein, Program Manager, Google Arts & Culture

Dive into Diwali at home with Google Arts & Culture

Every autumn, millions of people around the world come together for firework displays, feasts, prayer, and festivities in celebration of Diwali -- the festival of lights. Millions of clay lamps illuminate homes and public spaces. Floors are covered with cheerful rangolis to bring good luck. With the food, family and festivities, Diwali is all about the experience of coming together, and the vibrant spectacle of color and light, but the global pandemic changes how we celebrate this year. Google Arts & Culture has created a virtual Diwali experience that everyone can be a part of, wherever you are in the world.


Festive lights in Augmented Reality

To recreate some festival fervor, try out a new Augmented Reality experience. Decorate your space virtually with diyas (lamps), detonate virtual anar (firecrackers), for some explosive, playful fun, and to learn more about these important cultural traditions.

Dive into Diwali from home

Google Arts & Culture has partnered with over 20 cultural heritage organisations to launch Diwali @ Home. Striking images and immersive online stories weave a journey through the festival of lights, its legends and folklore, and dive into the sights, sounds and smells of an iconic festival.


Month of Kartika from the collection of Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahalaya

Dokra Diya from the collection of Banglanatak

Radha and Krishna Watching Fireworks in the Sky from the collection of National Museum, New Delhi


The color, food, festivities and nostalgia of Diwali are shared through new online exhibitions from partner institutions including Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahalaya, Indian Museum, National Museum and many more.

Interactive art coloring book for family fun

There’s also plenty of hands-on fun for families with interactive coloring books -- in artworks inspired by traditional Indian paintings in a specially developed coloring book! Find it with Google Search, simply by searching for “Diwali” on your phone.

Lady Lighting a Lamp from the collection of Salar Jung Museum, and a page from the interactive Diwali art coloring book

Finally, watch a video conversation between Amish Tripathi, author and Director of The Nehru Centre, and art historian broadcaster and former museum director Neil MacGregor on Diwali and why it’s particularly special this year.

So, with the help of a little Google magic, we hope our Diwali @ Home experience adds to your festive cheer as you celebrate in your own way this year, on the Google Arts & Culture app for iOS and Android.

Posted by Simon Rein, Program Manager, Google Arts & Culture

India’s mini-masterpieces brought to life with AI and AR

Miniature paintings are among the most beautiful, most technically-advanced and most sophisticated art forms in Indian culture. Though compact (about the same size as a small book), they typically tackle profound themes such as love, power and faith. Using technologies like machine learning, augmented reality and high-definition robotic cameras, Google Arts & Culture has partnered with the National Museum in New Delhi to showcase these special works of art in a magical new way.

Virtually wander the halls of a special ‘pocket gallery’

Inspired by the domes and doorways that punctuate Indian homes and public spaces, this is the first AR-powered art gallery designed with traditional Indian architecture. Using your smartphone, you can open up a life-size virtual space, walk around at your leisure and zoom into your favorite pieces—you have this beautiful museum to yourself! 

The first AR-powered art gallery inspired by the domes and doorways of India.

Art meets AI, with  Magnify Miniatures

Miniatures are rich in detailed representations of topics that have shaped Indian culture. Thanks to machine learning, you can now discover these attributes across a collection of miniature paintings. Select from tags like ‘face’, ‘animal’, or even ‘moustache’, and see where these features occur!

Take a closer look with immersive in-painting tours 

Art Camera, our ultra-high-resolution robotic camera, was deployed to produce the most vivid images of masterpieces ever seen. Using these images, we’ve created over 75 in-painting tours to help you stop and appreciate details like wisps of smoke from firecrackers, or see how finesse and variety of every person’s attire in this royal procession—flourishes that you wouldn’t be able to see well with the naked eye.

You can zoom in to see the wisps of smoke in this miniature titled "Lady Holding a Sparkler"

Explore thousands of rich stories and images 

The virtual collection includes 1,200 high resolution images from 25 collections all around the world and more than 75 stories, depicting scenes that include legendary marriage processions, the joy of being among nature, or epic battles. Curious minds,  students and families will find playful and educational ways to enjoy the world of Indian miniatures, such as an interactive coloring book. 

We’re glad that through the power of technology, people all over the world can engage with these miniature masterpieces like never before.

Posted by Simon Rein, Program Manager, Google Arts & Culture

Pixel 4a and Nest Audio on sale in India

Google’s all-new Pixel 4a and the Nest Audio smart speaker went on sale starting today on Flipkart as part of their Big Billion Days Specials, at a special launch price of ₹29,999 (MRP INR 31,999), and ₹6,999 (MRP INR 7,999) respectively. While the Pixel 4a will continue to be available on Flipkart, Nest Audio will also become available later at Reliance Retail and Tata Cliq.

Pixel 4a brings the same incredible camera experiences from Pixel 4, with a new re-designed hole punch design, with features like HDR+ with dual exposure controls, Portrait Mode, Top Shot, Night Sight with astrophotography capabilities and fused video stabilization. The Pixel 4a comes in Just Black with a 5.8-inch OLED display and has a matte finish that feels secure and comfortable in your hand, and features Pixel’s signature color pop power button in mint.


In addition to features like Recorder, which now connects with Google Docs to seamlessly save and share transcriptions and recordings (English only), Pixel 4a will feature helpful experiences like the Personal Safety app for real-time emergency notifications. Pixel 4a also has Live Caption, which provides real-time captioning (English only) for your video and audio content.

Introduced last year in Pixel 4, the new Google Assistant is also available in Pixel 4a to help with getting things done fast, like controlling your apps (sending a text message or opening your calendar,) using it contextually within your apps (open Maps and simply say “Search for South Indian restaurants”), and quickly searching within Google Photos using only your voice. While these new Assistant capabilities are currently only available for English, all of the other Assistant features continue to be available in nine Indian languages.


The Pixel 4a is based on the Qualcomm® Snapdragon™ 730G Mobile Platform, and has the Titan M security module for on-device security, 6GB of RAM and 128GB of storage with an even bigger battery (3140 mAh) that lasts all day*. Pixel 4a users can enjoy entertainment and extra storage, with three-month free trials of YouTube Premium and Google One.

Nest Audio is Google’s latest smart speaker, made for music lovers. Typically, a bigger speaker equals bigger sound, but Nest Audio has a really slim profile—so it fits anywhere in the home. In order to maximize audio output, Google custom-designed quality drivers and housed them in an enclosure that helps it squeeze out every bit of sound possible. 


It is 75 percent louder and has 50 percent stronger bass than the original Google Home. This smart speaker uses a 19mm tweeter for consistent high-frequency coverage and clear vocals, and a 75mm mid-woofer that really brings the bass. Google completed more than 500 hours of tuning to ensure balanced lows, mids and highs so nothing is lacking or overbearing. The custom-designed tweeter allows each musical detail to come through, and the grill, fabric and materials are optimized so you can enjoy the audio without distortion. The bass is significant and the vocals have depth -- from pop to classical to bollywood, Nest Audio sounds great across genres.


Nest Audio is available in India in two colors: Chalk and Charcoal. Its soft, rounded edges blend in with your home’s decor, and its minimal footprint doesn't take up too much space on your shelf or countertop.


Nest Audio also adapts to your home. Its Media EQ feature enables Nest Audio to automatically tune itself to whatever you’re listening to: music, podcasts, audiobooks or even a response from Google Assistant. And Ambient IQ lets Nest Audio also adjust the volume of Assistant, news, podcasts and audiobooks based on the background noise in your home, so you can hear the weather forecast over a noisy vacuum cleaner.


If you have a Google Home, Nest Mini or even a Nest Hub, you can easily make Nest Audio the center of your whole home sound system. You can also pair two Nest Audio speakers to operate in stereo, for left and right channel separation. And with Google Assistant available in Hindi and English, Nest Audio helps you tackle your day, enjoy your entertainment and control a range of compatible smart home brands like Philips Hue, TP-Link and more.

 

Posted by the Google India team

*Approximate battery life based on a mix of talk, data, standby, and use of other features, with always on display off. An active display and other usage factors will decrease battery life. Pixel 4a battery testing conducted in Mountain View, California in early 2020 on pre-production hardware and software. Actual results may vary.

How AI is powering a more helpful Google

When I first came across the web as a computer scientist in the mid-90s, I was struck by the sheer volume of information online, in contrast with how hard it was to find what you were looking for. It was then that I first started thinking about search, and I’ve been fascinated by the problem ever since. 


We’ve made tremendous progress over the past 22 years, making Google Search work better for you every day. With recent advancements in AI, we’re making bigger leaps forward in improvements to Google than we’ve seen over the last decade, so it’s even easier for you to find just what you’re looking for. Today during our Search On livestream, we shared how we're bringing the most advanced AI into our products to further our mission to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.

Helping you find exactly what you’re looking for

At the heart of Google Search is our ability to understand your query and rank relevant results for that query. We’ve invested deeply in language understanding research, and last year we introduced how BERT language understanding systems are helping to deliver more relevant results in Google Search. Today we’re excited to share that BERT is now used in almost every query in English, helping you get higher quality results for your questions. We’re also sharing several new advancements to search ranking, made possible through our latest research in AI: 


Spelling

We’ve continued to improve our ability to understand misspelled words, and for good reason—one in 10 queries every day are misspelled. Today, we’re introducing a new spelling algorithm that uses a deep neural net to significantly improve our ability to decipher misspellings. In fact, this single change makes a greater improvement to spelling than all of our improvements over the last five years.

A new spelling algorithm helps us understand the context of misspelled words, so we can help you find the right results, all in under 3 milliseconds.


Passages

Very specific searches can be the hardest to get right, since sometimes the single sentence that answers your question might be buried deep in a web page. We’ve recently made a breakthrough in ranking and are now able to not just index web pages, but individual passages from the pages. By better understanding the relevancy of specific passages, not just the overall page, we can find that needle-in-a-haystack information you’re looking for. This technology will improve 7 percent of search queries across all languages as we roll it out globally.

With new passage understanding capabilities, Google can understand that the specific passage (R) is a lot more relevant to a specific query than a broader page on that topic (L).


Subtopics

We’ve applied neural nets to understand subtopics around an interest, which helps deliver a greater diversity of content when you search for something broad. As an example, if you search for “home exercise equipment,” we can now understand relevant subtopics, such as budget equipment, premium picks, or small space ideas, and show a wider range of content for you on the search results page. We’ll start rolling this out by the end of this year.


 

Access to high quality information during COVID-19

We’re making several new improvements to help you navigate your world and get things done more safely and efficiently. Live busyness updates show you how busy a place is right now so you can more easily social distance, and we’ve added a new feature to Live View to help you get essential information about a business before you even step inside. We’re also adding COVID-19 safety information front and center on Business Profiles across Google Search and Maps. This will help you know if a business requires you to wear a mask, if you need to make an advance reservation, or if the staff is taking extra safety precautions, like temperature checks. And we’ve used our Duplex conversational technology to help local businesses keep their information up-to-date online, such as opening hours and store inventory.

Understanding key moments in videos

Using a new AI-driven approach, we’re now able to understand the deep semantics of a video and automatically identify key moments. This lets us tag those moments in the video, so you can navigate them like chapters in a book. Whether you’re looking for that one step in a recipe tutorial, or the game-winning home run in a highlights reel, you can easily find those moments. We’ve started testing this technology this year, and by the end of 2020 we expect that 10 percent of searches on Google will use this new technology.

Deepening understanding through data

Sometimes the best search result is a statistic. But often stats are buried in large datasets and not easily comprehensible or accessible online. Since 2018, we’ve been working on the Data Commons Project, an open knowledge database of statistical data started in collaboration with the U.S. Census, Bureau of Labor Statistics, World Bank and many others. Bringing these datasets together was a first step, and now we’re making this information more accessible and useful through Google Search.


Now when you ask a question like “how many people work in Chicago ,” we use natural language processing to map your search to one specific set of the billions of data points in Data Commons to provide the right stat in a visual, easy to understand format. You’ll also find other relevant data points and context—like stats for other cities—to help you easily explore the topic in more depth. 

Helping quality journalism through advanced search

Quality journalism often comes from long-term investigative projects, requiring time consuming work sifting through giant collections of documents, images and audio recordings. As part of Journalist Studio, our new suite of tools to help reporters do their work more efficiently, securely, and creatively through technology, we’re launching Pinpoint, a new tool that brings the power of Google Search to journalists. Pinpoint helps reporters quickly sift through hundreds of thousands of documents by automatically identifying and organizing the most frequently mentioned people, organizations and locations. Reporters can sign up to request access to Pinpoint starting this week.

Search what you see, and explore information in 3D

For many topics, seeing is key to understanding. Several new features in Lens and AR in Google Search help you learn, shop, and discover the world in new ways. Many of us are dealing with the challenges of learning from home, and with Lens, you can now get step-by-step homework help on math, chemistry, biology and physics problems. Social distancing has also dramatically changed how we shop, so we’re making it easier to visually shop for what you’re looking for online, whether you’re looking for a sweater or want a closer look at a new car but can’t visit a showroom.

If you don’t know how to search it, sing it

We’ve all had that experience of having a tune stuck in our head, but can’t quite remember the lyrics. Now, when those moments arise, you just have to hum to search, and our AI models can match the melody to the right song. 

What sets Google Search apart

There has never been more choice in the ways people access information, and we need to constantly develop cutting-edge technology to ensure that Google remains the most useful and most trusted way to search. Four key elements form the foundation for all our work to improve Search and answer trillions of queries every year. These elements are what makes Google helpful and reliable for the people who come to us each day to find information.


Understanding all the world’s information

We’re focused on deeply understanding all the world’s information, whether that information is contained in words on web pages, in images or videos, or even in the places and objects around us. With investments in AI, we’re able to analyze and understand all types of information in the world, just as we did by indexing web pages 22 years ago. We’re pushing the boundaries of what it means to understand the world, so before you even type in a query, we’re ready to help you explore new forms of information and insights never before available. 


The highest quality information 

People rely on Search for the highest quality information available, and our commitment to quality has always been what set Google apart from day one. Every year we launch thousands of improvements to make Search better, and rigorously test each of these changes to ensure people find them helpful. Our ranking factors and policies are applied fairly to all websites, and this has led to widespread access to a diversity of information, ideas and viewpoints.


World class privacy and security

To keep people and their data safe, we invest in world class privacy and security. We’ve led the industry in keeping you safe while searching with Safe Browsing and spam protection. We believe that privacy is a universal right and are committed to giving every user the tools they need to be in control.


Open access for everyone

Last—but certainly not least—we are committed to open access for everyone. We aim to help the open web thrive, sending more traffic to the open web every year since Google was created. Google is free for everyone, accessible on any device, in more than 150 languages around the world, and we continue to expand our ability to serve people everywhere.


So wherever you are, whatever you’re looking for, however you’re able to sing, spell, say, or visualize it, you can search on with Google.


Posted by Prabhakar Raghavan, Senior Vice President, Search & Assistant, Geo, Ads, Commerce, Payments & NBU