Google I/O 2016: Project Ara to Project Soli, a look at the top announcements

Google's I/O 2016 saw new products like the Google Assistant, Google Home speaker, new apps for chatting, video being announced. Google also announced improvements to Project Soli mentioned last year, and its modular phones under Project Ara. The modular phones are expected to hit the market next year. Google's Project Jacquard Smart Commuter jacket announced in tie-up with Levi's lets users interact with their smartphones by swiping at the garment in various ways. Let us take a look at all the announcements made at Google I/O 2016. Read more here

Google's announced an improvement to Project Soli, Project Jacquard and gesture tracking technology. Project Soli, which was mentioned at Google I/O last year, is a solution that the company is offering to the world of wearable technology. This sensor detects the sensitivity of finger movement without relying on traditional touch-screen devices.

Google's ATAP team Director, Dan Kaufman, in a keynote at the the conference revealed an improved Project Soli chip that reduces power consumption by about 5 per cent. The company also showed a concept smartwatch powered by the Soli chip at the event, which works entirely on gestures. Google has built what it calls a “full-gesture recognition pipeline” in this sensor to understand each and every gesture of the human hand. The signals are then used to interpret the intention.

Google also revealed a jacket powered by Project Jacquard technology and developed by the internet giant's Advanced Technology and Projects Group. The Levi's jacket called the ‘Commuter Trucker Jacket’ lets users interact with their smartphones by swiping at the garment in various ways. The jacket is apparently waterproof – except for a detachable electronic smart tag that activates a wireless connection between the clothing and a mobile device. Read more here

Also, Google plans to start selling its mobile phones with modular, replaceable parts – the first phone ever that the tech giant is manufacturing – by next year, according to a media report. The Project Ara team, involved in developing the product, confirmed that the modular phones will be available to consumers next year. Read more here

Google Home is the Assistant-powered speaker device, which will stream music, entertainment videos from the cloud, and handle everyday tasks for users. Just like Amazon’s Echo, users can speak to the device via Google Assistant. Read more here

Google Allo is a new messaging app powered by machine learning, and aims to make your conversations richer. Allo has the Google Assistant built-in as well. This is Google’s answer to the other chatbot-based messaging services like Facebook Messenger. Read more here

In Android N, Google has introduced Vulcan API to give game developers direct control of the GPU to improve high-end graphics gaming. Read more here

DayDream is Google’s platform for high-quality, immersive mobile VR experience on Android smartphones. Google is looking at the whole VR ecosystem; from smartphones which have the right specs and are ‘DayDream’ ready, to VR headsets to apps. Read more here

Google has also created a reference design for ‘headsets’ which will work across these smartphones. The first of these VR headsets will start launching in Fall. Read more here

Android Wear 2.0 brings improvements to the Watch Face, Messaging and Fitness on the app. Any Watchface will now show data from any app and users can customise this, based on their needs. Read more here

Android Instant apps will work, without the need to download the app. So the user is not required to download the app, and gets an “app-like” experience. Read more here

Android Studio 2.2 is to help developers run their apps faster (10x) with the ability to deploy changes, even in a running app. Read more here