Google I/O: New features for Maps, Translate, Workspace and Co.

The translator has learned new languages, Google Maps gets a new view and will soon show fuel-saving routes in Europe, Google Docs can summarize texts and the search becomes more independent of words.

24 new languages for Google Translate

Google Translate supports 24 more languages, bringing the total to 133. Schwiizerdütsch was included when it came to which languages would be difficult for the AI to learn, but is not yet among the new languages. However, the 24 new languages are spoken by over 300 million people around the world. The list ranges from Assamese, which is common in northeastern India, to Sorani (Kurdish) and Luganda from Rwanda and Uganda, to Quechua in Latin America.

New view for Google Maps

With "Immersive View," Google Maps gets a new 3D view. For it, an AI combines satellite images and Streetview footage. The technology not only provides exterior views, but also makes interiors such as restaurants virtually walkable. In the course of 2022, the new view will be available for Los Angeles, London, New York, San Francisco and Tokyo. Other cities are in the planning stages.

Climate-friendly route planning is available in the U.S. and Canada so far. The feature, which shows routes that use less fuel, is expected to become available in Europe this year. Google says it has saved half a million tons of CO₂ emissions so far, which would equate to 100,000 fewer cars on the road. These figures are expected to double with expansion into Europe.

In the future, the flight search function on Google Flights will also show the CO₂ emissions of the connections. This will provide another criterion for selecting a flight in addition to price and flight time.

Automation on YouTube

Google wants to make longer videos on YouTube clearer. Automatically created chapters will provide more orientation. For example, the keynote speech at Google I/O is divided into 13 chapters, making it easier to find the various topics.

Google plans to automatically translate subtitles into 16 languages in the near future. Ukrainian is to make a start as early as next month.

Workspace: Summaries in Docs and Chat

In the future, Google wants to use its AI to summarize longer texts. The first step will be Google Docs. Conversations in Google Chats and video calls in Google Meet, whose video quality should also improve regardless of the device used, are to follow in the next few months. Google did not give any details about the supported languages, but it is likely that the offer will only apply to texts in English at the start.

Multisearch: More than just words

Google wants to move its search further away from pure text and keywords. Google Lens has allowed searching with the smartphone camera for some time. Usage had tripled to eight billion queries in 2021. Relatively new is Multisearch. Here you can combine images with keywords. For example, a photo of a dress with a different color. Ideally, Google will then find this dress in the corresponding color. In the course of 2022, the results of Multisearch can be restricted to the immediate vicinity. This will make it possible, for example, to find a restaurant that prepares the dish from your photo, the name of which you don't know. For the time being, however, this will only be possible in English, but at least worldwide.

Google also integrates other databases into its search. The example shows a shelf full of chocolate in a supermarket. On the smartphone, the search now shows the ratings of the various bars. This makes it easy to quickly find a well-rated dark chocolate without nuts spontaneously and on the spot.

Real Tone

Real Tone, Google's project for the realistic reproduction of different skin tones, is no longer only used for photos of the Pixel 6. At skintone.google, the data is available under an open source license for anyone interested.

Google will use Real Tone in the future to offer filter options in the image search. In addition, filters in Google Photos are now able to better adapt automatic corrections to skin tones.

Using Google Assistant without "Hey Google"

Google Assistant will soon also respond without you having to keep activating it with "Hey Google." With "Look and Talk", it should be enough to look at your device to talk to the voice control in the future. It responds when both Face Match and Voice Match recognize you.

The "Quick Phrases" only appear for the Nest Hub Max. These are rather uncritical commands, especially from the smarthome sector. They can be used without further verification, but you can define which commands all people are allowed to give to your Google Assistant.

Privacy: Control over advertising data and search results

Google wants to give you more control over advertising data and search results. Later this year, Google plans to offer "My Ads Center," an overview of the ads you see and why you see them. There you could also tell Google if something doesn't interest you and you'd rather see ads from other topics.

Over the coming months, Google also plans to offer an easy way to have private data like your address or phone number removed from search results. This will not make this data disappear from the Internet, but it would no longer be so easy to find.