Google is bringing AI superpowers to your smartphone camera, and it looks ridiculous
It seems AI assistants are antique, or that’s what Google wants you to believe, for we are in the era of AI agents — and Google I/O 2024 has quickly proven that. Say hello to Project Astra, a generative AI agent with vision, text, and speech capabilities, with a sprinkling of memory and spatial awareness capabilities in tow.
Think of it as eyes for your phone that can make sense of the world around you. Point it at a mathematical equation, and it will solve it. Pointing the camera at a cat? Astra will suggest an apt name for the feline meow-ster. Ask it where you left your earbuds, and if the camera sensor has seen them, it will say something like, “You left them on the sofa.”
Astra can make sense of code appearing on a screen, identify objects and explain what they do, identify buildings, and more. Think of it as Google Lens but for the entire world, and can make sense of most anything in front of the camera’s lens.
Unlike Google Assistant, you don’t need to prompt it. Just point the camera at anything, utter the audio query, and Astra will explain in a natural language response. Google says Project Astra will be rolled out via the Gemini app later this year.
An all-seeing AI agent?
If Project Astra sounds familiar, that’s because OpenAI demoed a similar feature for ChatGPT — powered by the new GPT-4o model — just a day ago. OpenAI’s tool is currently under the red-teaming phase for safety testing and will be released in a phased manner, starting with ChatGPT Plus subscribers.
Google won’t say whether Astra will have a price tag. But given the near spontaneity of responses, the kind of visual data crunching involved, and the generative chops required to offer a meaningful response, it’s unlikely Astra will be served as a free perk owing to the compute requirements.
The best example would be the Google One AI Premium subscription, which already hides some of the new Gemini-powered experiences behind a paywall. But so far, Astra looks like the most amazing AI innovation Google has showcased ever since it wowed the world with Duplex’s capabilities a few years ago.
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Nadeem is a tech journalist who started reading about cool smartphone tech out of curiosity and soon started writing…
We finally know the exact date of Google I/O 2024
Google I/O is one of the biggest tech events of the year. With updates everything from Android to Google Search and (more recently) new Pixel hardware, it’s one of those events you just can’t miss.
Google always holds its I/O conference around the same time each year, typically in early May. However, the exact date is kept secret until a couple of months beforehand. Now, we know exactly when Google I/O 2024 is taking place.
The secret cost of adding AI to your smartphone
The smartphone industry is in a weird place right now. It’s in a state of flux where we can see all the benefits of generative AI knocking at the doors, but the various brands apparently have conflicting ideas on how to push them on smartphones despite bold promises.
Take, for example, Qualcomm, which introduced the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chipset and praised its futuristic generative AI features. The “first mobile platform designed with Generative AI in mind,” said the chipmaker.
Google is launching a powerful new AI app for your Android phone
Remember Bard, Google’s answer to ChatGPT? Well, it is now officially called Gemini. Also, all those fancy AI features that previously went by the name Duet AI have been folded under the Gemini branding. In case you haven’t been following up all the AI development flood, the name is derived from the multi-modal large language model of the same name.
To go with the renaming efforts, Google has launched a standalone Gemini app on Android. Moreover, the Gemini experience is also being made available to iPhone users within the Google app on iOS. But wait, there’s more.
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