Earlier this month we brought you 5 Google Projects to Keep Your Eye On In 2016. We had so much fun bringing you the latest and greatest from one of the most popular companies in the world that we thought we’d update you with more Google plans for 2016. As just a quick reminder, Google’s umbrella company is now called Alphabet. Under this empire lies companies you are more familiar with like Google, Calico, Nest, Google Fiber, Google Ventures, Google Capital, Google X, etc. Within this whole framework there are still plenty of projects to pay attention to including Google’s Advanced Technology and Projects: Deep Mind AI Lab, Project Tango’s 3D Smartphone, and Project Abacus.
Google Plans For 3 More Projects in 2016!
Google plans for 2016 include several exciting projects!
Deep Mind AI Lab
Deep Mind is an artificial intelligence company that was acquired in 2014. It is now an Alphabet company and nifty Google project. So what’s cool about Deep Mind? It’s teaching a computer to learn by playing games. It’s not out to just beat it’s digital opponent though. It’s designed to be more generally adaptive, learn a game’s rules and controls from the bottom up, and, ultimately, be successful. The algorithm has already learned to outplay humans in the pixel-based game of Breakout, plus 31 other games. Next it will be conquering 3D games and robotic control simulators. 2001’s HAL 9000 is coming to get you!
Project Tango 3D Smartphone
This year at CES, Google and Lenovo announced the first commercial Tango device would launch this summer. Project Tango is a line of phones and tables that contain computer vision sensors. These sensors make it possible for the device to achieve depth perception, augmented reality, area learning, indoor wayfinding and whatever a developer who purchases the devkit can devise. Mobile devices will soon know how to use computer vision like humans do, that is, to understand the essentials of how we move through our daily lives. Google released a developer kit in 2014 and it’s sold more than 3,000 so far. The commercial device from Lenovo and Google is said to be “six-point-something” inches and cost “less than $500.” So secretive on these Google plans! The company demos included a reality game of Jenga! Get to programming, kids!
Project Abacus
Project Abacus’ intention is to do away with passwords. Google ATAP’s Project Abacus is a real time security system for the smartphone that wants to makes sure YOU are really you. So how does it work? Testing with 40tb of data across 28 states in collaboration with 33 universities, Project Abacus is designed to be an omni-present system that generates a “trust score” based on your type of usage. For example, use of a streaming app would require a very low trust score whereas logging into a banking app would warrant a very high score. Abacus calculates the trust score (from 1 to 100) based on different signals, facial recognition, speech input, your typing behavior, location, walking motions, and Bluetooth devices nearby. The project is hoping to blow current fingerprint sensor authentication out of the water. The goal is to make Abacus available to millions of Android devices with just a software update. Fingers crossed!
I hope you enjoyed part deux of all the Google plans for projects to keep an eye on 2016. We’ll be monitoring their progress closely. Stay tuned!
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