Google holds its developer’s conference every year except for last year, it was cancelled because of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. However, this year, the search engine giant has decided to host a virtual Google I/O event on May 18 at 10 am PT i.e., 10:30 pm IST.
The California-based technology company will reportedly focus on updates following Android 12, Google Pay, Google Play, Google Maps and Google Assistant. Mind you, it is a developer’s conference but as speculations suggest, Google will announce some good news for its consumers as well.
As mentioned in the official Keynote invitation sent out to developers, Google invites developers to tune in to the live event to learn about the company’s growing mission “to organise the world’s information and making it universally accessible and useful.”
Google I/O Event: Android 12 and Pixel Watch
Android 12 is the most major update that all developers and the technology industry are waiting for. The latest iteration of Android OS is meant to bring some major visual changes to the user interface and as speculated, the lock screen and notifications bar is getting a makeover as well. As mentioned in a report by Android Police, Google had released a developer preview of Android 12 with an added feature “Emergency SOS”. Users simply have to press the power button rapidly five times and Emergency SOS will activate. This is only one of many new updates coming to Google’s Android 12.
Furthermore, Pixel Buds are highly speculated to be rolled out in this event as they have been in the works for some time now. Other than this, there are multiple reports from trusted sources that say that “Pixel Watch” is in the works by Google and that it might launch the product at its I/O Developer’s event.
However, as mentioned in a report by The Hindu, Google has recently acquired Fitbit and launching a Pixel Watch would certainly sabotage Fitbit’s sale and Google does not want that at any cost. The report also mentions that Pixel Watch might be in the works but it is highly unlikely to be launched at today’s event.
Google might also integrate Google WearOS with Fitbit watches to leverage the benefits of the entire Google ecosystem and the end result could be a very interesting development.
Google Whitechapel:
Google is reportedly working on its very own processor chipset, codenamed at Whitechapel and the search engine giant may possibly reveal some insights on the project at its I/O event. As speculated, Google might use its Whitechapel chip to power Google Pixel 6 as speculated by 9to5Google.
