It didn't make the I/O main stage, but in a follow-up post, Google revealed that Chromebooks are getting Linux support to help developers code on the browser-based laptops. A preview will be available for the Pixelbook soon. "Support for Linux will enable you to create, test and run Android and web apps… Run popular editors, code in your favorite language and launch projects to Google Cloud with the command-line. Everything works directly on a Chromebook. Linux runs inside a virtual machine that was designed from scratch for Chromebooks. That means it starts in seconds and integrates completely with Chromebook features. Linux apps can start with a click of an icon, windows can be moved around, and files can be opened directly from apps."

Google CEO Sundar Pichai announced Tuesday during the company's annual I/O developer conference that it is adding six new voices for its virtual assistant, including that of R&B star John Legend. The voices will be available for phones, Google Home smart speakers, and other devices. Pichai told the audience this was possible due to a breakthrough six months ago from Google's DeepMind A.I. team in its WaveNet technology, which stiches together speech recordings by analyzing the underlying raw audio to create a realistic-sounding voice. A video ran on the conference stage showing Legend recording phrases that might be useful for Google Assistant in the company's studio. "Couscous: a type of North a type of North African semolina in granules made from crushed durum wheat," Legend says at one point, appearing to be reading the definition from the Google Dictionary.

Always one of its strong suits, Google announced it plans to go all in on artificial intelligence with the next iteration of Android and the products that run the operating system. As a taste of that at Google IO, the company showed a video of its AI assistant booking an appointment over the phone -- you know, just like a human assistant would. Watch Google Assistant make a real call to make a hair appointment, talking back-and-forth with a human. No, it's not yet available but being tested. Notice how human the voice sounds and how "she" responds to phrases like "Just gimme one second" with an agreeable and natural sounding "mhmm."

In a building called the Partnerplex on Google's sprawling campus in Mountain View, California, I've been invited to hear a 51-second phone recording of someone making a dinner reservation. Person 2: Hi, um, I'd like to reserve a table for Friday the third. Person 1: OK, hold on one moment. As I listen to what sounds like a man and a woman talking, Google's top executives for Assistant, the search giant's digital helper, watch closely to gauge my reaction. They're showing off the Assistant's new tricks a few days before Google I/O, the company's annual developer conference that starts Tuesday. Turns out this particular trick is pretty wild. That's because Person 2, the one who sounds like a man, isn't a person at all.

A link has been sent to your friend's email address. A link has been posted to your Facebook feed.

Google's annual developer conference is normally a relentlessly positive cheerleading session to excite developers to create products for the company and its Android operating system. But this year, there was a hint of a more serious tone as the company discussed creating technology that is not simply innovative, but responsible. The theme of the company's annual conference was "Make Good Things Together." Google chief executive Sundar Pichai said in a keynote address to about 7,000 developers and journalists that Google wants to push ahead to innovate, but he acknowledged that the tech giant can't be "wide-eyed" about it. "There are important questions being raised about the impact of these advances and the role they'll play in our lives," he said. "We know the path ahead needs to be navigated carefully and deliberately."

Google's virtual assistant can now make phone calls on your behalf to schedule appointments, make reservations in restaurants and get holiday hours. The robotic assistant uses a very natural speech pattern that includes hesitations and affirmations such as "er" and "mmm-hmm" so that it is extremely difficult to distinguish from an actual human phone call. The unsettling feature, which will be available to the public later this year, is enabled by a technology called Google Duplex, which can carry out "real world" tasks on the phone, without the other person realising they are talking to a machine. The assistant refers to the person's calendar to find a suitable time slot and then notifies the user when an appointment is scheduled. Google's CEO, Sundar Pichai, demonstrated the capability on stage at the Shoreline Amphitheatre during the company's annual developer conference, I/O.

The number one benefit of information technology is that it empowers people to do what they want to do. It lets people be creative. It lets people be productive. It lets people learn things they didn't think they could learn before, and so in a sense it is all about potential. Microsoft new focus would be Intelligent edge, not Windows.

You've probably been to a supermarket that printed coupons for you at checkout. Or listened to a playlist that your streaming service generated for you. Or gone shopping online and seen a list of products labeled "you might be interested in…." that did indeed contain some stuff that you were interested in. Recommendation engines take data about you, similar consumers, and available products, and use that to figure out what you might be interested in and therefore deliver those coupons, playlists, and suggestions. Recommendation engines can be extremely complex.

In an amazing demo at Google I/0, Google's Assistant can actually ring up a salon or a restaurant to make an appointment for you. You don't have to call yourself even if the pizzeria doesn't have an online reservation system.