If you follow tech news often, you'll be more than aware of the promise offered by artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning. Often, though, it feels like a far-away goal. It will get there, but right now it's primitive. At Google's annual developer conference, held this week near its Mountain View headquarters, the company showed off some of the best practical applications of AI and machine learning I've seen yet. They may not make your jaw drop - or, thankfully, put you out of a job - but it's an incremental change that shows how Google is putting its immense computing power to work.

At Google's 2017 I/O keynote today, CEO Sundar Pichai introduced new products and shared more information about the company's "AI first" future. Here's a running list of what happened that matters. Google is rethinking "all" of its products for an AI-first world. That's the high-level promise from Pichai, and the change Google must successfully navigate to continue its dominance. Examples: Google Search now ranks differently using machine learning, Google Maps Street View automatically recognizes signs, video calling uses machine learning for low-bandwidth situations, etc. Google can now use your camera as an input device.

More and more people are using the phrase "Ok Google" to start a conversation to find information or perform actions using the Google Assistant. Launched last fall, the new assistant is already available on over 100 million devices and is rapidly evolving. Today at Google I/O, its creator took the stage to discuss how Google Assistant is expanding its capabilities and reach on smartphones and Google Home. Google Home, a standalone voice activated smart-appliance and speaker, is getting the most attention, with a number of significant improvements on the way. In a few months, Google Home will be able to make hands-free VOIP calls to any phone in the U.S. or Canada for free.

During a non-stop, two-hour keynote address at its annual I/O developers conference, Google unveiled a barrage of new products and updates. Here's a rundown of the most important things discussed: Google CEO Sundar Pichai kicked off the keynote by unveiling a new computer-vision system coming soon to Google Assistant. Apparently, as Pichai explained, you'll be able to point your phone's camera at something, and the phone will understand what it's seeing. Pichai gave examples of the system recognizing a flower, a series of restaurants on a street in New York (and automatically pulling in their ratings and information from Google), and the network name and password for a wifi router from the back of the router itself--the phone then automatically connecting to the network. Theoretically, in the future, you'll be searching the world not through text or your voice, but by pointing your camera at things.

Mobile phone apps took center stage at Google's annual developer conference on Wednesday as the search giant announced new features for its digital assistant and its popular photo app while devoting little time to the Android mobile operating system. Addressing an audience of thousands of developers in Mountain View, California, Google executives delivered a broad-based update to their product portfolio which also included a slate of new features for the Google Home speaker, a job search tool and even a set of new virtual reality headsets. Meet Google's first 19 employees Meet Google's first 19 employees Only six of Google's earliest employees still work at the internet giant -- and these include co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin. Some early Google employees have gone on to become entrepreneurs, others angel investors, and a lucky few have gone on to become top executives at other tech companies. A few are happily retired. In 2015, a Quora user compiled a list of all the original Googlers and where there careers have taken them. Of the first 21 employees, only six are still at the company.

If you missed out on Google's I/O 2017 keynote earlier today, don't fret. We've cut down all of the noteworthy news on Google Lens, AI, Google Assistant, Google Home, Daydream, Android O and more into a quick TK-minute clip. Just sit back, relax and catch up on all of the news in way less time than we spend taking in the 2-hour presentation this afternoon. For all the latest news and updates from Google I/O 2017, follow along here. A tech writer by day and a graphic designer by night, Billy was ushered into the gadget world by an Atari and its vices: Frogger and Grand Prix.

Google's Assistant is finally ready to take on Siri on Apple's own turf: the iPhone. Yes, you could already play around with the AI-powered chatbot if you downloaded Allo -- Google's mobile-only messenger app -- but its functionality was limited. Eager to check it out, we downloaded it right away and spent some time commanding our Google-branded phone butler around. After a few hours, I'll say that while I find Google Assistant a lot friendlier and smarter than Siri, it doesn't quite replace it. The first obvious barrier is that while Siri is baked right into iOS, you'll need to download Google Assistant as a separate app.

Google I/O is, far and away, Google's most important single event of the year, where CEO Sundar Pichai presents his grand vision for the company in the year to come. So it was a little baffling, at first blush, that Google -- a search company, which makes its money from search advertising -- would spend so much time talking about Google Photos, its photo-sharing service, and camera-related apps in general. At the same time, it makes perfect sense, in its own way. It's the same old Google, adapted for a world where cameras rule over keyboards. Way back in 2009, it launched an app called Google Goggles that let you snap a picture of, say, a book, and search for it online.

Android TV is getting a much-needed makeover later this year complete with Google Assistant, courtesy of Android O. The new user interface is not only prettier, but is designed to put content, not apps, front and center -- a trend we've seen from other streaming TV platforms like Amazon's Fire TV. "We've been on the market now for two years with Android TV and so we tried to take a step back and see what works and what doesn't work," says Sascha Prueter, director of Android TV. "Where is the user experience not as good as we wanted it to be?" "One of things we realized was we needed to make it easier for users to get to their content. There's more and more content available from more and more sources, and so it gets more and more complex for users to actually find all the right content. What we saw was users don't want just a big list of apps and then jump into every app to find out if it has the content they want."

Google is expanding its Assistant in a big way. Previously only available on Pixel phones and within the messaging app Allo, Google released a standalone iPhone app for its digital helper during its I/O developer conference Wednesday. The app, Google said, will help users be more productive. But, as it stands now, the iOS version of Assistant doesn't live up to that promise. In fact, rather than a new "conversational" interface, it feels more like a clunkier, buggier version of Google's existing (and generally underrated) search app. For starters, Assistant's iOS app is a confusing, disjointed, mess.