This morning, Google laid out its ambitious vision for the future, and a series of spectacular Google products that will take us there. At its I/O developer conference, the company unveiled a series of new products centered around the company's core competency: Unrivaled search and machine intelligence systems. Unlike earlier years, Google's big reveals were previews -- products launching "later this year" -- not immediate launches. And the most significant announcements -- personal assistant tech and smart messaging apps -- are products that Google rivals Amazon, Apple and Facebook already have out in the market. It's a sign that Google feels confident it can ship these products that are packed, in theory, with impressive, cutting-edge AI. "We want to talk to you a little bit about the future," CEO Sundar Pichai said at the onset of the keynote.

From virtual reality to a new smart-home speaker, Google is showing off just how pervasive it has become even as it's squeezed by its biggest competitors--Facebook, Apple and Amazon. Google showed off a VR system called Daydream, along with plans for headsets that will compete with Facebook's Oculus Rift. In a jab at Amazon, the company announced Google Home, an Internet-connected speaker that listens for your voice commands to play music or control lights and thermostats in the home. It is reminiscent of Amazon's Echo and will be available later this year for a yet-unannounced price. In an attempt to outshine Apple, Google is also adding features to its Android operating system, including the ability to run apps without actually installing apps.

Google unveiled a ton of cool new products and features today at Google I/O, many of them powered by some seriously impressive artificial intelligence going by the name of Google Assistant. Or is it a Google assistant? Which kinda just seems like Google Now? And while we're asking questions … Hold on. Let's take a step back and go over what exactly the Google assistant is, what it does and how it's going to change the way you use Google.

Google I/O was full of announcements about upcoming products and enhancements. We're in a seminal moment, said Google chief executive (CEO) Sundar Pichai kicking off the company's annual I/O Conference in San Francisco. Looking back at the past 17(?!) years, Pichai discussed Google's evolution to the live audience of 7,000. As technology gets more sophisticated, he sees artificial intelligence (AI) playing a huge role in the company's next 17 years. "Leveraging our state-of-the-art capabilities in machine learning and AI, we truly want to take the next step in being more assistive to our user. Today, we are announcing the Google Assistant," said Pichai, one of the only people in the world who's allowed to use the "L" word on Search Engine Watch.

Google showed off a VR system called Daydream, along with plans for headsets that will compete with Facebook's Oculus Rift. In a jab at Amazon, the company announced Google Home, an Internet-connected speaker that listens for your voice commands to play music or control lights and thermostats in the home. It is reminiscent of Amazon's Echo and will be available later this year for a yet-unannounced price. In an attempt to outshine Apple, Google is also adding features to its Android operating system, including the ability to run apps without actually installing apps. That's perhaps the one truly new thing Google announced Wednesday. It is Google's answer to the pain of installing phone apps you know you'll use just once or twice, for shopping or booking a parking spot, for example.

Mountain View (United States) (AFP) - Google on Wednesday unveiled a virtual home assistant device that brings together the Internet titan's strengths to challenge Amazon Echo. Google Home, about the size of a stout vase, will hit the market later this year, vice president of product management Mario Queiroz promised at the opening of the Internet giant's annual developers conference in the Silicon Valley city of Mountain View. Home devices will incorporate new Google virtual assistant software introduced by chief executive Sundar Pichai. "Our ability to do conversational understanding is far ahead of what other virtual assistants can do," Pichai told a packed audience at the Shoreline Amphitheatre, a venue known more for concerts than for gatherings of developers. "We are an order of magnitude ahead of everyone else."

If there was a theme to Google's 2016 developers conference, I/O, it was everything you've seen before -- but smarter. More than 7,000 software developers packed the Shoreline Amphitheater in Mountain View, Calif., on Wednesday to hear Google executives talk about products and features coming to consumers and the developer community. With nearly half the amphitheater exposed to sunlight, the tech giant handed out free sunglasses and sunscreen to attendees, who supplemented with their own caps and parasols. A few developers covered the tops of their heads with Google t-shirts and bandanas. The event had been held in San Francisco's all-indoor Moscone Center for the last 10 years, but Google Chief Executive Sundar Pichai told the audience that I/O was breaking tradition to signal new beginnings (if not new tan lines).

The speaker is part of Google Assistant which aims to take on Amazon's Alexa and Apple's Siri. Speaking at an event in California, Google's vice president of product management says the speaker will be available at the end of the year

Google had a lot to showcase at its annual developer conference on Wednesday, from a new home virtual assistant to plans to delve deeper into virtual reality. This year's Google I/O focused heavily on machine learning and VR, and how these technologies are being applied to Google's core products. Google Home, launching later this year, is very much what it sounds like: a virtual assistant for your house. It's a voice-activated device meant to be placed in the home that allows for access to Google when your phone isn't nearby. The company also positioned the device as a smart controller for the home during its presentation, saying it's capable of communicating with nearby connected gadgets like smart light bulbs and Nest devices.

Jefferson Graham reports from Google's I/O developer conference, where the Internet giant introduced new home products and apps aimed at having Google make your life easier. The standalone device will compete directly with Amazon's popular Echo and should be available to consumers later this year, Google CEO Sundar Pichai announced at the search company's annual developers conference, Google I/O. The move had been anticipated, as Google looks to put its mark on a coming age of artificial intelligence in which machines learn to interpret and answer human queries by leveraging the speed and scope of cloud computing. Though smartphones still hold a lock human-computing interactions, the surprise hit of Amazon's Echo speaker has energized a new category: speakers run by digital assistants connected to a tech giant's app and content ecosystem. Google Home project lead Mario Querioz held the device in his palm, revealing a design that was shorter and wider than Amazon's cylindrical Echo, which is powered by Amazon's virtual assistant Alexa.