After jumping head first into the hardware game last year with the Pixel phones and Home smart speaker, Google seriously picked up the pace in 2017. Not only were there two awesome new Pixel phones, but also smaller and larger Google Home devices, as well as a pair of Pixel-branded earbuds. And through it all, Google's AI-powered Assistant got smarter and smarter. Google took its share of lumps over the past 12 months, and proved that making great hardware isn't as easy as it looks. The Pixel 2 is a gret follow-up to Google's first handset.

In just a few days, Google will kick off its annual I/O conference and the year of Android will finally begin in earnest. The company has been busy, but until Sundar Pichai takes the stage at the Shoreline Amphitheater, we won't know for sure what Google has in store for the rest of 2017. Last year we met a new Google Assistant, Daydream, Home, Allo, Duo, and, of course, Android N, and we can't wait to see what Google rolls out this year. Google usually keeps a pretty tight lid on its biggest announcements, but it seems like it's doubled-down on security leaks this year. The rumor mill has been oddly quiet with the show mere days away from starting, and we're on pins and needles waiting to see what Google has to show us.

Google Assistant is having a great month. Just last week Google started rolling out its voice-activated aide to all Android phones running Marshmallow and Nougat, and now it's showing off a new trick that will make it much more useful: integration with our messages. For whatever reason, Google Assistant struggled when it came to reading our messages before. Even though it had a second home in Allo and could send messages on command, Assistant balked when asked basic questions about our incoming texts, as it was unable to read and interact with them. As first spotted by 9to5Google, that's changed in the latest update. Now you can ask Assistant to hear the last message you received, dictate the one you just sent, and even read the most recent message from a specific person.

Wearables appeared to have so much potential, especially when smartwatches first hit the scene: I mean, who wouldn't want a tiny touchscreen right on your wrist for fitness, smartphone notifications, and even calling? Well, unfortunately, they never took off for several reasons. However, 2017 may see some interesting changes, according to the latest data: Counterpoint claims that wearables powered by AI will grow 376 percent this year, but the question is "Will this be enough to generate renewed interest in wearables?" Currently, wearables market is largely divided into two categories: fitness trackers and smartwatches. Not surprisingly, despite Apple Watch's "success," fitness trackers still lead the market by a big margin.

Google is bringing artificial intelligence to a whole new set of devices, including Android Wear 2.0 smartwatches and the Raspberry Pi board, later this year. A cool thing is these devices don't require a set of powerful CPUs and GPUs to carry out machine learning tasks. Google researchers are instead trying to lighten the hardware load to carry out basic AI tasks, as exhibited by last week's release of Android Wear 2.0 operating system for wearables. Google has added some basic AI features to smartwatches with Android Wear 2.0, and those features can work within the limited memory and CPU constraints of wearables. Android Wear 2.0 has a "smart reply" feature, which provides basic responses to conversations.

One of the new features on Android Wear 2.0 is Smart Reply, which suggests responses to messages that you can quickly tap if you're busy doing something else. In its research blog, Google explained that the feature uses on-device machine intelligence, so it works even if you don't have an internet cloud connection. While the researchers initially thought doing that would be impossible, the "Expander" AI team saw it as a unique opportunity. "[We] returned to the drawing board to design a completely new, lightweight, machine learning architecture -- not only to enable Smart Reply on Android Wear, but also to power a wealth of other on-device mobile applications," the team wrote. It tried using current neural net tech and so-called graph learning, but the models didn't fit on a smartwatch and attempts to limit the number of replies "did not produce useful results," they wrote.

Google has announced Android Wear 2.0, the latest version of the company's operating system for wearables. The software brings a number of new features and performance improvements, but one of the most significant is standalone apps. Users will finally be able to search for apps and download them from Google Play directly on a smartwatch, rather than through a smartphone, as long as it's connected to the web via Bluetooth, Wi-Fi or LTE. This should dramatically improve the Android Wear experience for iPhone users, who can't access the Play store via iOS. The giant human-like robot bears a striking resemblance to the military robots starring in the movie'Avatar' and is claimed as a world first by its creators from a South Korean robotic company Waseda University's saxophonist robot WAS-5, developed by professor Atsuo Takanishi and Kaptain Rock playing one string light saber guitar perform jam session A man looks at an exhibit entitled'Mimus' a giant industrial robot which has been reprogrammed to interact with humans during a photocall at the new Design Museum in South Kensington, London Electrification Guru Dr. Wolfgang Ziebart talks about the electric Jaguar I-PACE concept SUV before it was unveiled before the Los Angeles Auto Show in Los Angeles, California, U.S The Jaguar I-PACE Concept car is the start of a new era for Jaguar.

Google has finally launched Android Wear 2.0 after being delayed multiple times after it was first revealed last year. The updated smartwatch operating system brings in some improvements to its existing software, while also adding some nifty new features. Probably the most sought after new feature on Android Wear 2.0 is that it brings the Google Play Store right into smartwatches. This allows users to browse, download and install apps right on their device without it being connected to a smartphone. The apps are of course simplified versions of their smartphone counterparts, but it does make the smartwatch experience feel more untethered.

NEW YORK--Android Wear hasn't exactly been a wrist-roaring success since its debut in 2014. The pressure is squarely on Google to make good with the Android Wear 2.0 software release that debuts Friday on two new LG smartwatches, especially as it faces completion not just from the Apple Watch, but from Samsung's Gear S3, which relies on a flavor of software called Tizen. The new Android software, which will also be coming to other devices, indeed represents a step forward for such watches--there's support for cellular connectivity, the presence of the Google Assistant, a dedicated Google Play Store, among other enhancements. And you can use the watch more often than before without having to rely on a nearby phone. Still, whether all this moves the clock far enough along in Google's favor is debatable.

The good: Better complications, Includes Google Assistant, Can run standalone apps, Improved fitness tracking, Refined interface that's easier to use, Works on Android and iOS The bad: Mostly playing catch up to Apple and fitness trackers, Smart reply suggestions don't always work well Who should buy: Android phone owners interested in smartwatches will be pleased with the improvements coming in 2.0, but the software won't do much to convince smartwatch skeptics When Android Wear first debuted in 2014, smartwatches were still largely unfamiliar territory, and Google was just figuring out how to adapt Android to wearable devices. More than two years later, Google's refined take on those efforts are set to debut. LG's Watch Style and Watch Sport, out Feb. 10, will be the first smartwatches to ship with Android Wear 2.0, the massive software update Google unveiled last spring. The refresh gives Google-powered smartphones more ammunition to compete with rival devices, especially the market-leading Apple Watch. Among Android Wear 2.0's biggest improvements is how much easier it is to navigate. It's simpler to launch apps, manage notifications, and customize watch faces.