Google I/O 2022 – Babel fish

Google puts a placeholder on the Metaverse with a Babel fish.

• The all-important Google I/O keynote was a fairly humdrum affair with the exception of the soft launch of its Metaverse offering which will be to skip VR and go straight to AR.
• Google is holding its annual developer conference which is back at full strength for the first time since 2019.
• Right from the beginning, Google was hinting or soft launching its proposition for the Metaverse where it has decided to use languages as the killer app for its first shot.
• This makes sense because it combines both the strengths that Google AI can demonstrate as well as deals with the substantial limitations that AR currently presents.
• This had Google CEO, Sundar Pichai starting off his presentation by going down the language AI rabbit hole offering 24 new languages and model improvements that should improve the translation offering overall.
• He then followed this up with a new functionality for Google Maps that uses street view imagery to piece together a 3D model of the city being looked at.
• This can be accessed by a new function called immersive view which will also be extended to indoor locations with time.
• This was yet another sign of where Google intends to go with its initial foray into the Metaverse but then the whole message was put on pause for the next 90 minutes.
• What followed was a series of incremental updates to Search, Google Cloud, Android and improvements to how Google intends to make its devices work seamlessly together.
• The hardware division launched a mid-tier Pixel device called the 6A which very much like Apple, shares silicon and software with its bigger, far more expensive siblings.
• Google also launched a me-too set of earbuds aimed at taking on Apple AirPods Pro and a very average looking tablet that will take Google another 12 months to launch for some reason.
• The hardware business then ran out of things to say and so spent the rest of its time previewing stuff that it will be launching in full at its dedicated event in Q3 this year.
• It was not until the closing minutes of the keynote that Google picked up the Metaverse story again and took it to its conclusion.
• Google showed a demonstration of an AR prototype which looks exactly the same as the Meta Platform’s Ray-Ban Stories product
• This is a pair of glasses that was pushed as a real-time translation product putting subtitles on reality.
• This uses Google’s excellent speech recognition and translation combined with AR glasses to produce real-time translation and/or transcription (think deaf users) ending up with a great use case.
• However, Google was very careful not to offer any through-the-lens video as I am sure this would have demonstrated how small the projection area really is and how limited the graphics capability is going to be in this initial product.
• Instead, Google, showed the subtitles magically appearing by the wearer’s head and focused on the user’s reaction when seeing it working for the first time.
• Consequently, when / if this particular prototype launches it will be a very basic device (in AR terms) that offers the translation demonstrated as well as serves as a remote control for the smartphone.
• This will include voice requests, displays of messages, directions and so on.
• Google also made it clear that it does not intend to go down the VR route stating that it thought that the end game for the Metaverse is AR.
• RFM research tends to agree with this position, but VR is going to come first meaning that the VR players may well capture users early onto their platforms giving them an opportunity to migrate them to AR as it matures.
• This will make it harder for AR-only players to break in if large numbers of users have already been captured.
• This, I suspect, is exactly Meta Platform’s strategy and the company is determined not to once again be held hostage to the software platforms of Apple and Google.
• Outside of the soft launch of the Metaverse, this was a fairly subdued affair that was more interesting from the point of view of returning to full capacity in-person conferences than it was in marching the Google ecosystem forward.
• Alphabet stock has sold off by 24% since its peak earlier this year which in the grand scheme of things is pretty defensive as the Russel 2000 and the Nasdaq 100 are off by more than that.
• Hence, the attraction of Alphabet is as a place to hide but for those with backbone, there are much better bargains to be found in the tech and SPAC wreckage.