Today, Google’s CEO Sundar Pichai and few other key people from Google were in India to attend #GoogleForIndia at New Delhi. This event was focused to show what Google think about India and how it is trying to boost digital India. India is one of the fastest growing nation on Internet and its huge population makes it one of the important market for any Internet company. With cheaper smartphones, Indians are coming online even if they are not getting very good Internet speed. India has around 400 million users on Internet and it has capability to touch 1 billion in coming years. This is the reason, Google does not want to lose any single opportunity bring Indian users on its platforms.
Indian Origin Sundar Pichai talked about digital India and Google’s efforts to help India in various things. We really appreciate Google’s efforts to help in India in becoming online and get better experience of Internet even if we are on slow connection. He demonstrated how India specially take care of India while designing and developing its product. How Google is optimizing its products to offer services on Indian languages, work fast on slower internet connection and also work offline in case no internet connection.
These are the key things Google’s CEO Sundar Pichai and his team announced at the event:
1. Google to help women from 3,00,000 villages across India get online in 3 years with its ‘bicycle for women’ program.
Google India has partnered with Tata Trust for its ‘bicycle for women’ program to bring women from villages online and see how Internet can help them. Under this program, women will use Google’s bicycles to reach nearby areas and teach them the benefits of using the internet Google has already done with the pilot testing in 1000 villages.and is ready to roll out this program across the country.
Watch this video to know more:
2. Google’s partnership with Railtel to bring free Internet access to rail stations
When Narendra Modi visited Google India office in US, we got to know about Google India’s internet project for Indian railway stations. In the event, Sundar Pichai confirmed that the testing has already begun in Mumbai and they are ready to bring 100 stations live with Wi-Fi connectivity by 2016 end. This will also be scaled up to be cover 500 railway stations by 2017. He confirmed how difficult it is to do this because of infrastructural limitations but they are working as fast they can to cover most of the stations.
Marian Croak, Vice-President of Access Strategy & Emerging Markets, said, “Railways are the backbone of Indian transportation and run through the heart of almost every city, town, and village uniting the country. These lines connect India, and working as partners, Google and RailTel will connect India along digital lines as well.”
3. Project Loon will come to India
Google’s ambitious project ‘Project Loon’ will also come to India to bring low-cost Internet even on areas where broadbands cannot reach. Google has already tested this technology in New Zealand, California (the US) and Brazil. We also eagerly waiting to see this in India. Due To Probable Cellular Network Interference, it is not as easy to implement in India. It could affect the cellular networks to bring more call drops. Google is trying to fix this.
“We are exploring ways of bringing project loon to India, especially rural areas,” said Pichai.
4. Google’s “Indic” keyboard lets users type in 11 Indian languages.
India is the country of diversity with various different languages in different part of the country. Google understands this and is trying to add Indian languages in its Android. Google’s Indic keyboard now comes with 11 Indian languages support.
You can check out the Indic keyboard here.
5. India to beat US in number of Android users.
Pichai also revealed that India will have more Android users than the United States in 2016. This is why, India is the most important market for Google. This is the reason, it takes care of India while working on any new thing.
It is worth to mention that its various features like YouTube offline, Map maker, faster version of mobile search and ‘Skip images in Chrome’ were started with India.
6. Train 2 million developers in India
Google also aims to train 2 million developers in India with National Skill Development Council.
Jason Titus, Vice-President of Engineering of the Developers Product Group, said, “We’re already seeing incredible growth in the number of developers in India, and our forecasts indicate that this is growth is not going to slow down anytime soon. At Google, we’re committed to providing access to tools that empower developers to be successful.”
7. Live cricket updates via a simple Google search from early 2016
You can search cricket score on Google and see the score but it does not show real-time data. Google understands the craziness of India for cricket and hence it announced to bring live cricket updates via simple Google search soon. This includes IPL as well as International cricket.
8. Tap to Translate from any app
‘Tap to Translate’ is one of the most important announcement of the event. Google also demonstrated how it works. You can just long press on text within any app and translator with pop to translate the selected text. It makes it easier to perform translation while talking on an instant messaging application. Earlier, we used to switch to translator app to translate and then come back to paste the translated text. New feature will save lot more time.
Caesar Sengupta, Vice-President for Google’s Next Billion initiatives, said, “Our most active users in India translate between Hindi and English multiple times a day, spending lots of time copying messages from friends or colleagues, translating them, writing responses, translating their responses, and then pasting them back into an app. With Tap to Translate you can copy text anywhere on your Android phone and instantly get the translation, right then and there — without ever leaving the app. No more copy/paste, no more app switching, just instant translations.”
9. Live translation of signboards using phone’s camera
This is something you will surely like. Google translate app earlier helped us in translating texts of an image. Now, there is no need to capture the image. Just open the camera and then move it to the sign-board you want to translate. Google translator app will show you translated text with same font style and size. Is it not amazing?
10. Panoramic imagery of 250 Indian monuments on GOogle Maps and Google Cultural Institute
Google also worked with the Ministry of Culture and the Archaeological Survey of India to add panoramic imagery of 250 Indian monuments to both the Google Cultural Institute and Google Maps.
11. Background Downloading, scheduled downloading and pause to buffer on YouTube
Earlier, you could bring a video offline to watch. Now, it offers background downloading. It will also let you schedule a download for the time when you will have faster internet connection. Both of these features are very interesting for those who use YouTube offline.
Now, you can also pause the buffering of a video on YouTube. As of now, it is not available. We can expect it to roll-out starting in a few weeks.
12. Asus Chromebit
We already know about Google Chromebook. Although, there are not quite popular in India, Google has confirmed the launch of Asus Chromebit, stick PC with Chrome OS. Asus Chromebit will be available for Rs. 7,999 from January 2016.
13. YouTube Space Mumbai
YouTube Space Mumbai is not a new thing but Google again introduced us with it. It was initially announced back in August this year. It is located in the heart of Mumbai’s film & television production hub Filmcity. Here, new YouTube creators will have free access to Whistling Woods’ studios, high-end audio, visual and editing equipments to see what they need to become successful on YouTube. It will also offer to training programs, workshops and community events.
14. New campus coming in Hyderabad and Google is hiring in engineering department
Google has also announced its new campus in Hyderabad. As you have already seen the efforts of Google, it wants more people to join Google. If you are interested, you can submit your resume on Google Careers.
