Google’s annual developer conference, Google AI, was unsurprisingly focused on AI. The search giant, whose algorithms ruled the past two decades, is facing a future in which the web is a resource, not the answer. They’ve got a lot to lose. Google’s ad revenue in the fourth quarter of 2023 was $65.52 billion, which is 75.9% of the company’s total revenue. Traditional companies die on this hill, defending that kind of revenue. Google seems to be rushing headlong to disrupt itself before others disrupt them. On one hand, they may re-emerge as the master of instant, timely information. On the other hand, the third biggest company in the world might be trillion dollar roadkill.
The other major Google IO announcements are Veo, Google’s Answer to OpenAI’s Sora, Augmented Reality Maps and, soon, Android’s answer to the Apple Vision Pro.
Google’s new video generation tool, Veo, makes videos one minute long from a text prompt, just like Sora. Veo is Google DeepMind’s most capable video generation model to date. It generates high-quality, 1080p resolution videos that can go beyond a minute in a wide range of cinematic and visual styles. Initially, Veo will be accessible to selected creators through VideoFX, a new experimental tool available on Google’s AI Test Kitchen website. Creators can join a waitlist. Google says it plans to integrate some of Veo’s capabilities into YouTube Shorts and other products in the future.
Google Street Maps, a great Google Maps Feature, Are Going to Get Bigger My 2019 book, Convergence, envisioned “a world painted with data.” It’s about damn time. Google’s new efforts will make certain AR experiences discoverable in Google Maps when looking around particular landmarks or cities. If you’re in that place, holding up the Maps app will help make those experiences appear on your phone screen as you hold your phone up over a location – in the future, maybe that will be on glasses, too.
OpenAI’s New ChatGPT Chatbot Can Really Chat People are comparing the new voice feature to the OS Samantha, from the 2014 movie “Her.” In that movie, the OS Samantha (voiced by Scarlett Johansson) does good and often loving things for her owner, Joaquin Phoenix, without being asked, and without judgement. She cares for this schlumpy, regular guy as only a lover would. Who wouldn’t want an OS like that? I can’t tell if that is good or bad. Neither can Open AI or Google.
Cannes Film Festival Fully Embraces XR. The prestigious Cannes Film Festival, which began this week, has added extended reality, XR (VR, AR and other variations of spatial computing), as an official category and competition. Cannes was an early supporter of VR, and featured Aljandro Innaratu’s Carne y Arena VR experience in 2017, where it won a special award. Cannes now joins the Venice and Tribeca film festivals and SXSW, which have included XR experiences since 2016.
RayNeo’s TV On Your Face Gets A Controller, Pocket TV. A dedicated controller and cable TV box makes new screen expanding AR glasses feel even more natural and easy to use.
This column, once called “This Week in XR,” is also a podcast hosted by author Charlie Fink, Ted Schilowitz, former studio executive and co-founder of Red Camera, and Rony Abovitz, founder of Magic Leap. This week our guests are Matthew Celia and Robert Watts, producers of Eli Roth’s “Haunted House VR Treat” on Meta Quest headsets. Our podcast can be found on Spotify, iTunes, and YouTube.
What We’re Reading
AI’s Her Era Has Arrived. (Kevin Roose/NY Times)
I Am Once Again Asking Our Tech Overlords to Watch the movie “Her.” (Brian Barnett/Wired).
