Google’s Project Jacquard Introduces Levi’s Trucker Jacket Arrives Next Year

Google’s Project Jacquard Introduces Levi’s Trucker Jacket Arrives Next Year

The inner geek in all of us should still be giggling at all of the fun stuff Google’s ATAP team announced on stage today at Google I/O. If you missed it, we’ll be sure to share the session once it has been uploaded.

The ATAP team not only gave us a tour of the latest in Project Ara happenings, but they showed off an amazing Project Soli smartwatch concept, and told us when to expect the first consumer clothing item with embedded Project Jacquard.

Through a partnership with Levi’s, we’ll all be able to buy a new jacket that is outfitted with Jacquard technologies within the next year. The jacket is called the Commuter Trucker jacket and it was designed for city bike commuters, or those who just want a sweet new denim jacket with some tech inside. 

Not familiar with Jacquard? It was first unveiled at Google I/O last year as a fabric that was weaved with technology, so that you could touch it or swipe gestures across it to perform tasks through a smartphone or other device. Think about swiping across your pants to change music tracks, answer a call, etc.

It took some time for them to get the weave perfected for this denim jacket, but they have reached the point where they are ready to start production, again, only a year after they first showed off the concept.

Below, you can see the dongle-esque (or “smart tag”) device that powers the weave, along with the subtle weaved pattern that you can touch. That smart tag can be removed when you are ready to wash your jacket. I don’t know that they have specifically mentioned this, but that smart tag likely has Bluetooth and a battery which connects to your phone to make the magic happen.

This is only the first of what could be many articles of clothing to adopt Jacquard. But for now, you can see how close the future is and how smart everything in our lives has become.

In these couple of clips, you will get to see how they make the denim for this jacket with Jacquard embedded and also what it could be like for a biker commuter to use the jacket during daily rides.

Making of Jacquard denim

The Commuter Trucker jacket in action

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Google Photos Update Introduces Commenting in Shared Albums

Google Photos Update Introduces Commenting in Shared Albums

Sharing albums and photos are a big part of what makes Google Photos such a great product. You don’t have to jump through a bunch of hoops to share single photos or bigger albums like you do in other services. All you really need to do is just tap the share button in the app and then push the auto-copied link it generates to your recipient(s). Honestly, it’s one of the best things Google has done in years.

But Google Photos can still improve and Google is doing so today by adding new features to albums that are shared. In the latest update to Google Photos (v1.20), Google has added in commenting to photos and albums that are shared. That means the people you are sharing photos with can comment on them without ever leaving the app. That’s pretty cool, right? 

Along with commenting, Google is also providing “smart suggestions” that could make for good additions to a shared album. If someone sends you an album of a birthday party that you were at recently, Google will dig through your photos and see if you took any from the party before asking if you’d like to add them.

Play Link | Download Link (.apk)

Via:  +Google Photos

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Google Introduces Messaging App Allo New Video Chat App Duo

Google Introduces Messaging App Allo New Video Chat App Duo

In an announcement no one saw coming today at Google I/O, Google went ahead and unveiled two new apps, one for messaging and another for video chatting. The apps are called Allo and Duo, respectively.

Unfortunately, Google was just previewing the apps today and hasn’t made them available, but they did talk plenty about them. This is what you need to know. 

Allo

Allo is an app that Google is calling a “smart” messaging app that is tied to your phone number (sort of like WhatsApp). Because it’s tied to your phone number, hopefully it becomes easier for you to convince other people to use it, since it will also just be tied to their phone number. Or as Google puts it, this idea lets you easily get in touch with the people in your phonebook (and probably send them an invite to use Allo).

With Allo, you get a mostly standard messaging client, but it tries to learn from you over time to show suggestions that allow you to have conversations without typing. It learns if you are a “haha” or “lol” person, can suggest responses based off of photos being shared (yep, it does photos too), and brings the power of the new Google Assistant.

By using Google Assistant, Allo brings you Google inside of your app (Think the iOS-only Gboard but better!). That means you can chat with the new Assistant and get things done without leaving your chat app. You can book dinner reservations, edit photos, get sports scores, play games, use Search/Maps/YouTube/Translate, check your calendar, see flight information, photos from your last trip, and more. You can ask the assistant (by typing @google) if your flight is delayed or what the weather is like, find soccer highlights, etc., all within Allo.

You can even setup an incognito conversation to allow Allo to encrypt your chat.

Pretty sweet, right?

Duo

As for Duo, this is Google’s new one-on-one video chatting app that is supposedly really fast. Google says that this should work flawlessly across both slow and fast connections, which means you can video chat at all times if you want, from anywhere.

The app has a Knock Knock feature that shows you who is calling on video before you answer, displays video chats in 720p (HD), and sports end-to-end encryption.

Both apps are now live on Google Play for pre-registration. As I mentioned earlier, they won’t be available until “this summer.”

Play Links:  Allo | Duo

Via:  Google

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