(Adds material on VR, moves up reference to Allo, changes
headline)
By Deborah M. Todd
MOUNTAIN VIEW, California, May 18 (Reuters) - Alphabet's
Google Inc GOOGL.O unveiled its answer to Amazon's AMZN.O
Alexa virtual assistant along with new messaging and virtual
reality products at its annual I/O developer conference on
Wednesday, doubling down on artificial intelligence and machine
learning as the keys to its future.
Google Chief Executive Sundar Pichai introduced Google
Assistant, a virtual personal assistant, along with the tabletop
speaker appliance Google Home.
He also unveiled Allo, a new messaging service that will
compete with Facebook's WhatsApp and Messenger products and
feature a chatbot powered by the Google Assistant. Allo, like
WhatsApp, will also have end-to-end encryption when it is rolled
out this summer.
Amazon's Echo, a surprise hit that has other tech giants
racing to match it, uses a virtual assistant called Alexa, a
cloud-based system that controls the Echo speaker and responds
to voice-controlled commands by users.
Like Alexa, Google Assistant can search the internet and
adjust your schedule. However, Pichai said Google Assistant can
use images and other information to provide more intuitive
results.
"You can be in front of this structure in Chicago and ask
Google who designed this and it will understand in this context
that the name of that designer is Anish Kapoor," said Pichai,
pointing toward a photo of Chicago's Cloud Gate sculpture.
For Google Home, the Google Assistant merges with Chromecast
and smart home devices to control televisions, thermostats and
other products. Google did not offer a specific release date or
pricing for Google Home, saying only that it will be available
later this year.
VIRTUAL REALITY
Google's other big announcement at Wednesday's event, held
at an outdoor amphitheatre near Google's headquarters, was a
virtual reality platform called Daydream designed to work with
the Android mobile operating system.
Daydream addresses latency and other issues affecting
playback on smartphones, according to Clay Bavor, Google's vice
president of virtual reality.
Bavor also announced a virtual reality headset powered by a
smooth, two-button controller with orientation sensors that help
determine positioning in virtual environments. Facebook (NASDAQ:FB) is also
making a big push in virtual reality with its Oculus headset,
and Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) has indicated its interest in VR technology as well.
Bavor also said the division has "rebuilt YouTube from the
ground up" to feature improved audio to support virtual reality
screening.
Google offered no timetable on the VR headset, but said
Daydream-ready phones would likely hit the market by autumn.