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Google I/O 2023

Google I/O is where Google previews its plans for Android, Pixel, and beyond for the rest of the year. This year, we’re expecting a first look at the Pixel Fold and a lot of discussion of Bard and how AI can fit into the future of search and other Google products. The event kicks off on May 10th with a keynote at 1PM ET / 10AM PT.

Google’s annual I/O puzzle is back.

As usual, Google has chosen to reveal the date of its I/O developer conference through a collaborative puzzle. For I/O 24 it’s a Pipe Dream-style game, guiding a marble from point A to point B.

Completing your levels helps the overall progress (and probably trains generative AI models somehow), which you can monitor on the main event page. Or, just wait for others to finish it while you dig through the I/O 23 announcements to see what has or has not shipped yet.

Update (5:03PM ET): The puzzle’s done, and we have a date (May 14th).


Screenshot of the I/O 24 date reveal progress page, showing the progress of a ball through a maze to gauge how close players are to finishing.
Google I/O 24 date reveal puzzle
Image: Google
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Bard will show you food pics now if you ask about places to eat.

Google announced at IO that Bard would include images where relevant in its responses, and that change is live. Below, a tweet shows what that looks like. The images come from sites like Pinterest. I wish they were AI-generated for extra fun, but alas.

Still, I tried asking it for the best food in Austin, TX, and it failed to highlight Casino El Camino.


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The backroom discussions at Google I/O this year were about regulating AI.

From yesterday’s Command Line newsletter:

Throughout the series of closed-door policy panels yesterday, I’m told that global affairs president Kent Walker and other Google execs fielded pointed questions about the company’s use of personal data for everything from large language models to ad targeting. Applying copyright law to generative AI was discussed but seemingly not a top concern for the room. Instead, most of the questions were about the use of AI as it relates to user privacy and safety. Regulators wanted to know how Google thinks about using sensitive data from both individual users and enterprise customers for its training sets. And during a talk dedicated specifically to AI and search, concerns were raised about showing harmful, AI-generated results...

You can sign up to read the full thing at the link below.


Exclusive: Google’s Sundar Pichai talks Search, AI, and dancing with Microsoft

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Google has some new tools for face filters.

Like Face Landmarker, which can apparently let you make something like what’s shown in the below GIF. (Which admittedly looks a lot like an Apple Memoji.) Very interested to see what developers make with these tools.


A GIF of a virtual raccoon head.
(Sorry if the GIF is artifact-y — I had to compress it to shrink the filesize.)
GIF: Google
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If you missed the Google I/O keynote yesterday.

We have a longer recap video too, of course, plus every update from the event and a list of the key highlights, but this is how it sounded for the most part.


280 million Android slates of some sort are in active use — and maybe 32,000 people are snapping shots every second on Android.

Two stats from Google I/O that I’ve never seen.

As of today, we’re still at “more than 3 billion active Android devices around the world,” so perhaps neither number is all that surprising. (The “talk” in question was 17.5 minutes long, if you’re wondering about my math.)


We finally got our hands on Google’s Pixel Fold.

Forget the leaks and the spec sheets; we went to Google I/O and got to use the company’s pricey (it starts at $1,799.99) new folding phone.

Dan Seifert can tell you more about the Pixel Fold’s hinge and show you what it looks like next to Samsung’s Galaxy Z Fold 4 — check out our entire writeup if you need even more details.


If you don’t have two hours to watch the Google I/O keynote, you can catch our recap here.

In just about 16 minutes, we cover the highlights of today’s I/O presentation, from the Pixel Fold to AI in everything.


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