Google's I/O 2024 main keynote was packed with a lot of content. tons Gemini brings new AI capabilities to desktop and mobile. There will be new ways to search Google through videos and multimodal prompts, while Project Astra will eventually give smartphones AI superpowers through their cameras.
However, there was one feature that really stood out to me. It's Google Photos' “Ask Photos with Gemini.”
First of all, what is Gemini?
First of all, what is Gemini? This is basically Google's AI model family and includes Gemini Nano, Gemini Pro, and Gemini Ultra. Simply put, it's Google's version of OpenAI and its own GPT model, like ChatGPT.
Gemini can understand and generate text like other large-scale language models (LLMs), such as OpenAI's GPT. However, Gemini can do a little more. You can understand, manipulate, and combine information in other forms, such as images, video, audio, and even code.
For Android smartphones, it uses Gemini Nano, which runs locally on the device itself. Thanks to the Gemini Nano model, existing features such as Circle to Search will be further improved to help students with their physics and math homework.
You can also ask Gemini questions about the video you're watching or the long PDF you're reading, rather than scrolling through dozens of pages, giving you even more context awareness of what's currently on screen. Gemini Nano brings multimodal functionality to your smartphone, including search queries that combine multiple requests into one.
Ask Photos with Gemini is one of many new Gemini features announced at I/O 2024 and will be added to Google Photos later this year. Simply put, you can search our vast photo library using a more conversational approach rather than keywords.
In the Google I/O demo, Google showed that you can just ask, “What's my license plate?” or “When did my daughter learn to swim?” We provide photos that answer those requests.
There are also requests such as “Show me your daughter's swimming progress.'' Such a query allows Gemini to look back at the photos based on her date and context and get the appropriate results.
I was excited when Ask Photos with Gemini was unveiled on stage and can't wait to get my hands on it.
Parent AI companion
It's been just over two years since I became a mother. But in the meantime, I took more photos than ever because I love capturing every little moment of my daughter. Whether it's just your daughter being cute and silly or an important milestone that you want to capture in photos or videos. I tried out a 1TB iPhone 15 Pro and countless Android smartphones. everytime I'm taking pictures of my daughter.
You might think that's overkill, and it probably is. However, I don't have many videos, let alone photos, of my childhood from my parents. It doesn't capture all my special moments and I only have vague memories, nothing detailed or concrete. The technology we have today has ensured that our daughter has visual evidence of her childhood.
Sometimes I take photos and videos to share with family or certain friends, but most of the time I record these moments because I want to look back on them later. Whether I just need a quick pick-me-up to put a smile on my face or I need to jog down memory lane with a fuzzy old lady, I go way back in my visual memory.
At Ask Photos with Gemini, we can't wait to show you our daughter's progress in various life events. For example, I am planning to send her to her kindergarten starting this August. I would like Gemini to show me the progress of the entire school, or just the “first day” of each grade. Or when she learned to ride a bike, you could see her progress from her training wheels to full bike riding. Hey, a Gemini might let me watch her daughter blow out the candles on her birthday cake every year.
There are many possibilities for using Ask Photos, and these are just a few ideas that come to mind. It's great for parents to mark milestones for their kids, but it's also great for other things. I find myself using it for my own anniversaries, holidays, and even for my pets.
Indeed, you can now go through all your photos and even search by face or keyword. But Ask Photos with Gemini seems like a much simpler, faster, and more natural way to do it. If you have a photo library of more than 50,000 photos and videos, there may be an easier way to search.
can't wait to use this
Ask Photos wasn't the only Gemini AI feature Google showed off at Google I/O 2024. largely I'm looking forward to it because it's practical, but there are other interesting things I'd like to check out.
For example, Project Astra seemed interesting. I often use my phone to take pictures of plants, flowers, and other things that I want to save and learn more about later. But with Astra, the power of AI is built into the camera to tell you what you're seeing in real time. And while Google didn't announce smart glasses, Project Astra showed that this would be a great feature that would one day be included in smart glasses.
I'd also love to check out Google Search's multimodal prompt requests powered by Gemini. I'm not the type of person who enjoys planning things, so if Google can do the work for me, I'm all for it. Also, while I don't think real-time fraud alerts are very useful to me (I don't answer the phone anyway), they could be a very useful feature for others.
Ask Photos with Gemini is coming to Google Photos later this summer, and I can't wait to try it out.
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