The Cloud. Big Data. Machine Learning. Robots. Artificial Intelligence.
These are terms that are currently common in the tech space and it is the future. Tech companies such as Huawei have, for instance, baked machine learning in their flagship devices such as the Mate 9. Google has been on a roll with the technology and has already incorporated it in some of its apps such as Gboard that uses speech recognition machine learning and products such as Perspective that will be used by publishers and platforms to review posts and comments and rate them based on how close they are to those flagged as ‘toxic’ by other readers.
Google wants to make machine learning part of its app ecosystem, and the newest member to benefit from the expansion spree is the Google app itself.
To begin with, the Google app will enhance content aggregation. In other words, content will still be displayed in cards, but stories will be tailored based on trending news in your area and globally. Ideally, content aggregation will augment feeds that are personalized from Google searches and interest. I suspect this feature was being tested in the beta Google app based on creepy but accurate feeds I have interacted with. Fortunately, you can deactivate stories (not these Stories, relax) of topics that do not interest you.
Secondly, you will be able to directly add feeds from a brand new ‘Follow’ button that will be slapped over your search results.
Google will employ the services of machine learning to offer readers with various perspectives of a story. Why? News bias – so to counter it (bias), unique viewpoints will be integrated into feeds to keep the fake news menace away.
Finally, topic searching will be made easier. For example, pressing a header within a given feed will open Google Search with the exact phrase. Neat.
Our friends in cool countries such as the U.S. will get these features today on both Android and iOS. Others (you and I) need to be patient for a couple of days.
