Google, during the Google For India event on September 27 announced that the company has launched Google Station in India, which will bring public Wi-Fi to schools, malls, and other prominent places. Moreover, the company also announced that it will launch Hindi version of Google Assistant by the end of 2016. The company also announced the launch of YouTube Go.
As part of the Google Station service, the company will roll-out Wi-Fi hot spots in places frequently visited by a large number of people. This includes malls, transit stations including social hangout locations such as cafes and universities. In addition to India, Google Station will also be launched in Indonesia and Philippines in the upcoming future.
Google Station aims to tap people deeply
Announcing the launch of Google Station at the second ‘Google For India’ event on September 27, 2016, in New Delhi, the company revealed that the station is a service that aims to deepen its reach across the country. Moreover, the launch of Google Station is part of the search-engine giant ambitious plan to bring more people on to its Google platform.
Responding to media queries, Caesar Sengupta, Vice-President, Next Billion Users at Google disclosed that the main aim of the program is to provide people with many hot spots within a few minutes’ walk from their home, university, or workplace. Moreover, the entire mechanism will be unified by a simple login process that works across all of them.
Speaking on the sidelines of the Google For India event, John Giannandrea, VP of search revealed that India is leading the mobile world with search queries on mobile surpassing desktop years ahead of others. Google is now capable of translating 100 languages and 12 of these are Indic. He also revealed that search now makes effective use of Knowledge Graph to answer the questions and is available in Hindi as well.
Google Assistant in Hindi to be available via Allo
During the Google for India event, the company announced that the Hindi version of Google Assistant will be available by the end of 2016. The app will be available through the newly launch smart messaging app, Google Allo. You will be able to ask questions in Hindi and the assistant smartly displays the results by making use of AI.
Google launches YouTube Go
Google also unveiled YouTube Go, which is a product that has been designed based on learning from India. Interestingly, YouTube Go will work on low bandwidth scenarios and enable users to share saved content with family and friends using a wide range of gadgets. Expected to be available in 10 Indian languages, the main aim of the product is to remove all barriers.
Currently, Google offers free Wi-Fi access at 53 railway stations across India. The company is planning to scale up the free Wi-Fi access to 100 by the end of 2016. Meanwhile, Sengupta clarified that the company is also looking forward to monetizing free Wireless Internet service at railway stations.
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