When in comes to personal data, one of Google’s principles is to focus on the user and apply the “toothbrush test”.
This, said Sven Heistermann, director telecoms, EMEA strategic relationships, Google, speaking at DigiWorld Future in London, is to try to improve things that people will use at least twice a day.
He added that although smartphone usage is now huge, it is still a multistep when we want to get things done. “We want technology to make things smoother, break barriers down”, and a core ingredient is machine learning, such as voice recognition. He cited the example of Google Assistant, which is a conversational tool, offering dialogue and seamless across all devices.
Heistermann said that when Google bought Android several years ago it defaulted to an open ecosystem in order to bring in the best developers. It now has 6 million worldwide and other companies, such as Brillo, a “lean version of Android for IoT devices”, are following suit.
In his view, what is important is to allow small companies, as well as big ones, to enter the ecosystem.
Heistermann added that technology is changing our lives and getting faster and faster. There are now 2 billion smartphones in use, compared to 250 million in 2009, while driverless cars have already clocked up over 1 million miles.
However, we are just at the starting point, with 99% of the way still to go.
He concluded that open ecosystems require a lot of trust and our role should be one of tearing down the walls between peoples’ dreams and how they can realise them.