Google unveils five products designed for Indian market

Celebrates 18th birthday

Reinforcing its commitment to India, Google on Tuesday celebrated its 18th birthday by unveiling  five new products that are aimed at expanding access to the Internet.

The new products include YouTube Go, the Google Assistant in Hindi inside messaging app Allo, faster browsing for Google Play on 2G connections, Google Station Wi-Fi platform and data-saving features in Google Chrome for mobile.

Inaugurating the big party as part of the birthday celebration, Google South East Asia and India Vice-President Rajan Anandan said Google’s effort  is to give all Indians access to Internet.

“Through initiatives in India since December 2015, including the success of Wi-Fi offering in partnership with RailTel and efforts to overcome the gender divide by training women across rural India, Google has been driving the use of Internet,” he said.

Google Vice President (Next Billion Users) Caesar Sengupta said three new Internet users are getting added every second in India, which present a huge opportunity. “Google is focussing on three key areas — access, products and platforms — to provide a better and more inclusive online experience for users in India,” he said.

“We have been thinking about how to build products and services for this wave of new users — products that work for any level of connectivity, in local Indian languages, and across the devices that are most frequently used in India,” he added.

Following its partnership with RailTel and Indian Railways to provide Wi-Fi at railway stations, Google has now launched a platform called Google Station. The new platform will work with partners like system integrators (SIs) and venue owners to roll out Wi-Fi hotspots, Sengupta said.

Its new messaging app ‘Allo’ will introduce support in Hindi for its Google Assistant later this year. Google also announced a group of tailored features for Chrome, like automatic optimising of pages when 2G-like networks are detected.

Googles new app YouTube Go is aimed at being data efficient and promoting offline usage.
 
The app will also allow for videos to be saved and viewed without buffering on slow connections.