Under The Hood with Android 4.1, Jelly Bean

Introducing Google Now -

Jelly Bean is the first version of Android to get a new feature from Google known as Google Now. According to Google, Google Now "will give you just the right information at just the right time." Now provides information that Google deems relevant to you based on your location, time of day, interests, and other data. While it's possible to configure some settings in Google Now, the feature primarily uses contextual data from your device, Google products, and third-party products to figure out what information is most relevant to display.

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With Google Now, you can see weather information, nearby place listings, traffic updates, flight information, sports scores, appointment information, currency conversion, and much more. Google Now is designed to get smarter the more you use it, which is pretty cool. We've got a video posted below if you'd like to see Google Now in action... 

A New Google Search Experience -

Jelly Bean's search experience has a new look and feel too. It also features faster Voice Search capabilities which are available even if you're offline. Since the voice recognition processing is handled locally rather than in the cloud, the results are made available much faster.

Behind the scenes, Google is using its Knowledge Graph to help your tablet or smartphone display even more relevant and useful results. For example, if you search for Leonardo da Vinci, you'll not only see traditional Google search results, but you'll also see information pertaining specifically to da Vinci, including his dates of birth and death, famous artwork, and similar people you might be interested in. If you search for weather, you'll still get traditional web search results, but the first result will be a Google Now-like card that displays the current forecast for your location.

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If you search Google using your voice and a Knowledge Graph answer is returned in the search results, Jelly Bean will speak the resulting answer back to you. For example, when we asked our Nexus 7 tablet, "What is the height of Mount Everest," the tablet replied with a voice to let us know the elevation of Mount Everest is 29,029 feet. A Knowledge Graph card was displayed on the screen as well, with web search results listed below the card. You can use natural language when searching using your voice. The spoken results you receive from Jelly Bean are quite conversational and don't sound robotic.

 

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