If you didn’t know it yet, Brazil is apparently one of the biggest users of the Internet in the world. In fact, it is one of the top 5 internet populations currently, also probably because it’s the 5th most populous country in the world. At today’s Google for Brazil event, they announced some major improvements and new features to various Google products, like Duo, Allo, Photos, Maps and on Google Search itself to make the Google experience even better for the 139 million users in the country.
Google Duo is the product that they’ve been pushing when it comes to free video calling (we still don’t know what they plan with Hangouts, but that’s another story). Now instead of just high quality video calling, those in Brazil will also be able to use the app to make audio calls. It will not eat up your data and can be used on all connection speeds. Eventually, this feature will also be rolled out globally, but for now, it will be starting in Brazil.
Google Allo is the messaging counterpart of Duo and is being pitted against services like Messenger, Viber, WhatsApp, etc. Users will now be able to share documents and other files like pdf, docs, mp3s, with other Allo users, not just in Brazil but globally as well. But for those in Brazil, Smart Smiley in Portuguese will now be available to predict which smileys or emojis should be used in the conversation.
As for Google Photos, even if you’re on 2G connection, your photos will be backed up in a low, preview quality. When you finally get better connection, the backed up photos will be replaced with the high quality version. This will be available not just in Brazil but also other regions, just like the new real-time location sharing feature of Google Maps.
SOURCE: Google
