On the eve of the beginning of Google I/O 2017, the Mountain View giant released the fourth Developer Preview of Android Things, the operating system designed to simplify the development of IoT (Internet of Things) devices.

Exactly: A few hours before the inauguration of Google I/O 2017 that will be staged in San Francisco this evening, Google is releasing Developer Preview 4 for the Android Things running on the IoT. According to the Mountain View group statement, the most important news is the ability for supported cards to access Google Assistant SDK.

This translates, for developers, the opportunity to leverage voice interaction with the artificial intelligence system, just like on smartphones. This is yet another demonstration of how the California company is focusing heavily on its virtual assistant in order to maximize its spread, also fighting against other initiatives such as Cortana, Siri, Alexa, Bixby, etc.

The fourth Developer Preview also adds support to the NXP i.MXD7D card with better performance than the previous model while continuing to use a design that allows minimal power consumption. In addition, support for Inter-IC Sound bus was included in the Peripheral I/O API. This allows audio drivers for hardware devices connected through an I2S bus to be written to user space.

Android Things: What is the future of the platform?

For the future of the platform, Google’s intention is to partner third-party vendors to explain them how Android Things works on the software side, so to simplify the design process of hardware modules to make the most of their potential. This is a technology that, while sharing the same root of Android as one can already imagine, is targeted at the Internet of Things sector, which is expected to be the arrival of important news in the future. It will express all its potential, for example, on smart home products, or energy-efficient devices integrated in any type of home-based equipment.

The main purpose of Android Things is to help developers quickly build devices to launch on the market. To further facilitate the task of developers Google has launched Edison Candle, the first example of a prototype series that includes both the software required to run and the hardware schemas that can be used by third-party vendors in a very simple way. Remember: Google will showcase these and other new arrivals for the Android Things platform during the Google I/O 2017 that will start this afternoon and in the next two days will show many new features related to Android, but not only Android.