Google & Samsung still working on XR platform, ‘coming this year’

Compared to Galaxy Unpacked in January, there were only a handful of Google announcements today with the Galaxy Z Fold 6 unveil, while the “upcoming XR platform” got another mention.

The only new Gemini feature announced for the Fold 6 is a multitasking capability. As announced at I/O 2024 in May, Gemini will soon exist as an overlay panel even when delivering results instead of switching to a fullscreen UI. You can see that in action below, while Google showed moving the Gemini overlay to a split-screen side panel.

Meanwhile, Google reiterated that “Ask about this video” is coming when watching YouTube. It joins the existing “Add this screen” and “Ask this PDF” in the future.

“Starting later this month,” Circle to Search will be able to scan QR and barcodes, as well as “help you learn more complex topics like symbolic math.” Google said the visual search feature “will come to more Samsung devices later this year.”

Google also decided to highlight YouTube TV multiview for “enjoying up to four different streams at the same time.” It started rolling out for Android in late April.

You can choose from pre-selected combinations of football, news, weather and simultaneous sporting events.

• Related: Wear OS 5 only supports the Watch Face Format, old faces can’t be downloaded

On the wearable front, there was Wear OS 5 launching on the Watch Ultra and Watch 7.

Rick Osterloh briefly talked about the “upcoming XR platform” being developed in partnership with Samsung and Qualcomm. It was first announced in January of 2023. Besides “you’ll want to stay tuned for that,” no more details were shared. 

Update: Afterwards, Samsung’s TM Roh said the new XR platform is “coming this year.” That’s presumably referring to the announcement, but it’s not clear whether that also means a 2024 launch/availability.

The new SVP of Platforms & Devices was on stage for around 5 minutes. Osterloh briefly alluded to Gemini Live as “generative AI with real-time multimodal natural language models.” Google is “excited to work closely with Samsung to bring this Innovation to you soon.”