Google releases second developer preview for Android Things

Google has released the second developer preview of its Android Things platform, which serves as the operating system for IoT devices. This version includes support for Google’s TensorFlow. That is a software library for machine learning systems.

In the preview announcement, Google says that in addition to new features, bug fixes are also part of the new release. One of the possibilities of Android Things is the use of TensorFlow. The company has released a sample for this, which makes it possible to have an image recognized by the system. After the image has been recognized, the system can communicate what the recognized object is through text-to-speech.

Another new feature is support for USB audio for the Intel Edison and the Raspberry Pi 3. However, support for Bluetooth is still pending, according to Google. With the new release, Android Things can now also be used on the Intel Joule and support has been added for user drivers, which can be found on a special page.

Google introduced Android Things in December as an evolution of the existing Brillo operating system. The advantage over that version is that developers can use well-known Android tools such as Android Studio, the Google Cloud Platform, Google Play Services and the Android SDK. In addition to the aforementioned devices, Android Things can also be used on an NXP Pico.