Working Out? Android Phones Will Know Soon

Google's I/O developer event has been proven to offer a wealth of information for those who follow developments in the Android community, with news on everything from music to games and beyond. But one of the newest developments to emerge focuses more on what users are doing when phones are in tow, in the form of Activity Recognition.

Activity Recognition is part of a new set of tools introduced at the I/O event known as Google Services. With Google Services, Android developers have a set of new tools with which to make apps, and Activity Recognition is among these tools. Activity Recognition, much as the name implies, can determine whether a user is walking, biking or driving. This, according to the vice president of product management at Google, Hugo Barra, will offer up a lot of help for mapping apps to better pinpoint current locations. Activity Recognition is set to work with any version of Android from Froyo (Android 2.2 for those who prefer the numbers) on up.

Basically, how Activity Recognition works is that it feels movement based on data coming from the accelerometer, backed up by a set of what are called "machine learning classifiers" to get a better idea of what kind of movement the device is undergoing. This is all done without turning to the GPS, and as such, provides significant savings in terms of battery life. Similar measures have been in development for some time now, but this is Google's foray into the concept.

When the system can recognize kinds of movement without the need to activate the GPS, it opens up a lot of possibilities for fitness apps. Knowing what kind of movement is going on can provide insight in terms of calories burned, activities done, and activities recommended as users attempt to reach fitness goals. Even deeper movement analysis could come out of a foundation provided by Activity Recognition, and that's even before the issue of Google Glass gets involved.

Some are even projecting that the new line of services like Activity Recognition will put a little extra punch in Google Glass' capabilities. With the ability to recognize different kinds of activity, Google Glass may well prove to be a fitness tool as well as a communications device, telling users in no uncertain terms how far a walk has gone or how many calories were burned as a result. If users start wearing Google Glass on a regular basis as some project, adding these fitness-related tools in there would likely improve the value proposition for users and potentially even get some who wouldn't have been interested ordinarily interested.

Naturally, it will be a while before the developments posed by Google Glass make their way down to the user level--these are developer tools, after all--but once the developers get up and running with these tools, it's a safe bet that some very interesting new features will emerge for all Android devices. That may well make for some new releases that no one saw coming.