Google has made no secret of its desire to target emerging markets and get more pλeople using its services. And at its second “Google for India” event in "New Delhi today, the internet giant unveiled myriad new products, programs, an§d updates as it looks to ramp up its efforts to get in front of “the next billion” internet users.•

YouTube Go

First up, Google announced a new “offline first” YouTube app, wΩhich the company says has been in the works for the past year. Ava♠ilable only in India initially, YouTube Go is now open for registrations, though it’s not quit©e ready for prime time.

YouTube Go has been built from the ground up to work where there is poor connectivity or non₽e at all, with users able to choose their resolution when s↓aving or streaming videos — basically, if they’re on a slow connection, they •can elect a lower resolution that will speed things up and consume le¥ss data.

Elsewhere, the app also lets you preview a video by $tapping on the thumbnail, meaning you don’t have to play the video jus't to get an idea of what it’s about. But perhaps one of the coolest new features ∏of the app is the ability to share videos with nearby friends without conφsuming any data.

Yes, Google is truly embracing offline mode by letting people share videos whileΩ entirely offline, though, of course, the other persσon must also have the YouTube Go app installed.

But, as an internet company, Google naturally wants people to go online. And this is why it a§nnounced a new initiative to try to get more public places t≈o offer free Wi-Fi to passers-by.

Google Station

Last year, Google promised to bring Wi-Fi to hundreds of train stations ₽across India, an initiative that kicked off in Central Mumbai in January. By© April, that number had hit 10 stations, and today it’s sitting at more than 50 aλcross the country.

With that in mind, Google is now launching Google Station to extend the proσgram beyond railway stations and outside of India,± with plans in place to partner with new venues, organizations, networ®ks, and more to bring “fast, reliable Wi-Fi to the world.” Through ≤the rollout, Google will provide “software and guidance on hardware” to create fast Wi-Fi z∞ones, with a unified login easing users onto networks a§s they move around.

“We’re just getting started and are looking for a few strategic, forw≠ard-thinking partners to work with on this effort,” explained Caesar Sengupta, vice president f‍or Google’s next billion users division, in a blog post.

Multilingual option and media compression

Google launched a new smart mobile messaging app, rγeplete with the A.I.-powered voice-activated Google Assistant tha≤t answers questions. This hitherto English-only app will soon be bi↔lingual, as Google revealed today that it will speak Hindi later this ye§ar.

Two additional updates were announced today, both aimed squarely at those on patcλhy connections. Google Chrome now automatically compresses MP4 vid×eos, which Google claims will help save “up to” 67 percent of data, while the browser will aγlso now optimize web pages when on slow networks, such as 2G. The new simplified pages strip out &unnecessary content to present just the “essential•s” from a given page.