This has the air of a bit of a cult gathering, but it's a big cult - 5000+ developers descend on the swanky Moscone Center in downtown San Francisco for the annual Google I/O conference.
A giant clock counted down the seconds until the giant corporation unveiled its latest Android developments. No matter that Apple has taken over as the world's most valuable brand. This is Google's presentation to the world - not only to those in San Fran but also the viewing parties watching the event live in 110 cities around the world, from viewing parties across world, including Cairo (1,000 people watching there) plus NYC, Paris, Tokyo, Cambridge, Hyderabad and Vienna.
For those of you not steeped in the developing world, this is the event this month - not least for the swag. Each attendee at the conference gets a free Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1, only 8.6mm thin (thinner than the iPad).
But the real star of this show is Android - the Google operating system that the company is trying to export into every aspect of our lives - and the announcements today mean forays into movies, music and even our home appliances.
The big message from Google is around some big numbers: 100m activated Android devices; 400,000 new Android devices activated every day; 200,000 appls available; 4.5bn apps installed by today.
So, here's my recap of what's been announced in the key sessions this morning - so far.
Long anticipated, this is the single operating system that will work on any tablet, phone or other Android device. It translates the Honeycombsystem for phone users too.
Developers here very excited by quite a small development to take "widgets to the next level". They can be stretched horizontally or vertically with a few lines of xml.
Everything will be open source.
An Android device will be able to be a USB host, which means we can all plug devices in, such as a keyboard or a game console. The team demoe'd a giant tilting labyrinth - you can see a pic here:
Take, for example, Google's Android-connected exercise bike, which pumped heart rate data from the cycle to the phone mid-exercise, or the fun demo of a labyrinth marble game tilt-controlled with an Android tablet. This is a hacker's fantasy—a board that'll integrate an Android device with... whatever they can stick it into. Powerful stuff, and fertile dirt for crazily inventive minds.
The team also showcased a pretty cool head-tracking development where the device can follow who is speaking in a conversation, or knows to zoom into a particular part of the face.
The new project available via Android Market, it's the first of two announcements which stamp directly on iTune's territory. This allows users to rent them via the cloud to their computers and android devices, for around $1.99 and in high definition. Google has struck deals with Sony Pictures, NBC Universal and Warner Brothers for the rights.
The movies have a 30-day rental period and a pin feature allows users to download them onto the device for when you're out of wifi.
The biggest announcement, Google Music will be available in beta and only to US users initially - so you have to request an invitation - except for all the I/O attendees who were automatically invited today.
Basically, your music collection would no longer be stored on your machine but in the cloud - and you can import playlists from iTunes into it. You can build a playlist based on any song you like -instant mix - suggestions appear straight away. No cables or "painful" syncing, obviously and soem pretty cool carousel effects. Although, as Google admitted in the press briefing:
A couple of the major labels were only interested in doing so on terms we thought were unreasonable and usustainable.
There can be 20,000 songs in the library and the service is free in beta.
Google has done deals with big companies such as Verizon, Vodafone, LG and Sony Ericcsson to ensure an 18-month turnaround for updates - although as a couple of journalists pointed out in the press conference afterwards, in 18 months you might as well buy a new device.
This is an experimental framework designed to encourage developers to get a headstart on developing apps and software, making the "home an Android accessory". The team demoed a device which could turn lights on and off, control alarm clocks or home appliances such as fridges and cookers via your android device - all of which is planned to be a long-term development, probably end of 2012.
As Ben Parr writes in this post:
The search giant's ambitious plan intends to turn the home into one connected device.
It has partnered with LightingScience to create an Android light bulb.
It also showed off Project Tungsten, which is a home audio system where Android tablet users can control which speakers come on or off and in one particularly cool development, the team showed a device where users could just swipe an enabled CD and the system would automatically download the entire contents.
A giant clock counted down the seconds until the giant corporation unveiled its latest Android developments. No matter that Apple has taken over as the world's most valuable brand. This is Google's presentation to the world - not only to those in San Fran but also the viewing parties watching the event live in 110 cities around the world, from viewing parties across world, including Cairo (1,000 people watching there) plus NYC, Paris, Tokyo, Cambridge, Hyderabad and Vienna.
For those of you not steeped in the developing world, this is the event this month - not least for the swag. Each attendee at the conference gets a free Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1, only 8.6mm thin (thinner than the iPad).
But the real star of this show is Android - the Google operating system that the company is trying to export into every aspect of our lives - and the announcements today mean forays into movies, music and even our home appliances.
The big message from Google is around some big numbers: 100m activated Android devices; 400,000 new Android devices activated every day; 200,000 appls available; 4.5bn apps installed by today.
So, here's my recap of what's been announced in the key sessions this morning - so far.
Long anticipated, this is the single operating system that will work on any tablet, phone or other Android device. It translates the Honeycombsystem for phone users too.
Developers here very excited by quite a small development to take "widgets to the next level". They can be stretched horizontally or vertically with a few lines of xml.
Everything will be open source.
An Android device will be able to be a USB host, which means we can all plug devices in, such as a keyboard or a game console. The team demoe'd a giant tilting labyrinth - you can see a pic here:
Take, for example, Google's Android-connected exercise bike, which pumped heart rate data from the cycle to the phone mid-exercise, or the fun demo of a labyrinth marble game tilt-controlled with an Android tablet. This is a hacker's fantasy—a board that'll integrate an Android device with... whatever they can stick it into. Powerful stuff, and fertile dirt for crazily inventive minds.
The team also showcased a pretty cool head-tracking development where the device can follow who is speaking in a conversation, or knows to zoom into a particular part of the face.
The new project available via Android Market, it's the first of two announcements which stamp directly on iTune's territory. This allows users to rent them via the cloud to their computers and android devices, for around $1.99 and in high definition. Google has struck deals with Sony Pictures, NBC Universal and Warner Brothers for the rights.
The movies have a 30-day rental period and a pin feature allows users to download them onto the device for when you're out of wifi.
The biggest announcement, Google Music will be available in beta and only to US users initially - so you have to request an invitation - except for all the I/O attendees who were automatically invited today.
Basically, your music collection would no longer be stored on your machine but in the cloud - and you can import playlists from iTunes into it. You can build a playlist based on any song you like -instant mix - suggestions appear straight away. No cables or "painful" syncing, obviously and soem pretty cool carousel effects. Although, as Google admitted in the press briefing:
A couple of the major labels were only interested in doing so on terms we thought were unreasonable and usustainable.
There can be 20,000 songs in the library and the service is free in beta.
Google has done deals with big companies such as Verizon, Vodafone, LG and Sony Ericcsson to ensure an 18-month turnaround for updates - although as a couple of journalists pointed out in the press conference afterwards, in 18 months you might as well buy a new device.
This is an experimental framework designed to encourage developers to get a headstart on developing apps and software, making the "home an Android accessory". The team demoed a device which could turn lights on and off, control alarm clocks or home appliances such as fridges and cookers via your android device - all of which is planned to be a long-term development, probably end of 2012.
The search giant's ambitious plan intends to turn the home into one connected device.
It has partnered with LightingScience to create an Android light bulb.
It also showed off Project Tungsten, which is a home audio system where Android tablet users can control which speakers come on or off and in one particularly cool development, the team showed a device where users could just swipe an enabled CD and the system would automatically download the entire contents.
