Updated: Google’s developer conference in San Francisco is offering a range of announcements across the company’s products. Here’s your quick guide to the news, which we’ll be updating Wednesday and Thursday. The freshest news is at the top:
Google TV: “For the developer there’s no bigger market than the TV market,” said Google’s TV product manager, Rishi Chandra, who then tried to demo the new Google TV but was severely hampered by connectivity problems in the keynote hall disrupting the TV’s Bluetooth keyboard connection. Once it got going, the demo basically showed this: Google TV puts both a browser *and* television functionality on one screen. That’s it. So, the quick search box goes across both the TV and web. You can watch or set up recording directly on the DVR, or you can hook into a show or clip streamed online, through something like your Netflix account or the open web. “It’s just as easy to go to any site on the web as any channel on TV,” said Chandra.
Your Android phone pairs with your TV to work as your remote, which means you can do voice search on your TV. You can also push a website from your mobile browser up to display on the TV. This is built on Android 2.1 now, will update over the air, uses Google Chrome and Flash, and can run any Android app that doesn’t require phone-specific hardware.
In terms of developing on top of it, developers will get APIs to access TV channels. YouTube Leanback will be launched in the next few weeks, allowing you to organize your own playlists for watching on your TV. And the NBA has optimized NBA.com to use Google TV controls and send games straight to the DVR. Google showed off a couple apps of its own — a video podcast directory and a translator that takes closed captions and brings them into another language.
Google TV will be open-sourced in summer 2011, and will come to market in three devices in early 2011. The first TVs and Blu-ray players will come from Sony, then Logitech will offer a companion box to accompany existing setups. All are powered by Intel. Google has also signed distribution partnerships with Dish and Best Buy.
In a powerhouse Q&A with the CEOs of Google, Intel, Sony, Logitech, Dish, Best Buy and Adobe following the launch, Sony CEO Howard Stringer committed to bringing the device to market this fall in time for Christmas shopping.
Google VP engineering Vic Gundotra
Android Froyo: With 100,000 activations per day across 59 carriers, Android is getting better and faster. The new version includes: 2x-5x application speed-up with just-in-time compilation, new Microsoft Exchange support including auto-discovery, new APIs for device management including remote device wiping, an application data backup API, a cloud-to-device messaging API, tethering and portable hotspot support, 2x-3x JavaScript performance, camera support within the browser, support for Adobe Flash 10.1 and AIR, the ability for developers to plug into search and load apps onto the phone’s SD card, the option to update all apps and enable automatic updating, better bug reporting, a web-based app directory that sends apps directly to the phone over the Internet. Lastly, Google is offering a bunch of new mobile ad formats.
That’s a lot of stuff, but some of it is particularly cool. For instance, when you send directions to phone from browser, maps opens on the device instantly. And when you tell Android’s voice control to call a certain business, it will automatically open up your phone with that number. Also, through Google’s acquisition of SimplifyMedia, users can stream home music library directly to their phone.
Two more API additions: The Google Feed API now includes push updates, as well as a bunch of new open-source web fonts and a font API.
Google Buzz Fills Out APIs: Google Buzz launched an API that will allow developers to access user feeds, search updates, post updates and more. It’s already been integrated by Seesmic, Socialwok and other partners.
Google Latitude Gets an API: Google is allowing developers to build on its mobile location service — with the very explicit permission of users. The team has some cool app and service ideas here.
PayPal for Android: PayPal is offering developers the option to use its Mobile Payments Library to enable purchases in their Android apps. It already does this for the iPhone.
VMware CEO Paul Maritz
Google App Engine for Business and VMware Love: App Engine gets enterprise-level support, and later this year will have a SQL database so Google can entice corporate customers to build their in-house applications on App Engine for Business as opposed to on Microsoft Azure or other platforms as a service. It’s also optimized App Engine to work with VMware’s Spring Source Java framework. Apps built in the Spring framework will now run on App Engine, VMforce, Amazon’s Web Services and other clouds that support Java.
App Store for the Web: Google is putting together a directory of web apps called Chrome Web Store, though no launch date was specified. The apps will be mostly HTML 5 but will include Flash as well. App makers like TweetDeck have made HTML 5 versions that access APIs for notifications and geo-tagging in the browser, acting much like native clients. Google is working with Unity Technologies on Native Client to help transfer rich, immersive 3-D games in the browser.
Adobe CTO Kevin Lynch
Open Video: Google released WebM, an open media format for the web-based on VP8, the codec it acquired along with On2. NewTeeVee scooped this news more than a month ago, and has the full story today. Mozilla and Opera are on board to support the new format, and YouTube is converting its entire catalog. Adobe’s Kevin Lynch said VP8 will be included in Flash. Also on the video front, Clicker demoed a living room-ready version of its online TV guide, built with HTML 5.
Wave for Everybody: The collaboration tool Google Wave, which was introduced at last year’s I/O, is now part of Google Labs and doesn’t require an invite. “If you tried Google Wave out a while ago, and found it not quite ready for real use: now is a good time to come back for a second try,” product manager Stephanie Hannon wrote in a blog post. Wave is also being added to Google Apps.
Google engineering director David Glazer
Google Contextual Gadgets: Third parties can now build dynamic widgets into Gmail for businesses using Google Apps. Launch partners include Gist (see our WebWorkerDaily writeup), Kwaga (imports your correspondents’ social network profiles) and AwayFind (sends push notifications/alerts for important messages). Plus, Xobni announced developer tools to help any contextual gadget developed for Gmail work in Outlook.
[...] Google is working with Unity Technologies on Native Client to help transfer rich immersive 3-D games in the browser. [...]
[...] an app store, the Web giant announced at the kick-off to its 2010 I/O developers conference. Click here and here for more news on its app, video and cloud ambitions. Tomorrow's big news will be Google's [...]
[...] an app store, the Web giant announced at the kick-off to its 2010 I/O developers conference. Click here and here for more news on its app, video and cloud ambitions. Tomorrow’s big news will be [...]
[...] an app store, the Web giant announced at the kick-off to its 2010 I/O developers conference. Click here and here for more news on its app, video and cloud ambitions. Tomorrow’s big news will be [...]
[...] UPDATED: What’s New: All the News That’s Fit to Print at Google I/O [...]
[...] UPDATED: What’s New: All the News That’s Fit to Print at Google I/O [...]
[...] Flash and Air. Google’s main objective is to advance the web as a platform, on PCs, on mobile and now the TV as well. And by playing nice with Adobe, Google got the beleaguered company to sign on to have Flash [...]
[...] 0 Google with its annual developer conference, Google I/O, dominated the technology conversation last week. Whether it was taking jabs at Apple, launching a competitor to H.264 video technology or simply [...]
[...] UPDATED: What’s New: All the News That’s Fit to Print at Google I/O Tech Insider [...]
[...] from the beginning, however the platform is doing just fine even without a stellar interface. At last week’s Google I/O event, Google reported that 100,000 Android phones are activated dai…, so consumers appear willing to concede some design prettiness for functionality and customization [...]
[...] that Google claims the activation of some 100,000 Android devices per day, the game is clearly on between it and Apple. In 18 short months, Android has proven itself to be a [...]
[...] it needs work. And while — as demonstrated by Vic Gundrota at the Google I/O event — a web-based Market will eventually shoot apps over the air to your device, why, in the meantime, have applications started to disappear from users’ [...]
[...] it needs work. And while — as demonstrated by Vic Gundrota at the Google I/O event — a web-based Market will eventually shoot apps over the air to your device, why, in the meantime, have applications started to disappear from users’ [...]
[...] when compared to Nokia or Research In Motion. And Google is fast catching up to Apple thanks to more than 100,000 Android activations daily. But the more important point is how small the smartphone pool is to begin with. As Ahonen notes: [...]
[...] when compared to Nokia or Research In Motion. And Google is fast catching up to Apple thanks to more than 100,000 Android activations daily. But the more important point is how small the smartphone pool is to begin with. As Ahonen notes: [...]
[...] daily. That compares with the 100,000 daily activations the company cited at its Google I/O event just last month. Adding to the platform’s momentum, Google is also releasing Android 2.2, aka Froyo, to [...]
[...] Android 2.2 now supports application auto-upgrading and at last month’s Google I/O event, Vic Gundotra previewed Google’s upcoming web-based Market, which should address some of the on-device shortcomings. Users can buy apps from the web store, [...]
[...] Android shows no signs of slowing down its phenomenal growth, having increased from a respectable 100,000 daily activations in May to the current position. Schmidt credits the HTC EVO 4G on Sprint, Droid X on Verizon and the [...]
[...] such tablets aren’t likely to do more than make a small dent in the tablet market. But as Google continues to add features with future versions of Android, broaden its application ecosystem and work with hardware partners to get Android everywhere, the [...]
[...] Android Market experience will be getting better, however. In May, Vic Gundotra showed off upcoming features such as a web-based Market and the ability to send app installations to a handset from the browser. [...]
[...] along with installing apps, is slated to improve. At its developer conference earlier this year, Google showed off a web implementation of the Android Market. With it, users can find apps and with the click of a button, have the software wirelessly sent to [...]
[...] its mobile app store: Apple added apps to the web-based iTunes Preview site back in February, while Google demonstrated a version of its online Android Market at its developer event in May. But among these, the title of first to officially offer smartphone apps in a browser goes to RIM. [...]
[...] but 2011 is setting itself up for musical turf war that could add both Google and Apple to the mix. In May, Google announced plans for music streaming in Android while in 2009, Apple purchased Lala, a music-based community coupled with streaming technology. [...]
[...] web storefront of the Android Market, first promised last May, brings the ability to search, browse and buy apps from a computer browser. Up to now, mobile apps [...]
[...] As a user of Android devices on a daily basis, I’m generally impressed with Honeycomb’s official debut and the improvements to the Android Market. But stepping out of my end-user shoes for a second, I realize that there’s another perspective to today’s Honeycomb event. Namely: nothing major was shown today that wasn’t either expected or previously announced as a “coming soon” bit from Google in the past. The web-based Android Market, for example, was first mentioned at last May’s Google I/O event. [...]