“Two to three co-founders seems to be a sweet spot,” Y Combinator partner Paul Bucheit said on a panel session at Google I/O Developer Conference in San Francisco. The other panelists — Excite Co-founder and Google Ventures partner Joe Kraus and SCVNGR founder Seth Priebatsch — all agreed venture capitalists prefer to invest in companies headed by more than one founder.

Recent research from the MIT Sloan School of Management supports this idea. The study, led by the MIT Entrepreneurship Center’s Dr. Edward Roberts, indicated that each additional co-founder up to four increases a company’s odds of success. Research of companies with five or more cofounders was inconclusive because there weren’t enough of those companies to reliably include them in the study’s findings.

The panelists pointed to three main reasons companies with several co-founders seem to be a better bet than single-founder companies:

1. Several-founder companies are more resilient once the company hits the inevitable rough patch.
   “It’s easier if you’re not all alone when things are awful,” Bucheit said. A single founder may be more likely to throw in the towel when times get hard.
2. Companies with several co-founders are likely to be more than just a pipe dream.
   “The validation of an idea is when you can convince someone else to drop what they’re doing and join you,” said panel moderator, startup veteran and Google developer advocate Don Dodge, who has invested in startups in the past. “If you can’t do that, you should really think hard about what you’re doing.
   
3. Co-founders could already have a tried-and true relationship.
   Companies headed by people who have worked together before receive extra bonus points from investors. “Have you gone to battle together before?” Kraus asked. “And do you like each other at the end of it?” VCs are even more keen to invest with several entrepreneurs who have proven that they can work successfully together in good times and bad.

Image courtesy of Flickr user Chuck “Caveman” Coker

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But how do Chromebooks really differ from netbooks, why wouldn’t users simply buy an Android tablet with an external keyboard — and how do you explain all of this to the corporate and educational market? Check out the video embedded below for Pichai’s answers.

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That version of Ava used an iPad as it’s head, but at Google I/O, iRobot is showing off an Ava model that uses a Motorola Xoom Honeycomb tablet in place of the iPad. And the robotics company complemented the demo by announcing that it’s teaming with Google to help create Android applications for Ava, although developers can do the same. In a statement, iRobot CEO, Colin Angle, said:

Ava is the first app-ready robot. By tapping into an almost limitless supply of Android-based apps, Ava is poised to revolutionize how people communicate and deliver information through remote presence and other means. With the right ideas, Ava can also revolutionize how people live both at home and in the workplace.

I think Angle is on to something by combining tablets with robotics, although I saw the light with smartphones as the brains, eyes, and ears of such robots. Angle’s idea to use a tablet is similar because aside from a bigger display, there’s many similarities in the hardware and capabilities of slates and smartphones. I noted this last August in a GigaOM Pro report (subscription required), calling smartphone-powered robots the next big thing:

Robots in the home aren’t necessarily a new concept, but the ones I envision in a not-too-distant future will leverage various technologies of the smartphone, thanks to advances in chips, various sound and sight sensors, wireless broadband and software.

Phones and tablets can crudely replicate the senses of sight, hearing and speech due to their various sensors. Thinking power is provided by low-powered processors which are given things to do via software; that’s where Android comes in.

We’ll have to see what kind of apps that iRobot and third-party developers create for Ava, but I wouldn’t be surprised at all to see the robot have an interface with Google’s new Android@Home initiative: you could just tell Ava to fire up the dishwasher and shut off all the lights in unoccupied rooms while reading the latest from Google News!

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These aren’t meant to be cheap computers. They’re meant to be great experiences.

– Sundar Pichai, Google Senior VP of Chrome, on the Chromebook, Google’s low-priced Chrome OS notebook computers.

Pichai’s emphasis on user experience reflects a bit of a departure for Google, which has faced criticism in the past for focusing more on algorithms and engineering than on the people using their products. But perhaps this approach is an attempt by the company to change its stripes in an increasingly people-centric web landscape.

And while the Chromebook may be new, the idea behind it isn’t. As Om pointed out after the Chromebook beta launch in December 2010, stripped-down and inexpensive “network computers” have been in the works for nearly 15 years. Maybe the focus on experience will be what helps the Chromebook succeed where others have not.

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Samsung’s model will be priced at $429 for a Wi-Fi version, while $499 includes a 3G / World Mode radio for use on Verizon’s mobile broadband network; the carrier will provide 100 MB of monthly data use for two years at no change, with additional data available for purchase. Additional specifications include:

• 12.1-inch display with 1280×800 resolution and 300 nit screen
• Dual-core 1.66 GHz Intel Atom processor
• 8.5 hours of continuous battery life
• HD webcam, noise-canceling microphone
• 2 USB ports, 4-in1 memory card slot, mini-VGA port
• Full-sized keyboard and clickable trackpad
• 3.26 pounds

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Vikas Gupta at Google I/O 2011

Updated. Google has rolled out two new updates to its Chrome Web Store to allow application developers to reach more people — and make more money. The updates were announced during the day-two morning keynote at the Google I/O Developer conference in San Francisco.

• The Chrome Web Store is now available in 41 languages to all Chrome users worldwide, Google SVP of Chrome Sundar Pichai said during the keynote. The Chrome Web Store opened to U.S. users in December 2010 and has since seen 17 million application installations, Pichai said.
• The Chrome API has been updated to make purchases within apps “extremely frictionless,” Google Payments Product Manager Vikas Gupta said during his portion of the keynote. Developers can now incorporate two-click payment capabilities to their apps with a single line of code, Gupta announced. In addition, Gupta announced the payment capability is available for a 5-percent flat commission, with no sign-up or licensing fees– meaning 95 percent of the app purchase stays with the developer. The new pricing model is aimed at enabling developers to build “amazing businesses” on the Chrome platform, Gupta said. “We wanted to keep it simple.”

Update: During a press Q&A session following the keynote, Engineering VP Linus Upson said Google plans to make the Chrome Web Store available on additional browsers such as Mozilla Firefox. “Stores will be available on more than one browser,” Upson said, although he did not provide concrete details on timing.

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Samsung will also bring a Chromebox thin desktop to market that can be used in business settings. The Chromebox will be part of a program called Chrome for business that’s basically a subscription model, priced at $28 per month per user. Chrome for business will offer support and cloud services, and devices will be replaced at the end of their life cycle.

A third initiative is Chromebooks for schools, which will be available per student for $20 per month, and will include the same kind of service as the business offering. Chrome for business and Chromebooks for schools will also be available starting on June 15, with Google directly handling the orders. Google is launching its consumer, business and education offerings in the U.K., France, Germany, the Netherlands, Spain and Italy. Google is working with local carriers to make 3G connectivity available in each of these markets.

Google unveiled the original Chrome OS laptop, dubbed CR-48, back in December, which was only distributed as part of an invite-only pilot program. Pichai said that more than a million people applied for the program within a few weeks, adding that the company has “literally shipped thousands of devices” since.

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One day prior to the keynote, we made five predictions about the Android keynote. Here’s how we fared along with additional thoughts on what Google did, and didn’t, announce for Android.

• Stats, stats and more stats. It’s a given that yearly smartphone product news will include sales figures as well as downloads, so this expectation wasn’t much of a stretch. We did nail the Android activation figures however, saying Google would announce 400,000 Android device activations per day. Additional numbers from Google I/O show the Android army growing in every measure: 100 million cumulative device activations, 200,000 apps in the Market and 4.5 billion apps downloaded. Google TV devices will gain such application support via the Android Market. With this momentum, Google’s mobile initiative is blossoming in terms of market share, but Apple still earns far more profit from iOS.
• Google Music Plays. This wasn’t a huge surprise either: Google did launch an updated Music application that supports music streaming from Google’s servers. Users will have to upload their own tunes through the beta service, which is currently only open to invitees, although anyone can request an invite. Like most Google services, simply signing in on an Android phone will provide access to tunes stored in the cloud. The app will locally store music recently listened to, enabling offline audio. But Google failed to bring a full music offering as there was no store or subscription service launch. For now, Google Music looks like a pale comparison of Amazon’s Cloud Player service  already available on Android devices. Google did add support for movie rentals, however, which helps expand the media ecosystem for tablets and smartphones.
• Honeycomb Improvements. Sorely needed and expected, Google’s tablet platform gained new features, functions and visual changes. Android 3.1 adds widget resizing, wider support for USB devices, and an expanded recent task list. Although I haven’t used the updated software yet, I’m hearing reports that the performance of Honeycomb has improved as well. This is welcome news, as my own first impressions on three different Android 3.0 tablets, each with very similar hardware, showed sluggishness. Google also announced new developer tools and APIs, which may have a bigger impact going forward, as third-party apps for Google’s tablets haven’t appeared in large numbers.
• An Ice Cream Sandwich. We broke news in February that Honeycomb’s feature-set wouldn’t be limited to tablets, and Google confirmed it yesterday. The next version of Android, Ice Cream Sandwich, will unify software and features on slates and smartphones. The new Music app is a good example, as the same app runs on both small- and large-screened devices. Google expects to launch Ice Cream Sandwich in the last quarter of this year. That indicates current phones won’t likely see the update until 2012, if at all, as it takes time for carriers to test and deliver software updates.
• The Next Nexus. Our only prediction that didn’t come true was a new Google-branded Nexus device, but it was a long shot. Instead, Google handed out Samsung Galaxy Tab slates to all attendees, nearly a month before the device goes on sale. However Google’s SVP of Mobile, Andy Rubin, did hint at a new Nexus device in the future, saying “there’s always going to be new ones.” My take is that a new Nexus handset will debut before the end of 2011 in order to showcase Ice Cream Sandwich.

Four out of five predictions isn’t bad, but Google had even more to announce in terms of Android. A new Android@Home initiative, complete with a new wireless protocol, will bring smart appliances and lightbulbs to the Android army. As a home automation geek that controls lights and thermostats with my handset, I like the initiative here. I’m not sold on the need for a new wireless protocol, however.

Overall, the Android announcements were largely expected and all welcome. But the event seemed “flat” to me as I watched the live-stream and I walked away after the hour keynote wanting more. For those of you that watched or read the coverage, do you agree, or do you think Google hit a home run with its Android news? I’m leaning toward a double, or maybe a triple, at best.

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The Arduino-powered Android ADK.

The first part of the puzzle was the unveiling of the Android Accessory Mode, which makes it possible for third-party developers to build hardware accessories that can communicate with Android devices via USB. One of the applications demonstrated by Google included game controllers for Android devices, and companies exhibiting at I/O showcased the use of Google’s reference Accessory Development Kit (ADK) to play music, grow plants and control robots.

All of this may admittedly sound pretty geeky, and Google was clearly targeting hardware hackers at I/O, giving away development kits that are based on the Arduino open source hardware. However, you have to put Android accessories in context to see where the company is really going with this; and that’s where Android@Home comes in.

The gateway used by Lighting Science to connect an Android tablet to mesh-networked LEDs.

Google used part of its Tuesday keynote to preview Android@Home as an initiative to connect all kinds of appliances in the home. The company teamed up with LED company Lighting Science Group to develop an open source wireless protocol that can be used to roll out inexpensive hardware for mesh networking.

Lighting Science wants to bring the first networking-enabled LED light bulbs to the market by the end of the year, and consumers will be able to control these LEDs with their Android devices, thanks to a hub that helps to interconnect Wi-Fi devices with the new networking protocol.

I talked to Android@Home Engineering Director, Joe Britt, and Android@Home Director of Hardware, Matt Hershenson, after the announcement, and Britt told me that Android@Home was really just a way of taking accessories one step further:

“In thinking about accessories as devices that surround the phone, we started thinking about how far away from the phone you could migrate. Is a light bulb a potential accessory? Is a dish washer a potential accessory?”

Ultimately, said Britt, it all came down to one question: “How can you reach out to every single device in the world and interact with it?”

Granted, some of the things Android@Home is debuting with have been done before. Smart home initiatives are nothing new, and wireless protocols like ZigBee and Insteon have been used before to control devices as well as measure energy use. Hershenson and Britt told me that LED lighting just seemed like the easiest use case to bring to market, something that consumers will understand right away.

However, combine these technologies with the existing Android developer ecosystem, and things are going to get interesting. Android devices will automatically detect connected accessories, whether these are plugged in via USB or connected through a mesh network, and give apps the ability to utilize their functionality.

This opens up countless possibilities for developers, which in turn will be a big boon for Android devices. Just imagine for a second that the Netflix app on your Google TV will be able to control the mood lighting in your living room based on the type of movie you are watching, turning to warm colors for romantic comedies and entirely dark for horror flicks.

A Tungsten music player reacting controlled via NFC. Once the CD touched the player, it automatically started playing the album.

There will also be entirely new categories of applications, designed to specifically run on devices that don’t have displays, or work with different types of input. One prototype device demonstrated during the I/O keynote was dubbed Tungsten, a music player that interacts with the user through NFC.

Bringing Android to all these devices will undoubtedly change Android itself, make it more ubiquitous, add new types of interactions and even new forms of commerce. “There is an endless realm of possibilities available,” said Hershenson, and Britt added:

“I think of it as spheres, expanding outward. In the middle, you got the core Android functionality, and then we are layering on, and expanding out the reach of Android to enable more and more diverse applications.”

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“Programming Well with Other: Social Skills for Geeks” was among the more heavily attended panels of the day here at the Moscone Center. Google software engineer Ben Collins-Sussman and engineering manager Brian Fitzpatrick led the room in a rundown of life’s greatest questions; from “How do I get my co-workers to leave me alone so I can write code?” to “How can I get the marketing people to leave me alone so I can write code?” (Note: according to the pair, the answer to both questions is, “You shouldn’t”).

Clad in signature white lab coats, the pair began Tuesday’s session like a self-help group. They acknowledged the most difficult part of programming was in fact, “working with other humans.” In the programming game, people are equivalent to a “giant pile of intermittent bugs.”

The guys used their hour to address a range of typical programming stumbling blocks programmers run into. So whether you are the low man on the totem pole at a certain search giant or the founder of a new startup, here are some of their helpful hints from the Google relationship experts.

• Show your work. Hiding away in a dark cubicle and refusing to show your code to coworkers is a typical programmer instinct. But it’s also a surefire way to waste a lot of time going in the wrong direction. So instead of complaining about coworkers who want to see what you are working on, consider it an opportunity for peer review. And use the break to go to the bathroom.
•  Impress your manager. Don’t wait around for orders. Have opinions. Don’t just be a yes man. Tell your manager about roadblocks and successes. Oh, and get your work done. Says Fitzpatrick, “So long as you put in your 85 hours a week, it’s all good.”
• Don’t worry so much about your mistakes. Founders are often mythologized in tech culture. But they don’t always deserve all the credit they get.  ”Linux kernal didn’t spring out  Linus Torvald’s head fully formed,” Fitzpatrick said. Instead he led a great team. You should worry less about how to present yourself as a genius, and more time worrying about how you present yourself to your team.
• Get a mission statement. The easiest way to get everyone on the same page in a startup is to write your mission down — and put it on the Internet. Programmers can be averse to mission statements they see as “smarmy big corporations saying we’re focused on focusing,” says Fitzpatrick. But a mission statement has a direction and limiter. It’s important!
• Don’t yell at people. Whether you are a team lead on a project or a non-techie manager of developers, remember that yelling and threatening won’t get you results. “Engineering is a creative thing. Its not a rote activity,” Fitzpatrick said. “If I shake a carrot or stick at you, you aren’t going to be smarter or think creatively faster.” Programmers want to feel like they are driving the bus, not just sitting in the back seat. So let them take control of their own portion of the project.

Photo courtesy of Google.

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