Wednesday, May 15, 2013

Google I/O 2013 Kicks Off Today

by Dietrich Schmitz

Today, May 15, 2013, kicked off the much anticipated Google I/O conference at the Moscene Center in San Francisco with over 6,000 Developer attendees.

This is a big deal, the big enchalada, in the Google World and traditionally most of the new technology announcements come out of this conference.

It has become quite an extravaganza now with 460 extended sites in over 90 countries with livestream coverage allowing all attendees to view the action in San Francisco in real-time.  This effectively will allow millions of viewers around the world to see the excitement as it unfolds.  This is truly a great service that Google have provided.

Already, today, several I/O announcements have been made:


  • Android & Google Play: In addition to new developer tools, we unveiled Google Play All Access, a monthly music subscription service with access to millions of songs that joins our music store and locker; and the Google Play game services with real-time multiplayer and leaderboards. Also, coming next month to Google Play is a special Samsung Galaxy S4, which brings together cutting edge hardware from Samsung with Google’s latest software and services—including the user experience that ships with our popular Nexus devices.
  • Chrome: With over 750 million active users on Chrome, we’re now focused on bringing to mobile the speed, simplicity and security improvements that we’ve seen on the desktop. To that end, today we previewed next-generation video codec VP9 for faster video-streaming performance; the requestAutocomplete API for faster payments; and Chrome Experiments such as "A Journey Through Middle Earth" and Racer to demonstrate the ability to create immersive mobile experiences not possible in years past.
  • Google+We unveiled the newly designed Google+, which helps you easily explore content as well dramatically improve your online photo experience to give you crisp, beautiful photos—without the work! We also upgraded Google+ Hangouts—our popular group video application—to help bring all of your real-life conversations online, across any device or platform, and with groups of up to 10 friends.
  • Search: Search has evolved considerably in recent years: it can now have a real conversation with you, and even make your day a bit smoother by predicting information you might need. Today we added the ability to set reminders by voice and we previewed “spoken answers” on laptops and desktops in Chrome—meaning you can ask Google a question and it will speak the answer back to you.
  • Maps: Today we previewed the next generation of Google Maps, which gets rid of any clutter in order to put your individual experience and exploration front and center. Each time you click or search, our technology draws you a tailored map that highlights the information you need. From design to directions, the new Google Maps is smarter and more useful.

The conference ends on Friday May 17, 2013. 

-- Dietrich


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