Google unveils Compute Engine

E. Betters

Google executives are now on-stage for the second day of Google I/O to announce Compute Engine—its full-featured contender against Amazon and Microsoft’s cloud-computing services.

Google Senior Vice President Urz Holzle revealed the Infrastructure platform allows any sized businesses with large computing requirements to run applications on Google data center servers. Computer Engine also features multiple storage options with expansive connectivity to end-users.

It already beta tested with customers, as the Institute for Systems Biology, for instance, applied it to a Genome Explorer app. Holzle even demonstrated the ISB genome explorer running on 600,00 cores, but he noted there are 771,886 cores available to the app.

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Google launches offline Google Docs, presentations and spreadsheets coming soon

Jordan Kahn

Another notable announcement coming out of Google’s second keynote presentation at Google I/O today is the launch of offline mode for Google Docs. Google execs gave a demo of the app working in Chrome without an Internet connection, allowing the user access to all features and formatting to make edits offline while saving changes to a local cache. Google noted that the offline feature would launch for Docs today and eventually roll out to presentations and spreadsheets.

Google I/O: Chrome has 310M active users, up from 160M last year

Jordan Kahn

It is Day 2 of Google I/O, and execs kicked things off today with some Chrome numbers:

-310 million active users (up from 160 million at I/O in 2011)

-60 billion typed words per day

-1 TB of files downloaded per day

-13 years of human life saved thanks to page pre-rendering per day

Google I/O 2012 Day 2 Liveblog

Jordan Kahn

Yesterday was a big day for day 1 of Google I/O, kicking off with the company keynote and the unveiling of the Nexus 7 tablet, an enhanced Google+, the Nexus Q, and of course, Google Glass. Today we are on hand again for second half of Google’s keynote address and will be bringing you all the live updates as they happen. The live stream above is set to kick off at 1 PM EST. Links to all the highlights from yesterday’s presentation are below:
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Nexus 7 hands-on. Super-light and super-bright

Seth Weintraub

I did not spend a lot of time with the software, but a quick look at the hardware is impressive. At 340 grams, this feels more like a heavy phone (see anything HTC made last year) than a small tablet. We are not sure how the mA hours/16-core processor/9-hour battery life will reconcile, but it seems impressive at first blush. The plastic back will have its fans and detractors.

One important note: Like the Kindle Fire, but unlike Samsung’s 7-inch tabs, it charges via Micro USB. That will please many…unless they are looking for a quick charge. It will be interesting to see if you can do video out of the Nexus 7 using the micro-USB port—or if Google steers you to its new Q orb.

The screen is very nice. Colors are crisp, even in the bright demo area, and it feels a bit sharper than the now-boxy Kindle Fire.

As a product, the Nexus 7 feels like a media-heavy direct attack on the Kindle Fire. I think there is no question that this is better, though. The issue is that the Kindle Fire is now almost a year old, and rumors of the next version landing at around the same time as this device hits the Google Play store have already started.

I will have my device to go deep into tonight.

The 2012 Google I/O Developers Conference starts today at the Moscone Center West in San Francisco, Calif., with events continuing until June 29 at 4:30 p.m. PST.

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Sergey Brin’s Google Glass skydiver demo from I/O keynote [Video]

Jordan Kahn

If you do not know by now, Sergey Brin just interrupted Google’s I/O keynote to give a demo of Google Glass. The demo consisted of skydivers jumping from above to land on the venue’s rooftop, and it included a few other Google Glass-wearing helpers. We have all the information on what unveiled at the event—even details for the $1,500 Explorer Edition of Google Glass offered as a preorder to attendees (shipping early next year). The video above is of the entire skydiver demo.

The 2012 Google I/O Developers Conference starts today at the Moscone Center West in San Francisco, Calif., with events continuing until June 29 at 4:30 p.m. PST.
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