Android

Today during its annual I/O conference, Google announced that its Chromebook platform has eight OEMs and 15 devices in 28 countries. Google says that the top 10 highest rated laptops on Amazon are all Chromebooks. The company says it’s aware that most users carry a smartphone while using their laptop and to bridge the gap between both platforms, Google is introducing a feature baked into Android’s L release that will automatically unlock your Chromebook when nearby.

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Google has taken the stage at the company’s I/O developer conference to announce its next foray into the living room: Android TV. Using Android “L” as a base, the new software will run on set-top box hardware comparable to the Apple TV or the Amazon Fire TV.

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On stage at its Google I/O developer conference, the company talked wearables, as we expected it to. Google says that Android users check their phones “an average of 125 times a day,” so the company hopes that Android Wear paired with various wearables will help cut down on this number. Demoing it on an LG G Watch, Google showed more details about the Android Wear interface. The company also announced that starting today, the full Android Wear SDK is available to developers. Most importantly, Google announced that the LG G Watch will be available on Google Play today, although a price is still yet to be determined. The company also announced that the the Samsung Gear Live will be available today, as well. The Moto 360 will be available later this summer.

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During the I/O Keynote, Google announced that LG’s G Watch and newly announced Samsung Gear Live will be available today on the Play Store. These two new Android Wear-powered smartwatches are going to be an exciting advancement for wearables. The Samsung Galaxy Live will be available for $199 and LG’s G Watch will be priced at $229.

Along with that, Google announced that the Moto 360 smartwatch will be available “later this summer.” It’s unclear why Motorola wasn’t able to launch alongside the two smartwatches mentioned above. No pricing was mentioned for the Moto 360.

If you’d like to pickup an LG G Watch or Samsung Gear Live, they will be available for preorder on the Google Play Store around 4 p.m. PDT and ship July 7th, 2014.

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Building off its work with the Open Automotive Alliance, Google has just announced Android Auto. This new platform is a retooled version of Android that lets drivers safely use their connected apps and mobile services while on the road. Google says it researched what apps people were looking for while in their car and placed a major focus on navigation, communication and music.

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At Google I/O today, Sundar Pichai specifically discussed security innovations happening on Android as it builds an open platform that innovates quickly. Pichai used this as an example to jab at Apple’s iOS 8 for only now introducing alternative keyboard and widgets as Android has had the features for years. Pichai said that “less than half a percent of users” ever experience any issue with malware on Android. He also noted that 93% of Android users are on the latest version of Google Play Services which updates every six weeks. Pichai also announced features coming to Android “L” including a kill switch and universal privacy controls.
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Today at I/O, Google’s director of product management for Chrome,Avni Shah announced that the company has over 300 million active users on its mobile browser. Based on the company’s new Material Design, this refreshed version of Chrome features new animations that move at 60 frames per second. One of the new features coming to mobile web is the addition of Recents being able to display Chrome tabs for fast access.

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Today towards the end of its keynote address previewing its upcoming Android L release, Google announced software enhancements coming in the release that will vastly improve battery life. Dubbed “Project Volta”, Google has new tools for both developers and users that will increase battery life and optimize software on devices to be more efficient.

Google showed off a new tool called Battery Historian that will help quickly identify a system task that might be draining battery. The company said it’s already been using the tool to make Google Apps more efficient and hopes it will improve instrumentation of battery data for all. It also has a new Jobshceduler API that will allow a device to better allocate system tasks when users might be low on battery.

Lastly, Google has a new Battery Saver mode that allows things like clocking down CPU, turning off background data, and other tasks that are hard on battery life. The feature can be triggered manually or configured to come on when battery is low. Google said the Battery Saver can offer up to an extra 90 minutes of usage on a Nexus 5 for a typical day.

While introducing its “L” release of Android on stage at Google I/O, the company announced that this version of Android runs on the ART, or Android Runtime. Previous versions of Android ran on the Dalvik runtime, but the “L” version of Android is dropping it in its entirety.  Googler David Burke introduced this change on stage and said that the switch to ART should make Android run “twice as fast” as it did with Dalvik. Burke also said that developers won’t have to make many changes to switch to ART.

ART is a 64-bit runtime that includes a variety of changes. It’s designed to support a mix of AOT and JIT, and is cross-platform with support for ARM, x86, and MIPS. ART is much better for “garbage collection,” Burke said, in addition to being better about managing RAM. Graphic support is also much improved with ART. It supports graphic qualities like tessellation, geometry shaders, and many other things designed for gamers. Burke remarked that “You’re going to see new high-end tablets and phones with PC gaming capabilities.”

As part of the new ART-based operating system, Google introduced Project Volta, designed for improving battery life.

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Google has announced the next major iteration of its Android operating system, simply being called “L” at the time of this post (and still no word yet on what the L will stand for). Headlining the release is a new “Material” design scheme that Google is calling “beautiful and bold.”

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Today at Google I/O, Sundar Pichai announced a new program called Android One. The program will launch in India in the fall with partners including Karbon, Spice, and Micromax. The Android One Software Experience includes stock Android like what is found on Google’s Nexus devices with Play apps auto-installed with automatic updates. The program is intended to create high quality, affordable smartphones for developing markets using easily available parts to keep cost down. As an example, Pichai showed off a sub-$100 smartphone featuring a 4.5-inch display with dual SIM, SD card slot, and FM radio. After launching in India, Google will expand the Android One program.

Today Google kicked off its opening keynote address from for its Google I/O developer conference with an update on some company numbers since last checking in. Here’s a break down of some numbers and updates announced by Google’s head of Android and Chrome Sundar Pichai during today’s keynote including over 1 billion active users over a 30 day period. That is a measurement that’s replacing the activation numbers per day it usually announces:
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We’ve been hearing quite a bit  recently about the upcoming Moto X+1, which is expected to be Motorola’s next flagship smartphone. Now, 9to5Google has received what appears to be a promotional render for what is said to be that device from a source we consider reliable.

While a lot of information has already been leaked about this phone, one new feature revealed by this source is the apparent inclusion of a front-facing speaker at the bottom of the phone, though the purpose for that hardware (beyond possible music playback or speakerphone support) is still uncertain.

The source says it’s possible this phone will be revealed at Google’s I/O developer conference. If that’s the case, it would make sense for promotional images to start floating around about this time as the company prepares to unveil the next-gen device.

We’ve also gotten our hands on two separate images from a second render from the same source which is embedded below:

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Earlier today, Bloomberg published a profile of Android head Sundar Pichai in which it was stated that Google has several Android TV announcements slated for its I/O developer conference tomorrow. The WSJ has now published another report corroborating the earlier profile. According to the report, Google on Wednesday will unveil at least one “small set-top box” running its new Android TV operating system.

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I missed out scooping the Google Glass skydiving unveil at Google I/O 2012 because I didn’t believe my source. He knew about the entire thing, but it was too unbelievable for me to post. I’m posting this late word from my source because I think there is a small chance that Google announces it tomorrow (by posting late, it hopefully won’t go mainstream and I don’t look like an idiot when it doesn’t happen).

According to the source, Google has some biomedical superstars working in its X Lab on some cutting-edge micro bots that can detect things like certain kinds of cancer. These bots are small enough (the size of blood cells) to fit through human capillaries, yet they can detect diseases in the blood and can trigger an RFID reader, which in turn talks to a watch – perhaps a device running Android Wear. I was told this technology is at least 2 years from being a real product (and likely more when you consider FDA and public outcry). This isn’t the first time we’ve heard of nanobots circulating human bloodstreams, with scientists working on the idea as far back as 2009.

The bots would circulate in your blood stream, and when they went through your wrist (under your watch), the watch would be capable of reading the status (cancer/no cancer etc.).

Similar technology is already well documented and in recent years has become closer to something Google could actually use in a product. Ray Kurzweil, futurist and director of engineering at Google, described his vision for nanobots that could enter our blood stream in a piece he penned for The Guardian back in 2007:
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Google I/O is literally hours away and while we expect to see several things at this year’s conference, one of Mountain View’s biggest talking points could be improving Android’s appeal to business customers. To accomplish this, Google’s head of Android, Sundar Pichai is in talks with companies like Qualcomm to develop chips that store confidential information such as passwords and user data, so they won’t be as vulnerable to hackers, according to The Information.

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Following a report that Samsung was preparing to launch one of the first smartwatch products running Google’s new Android Wear platform, another report today follows up with what it says its branding and full specs for the device. A translated report from alt1040.com claims the Samsung Android Wear product will be dubbed “Gear Live” and begin selling on July 7 following an unveiling sometime this week at the Google I/O developer conference.

The report, which claims Samsung will unveil the device as one of the first products running the Android Wear OS, also shared full specs for the device that include a 1.63-inch display, 4GB of storage, a heart rate monitor, and a 300mAh battery:
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Today Nokia announced the X2, the Finnish company’s second attempt at producing a smartphone that plays nice with Android. Not to be confused with Motorola’s flagship circa 2011, Nokia’s new device features a 4.3-inch ClearBlack WVGA display, a 1.2GHz Snapdragon processor, 1GB of RAM, 4GB of storage space and a 5-megapixel shooter with an LED flash. Available in a broad range of colors, including green, orange and black, additional hues are scheduled to be launch after its release.

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Bloomberg Businessweek just published a lengthy profile and interview with Google’s head of Android and Chrome Sundar Pichai and within addressed some of Apple’s recent comments about Android. While much of the conversation circled around what we can expect from Google at this year’s developer conference and Sundar’s scheduled keynote address — wearables and TV will be a big focus— Sundar was also asked his thoughts on Apple’s recent announcements at its own WWDC developer conference earlier this month.

While noting that much of what Apple announced for iOS 8 were features that Android already had— third party keyboards, widgets, etc— Sundar said shipping a new version of Google Play every six weeks makes Android allows them to “move the platform faster than anyone else and provide a consistent layer for developers.” Next he addressed Tim Cook’s claim from WWDC that Apple is gaining lots of new customers from Android switchers:
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