Google events

Sundar Pichai, senior vice president of Chrome, has just announced two cool Chrome notebooks up on stage here at Google I/O 2011. He used a new word to describe them – Chromebooks. Add that to your vocabulary, I have a feeling we’re gonna use it a lot moving forward.

Samsung’s 12.1-inch Chromebook, shown above, has eight-hour battery and sports instant-on performance, like Apple’s MacBook Air, with eight-second boot time.

Acer’s machine, seen below, has a 11.6-inch display, 6.5-hour battery and also boots in just eight seconds. So, how much will those beauties cost you?

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Google just said at Day Two Keynote that users have installed 70 million web apps found in the Chrome Web Store in the first three months. To put things in perspective, Google said Chrome has been downloaded 160 million times worldwide so far. The store is also available in 40 new languages as of today.

The company also introduced a simple way to enable one-click purchases withing web apps themselves, via Google Checkout. So, what’s the deal? Unlike Apple which takes 30 percent cut on iTunes content sales or in-app purchases, Google said it would take just five percent. “We at google felt we can do a little better”, a Google engineer said during the keynote in a hint at Apple’s 70:30 revenue sharing deal.

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In addition to a whopping 160 million Chrome downloads so far, up from 70 million a year earlier, Google shared some interesting stats related to their live video feed of the keynote. Yesterday’s keynote had been viewed by 60,00 simultaneous users, topping 600,000 people at its peek. Currently, Day Two Keynote is underway. You can tune in at a dedicated Google I/O Live – it’s the next best thing to being there in person. Alternatively, check out live YouTube channel.

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Sundar Pichai, senior vice president of Chrome, just said that the Chrome browser now has more than 160 million Chrome users worldwide, more than doubling the application’s 70 million-strong user base just a year ago. We are officially impressed!

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(Cross-posted on 9to5Mac.com)

Just sayin’…

It’s a familiar scene. MacBook-toting journalists, bloggers and guests providing Apple with omnipresence and free advertising at rivals’ events, thanks in large part to the glowing Apple logo on the well-designed notebook family. Who knows, this time next year some of these folks might carry around machines with the Google logo on them if there’s any substance to the whispers of subscription-based Chrome OS notebooks. Check out seven additional Apple sightings below the fold and meet us in comments.

Check out the sticker: “My other computer is a data center”. Touche.

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If you missed big announcements from today’s Google I/O 2011 keynote, don’t sweat – here’s your recap of key takeaways. Google executives first touted 100 million Android activations so far and about 400,000 new devices being activated each day. Other mind-boggling stats include 200,000 free and paid applications on Android Market and 4.5 billion downloads since Android’s launch less than three years ago. That was just a warm-up for big announcements, though…

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Google this morning kickstarted its annual I/O developer conference with a keynote full of surprises. Prior to that 9am presentation, however, the company was running a nice teaser over at the official Google I/O page. Thanks to some HTML5 magic, visitors could marvel at a dot-matrix display counting down the remaining hours, minutes and seconds. With each passing second the numbers would fall apart into dozes of dots bouncing off the screen edges. Missed that finale? No problem, Google has you covered with a Chrome Experiment that allows you to rewatch the last twenty seconds of the countdown.

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When Google’s senior vice president of engineering Vic Gundotra put up a slide during the morning keynote speech at Google I/O 2011 developer conference, the crowd of developers erupted into thunderous applause. You could have almost felt there was something in the air and you needn’t be a rocket scientist in order to figure out that Google will poke fun of its Cupertino frenemy given how Steve Jobs frequently downplays Android’s success at Apple’s events.

The company later posted the above image as part of the official photo stream, their way of ensuring the press and Apple get the message. They also shared some mind-boggling stats reflecting Android’s astounding growth in a little more than two and a half years
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Google’s annual pilgrimage for developers at San Francisco’s Moscone West Convention Center has just begun with a keynote at 9am Pacific Time. If you aren’t among the lucky few that managed to book tickets online (they sold out in 59 minutes), chances are you’ll be keeping tabs on key announcements from your home or work. We’re living in the age of video so why not watch the keynote instead read about it?

Plus, for the first time in Google I/O history, you’ll be able to join us throughout the two days at I/O Live. We’ll live stream the two keynote presentations, two full days of Android and Chrome technical sessions, and the After Hours party. Recorded videos from all sessions across eight product tracks will be available within 24 hours after the conference.

Tuning in couldn’t be easier. Read on…

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Google’s annual developer conference is due tomorrow, May 9, 2001 in San Francisco at 9am Pacific Time. In the run-up to the event the company has created a nice web-based timer clock at the official conference site, sporting a cool dot-matrix display that counts down the remaining hours, minutes and seconds until the event. With each passing second the passing numbers fall apart into dozes of dots that bounce off the screen bottom – that’s the power of HTML5 for  you.

Expect a host of product announcement and new features at this year’s conference which, by Google’s own words, will be focused on Android and Chrome. We’ll be keeping a close eye on pricing and availability of first Chrome OS notebooks. Developers are probably keeping their fingers crossed for a glimpse of what’s in store for the next Android operating system update.

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