Google I/O

Google gave an update regarding improvements to the Google Play store coming to Android devices and elsewhere yesterday during Day 1 of its Google I/O keynote. However, information on what was in the works for Google TV was notably left out from its presentations (despite two identical Google Glass skydiver demos from yesterday and today). Today, Google made a blog post confirming features that were announced for Android devices yesterday. A new UI, subscription billing, and movie, music and TV shows will also come to the Google Play store on Google TV this summer:

You already have access to a variety of apps on Google Play, and soon you’ll be able to find movies, TV shows, and music from Google Play to stream on Google TV. Google Play works across devices, so you can rent and start watching a movie on your Google TV, keep watching on your tablet on the move, and finish watching on Google TV. The TV & Movies app will also show Google Play content, adding to the more than 100,000 TV episodes and movies available in the app. The full power of Google Play will be available later this summer on all Google TV devices.

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Although the official introduction video for Google’s new Nexus 7 tablet leaked before the announcement, the company just unveiled the 7-inch device on-stage at its Google I/O keynote. While announcing the device’s specs (listed below), the company gave a number of demos for the Nexus 7’s UI, including a content recommendation page, Gmail, YouTube, Chrome (first device to ship with Chrome as default, stock browser), and a full-featured Google Maps with offline mode. Google also gave a demo of the 12-core GPU in action with some impressive 3D games, as pictured above.

Pre-orders start on Google Play today for $199 (8GB) or $249 (16GB), with the device shipping to the United States and Canada in mid-July alongside Jelly Bean.

• -1,080-by-800HD display
• -Tegra 3, Quad-core CPU
• -12-core GPU
• -4325 mAh battery- 9 hours video playback, 300 hours standby
• -Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, NFC, compass, gyroscope, accelerometer
• -1.2 megapixel front-facing camera
• -340 grams

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[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i_QAAP2AtPo]

We told you yesterday that Google was carrying on the tradition of placing a large monument on the lawn in front of Building 44 at the Googleplex. This time, the statue represented the upcoming new version of Android 4.1 Jelly Bean. The image yesterday showed a transparent jar tipped over with jellybeans spilt out, but today we get a look at the finished sculpture in the video above. The jar is actually the Android mascot’s torso. TechCrunch went behind the scenes to find out how the Android jelly bean jar was made.

The Google’s I/O event is kicking off today, where we are all expecting to see much more of Jelly Bean. We will bring you live updates as they happen when the keynote address kicks off at 12:30 p.m. EST (9:30 a.m. PST). We are also expecting to see some major Google TV announcements.

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We all know Google I/O is just around the corner with yet another Nexus tablet leak today and news of some fresh Google TV products hitting the market soon. We will be on hand this week with live coverage of the event, and Google will make things even easier this year thanks to a new blogging tool it is unleashing specifically for the conference. As noted on Google’s developers website, you can now create your own embeddable Google I/O keynote live blogging gadget that will pull the event’s live video stream, and then it will post from your Google+ account:

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Gizmodo AU claimed this morning to have reviewed a training document related to Google’s upcoming tablet that is set to be unveiled at Google I/O this month. While we have had several leaks in the months leading up to the event, today’s report —if legitimate—provides us with some exact specs for the Nexus-branded, Asus-built slate. According to Gizmodo, the tablet will hit at least Australia in July and be the first to run Jelly Bean with the following specs:

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The latest marketshare-ish numbers are in for Android and it seems that people continue to update their phones…to Gingerbread. Almost two-thirds of all Android phones hitting the market in the last two weeks are running Android 2.3.x with a significant share—23.1-percent still on Android 2.2 Froyo. Honeycomb, the Tablet-only fix OS, is at around 3.3-percent, while Ice Cream Sandwich is on a scant 2.9-percent of devices including Galaxy Nexus, Acer Transformer Prime, and newly updated HTC Vivid (along with some custom builds and some unlocked manufacturer phones).

The distribution over time (below) is showing the long haul ICS has ahead of it (and do not forget we are likely going to hear about Jelly Bean at Google I/O in June).

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Update: General admission tickets appear to have hit eBay starting at $2,000, over double the original $900 ticket price.

Don’t say we didn’t warn you… Less than half an hour after going on sale, Google I/O tickets officially sold out for the event that Google promised will be “totally insane.” Tickets went on sale at 7 a.m. PST this morning. Approximately 27 minutes later, the registration page confirmed both academic and general admission tickets sold out. Google’s Vic Gundotra later confirmed tickets sold out in “a bit over 20 minutes!” with the registration page “experiencing 6,250 qps load on our servers at 7:01am!” He did note that for everyone else the keynote and key sessions will be live streamed.

Those of you that were lucky enough to get your hands on the $900 ticket will be attending the three-day event from June 27 to June 29 at the Moscone Center in San Francisco. We will—of course—report on anything interesting out of the event this summer.

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We told you earlier this month that Google I/O registration was opening today, March 27. With last year’s tickets selling out in less than an hour, we thought we should remind you that tickets would be going on sale today at 7 a.m. PDT/ 10 a.m. EST. This year’s Google I/O is a three-day event, and while we do not have any confirmation that we might see the much-rumored Google Glasses, we have heard from Google employees that this year’s event will be “totally insane.”

If you want to get your hands on tickets approximately 30 minutes from now, head over to the registration page for all the details. You will need a Google+ account and a free Google Wallet account to complete the process. The event will be running from June 27 to June 29 at the Moscone Center in San Francisco. Here is what the $900 ticket will get you:

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The search monster’s developer conference dubbed Google I/O has been a runaway success this year, bringing us a series of major product announcements ranging from Chromebooks and the new version of the Chrome browser to Ice Cream Sandwich news and Honeycomb tablet software. Google last month said Google I/O 2012 will be running from April 24-25 at San Francisco’s Moscone West, but they decided to extend the event and push it back two months, citing “an unexpected opportunity to extend Google I/O to three days”.

According to a post over at the official Google Code blog, the company made it known that it is moving the conference to June 27-29, 2012. The event will still take place at Moscone Center West in San Francisco. Surprisingly, the Moscone Center events calendar displayed at press time a two-day rather than a three-day event booked for June 27- 28 and the original ‘corporate meeting’ scheduled for April 24-25 is still up on the site.

Those interested in attending can vote for a Day 3 agenda at this page. The company wrote in the comments of a Google+ post that registration for Google I/O 2011 will open in February.

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Google I/O attendees can now cllaim their Samsung Series 5 Chromebooks. Interestingly, Google and Samsung are giving out the 3G models which retail for $500. Also interesting, they come via Amazon – you get a promo code to redeem at the end.  Start here once you get your code.

Yes, ours is on the way, you have a week to claim them!

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[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MiYND_zvIc0&w=670&h=400]

The entire hour-long presentation is now available on YouTube for your viewing pleasure.

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Over at Fortune, I profiled the the two new guys presenting at Google I/O on Android yesterday.  It turns out that Matt Hershensen and Joe Brit aren’t actually new (though they are new at Google) in the smartphone scene.  They actually founded Danger with Andy Rubin and were working at Microsoft (which bought Danger) less than a year ago.

At Google, they’ve been charged with starting up the Android hardware division which is putting together reference designs for the new accessory interfaces that will be built with the ADK.

Here’s their 2004 talk on founding Danger:

http://ecorner.stanford.edu/swf/player-ec.swf
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(Cross-posted on 9to5Mac.com)

Here at San Francisco’s Moscone West, the Google I/O 2011 keynote has just wrapped up. Being their most important annual pilgrimage for developers, the show is a launchpad for important new products and announcements. For some people, the biggest news is that popular Angry Birds franchise is now available for the most popular platform of all – the web.

Joining Google’s senior vice president of Chrome Sundar Pichai on stage was Peter Vesterbacka, the CEO of Espoo, Finland-based multi-million dollar Angry Birds developer Rovio Mobile. Wearing a red Angry Birds sweatshirt, Vesterbacka announced that the Angry Birds web app is now available on the Chrome Web Store.

The web version taps several new Chrome capabilities to ensure smooth experience one would expect from a native version. “It’s one of the best we’ve built to date,” Vesterbacka quipped as he cut through several levels of Angry Birds with ease. More information and three screenies right after the break.

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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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A lot of interesting news came up during yesterday’s Android-focused keynote. We’ve processed key announcements for you, but there’s a whole bunch of tidbits and nice-to-knows that came in yesterday’s keynote. As we await Chrome OS-related Day Two Keynote, why not watch the entire video footage from yesterday? It’s embedded below the fold or available over at YouTube.

The hour long presentation includes a bunch of Google engineers giving cool on-stage demos, in addition to key executives like the Android head Andy Rubin and vice president of software engineering Vic Gundotra. Hint: Scrub to mark 2:10 for an amusing anti-Apple moment. You can also rewatch the Google I/O 2011 countdown, in case you missed it. Google will provide real-time video stream of Day Two Keynote, which is scheduled for Wednesday, May 11, at 9:30am Pacific time.

(Left) Software engineering head Vic Gundotra sits in the front row as his colleagues demo new Android features (Right) Audience members comparing their slates

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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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