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Originally revealed at Google I/O 2015 earlier today, Google Play Services 7.5 adds a handful of new capabilities for developers to take advantage of. In an effort to further break down what’s new in Play Services 7.5, Google has published a blog post detailing all of the new features. First off, Play Services 7.5 adds Smart Lock for Passwords. This feature builds on the Chrome Password Manager and adds a new API and UI for Android users that saves credentials for later use on other Android devices and browsers.

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We’ve already done a roundup of the core changes coming in the next big release of Android, simply called “M,” so you should check that out. But we haven’t yet covered what additions and changes Android M brings to Google’s Internet TV platform, Android TV.

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Dodocase has long been a supporter of Google’s Cardboard initiative, and at I/O this morning a variety of new features were announced concerning the VR platform. Dodocase has now revealed two new virtual reality viewer designs this evening following Google’s announcements earlier. Dodocase is now offering the G2 Viewer and the P2 Viewer for $24.95 each.

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Hidden among the other news announced at Google I/O today, Google has also added the ability for developers to use the Google Maps API directly on Android Wear. The feature, which comes as part of Play Services 7.5, aims to offer users a wearable-designed Google Maps experience and was detailed in a blog post.

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Life is about seeing the wonders of the world for yourself, but Google thinks that the experience you get from reliving these moments later on through the tiny windows that today’s cameras produce is pretty limited. Which is why the company today at its I/O conference announced the release of an open-source VR camera rig specification called “Jump” which will make it much easier for creators to capture, process, and share 360-degree virtual reality video for the whole world to enjoy.

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[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VCo3zZ0P4vU]

After first launching its new Inbox app as an alternative email experience to its main Gmail service last year, Google today announced that Inbox is now open to all sans the original invite system while it also introduces a number of new features for the service.

As for features, Google highlighted a new “Trip Bundles” feature that keeps emails related to travel in one place, and improved controls for things like Undo Send, Signatures, and Swipe to Delete:
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Google has taken the wraps off its new Google Photos product at its I/O conference today. Google says Photos is a private single home for your personal photo and video collection that you can access from any device. Photos boasts the ability to automatically organize your photos for you as well as built-in sharing capabilities.
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Update: Developers can find the preview images of Android M for Nexus 5 (GSM/LTE), Nexus 6, Nexus 9, and Nexus Player on the Preview SDK page. Google has said updates to the preview version will roll out regularly and that they’ll come down over-the-air, so you won’t have to flash your phone again each time it’s updated.

Google has announced the next major iteration of Android, called Android “M,” which Android VP of Engineering Dave Burke emphasized has a “focus on quality end to end.” Here are the six core changes coming to Android with this release.

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Google is kicking off its I/O developer conference today with its usual keynote presentation. The focus this year was the future of Android with a lot of stage time dedicated to Android Wear smartwatches, Android M, its new Android Pay service, and much more. Below we’re rounding up some of the stats and numbers shared by Google execs on stage including updates on the user base for its core services and how its new Android platforms have grown over the last year:
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Google’s annual I/O developers’ conference kicks off in San Francisco, California in just about an hour, and the Mountain View company is providing a livestream of the event to keep you in the loop on what’s being announced. As is always the case with the first day of I/O, we’re expecting a lot of announcements from the two-hour (plus) keynote, including Android ‘M’, a new Chromecast, some surprises from Google’s ATAP, Cardboard, and more.
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<a href="http://recode.net/2015/05/27/google-confirms-buy-button-is-coming/">Image via Re/code</a> 

Speaking at the Code Conference in California, Google’s chief business officer Omid Kordestani confirmed that the company is in fact planning on adding a “buy” button to search results. This feature has been rumored for several months and is a way for Google to compete more seriously with the likes of Amazon and eBay.

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Gartner today released the results of a report on worldwide smartphone marketshare in Q1 2015 (first three months) which most notably found that Android’s hold on the smartphone OS market dropped 1.9% while Apple’s iOS saw it’s third consecutive quarter of gains. The research firm attributed Android’s loss largely to Apple’s newfound success in China – where Android saw a 4% decline over its share of that market last year –  on the back of the larger-screened iPhone 6 and 6 Plus, as well as increased differentiation and ecosystem lock-in through offerings like Apple Pay and Apple Watch.
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 Google’s App Indexing technology isn’t exactly the most exciting thing to discuss, but so long as the majority of the company’s revenue still comes from search (it does), it is imperative that they figure out how to make their main business work on mobile where the eyeballs are going. So the company announced that today App Indexing is coming to iOS apps, starting with Chrome and Google Search.

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The long-running dispute between Oracle and Google over whether Java application programming interfaces (APIs) used within Android were protected by copyright has taken another strange turn, with the Justice Dept urging the Supreme Court not to hear Google’s appeal.

The legal battle is over whether small sections of code originally written by Oracle’s predecessor, Sun Microsystems, can be used under the ‘fair use’ exemption to copyright laws. Google argues that it used only small code snippits, did so mostly for consistency and offered to pay royalties; Oracle argues that the code is its intellectual property, and the royalties offered were too low … 
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