Stay up to date on news from Google headquarters. Be the first to learn about plans for Android, Google Plus, Google Apps, and more!
Stay up to date on news from Google headquarters. Be the first to learn about plans for Android, Google Plus, Google Apps, and more!
Android Instant Apps may be one of the coolest announcements that Google made during the I/O 2016 keynote yesterday, and now we had a chance to see the new feature up close…

Google has announced today that it is working with Yi Technology to build a 360-degree circular Jump camera rig from its 4K Action Cam, which will launch later this year. On top of that, it has also revealed a new collaborative partnership with IMAX to develop more high-end commercial film production-quality cameras. In other words: Google’s getting very serious about VR (as if we didn’t know that already).
We spotted the event description yesterday, but Google today finally took the wraps off its plan to bring the Google Play Store to Chrome OS. While the event is just now starting, we’ve spotted a support page on Google’s site that says the feature is coming to three Chromebooks in mid-June, with dozens more devices to follow…
Google’s I/O developer conference is in full swing, and the company is giving most of its products significant updates. Yesterday, on stage, we saw the final touches being put on Android N, its new VR dedicated platform and a 2.0 update for Wear, however Android Auto was not mentioned.
As it turns out, The Verge reports, Auto too is indeed getting a few sweet upgrades, from support for the “Ok Google” hotword recognition to functionalities that let the standalone app be all you need to use it in your car…
Machine learning — a branch of Artificial Intelligence that studies pattern recognition and computational learning — is at the core of many of Google‘s products. Everything from voice search to Maps‘ Street View down to Inbox‘s recently introduced Smart Replies (which are making their way into the just announced Allo) take advantage of machine learning’s incredible capabilities.
However, Google too seems to acknowledge, “great software shines brightest with great hardware underneath”. This is why, over the past several years, the company has worked on a custom ASIC (application-specific integrated circuit) named Tensor Processing Unit (TPU), and it is unveiling it today…
At Google I/O‘s keynote yesterday, one of the highlights of the final unveiling of Android N was all about Virtual Reality. While no “Android VR” headset was announced, the search giant introduced Daydream, a VR platform that will be available within Android N.
According to Clay Bavor, which debuted Daydream on stage, as many as eight big-name partners are already onboard: Samsung, HTC, LG, Xiaomi, ZTE, Asus, Alcatel and Huawei, and today, the latter OEM is giving us some more information about its integration with Google’s VR vision…
Google announced two messaging apps today: Allo and Duo. The first is a new messaging platform that emphasizes expression, security, and the inclusion of Google Assistant. The second app is a take on video messaging, focusing on one thing and one thing only: a reliable 1-to-1 video calling experience.
While Google said that both of these apps would be available sometime this summer, early internal builds have already leaked. Don’t get too excited, though — neither of them work…
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It looks like there’s a little tidbit of information that might have been originally planned for the keynote (pulled because of time restraints, maybe?). According to a session description now on the Google I/O website, Google “announced” today that the Google Play Store is coming to Chrome…
Today we announced that we’re adding the best mobile app experiences in the world, Android apps and the Google Play store, to the best browser in the world, Chrome! Come to this session and test your Android apps for Chrome OS. You will get hands on help from our friendly engineers on how to optimize your Android app for Chromebooks. Oh, and we will also be giving the first 50 developers to show up a free Chromebook so they can get a head start bringing their apps to Chrome!
This isn’t exactly surprising as we saw evidence that this was in the cards all the way back in April, but it’s cool nonetheless to see it become official. It looks like this session is going to involve Google showing devs how to test their Android apps on the desktop platform. Also worth noting: the first 50 devs to show up will get a free Chromebook.
We’re on the ground at the event now, so stay tuned as we learn more.
Google had already showed us a glimpse of functionality in Android that made the platform capable of streaming apps from the Play Store without actually installing them — like with AdMob’s ad platform, for instance.
The feature had been rumored for a long time now, and games already took advantage of something similar, but today, the company has formally announced it under the “Android Instant Apps” name…
Following the announcement of its Assistant digital helper as well as the Amazon Echo‘s competitor Home, Google is now focusing on messaging and videos.
Allo was the first app announced at I/O 2016, and now Duo, a mobile exclusive one to one video service has been unveiled…

The first announcement of I/O 2016 is Google Assistant. It is a conversational assistant that Googles hopes users will have a continual two way dialogue with. Sundar Pichai hopes to build “each user their own individual Google”.
Google’s annual I/O developers’ conference is set to be a big one this year, and that all starts with the keynote scheduled for 10 AM PT on Wednesday, May 18th. Of course we’re on the ground at the event, but Google is also providing live streams in both typical flat and 360 video.
Since the introduction of Material Design exactly two years ago at I/O 2014, Google has put a lot of emphasis on design, and streamlining even seeming minutiae like icons has become a priority.
Today it’s the turn of Google Play‘s Developer Console (via Android Police)…
Google is set to launch a new agency partner program, according to people familiar with the company’s plans. The program involves a certification process for larger agencies that build Android apps, giving them early access to things like Android releases, SDKs, and more…

Hugo Barra, a former VP at Google and now Vice President of Global Operations at Xiaomi, has today announced on Twitter that he — or at least the Chinese firm — will be back at Google’s upcoming developer conference…
Google’s annual developers’ conference is set to kick off in just a couple days, so it seems appropriate that Google has today updated its Developers site with some refreshed navigation…

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Google I/O is right around the corner, and this year’s a bit different. Google’s holding the event closer to home — at Shoreline Amphitheater in Mountain View, California. And everything’s happening outside in the cool breeze of the Bay Area. This is different scenery than the last several years that have at the Moscone Center in downtown San Francisco, and we’re hoping that this means the event itself is going to have some fresh scenery as well.
Among many other things, this year looks like it’s going to be heavy on virtual reality, with a little bit of Android N, Chrome OS, Project Tango, ATAP, and messaging sprinkled in for good measure…

We had heard that the EU was planning to levy a substantial fine on Google for its alleged favoring of its own services in search over those belonging to competitors last year already, and the Telegraph is reporting that the European Commission is now estimating a hefty €3 billion ($3.4b) tag…
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Few things have made the case for an interesting use of the NFC chips inside our phones like contactless payments. Revived by Apple with the introduction of Apple Pay in late 2014, mobile-based transactions have seen an interesting resurgence ever since.
Companies like Samsung and LG have come up with proprietary solutions, but Android users have all found a home under Google‘s very own rooftop with Android Pay. Initially launched in the US alone, the service is now expanding, and after recent promises of a forthcoming launch, it looks like the green light for the UK may be imminent (via Telegraph)…
With the announcement of the Apple Watch‘s “Force Touch” first and the iPhone 6s‘ 3D Touch after, Apple introduced a new, intriguing way to interact with our screens, matching interesting software features with the pressure-sensitive panel behind the actual display.
Predictably, despite some devices like Huawei‘s Mate S or ZTE‘s Axon Mini already supporting some sort of similar, proprietary technologies, Google was rumored to be working on a system-wide implementation for all Android OEMs to use. However, as Recode reports, the support for such a feature seems to have been put momentarily on hold…

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Google parent company Alphabet has once again surpassed Apple in terms of value based on market capitalization. CNBC points out that Alphabet (GOOG) saw its market cap around $498.56 billion during trading today, while Apple (AAPL) saw its market cap down around $496.69 billion.