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IT’S ONE OF the biggest days in Google’s calendar as its developer conference Google I/O 2015 begins today in San Francisco. Like always, it’s kicking things off with its keynote talk which will go through the many new features it’s bringing over the next year.
We’re liveblogging the event but if you want, you can watch the livestream below as well.
If you want to get in touch, email quinton@thejournal.ie, tweet @TheJournalTech, or leave a comment below.
Hi there, and welcome to our liveblog of Google I/O. The keynote is on from 5:30pm (Irish time) until 8pm so if you like updates about everything Google related, tonight’s your lucky night. The livestream is above if you want to watch crowds of people taking their seats.
For those of you not familiar with I/O, think of it as a preview of every new feature Google will bring over the next year. A lot of what will be announced here won’t arrive in our hands for months (we’re looking at you, Android update), but you’ll know what to look forward to.
So what can we potentially expect from this keynote? The short answer is a lot, the long answer could look something like this.
Android M - The next version of Google’s OS is expected to prioritise security and privacy controls, giving users even more control. Apart from that, expect the usual improvements to things like performance, functionality and Material Design, stuff you won’t see until mid-2016 if you own anything other than a Nexus.
Android Wear - Announced a year ago, the improvements made to the software will likely be similar to Android M, but we should get an idea of its strategy to make Android Wear watches more popular. It has at least one premium watch in the works and it might announce some new smartwatches like the Moto 360 successor as well.
Android Pay - Something that was brought up during Mobile World Congress earlier this year, Google announced it was bringing in a buy button for ads this week so expect more details on that.
Android Auto - Chances are it won’t arrive here any time soon, but Google will have a lot to say about the future of cars, both the software and its partnership with automobile companies. It may fit in a bit about its self-driving cars as well but don’t bet on it.
Google Photos - Rumours that it would be splitting up its photos section from Google+ have been doing the rounds for a while, but it’s believed that it will offer ‘unlimited storage’ and will come with better sorting features.
And that’s before we even consider the likes of Chrome (both browser and OS), Chromecast, the Internet of Things, its possible entry into the mobile phone carrier market (in the US anyway), and its work with VR through Google Cardboard. Or maybe it will throw in a few surprises into the mix.
Oh, and expect talk about APIs and SDKs as well since this is an event for developers.
(For anyone worried, future updates won’t be as long as the one below).
Right now, we’re just listening to (somewhat bland) electronic music as we wait for things to kick off. This is what the stage looks like and the screens span the entire hall.
There are also a few people playing Pong on the large screens. As you do.
And it looks like we’re starting. To begin, we’re having a look at the solar system and the different planets before settling on Earth. Now there’s an elevator countdown happening. We’re sure there’s a point to all of this, we’re just not sure what it is yet.
Now we’re on a farm with different internet properties and Google features. After all of that, Sundar Pichai, the senior vice president of products, takes the stage. He starts off by saying there’s two million people watching the live stream right now.
Pichai says there are over 600 million people on a smartphone in the past year. He starts off by running through the different products Google has and what they offer so Maps, Gmail, Android, etc.
And a brief reveal of the number of users each platform has. Google, YouTube, Maps, Android, and Chrome have 1 billion users each.
Some other stats Pichai mentions: 8/10 of phones shipped last year were based on Android, 4,000 distinct devices you see on Android, 35 car brands running Android Auto and 17 million Chromecasts sold.
But first, we’re talking about Android M and Mark Burke takes the stage.
There are six key areas where the core experience is improved, says Burke. The first one is app permissions which gets a cheer. “You don’t have to agree to a permission that you don’t agree to”.
Apps will ask for permission when you start using a feature instead of when you install it, and turn off individual permissions too, much like iOS. Here’s one example from WhatsApp.
The second one is the web experience and how the web is being consumed. Effectively anyone can stick Chrome into their app and it supports autofill, saved passwords, etc.
It will arrive in Q3, meaning Android M will arrive around that time too.
The third is ‘app links’ which allows them to verify themselves for certain things so you don’t have to choose which app you use.
More importantly, the fourth and fifth features are Android Pay and Fingerprint support. Android Pay an open platform so “people will be able to choose the most convenient way to pay.” Fingerprint support is being standardised across Android, meaning you can use it to authorise payments, unlock your phone or unlock any apps that support it.
The last feature improved is power and charging/battery life. There’s a new feature called ‘Doze’ which means it’s smarter about using power. It uses motion detection to tell when you’re not using it, cutting off apps. High priority messages and alarms still work during this.
Burke says that a Nexus 9 using Doze lasts up to two times longer. Also, USB Type-C was briefly discussed (In short, Android will support it).
And Burke’s going through a load of tiny extra features. They fixed copy and paste and the volume controls which will come as a relief to some.
Now it’s all about Android Wear where the focus will be “truly useful apps”, says David Singleton. “We’re evolving Android Wear even further.”
Singleton is going through the latest updates like always on and maps, which will work in black and white glance mode, wrist gestures which will let you scroll, drawing emojis and a new launcher.
Alongside health features and what apps are coming up, Singleton announces that 4,000 apps are now available on the platform and finishes off by talking about how it offers choice.
Now Pichai is back on stage and is talking about connecting physical devices. Yep, it’s a section about the Internet of Things.
Pichai announces Project Brillo, an Internet of Things system derived from Android, supporting WiFi, Bluetooth, and other Android features.
The other announcement is Weave which is a common language for different devices so they can talk to each other and to your phone. Android devices will auto-detect Brillo and Weave devices and they will launch in developer preview mode in Q3 and Q4.
Moving onto Search, where Pichai cites Google’s core objective to organise the world’s information. So far, we’ve learnt how to say Kermit the Frog in Spanish (the answer is Kermit la Rana) and that it’s possible because of machine learning, which helps it understand patterns, and deep neural networks.
All that talk of how Google is able to assist users with this technology leads to the Google Now team and Apama Chennapragada, director of product management, takes the stage. In short, it knows context, and one example was asking “what’s his real name” while playing Skrillex and Google gives the answer (Sonny John Moore).
Same when viewing an email about a movie, hold down the home button and one of the cards that comes up is info about said movie. It picks out keywords and brings out relevant cards like reminders.
Dealing with that last entry, how many people will feel creeped out about these new features, and the amount of data Google would (potentially) get from it?
It couldn’t control apps as people moved from the web, but by convincing app makers to integrate them into Now, it will have a lot more data to work with.
Now Anil Sabharwal is on to talk about photos where we take too many of them and we can’t keep track. You can see where this is going so he reveals Google Photos, which is being “built from the ground up” and centres around three main ideas.
A home for photos and videos, organise moments and making it easy to share, and how it organises photos looks similar to how the iPhone organises them. Photos are grouped by days, and pinching lets you view them in months or years.
The other element organises automatically into people, places and things and it’s done privately.
There’s also photo recognition as well and one of the examples is recognising Sabharwal’s 11-year-old daughter back to when she was a baby (that’s another one you can file under creepy).
There’s also a photo Assistant which also helps with photo organisation and editing photos/videos, and a drag to select which will be incredibly useful for saving/deleting batches of photos.
But the big announcement is you can back up and store unlimited photos and videos for free. The resolution limit is 16MP and 1080p for videos and while they’re compressed, it apparently won’t be that bad, according to Google.
It will be available later today on iOS, Android and photos.google.com.
Jen Fitzpatrick is on stage and starts talking about Android One, Google’s attempt to enter the emerging smartphone markets (it expects that 1.2 billion smartphones will be sold in six of the biggest major markets).
Now it’s moved onto Chromebook, focusing on the same theme here. They’re cheap, versatile and how Google products are helping people’s lives in developing countries. The same thing goes for connectivity and data costs which Google is rethinking with its core products like search and Chrome.
If Android detects that your connection is bad, it will serve fewer images and reduce the amount of data needed to load a page. That and offline viewing for Chrome and YouTube (videos can be taken offline for 48 hours) would be pretty useful in certain parts of the country here.
Maps will also have an offline mode too, and not only can you search for places, you can view info cards, reviews, and step-by-step directions. Really, these features would be incredibly useful here.
Google Maps offline will be arriving later this year so good news for those with limited data connections.
Jason Titus, senior director at Google, is on stage and is talking about APIs and developer tools. Lest we forget, this *is* a developer conference.
The room is clapping each major announcement like Polymer which helps developers make web apps look like native apps, and cloud test apps, which lets them automate testing apps against different devices.
While talk about developer tools continues, some interesting stats mentioned during it. 100 billion searches happen every month on Google and it sends 70 billion messages through its cloud messaging platform every day.
With that out of the way, we’re onto Google Play with Ellie Powers which has 1 billion active users and 50 billion app installs in the last year.
Google found that personalisation (the apps that show on the home screen of Google Play) doubles the likelihood of someone installing an app. It’s trying to improve the way it groups apps so it’s easier to find them.
There’s a ‘family star’ label which highlights family-friendly apps and will group them based on age, or by popular characters. There will be better parental controls, filters and in-app purchases. Now it’s back to Pichai.
Worth mentioning if it hasn’t been clear here (and mentioned by many people on Twitter), Google has had a diverse cast up on stage, with more women and people of colour than the standard while male. And while we’re on hour two now, the entire conference has flowed nicely.
Now Clay Bavor is on to talk about Google Cardboard, where he says there are “hundreds of apps” that are compatible with it. There are more than one million Cardboard viewers out there right now.
If you’re wondering “how do you update a cardboard box?” the answer is making it bigger to fit 6-inch devices, a new cardboard button instead of a magnet and the Cardboard SDK (software developer kit) also supports iOS. And like last year, everyone at I/O gets one.
The current talk is on Expeditions, which allows teachers to take kids on field trips through Google Cardboard. The teacher controls the VR from a tablet and the students see the same thing. It’s a really nice idea, in fairness.
Now we’re watching a video of kids using it saying “whoooahhhhh” quite a lot.
How do they capture all of this VR? The answer to that is a custom camera rig called Jump which puts all the cameras in a ring to let you record things.
It’s partnered with GoPro which plans to build a Jump-ready 360 degree camera kit. This is what it looks like. By using an assembler, it stitches together this footage to create a spherical video.
So that’s what the wraparound screens are for. It’s showing off a video with recorded footage from from Iceland. Bavor says it’s been working on its own VR player for a while and it’s called… YouTube. To be fair, it was a good joke (and some of the audience laughed if that counts for something).
Jump will be available to a select few people in the summertime. Now Pichai’s back again and he’s talking about driverless cars. Could there be a proper update this time?
The cars have driven over a million miles autonomously but it’s now moved onto Project Loon, its effort to bring internet access to remote areas. It seems like he’s just going to touch upon the different projects it’s working on instead of a major reveal.
The Green Party would probably go one better and tax people just for watching a TV ad about fossil fuels
@Chaotic State: Keep piling on the taxes. That’ll sort it all out, and, if it doesn’t then just pile on some more of them.
@Chaotic State: fossil fuels, especially oil, have raised the standard of living for different people groups and every nation in the world, particularly since the start of the twentieth century. Oil has brought millions upon millions and millions more out of poverty, and saved many more than it wil ever kill
@Kieran Mac C: Possibly in Alaska, where admirable native community leaders have insisted on profit sharing with the people of Alaska. Elsewhere in the world, nations are known for their pollution, city congestion, traffic kill rates and a vast difference between those profiting exclusively from fossil fuel prices and those in poverty with breathing difficulties.
Can you name anywhere that’s benefited equally from rail travel, other than Europe? The US used to have a great and modern network, yet has been trying to deny decent public transport to millions of their own citizens for decades.
@F Fitzgerald: Off the top of my head…agriculture, pharmaceuticals, electricity, irrigation, transport, aquaculture, ambulances, day-glo jackets worn by ‘Just Stop Oli’ protestors, air-purifying systems in sterile surgical theatres, prosthetic limbs, health monitoring systems, computers, phones, affordable clothing and footwear.
Oil has raised the standard of living for not just western socity, but all society, even those poor, put-upon citizens of North Korea, who would suffer even worse famine were it not for mechanised oil-fired systems (‘tractors’)to gather at least some of their harvest. Oh, and modern hospitals. Don’t forget the hospitals
Ireland is too small to make a difference, if you believe in the climate agenda
@Irish Axe: Forget climate, clean air is more than enough reason.
@Irish Axe: We are part of the EU, which is not ‘too small to make a difference’.
Anyway, everyone, every place, everywhere can make a difference.
When Murphy talks, I generally stop listening. Likewise this article, I haven’t read it. I’m certain it’s nonsense.
@honey badger: All good points, free transport for all, trains everywhere (I don’t know in who’s lifetime thats going to happen) but an advertising ban is like skimming a stone in the middle of the ocean. Still I’d be for it, no harm. We could use less advertising.
@honey badger: ‘lets go burn down the observatory, so this will never happen again!’
@Setanta O’Toole:
“My dear Kepler, I wish that we might laugh at the remarkable stupidity of the common herd who do not want to look at the planets, the moon, or the telescope, even though I have freely and deliberately offered them the opportunity a thousand times?.” Galileo
It isn’t parts per million of carbon dioxide that will define this era, but the manipulation of images of the Earth to suit clockwork solar system modelling.
https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap210922.html
None of you feel anything for good or otherwise, and that is the definition of a subculture based on those who are perceptively dead.
@Gerald Kelleher: zzzzzzzz.
@honey badger: It is nonsense, all Murphy says is!!
@Setanta O’Toole:
” And twofold Always. May God us keep From Single vision & Newtons sleep.” William Blake
It is good that you reacted with sleep symbols, as it is indeed a type of perceptive sleep you and many in society suffer from. That era’s clockwork solar system modelling was the basis for all scientific or mechanical modelling.
The Age of Reason is the Age of Treason, an attempt to seal humanity off from its higher faculties and goodness me, society has paid dearly for that.
@Gerald Kelleher: it was a simpsons qoute Gerald. Take a day off lad.
@Setanta O’Toole:
I live in the expansive world of Western astronomy, whereas many of you live in the cartoon world of experimental theorists created a few centuries ago through the Royal Society.
It is not that you can reason your way out of that perceptive sleep you suffer from, it is that you feel nothing for the visual narratives that would heal you and so many others.
The observatories were burned down to make way for scientific method voodoo long before any of you were born. It isn’t that you take a day off, in a cartoon world, you haven’t really lived with a connection to terrestrial and solar system surroundings.
@Gerald Kelleher: the qoute lampoons those who are anti-science and would rather live in denial, which Is what I assume you were making me out to be with your initial diatribe. If you weren’t so busy hoping to god you can fool people into thinking you are a genius with your pretentious word salads and obscure references, you might be able to identify subtext/sarcasm and the use of quotation marks before you jump the gun in your constant quest to be the smartest in the room.
How many times does it have to be said that there is no viable alternative to fossil fuels now or for the foreseeable future.
The big oil companies are not going to allow their profits to be eroded until the crude supply runs out. They will exploit every last drop.
Fuel advertising makes f all difference. We all know what petrol and diesel are, and most just look for the lowest prices.
@Ciaran: Apparently Toyota are to stop making fully electric, rowing in behind hydrogen.
@Ciaran: If we wait until the last drop to switch energy source 90% of us will die.
We have to start now and use alternatives wherever we can while we still have enough fossil fuels to keep the lights on and things moving while we build the wind and solar farms as well as the massive energy storage facilities we will need.
The big oil companies are already making their transition plans.
@Steve O’Hara-Smith: it’s already there, hydrogen and nuclear.
This guy’s voter base see him for the tool that he is, all for open borders & no solutions to where these people will be housed or the services required for them, while the people at home have been abandoned by this woke socialist. The guy is a complete waste of a vote. Heard it all from PBP when I heard Brid Smith say on RTE, that we are a wealthy country, Murphy & PBP couldn’t give a toss for working class Irish workers, more interested in those arriving in record numbers here daily. Any utterances out of him are horse manure.
If Murphy and his ilk had their way we would all be barefoot and living off potatoes
@Joseph Lenihan: I don’t know – the main parties seem bent on making everyone else live in their cars while hoping for an affordable place to rent. It’s getting to be a vicious cycle.
Does anyone ever use fossil fuels based on advertising? You’ll hear your house however it’s set up. You’ll fly in a plane whichever airline it is and likewise for driving a car whatever make. Large ticket items like wind farms, solar farms etc. will make the big difference.
Windbag
You see, PBP voters do t have to get up in the morning to drive to work.
They get their unlimited free dole wired to their accounts while they sleep in their free houses.
No tax? No vote!
Where do these government people think all their tax comes from, now also want to stop marketing revenue so people in marketing jobs get hit aswell. People look at prices and choose cheapest option not brand names. Watch out as soon as fossil fuels go you will see taxes on clean energy aswell. No escaping !!!!!!
@Paul Geraghty: AI will sort out all those marketing jobs sooner than later, there won’t be many marketing jobs left to lose.
This nonsense reminded me of “don’t talk the economy down”, we need heating oil and petrol until we have affordable alternatives.
“There is no question of anyone being prevented from buying a new or second hand car.”… VRT?
Ireland most dependent nation on cars I wonder why?
Living in reality Paul or just ignorant of the facts that most of us have no choice around public transport options?
We all have paid vast sums in taxes to be consistently wasted by this and former governments.
I have little expectation next government whoever it is will do the same and then blame everyone except themselves.
Just 100 companies produced 71 % of GHG emissions. Are you doing your bit though?
@Louis Jacob: Spineless in the face of the master.
Totally agree with this. The majority of people have no need for a huge SUV – it’s a status symbol for many. They take up so much space on the road and are so high up the drivers can’t often see if a child is right in front of them. Public transport should also be way more expensive, regular and affordable to get more cars off the road.
@Sylvia Power: expansive*
@Sylvia Power: what planet do you live on. More expensive and affordable public transport.
@Joe Kelly: Expansive, it was a typo.
@Sylvia Power: Public transport should definitely be extended in large urban areas and free car parks on the outskirts of these areas so people commuting can benefit from it. Unfortunately public transport will not be able to be provided to a lot of our population due to allowing the building of one off houses on every back road and lane in the country.
@Sylvia Power: People are entitled to spend their money whatever way they want, just like you do!! If I want to drive a gas guzzling SUV I will. I won’t be dictated to by begrudgers!!
“ecosocialist” – that term really sends a shiver up the spine. The environment is a great excuse for ” the people” (read: the state) the take over everything and make it worse
Murphy gets a bit of exposure..that’s all he wants.
This could probably have more of an impact in reducing emmisions with little to no cost to the public compared to than all the new cycle lanes and additional stealth carbon taxes the Green Party have introduced since they have came into power.
@John Dennehy: This will have exactly 0% impact. People have buy petrol and heating oil. Advertising or no Advertising won’t change anything.
@Wolfgang Bonow: @Wolfgang Bonow: Poor aul Ryanair won’t be too happy when they can’t advertise their €20 euro return winter special to liverpool, I’m pretty sure Micheal O Leary wont agree with you on your opinion on advertising.
While the rest of us have to pay extra taxes for everything due to ” Climate change ” & all he’s worried about is banning the advertising rather than trying banning fossil fuel completely, which we’ve been led to believe is such a disaster for the planet. Along with Aviation & yet in Ireland, the sales of private planes have risen since Covid with figures almost doubling! But the rest of us are told to grow lettuce!
@Colette Kearns: Is he not pointing out that fossil fuel advertising is working when most people can’t imagine life without a car? Imagine the modern, European style railways we could have if we didn’t settle for having to buy so many cars and having roads everywhere?
Pay more tax people and don’t be whinging about needing alternative transport to work get up earlier and cycle the distance. Take family showers together also and preserve our clean water, perhaps even with close friends or neighbours,we can do it if we all work together and make that difference.
Advertising of fossil fuels has no effect.
Banning sales of new fossil fueled vehicles from NOW would have an effect.
Alternatively requiring a public health warning on all new fossil fueled cars (big, ugly and unmissable printing on both sides of the car) would reduce sales of them.
The current crop of electric cars are good enough, although reps will trash the batteries with regular fast charging.
As for home heating, insulation is by far the most effective way of reducing heating fuel consumption unless it’s already close to passive house standard. So push that hard with grants and raise the standards for new builds because retrofitting insulation is hard and expensive.
@Roy Dowling: True, who’s going to deliver solar panels if we give up diesel?
Real change would be banning Paul Murphy from ever opening his gob in public again…
If this government are serious about climate change give everyone in the country a once off new heat exchange system for there homes fully payed for and invest big in hydrogen fueling Stations around the country not electric its not the future electric EVs are dead in the water .give massive discounts on family’s first hydrogen car to get them on the ladder after that they can trade in .but the first car is out of reach financially for most family’s.
Banwaggoning and this is the real Elizabeth Doyle
He should launch a campaign on Earth Day to recover that this Day is also one rotation of the Earth along with its sunrise/sunset cycle.
Scientific method modellers in the 17th-century Royal Society tried to change the reference for one rotation away from the stationary Sun to the daily change in position of the stars instead.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BYy0EQBnqHI
They didn’t know that the stars change position annually due to the orbital motion of the Earth.
https://sol24.net/data/html/SOHO/C3/96H/VIDEO/
The Sun is stationary while the Earth moves, and the satellite, free from daily rotation influences, captures what we see from the surface. There is no need to be dull on this Earth Day; that timelapse is a new demonstration that the Earth moves around the Sun.
Very quickly.
An experimental hypothesis is not the same as an astronomical hypothesis Kepler had to make using the Ptolemaic framework for a moving Earth in a Sun-centred system. The Ptolemaic framework was used for astronomical predictions as dates using the calendar system, so the contentious issue was whether the framework that accurately predicted events could also be used to affirm a moving Earth as a fact.
Raising the standard of consideration would remove scientific method modelling from climate. The paid professionals have no talent or incentive to change so that leaves people willing to collaborate to create the necessary visual narratives for free and often in a hostile environment.
The real power today is not with social politics but with academic politics.
Clowns running the asylum
Well, then we have to ban advertising everything that is made from oil and gas because oil and gas companies don’t just make money from filling up your car or home heating, things like TVs, phones, medical devices and drugs, furniture, makeup, roads, building supplies, home appliances, solar panels, wind turbines, foreign holidays by plane and ship etc etc etc. you cannot take gas and oil out of the ground take what you want from it and put the rest back. These politicians are imbeciles.
@brendan C5: I think you misunderstood the article – the proposal is specifically focused on fossil fuels. Not on medical devices, appliances or furniture – although if fuel prices keep rising, furniture may become fuel! Lumber prices shot up during COVID, so that’s making everywhere more expensive to live despite being natural. Roads are built to cater for private cars. My grandparents didn’t run a car and went everywhere by train.
Absolute HEADCASE
And all this from the man who was largely responsible for the most stupid mistake ever in our recent political history. Charge for the rubbish and give the water free. Let alone the environmental absurdity of it, 250,000 are paying for the water and their rubbish. So now we have constant littering and fly tipping and a capital starved water provision system.
I like the idea. Ban fossils ads in a small country, big countries may well follow suit.
@Roy Dowling: Fair point. Maybe advertising is making life less affordable for people by only promoting one way of transport?
Ban travel for St Patrick’s day for you know who
When one has nothing to say, but whose profile depends on publicity, it is essential that one says whatever one can, however ludicrous or damaging to those that will hear what is said.
have your say