Support from readers like you keeps The Journal open.
You are visiting us because we have something you value. Independent, unbiased news that tells the truth. Advertising revenue goes some way to support our mission, but this year it has not been enough.
If you've seen value in our reporting, please contribute what you can, so we can continue to produce accurate and meaningful journalism. For everyone who needs it.
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.
28 May 2015
5:27PM
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.
Google Developers / YouTube
Google Developers / YouTube / YouTube
There are also a few people playing Pong on the large screens. As you do.
Google
Google
28 May 2015
5:39PM
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.
28 May 2015
5:57PM
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.
28 May 2015
6:02PM
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.
28 May 2015
6:38PM
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.
28 May 2015
7:05PM
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.
28 May 2015
7:07PM
Google Maps offline will be arriving later this year so good news for those with limited data connections.
28 May 2015
7:12PM
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.
28 May 2015
7:15PM
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.
28 May 2015
7:44PM
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.
28 May 2015
7:49PM
And that’s it. Pichai wraps up the event and Google I/O is done and dusted for another year. Thanks for joining us.
Advertisement
Readers like you are keeping these stories free for everyone...
A mix of advertising and supporting contributions helps keep paywalls away from valuable information like this article.
Over 5,000 readers like you have already stepped up and support us with a monthly payment or a once-off donation.
Defence Forces member jailed for eight-and-a-half years for raping fellow soldier
1 hr ago
6.3k
Wicklow
Man killed in stabbing near playground in Bray named locally as Willie Moorehouse
Updated
1 hr ago
108k
Your Cookies. Your Choice.
Cookies help provide our news service while also enabling the advertising needed to fund this work.
We categorise cookies as Necessary, Performance (used to analyse the site performance) and Targeting (used to target advertising which helps us keep this service free).
We and our 138 partners store and access personal data, like browsing data or unique identifiers, on your device. Selecting Accept All enables tracking technologies to support the purposes shown under we and our partners process data to provide. If trackers are disabled, some content and ads you see may not be as relevant to you. You can resurface this menu to change your choices or withdraw consent at any time by clicking the Cookie Preferences link on the bottom of the webpage .Your choices will have effect within our Website. For more details, refer to our Privacy Policy.
We and our vendors process data for the following purposes:
Use precise geolocation data. Actively scan device characteristics for identification. Store and/or access information on a device. Personalised advertising and content, advertising and content measurement, audience research and services development.
Cookies Preference Centre
We process your data to deliver content or advertisements and measure the delivery of such content or advertisements to extract insights about our website. We share this information with our partners on the basis of consent. You may exercise your right to consent, based on a specific purpose below or at a partner level in the link under each purpose. Some vendors may process your data based on their legitimate interests, which does not require your consent. You cannot object to tracking technologies placed to ensure security, prevent fraud, fix errors, or deliver and present advertising and content, and precise geolocation data and active scanning of device characteristics for identification may be used to support this purpose. This exception does not apply to targeted advertising. These choices will be signaled to our vendors participating in the Transparency and Consent Framework.
Manage Consent Preferences
Necessary Cookies
Always Active
These cookies are necessary for the website to function and cannot be switched off in our systems. They are usually only set in response to actions made by you which amount to a request for services, such as setting your privacy preferences, logging in or filling in forms. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not then work.
Targeting Cookies
These cookies may be set through our site by our advertising partners. They may be used by those companies to build a profile of your interests and show you relevant adverts on other sites. They do not store directly personal information, but are based on uniquely identifying your browser and internet device. If you do not allow these cookies, you will experience less targeted advertising.
Functional Cookies
These cookies enable the website to provide enhanced functionality and personalisation. They may be set by us or by third party providers whose services we have added to our pages. If you do not allow these cookies then these services may not function properly.
Performance Cookies
These cookies allow us to count visits and traffic sources so we can measure and improve the performance of our site. They help us to know which pages are the most and least popular and see how visitors move around the site. All information these cookies collect is aggregated and therefore anonymous. If you do not allow these cookies we will not be able to monitor our performance.
Store and/or access information on a device 94 partners can use this purpose
Cookies, device or similar online identifiers (e.g. login-based identifiers, randomly assigned identifiers, network based identifiers) together with other information (e.g. browser type and information, language, screen size, supported technologies etc.) can be stored or read on your device to recognise it each time it connects to an app or to a website, for one or several of the purposes presented here.
Personalised advertising and content, advertising and content measurement, audience research and services development 123 partners can use this purpose
Use limited data to select advertising 93 partners can use this purpose
Advertising presented to you on this service can be based on limited data, such as the website or app you are using, your non-precise location, your device type or which content you are (or have been) interacting with (for example, to limit the number of times an ad is presented to you).
Create profiles for personalised advertising 68 partners can use this purpose
Information about your activity on this service (such as forms you submit, content you look at) can be stored and combined with other information about you (for example, information from your previous activity on this service and other websites or apps) or similar users. This is then used to build or improve a profile about you (that might include possible interests and personal aspects). Your profile can be used (also later) to present advertising that appears more relevant based on your possible interests by this and other entities.
Use profiles to select personalised advertising 67 partners can use this purpose
Advertising presented to you on this service can be based on your advertising profiles, which can reflect your activity on this service or other websites or apps (like the forms you submit, content you look at), possible interests and personal aspects.
Create profiles to personalise content 33 partners can use this purpose
Information about your activity on this service (for instance, forms you submit, non-advertising content you look at) can be stored and combined with other information about you (such as your previous activity on this service or other websites or apps) or similar users. This is then used to build or improve a profile about you (which might for example include possible interests and personal aspects). Your profile can be used (also later) to present content that appears more relevant based on your possible interests, such as by adapting the order in which content is shown to you, so that it is even easier for you to find content that matches your interests.
Use profiles to select personalised content 29 partners can use this purpose
Content presented to you on this service can be based on your content personalisation profiles, which can reflect your activity on this or other services (for instance, the forms you submit, content you look at), possible interests and personal aspects. This can for example be used to adapt the order in which content is shown to you, so that it is even easier for you to find (non-advertising) content that matches your interests.
Measure advertising performance 115 partners can use this purpose
Information regarding which advertising is presented to you and how you interact with it can be used to determine how well an advert has worked for you or other users and whether the goals of the advertising were reached. For instance, whether you saw an ad, whether you clicked on it, whether it led you to buy a product or visit a website, etc. This is very helpful to understand the relevance of advertising campaigns.
Measure content performance 56 partners can use this purpose
Information regarding which content is presented to you and how you interact with it can be used to determine whether the (non-advertising) content e.g. reached its intended audience and matched your interests. For instance, whether you read an article, watch a video, listen to a podcast or look at a product description, how long you spent on this service and the web pages you visit etc. This is very helpful to understand the relevance of (non-advertising) content that is shown to you.
Understand audiences through statistics or combinations of data from different sources 67 partners can use this purpose
Reports can be generated based on the combination of data sets (like user profiles, statistics, market research, analytics data) regarding your interactions and those of other users with advertising or (non-advertising) content to identify common characteristics (for instance, to determine which target audiences are more receptive to an ad campaign or to certain contents).
Develop and improve services 74 partners can use this purpose
Information about your activity on this service, such as your interaction with ads or content, can be very helpful to improve products and services and to build new products and services based on user interactions, the type of audience, etc. This specific purpose does not include the development or improvement of user profiles and identifiers.
Use limited data to select content 33 partners can use this purpose
Content presented to you on this service can be based on limited data, such as the website or app you are using, your non-precise location, your device type, or which content you are (or have been) interacting with (for example, to limit the number of times a video or an article is presented to you).
Use precise geolocation data 39 partners can use this special feature
With your acceptance, your precise location (within a radius of less than 500 metres) may be used in support of the purposes explained in this notice.
Actively scan device characteristics for identification 23 partners can use this special feature
With your acceptance, certain characteristics specific to your device might be requested and used to distinguish it from other devices (such as the installed fonts or plugins, the resolution of your screen) in support of the purposes explained in this notice.
Ensure security, prevent and detect fraud, and fix errors 77 partners can use this special purpose
Always Active
Your data can be used to monitor for and prevent unusual and possibly fraudulent activity (for example, regarding advertising, ad clicks by bots), and ensure systems and processes work properly and securely. It can also be used to correct any problems you, the publisher or the advertiser may encounter in the delivery of content and ads and in your interaction with them.
Deliver and present advertising and content 87 partners can use this special purpose
Always Active
Certain information (like an IP address or device capabilities) is used to ensure the technical compatibility of the content or advertising, and to facilitate the transmission of the content or ad to your device.
Match and combine data from other data sources 64 partners can use this feature
Always Active
Information about your activity on this service may be matched and combined with other information relating to you and originating from various sources (for instance your activity on a separate online service, your use of a loyalty card in-store, or your answers to a survey), in support of the purposes explained in this notice.
Link different devices 46 partners can use this feature
Always Active
In support of the purposes explained in this notice, your device might be considered as likely linked to other devices that belong to you or your household (for instance because you are logged in to the same service on both your phone and your computer, or because you may use the same Internet connection on both devices).
Identify devices based on information transmitted automatically 75 partners can use this feature
Always Active
Your device might be distinguished from other devices based on information it automatically sends when accessing the Internet (for instance, the IP address of your Internet connection or the type of browser you are using) in support of the purposes exposed in this notice.
Save and communicate privacy choices 54 partners can use this special purpose
Always Active
The choices you make regarding the purposes and entities listed in this notice are saved and made available to those entities in the form of digital signals (such as a string of characters). This is necessary in order to enable both this service and those entities to respect such choices.
have your say