Live Google I/O 2016: A new Android and exciting new developments
Catch all the latest announcements from Google's developer conference, beginning tonight at 10:30 pm.
It’s that time of year again and we’re all set to kick off Google I/O 2016. For those of you out of the loop, Google I/O is the company’s yearly developer conference, this time being held at the Shoreline Amphitheatre in Mountain View, California.Of course, it’s a developer conference, so there’ll be lots of talk of API’s, coding, and app development, but what we’re looking forward to the most is obviously Google’s big announcements. One of those is expected to be the official launch of the new smartphone OS update, Android N. Also expected is a new version of the DIY VR headset Google Cardboard, or possibly a more robust consumer marketplace version, among other things.But remember, the opening keynote at I/O is going to be broadcast in VR! So sit yourself in front of your computing device of choice (grab your VR headset if you own one), and we’ll deliver all the news as the announcements pour in. Join us here at 10:30 pm when the event begins.
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So with that, we come to the end of Google I/O 2016. Unfortunately, we go another year with no appearance from Project Ara, not to mention there wasn't a peep about Project Tango either. Thankfully though, we can feel pretty sated with announcements galore for Android N and Daydream. Check back here with us in the morning, and we'll have a recap of all the night's events, as well as in-depth stories on whatever we heard tonight. But first things first, make sure you suggest an Android N name, the sillier the better!
Sundar Pichai talking about Alpha Go sounds like such a proud mama. "Lee Sedol has won every game he's played since, and has even used some of the moves he learned from AlphaGo/"
"This demo actually happened with a phone running KitKat." Say WHAT?!This is something I'm actually looking forward too, of course Google says it'll take them some time to get it working just right.
This is probably a great idea. tTapping an ad now (whether on purpose or not) can take you to the Instant App instead of the Play Store page for the app).
What it does is that Android just fetches the pieces from the app needed to play that one video. The best part, is that this even works with shopping apps. Anroid Instant Apps works with Android Pay, so you can go ahead and buy a product without even owning the app you just purchased from.
The demo begins with a link to a Buzzfeed video from their Android app. Powers throwing some shade with, "Let's be completely honest, I DO NOT have the Buzzfeed Video app on my phone."Doesn't matter click the link and it takes all of four seconds to open the Android app with the video.
“We’re allowing Android apps to run instantly, without installation."
It's called Android Instant Apps. Holy hell, what sorcery is this?
Ellie Powers from the Android team, and Ficus Kirkpatrick from engineering to give us a sneak peek at a "s%cret new project."
Firebase is a new mobile app analytics tools announced. Aside from definable criteria for analytics, it works across Android and iOS and is also completely free and unlimited. It's not something I ever see myself even going near, but the dev crowd at the event is clearly really pleased about the free part.
Android Studio 2.2 builds faster, runs faster, and even has a Layout Designer. There's also an APK analyser, layout inspector, and expanded coding analysis.
Android Studio 2.2 preview now available. It's an app-building tool for developers to test their apps.
"Over a billion people using Chrome on mobile every month."
Preview of Android Wear 2.0 available for developers to download right now.
Jason Titus on stage now, head of the developer product group.
No need to grab your phone on the run. You can stream music directly from the watch. In fact, the demo we're being shown was with the paired smartphone turned off!
Smart Reply, handwriting recognition, and a new keyboard are making their way to Android Wear 2.0.
David Singleton on stage now to talk about wearables.
Android Wear 2.0 is coming. One of the things changing is that any watch face will be able to show data from any app.
Hi-Def movies on Google Play are coming to Daydream, so you can watch in a VR theatre. Google Photos, so you can see your pics in a 3D gallery. Even YouTube has been rebuilt for Daydream, so you can comfortable watch 360 videos, and even regular videos on a virtual screen. Daydream arrives later this year
There's also a new headset that's going to be coming later this year, alongside the new controller.
Ooh. To make discovering VR apps easier, Google has built a VR Play Store. It's called Daydream Home. Even content delivery guys like Netflix, HBO, and Imax, as well as news publications, will have videos playing in VR.
Samsung, HTC, LG, Xiaomi, Huawei, ZTE, Asus, and Alcatel are all making VR compatible phones. Daydream also uses a controller with a couple of buttons and a trackpad.
New VR mode for Android N, including optimised notifications. Of course, Google has specific hardware requisites for Daydream. GOod news is, a lot of companies will have those phones ready this year.
Daydream is the announcement, a VR tool for Android smartphones. VR optimisations for Android N, headset design framework, and apps.
Over 50 million Cardboard apps installed so far.
"We wanted to creat something like Cardboard but more comfortable, interactive, and immersive."
Aha! Clay Bavor on stage now, from Google's VR team. It just got real.
Beta quality release of Android N now available. Visit Android.com/beta to get it.
New Unicode with 72 new emoji, though a lot of those seem ike 2015 memes.
Removing older apps from your open list to make finding the one you want faster.
New Split View and Picture-in-Picture modes to multitask. As for notifications, you can now customise app alerts to not show or show privately.
Ok, on to Android multitasking now. "Over 99 percent of the time, people only selected apps from the last 7 (among the open apps screen)."
Oh, and there's a Clear All button at the top.
File-based encryption now instead of the whole device. And the Android is updating dialog is gone.
Visit www.android.com/n to try and name Android N. Google picks the winner.
"App installs are 75 percent faster, and take 50 percent less storage."
Android N has a new graphics API called VulKan, with a lower GPU overhead than OpenGL.
OOOh! They're opening up suggestions for naming Android N. #NameyMcNameFace
There we go, it's all Android N now. They're sharing a work in progress right now, it'll be released later this year.
"Over 65 billion installs from Google Play in the last year." Woah.
Dave Burke now on stage to talk about Android. Here it comes.
"More than 600 Android smartphones have launched in the last year."
"Both Allo and Duo will be available this summer on Android and iOS."
Kay demos DUO with his daughter on the line, then proceeds to accidentally hang up too soon while his daughter is still saying goodbye. Ouch.
Duo is another app, a one-to-one video calling app. It has a feature "Knock Knock" that previews the caller's video before you pick up, then transitions seamlessly when you pick up. It's designed by the guys behind Web RTC.
Now th)s is cool. There's an incognito mode in Allo. It's end-to-end encrypted, and has private notifications without the sender's name or message contents popping up in alerts. There's also an option for expiry chats, that disappear after some time. And to top it all, delete a chat in incognito, and it's gone forever. Now, OF COURSE, people are going to use this to cheat, but it's still way cool.
The best part is, Google can use machine learning to remember things about you. Just ask it whether your team won last night's football match, and it knows exactly which one your team is.
You can even chat individually with the Google Assistant from inside Allo. You can even search for videos and play them within the app. This is clearly supposed to be the new Go To app for everything. I'd love just one app instead of a few hundred.
Allo having Search built in means you can look for cat pics mid-chat and bug everyone.
Suggesting Italian food for dinner and Allo pops up a query whether the chat participants want help locating an Italian restaurant. Tapping it pops up restaurant cards that everyone can see, and even lets them book a reservation from within the chat. This is some next level stuff guys.
Smart Reply even works when people send you photos. The demo shows a picture of a dog, and the quick responses actually say "Cute", and "Cute Burmese dog" among others. Yeah, Google can analyse the photo and recognise even the breed of dog. That's how accurate it is.