Today was a pretty big day for Google. At its annual I/O developer conference, the company unveiled Android M, Android Pay, Brillo, Google Photos, and more.
For your convenience, here’s a list of everything Google announced during its opening keynote. Google I/O is a two-day conference, so check back soon as we update this story with more news.
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Speaking on stage today, David Burke, vice president of engineering at Google, unveiled Android M. Android M will ship with proper app permissions, improved app links, Android Pay, support for fingerprint sensors, better power management, and plenty of additional features.
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Android M won’t arrive until this fall (Burke specifically said Q3). That’s when Google is expected to announce new Nexus devices, as it does every year, well in advance of the holiday shopping season.
Google announces Brillo OS & Weave protocol for the Internet of Things
Google today moved deeper into the Internet of Things with the announcement of its new IoT operating system, Brillo, and a new common language for connected devices called Weave.
Brillo is designed to run on connected devices that have small processors and low memory. The OS manages and stores data collected by sensors in the device.
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Google unveils Android Pay, its Apple Pay competitor
Today Google officially unveiled Android Pay. The new payment platform lets users make purchases both in-app and at physical retail stores. The new feature works through near field communication (NFC) technology on devices running KitKat or higher at over 700,000 U.S. stores.
Google Chrome now has over 1 billion users
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Sundar Pichai, Google’s senior vice president of product, announced today that Chrome has passed 1 billion active users. Less than a year ago, Google revealed Android has over 1 billion active users. These are indeed Google’s biggest ecosystems.
Google Photos launches with unlimited storage
Today Google launched Google Photos for Android, iOS, and the Web. The new service is completely separate from Google+, something Google users have been requesting for eons.
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Google is declaring that Google Photos lets you backup and store “unlimited, high-quality photos and videos, for free.” All of Google’s various photo offerings had storage limits based on your Google account (Gmail, Google Drive, and Google+).
Google partners with GoPro to launch Jump
Above: Footage through Google’s Jump.
Today Google announced Jump, a new project for people to create and share virtual-reality experiences. The project follows Google’s progress with its expanding Cardboard virtual-reality platform.
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Google announces Now on Tap
Today Google unveiled Now on Tap, an extension of the company’s existing Google Now feature. Speaking on stage at I/O, Google’s Aparna Chennapragada talked about the three components of Google Now available right now: context, answers, and actions. Now on Tap apparently extends all three by letting you get information wherever you are using Google’s mobile operating system.
Google opens Inbox to everyone, adds new features
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Today Google opened up its experimental email app, Inbox, to everyone — no invite required. Unfortunately, Inbox is still invite-only for Google Apps users. With this announcement the company added a handful of new features to the service.
Google says its speech recognition tech has an 8% error rate
Above: Google’s Sundar Pichai talks about its advancements in deep learning at the 2015 Google I/O conference in San Francisco on May 28.
Google today announced its advancements in deep learning, a type of artificial intelligence, for key processes like image recognition and speech recognition.
When it comes to accurately recognizing words in speech, Google now has just an 8 percent error rate, the company claims. Compare that to 23 percent in 2013, said Sundar Pichai, senior vice president of Android, Chrome, and Apps at Google.
Google launches Polymer 1.0, lets devs bring app-like experiences to the Web
Today Google launched Polymer 1.0. The Web app toolkit is designed to help developers bring high quality app-like experiences to the browser, across both desktop and mobile.
Google launches the Family Store, a Play Store section for kids
Above: Google Play product manager Ellie Powers at the 2015 Google I/O keynote in San Francisco on May 28.
Google today announced a special place for children and parents in the Google Play Store. It’s called the Family Store. You can drill down to apps by age — like apps for kids aged 9-12 and those for kids aged 6-8.
Google announces Cardboard Expeditions
Above: Google Cardboard Expeditions
Google today announced a new implementation of Google Cardboard called Expeditions, bringing the virtual reality platform to education.
Google’s Chromecast turns your TV into a game board, race track, or dance floor
Above: Chromecast lets you use your Android phone as a controller for games on your TV.
Google’s streaming gadget has a new way to help you play games.
The Chromecast has seen rapid growth by enabling people to watch videos and photos from laptops on a TV. Consumers are viewing 66 percent more content per day via Chromecast than when it launched in July 2013. And now Google is making it easier for developers to build games that allow us to use our mobile gadgets to play games on our TVs, mainly by shifting them from the tiny screens of smartphones and tablets to the big screens in our living rooms.
Google gives developers new tools to monetize apps
Above: Google Search
Mobile developers have a handful options to drive revenue, but for many, the most important is still advertising. Today Google announced the latest options for app and game makers when it comes to monetizing their projects with ads.
Google’s Places API for iOS exits beta, lets devs add better location data to apps
Above: Places
Two months after announcing its new Places API for mobile developers, Google has officially launched the iOS version out of beta.
Google introduces Cloud Test Lab to test mobile apps
Above: Jason Titus, head of the developer product group, talks about Cloud Messaging improvements at the 2015 Google I/O conference in San Francisco on May 28.
Google today announced a new mobile app testing service called Cloud Test Lab. It’s based on the technology Google picked up through its Appurify acquisition last year.
Google Photos goes live on the Web — this is how it looks
Above: Welcome to Google Photos.
Google has started rolling out Google Photos on the Web, a few hours after the company announced the new service, with free and unlimited storage, during the I/O conference keynote.
You can access at the conveniently located URL https://photos.google.com/.
I’ve got some photos hanging around. So I’m taking it for a spin.
Nvidia launches its Shield set-top box for Android TV
Above: Nvidia Shield set-top box, Shield remote control, and Shield Controller
Nvidia has begun its grand strategy to change television with today’s launch of its Nvidia Shield set-top box for Android TV.
Android Pay will support 13 financial institutions at launch in the U.S.
Above: Android Pay being demonstrated on a Coke machine. It’s using an American Express card and a Coca-Cola loyalty program.
Google says it has struck partnerships with 13 financial institutions for the launch of its mobile payment tool Android Pay. Partners include Chase, Citibank, Capital One, U.S. Bank, Discover, Mastercard, Visa, American Express, Navy Federal Credit Union, PNC, Regions, and USAA.
Whatever happened to Google+? ‘We’re working on it,’ Sundar Pichai says
Above: Google’s Sundar Pichai.
Today at the Google I/O developer conference in San Francisco, Googlers said nothing about its social network, Google+. There are no conference sessions about Google+, either. The same thing happened at last year’s Google I/O.
The social network has undergone a few changes in the past few months. Google quietly removed the Google+ Shared Collections feature, and Google+ has essentially been divided into separate products, Photos and Streams. But you can still access it, of course.
When I ran into Sundar Pichai, senior vice president for Android, Chrome, and Apps at Google, after the keynote, I couldn’t help but ask him about the fate of Google+.
“We are working on it,” Pichai told VentureBeat. “… You will hear more about it later this year.”
Google unveils Project Soli & Project Jacquard: A radar-powered wearable & touch-sensitive textiles
Above: Google ATAP group’s Project Jacquard smart textile.
Google today announced Project Soli, a fancy new wearable device that uses radar and other technologies to make the hand the main user interface, at its annual I/O developer conference in San Francisco.
Google also provided some new information about the Project Jacquard touch-sensitive textile technology.
Soli includes the “first gesture radar that is small enough to fit in a wearable,” Ivan Poupyrev, technical project lead at Google’s Advanced Technology and Projects (ATAP) group, said during today’s presentation.
You can rub your fingers together just a little bit above the radar and instantly get a response — turning a virtual knob without touching the screen, for example — as Poupyrev demonstrated during today’s presentation.
Google unveils Project Vault, a microSD card for storing sensitive data
Above: Mudge Zatko of Google ATAP explains Project Vault at Google I/O in San Francisco on May 29.
Google wants to help you protect your most sensitive data by offloading it to an encrypted microSD card.
Google announced the new initiative, called Project Vault, at its annual I/O conference for developers.
Google’s Advanced Technology and Projects (ATAP) group developed Vault with the goal of having at least 1GB available on the ARM-based chip, to support features like an immutable logging system, but the ATAP team members at Google have 4GB of “isolated sealed storage” in their own versions, ATAP’s Mudge Zatko explained in a talk today.
Google’s Firebase backend SDKs get mobile offline support for iOS and Android
Above: At a Google cloud conference in San Francisco on Nov. 4, 2014.
Google’s Firebase mobile backend cloud service is making it easy for developers to add offline support to their mobile apps.
In a talk today at the I/O developer conference in San Francisco, Firebase cofounder James Tamplin will announce the new offline support in Firebase’s Android and iOS software development kits (SDKs).
Developers who use the new feature can rest assured that app users can access the data they want right when they need it — even after an Internet connection is lost.
Android Pay’s debut means Google Wallet will live on as a P2P payments app
Google yesterday announced Android Pay, a new payment feature coming to Android 4.4 KitKat and above. It’s supposed to be the successor to Google Wallet, but the company also announced yesterday that Google Wallet would be relaunching for both Android and iOS. We talked to Google spokesperson Anaik Weid to explain how these two will coexist.
Here’s the short story. Android Pay will be for users to make online, in-app, and retail purchases using their Android device. Google Wallet will be for friends and family with a U.S. debit card to send money using their Android and iOS device.
Here’s where it gets confusing. All current Google Wallet users will be upgraded to Android Pay. Weid explained that a future update will essentially replace the Google Wallet app with the Android Pay app.
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