Google shows off Android Wear's notifications and interface (video)

Google developer advocate Timothy Jordan gave consumers a little taste of the new Android Wear platform in a YouTube video posted Wednesday. Google announced its OS for wearables in March.

Jordan says wearables are all about limiting the amount of time you spend on your device by making interactions quick and efficient. To that end, the OS features a clean interface showing the time and the weather, rather than an app grid. The video focuses on two functions: user communications to the device, and the device’s communications to the user. Android Wear is designed to respond to vocal commands, like “OK, Google, take a note” or “OK, Google, call my dad” — which we knew from the company’s first video. The card-based OS also re-tools user notifications so they’re divided into two forms: Pages and Stacks.

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Stacks is a tool that literally “stacks” your notifications, or clumps them together in a single card. Receive a bunch of emails are once? Instead of getting individual notifications, Stacks will send you one notification for all of them. Pages does the opposite — it allows a single notification to appear on more than one screen-sized card. You can also use these tools together.

Lastly, the OS lets users set up voice commands — so you’ll be able to respond to your messages without typing.

Right now there are two smartwatches in the making that will run on Android Wear: LG’s G watch and Motorola’s Moto 360. This little video release serves as a warm-up lap ahead of the company’s I/O Google conference, which takes place next week.