Google I/O 2014

https://www.google.com/events/io?gclid=CjkKEQjw5qmdBRCn--70gPSo074BEiQAJCe7zf8EY8JMUkoqTKWUpWgCoxLkDCZCCf0IDAcajQT_jeLw_wcB

by asenna • 12 years ago

294 284 12 years ago

google.com

kyrra• 12 years ago

Direct link to the Keynote youtube stream: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wtLJPvx7-ys

dublinben6• 12 years ago

Oddly, their live streaming does not work without Adobe Flash. It absolutely refuses to load anything in Chromium, even though it supports every single HTML5 format that YouTube offers. I would have expected better from Google in 2014.

toomuchtodo3• 12 years ago

HTML5 doesn't support live streaming [1]. You need either Flash or HLS support (i.e. iOS/Safari).

Disclaimer: I work in the video space.

[1] http://stackoverflow.com/questions/21921790/best-approach-to...

micampe• 12 years ago

I’m watching it in Safari without Flash installed.

oxalo2• 12 years ago

Oh man they've added 5000 API calls. That's 1000 more than iOS 8. Guess Google wins.

smrtinsert• 12 years ago

Google already won so no big deal.

oxalo2• 12 years ago

Love the downvotes, but I was just trying to show how silly numbers like that are. What does '5000 API calls' even mean?

72deluxe9• 12 years ago

Maybe they've added Getters and Setters for every private variable, via a macro (to save typing)? That will certainly mean many more API functions to call.

Or are they counting how many times they make calls to a part of the API? Like calling a function in a for loop or something?

Either way, I'll applaud unnecessarily.

EDIT: Thanks for the downvotes! Here's to humour on HN!

ChikkaChiChi9• 12 years ago

Android has completely leapfrogged iOS in every way...including design.

eliben• 12 years ago

Competition is healthy and users are the biggest winner :)

afro88• 12 years ago

This is the first version that's made me reconsider iOS's dominance when it comes to design and usability. Wow.

ulyssesgrant• 12 years ago

A lot of these design cues are already present in iOS, especially the importance of depth on emphasizing content and interactive elements

xienze5• 12 years ago

The problem is, it'll take years before more than Google apps and high-profile apps make use of this new design. It's sort of like the story today... there's still a good number of apps sporting the 2.3 look. So when this new release comes out you can look forward to a couple apps having the new look and feel, most apps having the 4.0 look and feel, and a decent number having the 2.3 look and feel.

arrrg• 12 years ago

Design is irrelevant if OEMs vomit their bullshit all over it on all the devices that are actually interesting. (Yes, I tried rooting. Yes, it was a horrific warranty-removing potentially bricking experience. Even Jailbreaking feels saver.)

It looks super-awesome, though. I want it on interesting devices. I won’t be able to get it, though.

dublinben6• 12 years ago

If you don't want a bastardized experience, don't buy a phone from crappy OEM. Get a Nexus device (pure Google experience), a Google Play Edition device (pure Google experience), or a Motorola device (close to stock, easily rootable Dev Eds).

samstave• 12 years ago

And carriers -- I got an HTC One M8, and about two weeks after I got it, it auto-updated and installed (without my consent) a bunch of Sprint bloatware apps that I cannot delete.

So, because of this - I've decided ill root it.

ChikkaChiChi9• 12 years ago

A shame that people downvote because they disagree with an opinion.

nicholassmith• 12 years ago

You didn't really phrase it as an opinion, more as a statement of fact.

berberous• 12 years ago

If you elaborated with examples or something insightful, you wouldn't get downvoted. There are plenty of people with the opposite opinion as yours. When you phrase it like you did, it becomes a pointless flame war: "Android is the best in every way!" "No, Apple is, you Google fanboy!"

rimantas• 12 years ago

Including speed of adoption?

wwwwwwwwww• 12 years ago

you really shouldnt mock apple products on HN

basicallydan• 12 years ago

I was extremely disappointed when they started talking about "Material Design", hinting at tactile screens by showing what one might look like, and then going on to talk about it as a metaphor for tactility.

Still looks nice, but that was mean.

jaxytee• 12 years ago

Yeah, all this design talk is grossly underwhelming.

psbp3• 12 years ago

It's great design, but I got really excited for a new screen technology.

IBM• 12 years ago

Yep. The "Google is getting better at design..." doesn't seem to be true. They've really doubled down on this cards UI which is unfortunate.

zxcvvcxz• 12 years ago

Seriously. I'll never understand how people can continuously get so excited about new "design".

From my point of view, if you're competing heavily on design then you're in the business of a commodity and hence have no better technological or use-case differentiator... And/or you're swept up by the cult of design as of late.

27182818284• 12 years ago

Absolutely. That was incredibly bad! Myself and a lot of people in the audience had this split-second "Oh my god..." where we thought Google was about to show off a device that had something 3D and then....oh, it is just the style? You could feel the collective let down.

my3681• 12 years ago

If I am not mistaken, Apple has been awarded patents in the area of localized haptics using tiny actuators. It may be that no rival solution has emerged. I was also quite upset when the announcement dissolved into a UI metaphor.

http://appleinsider.com/articles/13/02/19/apple-awarded-pate...

gurkendoktor4• 12 years ago

If Apple was anywhere close to building it though, I doubt they'd remove all textures and button outlines :(

jaredandrews• 12 years ago

Tell me about it. I was outside waiting in line and listening to the keynote on my phone. I couldn't believe they were announcing that and when I pulled out my phone to look at the video.... well it was just a 3D frame on a phone. Still cool but you know..

danudey• 12 years ago

I tweeted the following at the time, trying to be sarcastic and cynical:

‘What if there was a material as simple as paper that could change shape based on touch? I’m not saying there is. But what if there were?’

I was pretty disappointed to find out that I was right.

jfoster• 12 years ago

Is it possibly a prelude to tactile screens? Makes sense for them to allow developers plenty of time to build compatible apps prior to introducing any hardware.

sschueller• 12 years ago

I wonder if there is new hardware in the works but it isn't finished yet. Just like L isn't finishes and oddly also the Motorola 360 is not finished (I have the felling that was supposed to be finished before IO and for some reason is not)

atonse• 12 years ago

I can't get past that particular camera angle in the video where they catch the heads of people walking out.

I understand there are thousands of people there but that particular camera makes it look like a bunch of people are leaving as the speaker speaks.

gregr401• 12 years ago

Yes! It's driving me crazy as well.

Cakez0r3• 12 years ago

Incredibly annoying! Surely there's another walkway that doesn't pass right through the camera shot!

yellow• 12 years ago

Being an attendee from last year, I can guarantee you that it's people still filing in to find seats well into the presentation. The exit is towards the back left of where the camera is. People going to the right are looking for seats. It's still not an attractive angle.

uptown• 12 years ago

One of the features Apple added later-on to iOS7 was "reduce animation" after user feedback. Much of Google's keynote thus-far has focused on adding animations everywhere possible. It'll be interesting to see if they receive a different reception.

jhenkens• 12 years ago

I can't use iOS7 without reduced animated. I'm very happy they have that feature.

mreiland2• 12 years ago

How does one do this?

I hate iOS7 enough that my next phone will definitely be an android. But in the meantime...

MaxDPS2• 12 years ago

You can (very easily) reduce the animation speed within android.

mycookie• 12 years ago

Reducing animation speed does not solve the problem. Too many animations can be distracting for me (kwin), increasing animation speed does not remove the distractions.

leorocky• 12 years ago

You can just pretty much replace everything in Android. Replace home screen, the app selector, the lockscreen. Get those with less or no animation.

xienze5• 12 years ago

I think there's something to be said for not completely overhauling the look and feel of the OS every two years or so. As it stands today a typical Android phone probably has at least one app sporting the Android 2.3 look and feel. And even in Google's UI guidelines (not sure if it's still the case), they suggested providing multiple sets of icons, some that follow the 4.0 look and feel, some that follow the 2.3 look and feel, some that follow the pre-2.3 look and feel, etc.

They make it very difficult to both follow their latest UI guidelines and the older ones (because adoption rates lag quite a bit).

thrownaway24244• 12 years ago

The problem seems to be that Google doesn't have any real design rules, they just have designers, and these guys rotate in and out every year or two, bringing their own pet ideas with them. So what you're looking at is whatever the designer they hired two years ago had on his mind.

Android is rife with clear evidence that the project has no design guidelines. All of the UIs change completely in every release.

xienze5• 12 years ago

That's a good point.

I think the other part of the problem is that Android demonstrates what happens when you let developers run wild, as much as it pains me to say that. As developers we always want new, new, new! Rip out the old stuff! But we don't always think about the consequences that has on customers. Or I should say, in a typical company you quickly learn that you can't just change things on a whim. Google is not typical though...

radley• 12 years ago

That's absurd. Matías has been with Google since 2010. The look and feel has changed, but it's more evolution that whimsy.

Mobile is the most competitive market on the planet right now. Eye candy is essential to showing growth and momentum. Most people aren't looking under the hood, particularly now that hardware specs are leveling off.

nostrademons3• 12 years ago

(Background: I worked on 3 visual redesigns for Google Search, and was an early tech lead for the Quantum Paper stuff that's being demoed today. I no longer work at Google. This was actually the last project I worked on.)

The design changeover is being driven from the top. Ever since Steve Jobs has died and Larry took over as CEO, he's gotten the design religion, and his goal is for Google's design to remain fresh and drive trends forward perpetually. So as far as the company is concerned, this is a feature, not a bug.

It's true that the individual designers responsible for doing the design often vary from project to project. However, there's a fair amount of continuity as well. The designer who initiated the design refresh announced today has been with the company since 2006; the designer I worked with for the visual refresh of 2010 now heads up design for all of Search. They are explicitly told by executives to make things fresh and remove previous constraints when imagining the new Google.

zmmmmm2• 12 years ago

Google doesn't have any real design rules

That seems a little unfair - they are going to extraordinary lengths to spell out design rules - to the point of publishing entire voluminous web sites about it:

http://www.google.com/design/

A huge chunk of the presentation was about their philosophy. You might not like it, but they are definitely trying.

hexleo• 12 years ago

Whether the OS is charming all depend on it's UI. Android's UI let me down. But a reason let me like android, because of open OS, everyone can design their own UI.

Zigurd4• 12 years ago

Touch, tablets, phones, and the problem of scaling a consistent UI across geometry and distance (10 foot TV, 2.5foot car, etc.) remains partly unsolved and perhaps mostly unmatured. Sensors remain under-exploited in core UI.

Apps trail OS capabilities, too. So while it may be inconvenient for developers, rapid change is probably a fact of life.

moca• 12 years ago

This redesign is for the sake of redesign, or promotion, or nothing. I don't see much, if any, value to a real user. Just waste of time.

Kudos• 12 years ago

That's bullshit, what about cohesiveness? They're bringing it to all of their platforms so it makes sense that an overall redesign effort happened.

i_have_to_speak• 12 years ago

Wish the speakers wouldn't look so nervous.. of course all that flicker and frame drops during the unreal demo didn't help.

currysausage• 12 years ago

Anybody knows what these protests were about?

psbp3• 12 years ago

She mentioned being evicted, so probably housing.

lukasm• 12 years ago

SF housing problem. Why do they protest at Google? It's the local government fault. Let Google and the rest build some flats.

loumf• 12 years ago

According to the article, the eviction was by an executive at Google.

yulaow• 12 years ago

http://thenextweb.com/google/2014/06/25/google-io-2014-inter...

bsimpson4• 12 years ago

I wish the press would stop feeding the pigeons.

swalsh• 12 years ago

What is the deal with these protesters?

pohl4• 12 years ago

Here's one article...

http://www.idigitaltimes.com/articles/23599/20140625/google-...

semerda2• 12 years ago

Was that frame skipping when they showed the 3D game demo? aka. Apple Metal

valarauca1• 12 years ago

Frame Skipping has been around for decades, Apple Metal didn't invent it.

semerda2• 12 years ago

Wasn't saying Apple invented it. I was asking 1. whether it was frame skipping (confirmed now) and 2. Apple Metal reference is for those that remember how well their demo went of their engine.

akilism• 12 years ago

feel like its not enough work on the battery life.

pohl4• 12 years ago

They did mention a new development tool that looks like the Energy Impact view in Xcode (sorry, I can't remember what Google called it, does anybody remember?) They said something like "if you can't measure it, you can't improve it", which is the right philosophy. It just may take another year to see a payoff.

techwizrd3• 12 years ago

The feature they previewed was called Battery Historian. According to the presenter, there should a be a definitive improvement in battery life for the Android "L" release. They've been using it to optimize Android and the Google apps. Hopefully people will no longer have to use all sorts of crazy hacks to because they suspect Maps/Location services is causing wakelocks.

bane2• 12 years ago

"Google's Sundar Pichai said, adding that it was "designed for form factors beyond mobile.""

"ART: ... Truly cross platform: ARM, x86, MIPS"

Sounds like they may be setting up to make a proper run at the desktop market? Now that all these Windows 8 machines are out there with cheap touch panels, it's shown that cheap desktop/laptop computers can exist with the necessary interface bits to work.

edit:and watches and cars apparently

Zigurd4• 12 years ago

It's hard to ascribe a whole lot of meaning to "designed for form factors beyond mobile" because mobile battery powered compiling is the most demanding case. I suppose it means they can scale compilers for ART across plugged-in, big battery, and small battery cases.

Dalvik, and Dalvik's JIT compiler are definitely tuned for small batteries.

kryps• 12 years ago

Tuned how? By being slow as f..k? That actually makes it much worse for small batteries.

pohl4• 12 years ago

We should all endeavor to guard the memory of the double-sided peanut butter jar, lost in a tragic speech recognition accident on June 25, 2014.

ChikkaChiChi9• 12 years ago

I feel the Google Watches are going to be more widely adopted than Glass. Maybe we'll get to head mounted computers in the future, but right now it definitely feels like the watch is the next step in social acceptability.

Source: I own a Glass and barely wear it.

dag11• 12 years ago

I also own Google Glass and barely wear it anymore. When Wear was announced, I was (and still am) super excited, because except for the camera, it has all the features I use Glass for, and more!

alttab3• 12 years ago

And it might actually be reliable instead of standing in public saying "OK Glass" three times like an asshole to get the thing to respond.

Oh yeah, and how we aren't getting upgraded to the 2GB version even though I paid $1,600 for it during their "one day sale." Its almost like Google is trying to kill Glass.

That'll show me to walk around outside like a tool, defending Google as I wear Glass.

turnip1979• 12 years ago

I also have Glass and it is a similar paperweight for me. I'm a bit more skeptical about the watch since (a) companies have released smart watches in the past, and (b) I'm skeptical about the use cases tackled by Android Wear.

peterchon3• 12 years ago

but don't you think that someone staring at their watch during a conversation (or even in large meeting) is quite rude and distracting?

peterchon3• 12 years ago

sure you can turn it off, but wouldn't that defeat the whole purpose?

ChikkaChiChi9• 12 years ago

No different than looking at your phone.

Igglyboo3• 12 years ago

People already do this with phones, I don't see how watches are any different/worse.

microtherion• 12 years ago

Some people even say it loses elections: http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2008/01/17/a-damaging-im...

bprieto• 12 years ago

I'd say it's less rude and distracting than looking at your phone

NDizzle2• 12 years ago

Am I not in on the joke? Here's a magic 8 ball prediction: wearable stuff will bomb.

All they can do is tell me if I walked or not. I KNOW IF I WALKED OR NOT. If I wanted to walk more I'd get another dog, not a watch.

I also like DIRECTLY AFTER they show the pedometer they order a pizza. I just can't imagine a world where these are good ideas. I'd love to have been in on those meetings to throw staplers at the people who suggested these things.

ariwilson• 12 years ago

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eywi0h_Y5_U

akx• 12 years ago

I'm very happy with my Pebble.

It can't tell me whether I've walked or not, and I can't order a pizza with it, but I get all my notifications on it, which alone is very handy (pun not necessarily intended) for me.

boomzilla2• 12 years ago

The thing is not many people want to get notifications from their watch as they already carry a phone which is perfectly capable of giving notifications. If anyone can put a phone in a watch, then we start talking :)

joezydeco2• 12 years ago

Great catch!

The scenario seems to be you walk halfway somewhere, fill up on junk food, then order a Uber cab home...

thrownaway24244• 12 years ago

Are you saying you don't need a wearable computer to remind you to check the mailbox when you get home?

NDizzle2• 12 years ago

Wow. Don't give them any ideas. Hell, maybe you should explore that idea. You could probably get a million or two in funding.

jedahan• 12 years ago

They are definitely throwing stuff against the wall to see what sticks. It's the developers in the room that will turn things android can now do to stuff people may actually want to do.

Personally I prefer when google shows weak propositions instead of just prescribing everything people want to do/will do.

untog• 12 years ago

All they can do is tell me if I walked or not.

Huh? They clearly demoed it doing all sorts of things. Besides, it's not like this is a brand new category, Pebble watches and the like have been doing this for a while, but they've been a niche product. A larger manufacturer might change that.

commandar3• 12 years ago

The problem with the Pebble (speaking as a Pebble owner) is that it's very, very limited in what it can do. It works okay as a display, but that's about it. I bought mine to basically use in lieu of a bike computer while cycling, and it's great for that, but it couldn't really do anything interesting.

I can see that I got a text message on my Pebble. Awesome. The problem was I couldn't do anything with it. Can't dismiss it on the phone. Can't reply to it.

Android Wear looks like it addresses the major problems I have with my Pebble. If pricing looks sane there's a good chance I'll be ordering on of the watches going up for sale today.

driverdan• 12 years ago

I've been wearing a BodyMedia tracker for over a year and a Pebble watch for 6+ months. I'm happy with both. I wore Glass for a month and wasn't happy with it. Some products are good, some are not, and some are early prototypes for future products we'll love.

Pxtl3• 12 years ago

Depends on the context. I've started to bike to work and now I'm craving wearable computing.

elliottkember• 12 years ago

You should post an update here once you've worn one for a while. I had a Fitbit for a couple of months and just got bored of it.

jff• 12 years ago

Now tell us about how a soda only used to cost a nickel in your day!

munificent• 12 years ago

"No wireless. Less space than a nomad. Lame."

interpol_p2• 12 years ago

I agree with you — I don't get the excitement for wearable stuff. But then, I've never worn a watch.

I think those who normally wear a watch will be excited by this, and perhaps that is a big enough market to make it worthwhile?

npc• 12 years ago

I've been wearing a watch every day for years and I have no interest in this stuff either. Honestly, I like the idea that my watch is just a stupid thing that tells me the time, having it beep at me every time I get an email would just feel like I'm being tethered to a computer even more than I am already.

bertil• 12 years ago

I can't comment on the whole Google API offers, but I use Moves and I really like it. I was initialy meant as a low-level excercice tool but they steped a little away from that and designed the product more for life-loging, and this is gold for me: I can, every week or so, look back at what I did. I make a personal effort to do something new every day (buy a vegetable I've never taste at the supermarket, try a new restaurant, walk another route to work) and that app covers a lot of that -- not always directly, but it reminds me of context. "Why did I walk that much that day? - Click to map - Oh, I went through that park back home. Yeah, that was when my boss really got in my guills, and I needed the Sun." Including photos, notes would make is more explicitly so, and Moves has more of a low-feature general approach, but what they have makes sense.

It's not about getting a dog as much as having something that archive (your memory sucks at that) and tells you if you have the regularity that such a responsability entails: I can't. I can tell you I got home after 10 more than half the past month, but not because I remember it: because Moves let me see so.

guiomie• 12 years ago

Is there a screen in the audience telling the audience to applaud ?

IanCal3• 12 years ago

I think they've just been told to applaud whenever the speaker pauses awkwardly.

RossM• 12 years ago

I think I like it better than manically applauding every bullet item.

72deluxe9• 12 years ago

This will keep me laughing all day, thanks!

vkal2• 12 years ago

Does anyone know if they will make videos of the workshops/smaller talks available? I'm interested in a lot of these talks.

WildUtah• 12 years ago

They always do. You can usually download them soon after the conference, but lately Apple and Google have been moving toward letting you download them within a day during their big conferences.

terminus• 12 years ago

You can watch it live (and I believe offline) using the Google IO app.

vkal2• 12 years ago

I noticed there also Code Labs, for example the Android Studio one. There are lots of VODs up for other day one talks, but since Code Lab is a bit different, do they usually release stuff for those, like walkthroughs/tutorials ?

bithush• 12 years ago

The new keyboard is beautiful.

tylerpachal• 12 years ago

Tuned in late; did he make any mention of the battery life for the MotoX? One of my favourite things about my Pebble is the battery life.

tdicola3• 12 years ago

Is anyone else kind of creeped out by the presentation style? I can't really put my finger on why but everything comes across very wooden and out of touch with normal people.

ChikkaChiChi9• 12 years ago

Not all of these guys are known for their MC'ing.

Phlarp• 12 years ago

Perhaps just that they have engineers presenting instead of the traditional PR mannequins / executives?

seivan• 12 years ago

Apple has that as well. In fact Phil Schiller isn't on WWDC.

nostromo• 12 years ago

It's the over reliance on the prompter.

It has all the energy of someone reading a press release.

pfortuny• 12 years ago

Ah, now I understand why the guy is not looking at the people, which is 101 of communication.

EDIT: Unbelievable: they all look at the prompter like it were natural. I really cannot believe this is the most important Google public event and the speakers do not learn their stuff by heart.

psbp3• 12 years ago

They lost two of their best presenters over the past year: Vic Gundotra, Hugo Barra

awkwit• 12 years ago

Agreed. I don't feel the same level of engagement

maggit• 12 years ago

I was so happy to be able to see through the keynote without the presence of these two guys or anybody like them. They were always more focused on wowing the crowd than actually saying anything, always begging for more applause with ridiculous statements such as "It's basically 16 cores!!!" to describe a device with a four-core CPU and a twelve-core GPU. (Hugo Barra, 2012, http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2406363,00.asp) For a developer conference, they should respect the audience enough to know that we understand the real specs and adding two unrelated numbers to make a bigger number does not make it more impressive, or even any sense.

Vic Gundotra and Hugo Barra are among the all time worst speakers at Google I/O. This year it again feels like developers talking to developers. Delightful! :)

chuckcode2• 12 years ago

I like the idea of having more hackathon type engineer presentations that aren't as polished but this seems like a bad compromise trying to get engineering folks to be on message like marketing department. Either stick with the polished messages or be up front that the engineers are going to be a little eccentric and have fun with it.

peterchon3• 12 years ago

that was exactly what I was thinking.

xux• 12 years ago

This is what happens when your company doesnt have a Steve Jobs and forces your engineers to demo.

ccozan2• 12 years ago

Strange, all this features with the Android Auto I can already do with my Moto X. Ok, is not displayed in the car's big display ( but I don't have one! ), but I can do almost everything without using my hands.

MOTOACTV is also a precursor to this wearable watches, pretty much capable at least the notifications. Nonetheless, this was more sports oriented.

spinchange2• 12 years ago

Voice actions and Motorola Connect are the best parts about the Moto X, in my opinion. Like you, I don't have a fancy dash display yet either, but the experience with the Moto X makes me long for the day when one could take over UI / input control automatically without even taking the phone out of my pocket or handling it at all. I will go in for an upgrade in auto at that point!

ccozan2• 12 years ago

Oh yes, I forgot about the Motorola Connect, it jumped on me when they demoed the Phone-Chromebook integration: hey, I already do that.

It so sad that now for Google Motorola is not a poster child, but something that they try to forget about it.

AVTizzle2• 12 years ago

No Tesla nor Mercedes in Android's Open Auto Alliance :/

azurezyq• 12 years ago

And no toyota.

AVTizzle2• 12 years ago

I saw Toyota

anandpdoshi• 12 years ago

Consider that a $100 phone can have a reasonably well designed OS

Synaesthesia• 12 years ago

Oh yeah, we're there. My Lumia 520 only cost $100, and I find Windows Phone 8.1 to be delightful on it. The new android offerings look even better.

72deluxe9• 12 years ago

They look pretty but it appears to be reverting back to pale grey text on a white background, thereby making it impossible to read. Is this some nostalgic reversion back to poor contrast screens like old Psions or the cheap Palm Pilots when the battery ran down or something?

It's unreadable.

Pxtl3• 12 years ago

Disappointing to see that X-Box gamepad there. I keep hoping Google will take console gaming seriously-enough to launch some real Google-branded gaming hardware.

angersock2• 12 years ago

Why?

Why would they want to get involved in that market?

Pxtl3• 12 years ago

Because Amazon and Apple are dipping their toes into that pool and Google is playing catch-up on the set-top-box market instead of leading.

They sell games. They sell hardware on which people play games. They sell a set-top device that plays games. But they don't sell an actual controller for that device.

Igglyboo3• 12 years ago

Since when has Google made hardware(actual mainstream hardware not things like nexus or glass)?

lightblade• 12 years ago

Are there any source that have live transcript for the keynote? Unfortunately I don't have a headphone at work :(

bane2• 12 years ago

You can turn on the closed captions, but they're machine generated and foul up pretty bad on the accents of the presenters.

fataliss• 12 years ago

Ok so, I don't have a TV and my car is 2004 and don't even have bluetooth. What's the point of the new new new features so far? Pretty much nothing, no use, thanks.

hrayr2• 12 years ago

It's a preview to what's coming up so that industries and consumers can get ready. They're moving industries forward, not always catering to current or lagging users.

mwfunk• 12 years ago

Someday HN readers will look back on the days of rampant middlebrow dismissal with fondness and nostalgia. Sadly, that day has come.

tdicola3• 12 years ago

Automatic unlock of your computer when your phone is near seems like the kind of feature that sounds great on paper but is a nightmare in practice. What happens when someone picks up my phone and walks near my laptop, they suddenly have access to my entire machine?

hrayr2• 12 years ago

I can see this working with 'trusted' areas.. of course it's a bad idea in a coffee shop or office with lots of people you don't trust.. but at home or your own office this can be really time saver.

mreiland2• 12 years ago

I just don't see how, if it's a 'trusted area' you don't usually lock your screen (or maybe you do? I imagine most people don't though), which means if you're logging back in, it's because you've been away for a bit.

In which case, your machine may also be hibernating, which is slow to being with. So something like automatically unlocking while your phone is around isn't really all that useful.

Not to mention, how long does it take to type in a password?

SyncTheory13• 12 years ago

You got me thinking... Combine this with something similar to Tasker, so it only works when you're in trusted areas (Office, Home - Not coffee shops, etc...)... This could also increase security if somebody was to somehow steal both your laptop and your phone...

On a tangent, I'm really excited about this and hope there's a Windows+Android version on the way (or clone)...

ChikkaChiChi9• 12 years ago

This will most definitely be something administrators have control over, as well as the individual user.

chuckcode2• 12 years ago

What happens when they steal both?

tdicola3• 12 years ago

Hopefully nothing if you have a strong enough password. Chrome OS uses full disk encryption so there shouldn't be anything that an attacker with physical access could get to easily. If moving the phone near the computer suddenly unlocks it though you're screwed.

pbreit• 12 years ago

Uh...remote lock?

fulafel• 12 years ago

Once your nemesis has your phone and your laptop, the laptop screensaver password may not be chief among your worries!

SnowProblem• 12 years ago

What happens is you learn to be more careful with your phone :)

ryanklee2• 12 years ago

The time has come for phones to start recognizing the presence or non-presence of trusted individuals, granting various permissions.

I'd carry a tiny wearable for this.

safeaim• 12 years ago

Sounds like a great start for a dystopian sci-fi novel. Just imagine the effect it will have on our social habits when we start avoiding people that our Google Lens HUD marks as non-trusted. It doesn't even need to happen in a malicious way. All you need is the contrast between the people marked "green" and those you haven't added to your trust list.

The short movie "Sight" is a great demonstration of our potential near future of augemented reality technology and the effect it might have on our social lives: http://vimeo.com/46304267

dublinben6• 12 years ago

Like a Motorola Skip, or any number of other NFC tags that will do this?

http://www.motorola.com/us/accessory-family-page-1/Motorola-...

alaskamiller• 12 years ago

Someone's already made this six months ago on the iPhone: http://www.knocktounlock.com/

I've been using it for the past 6 months and it went from futuristic novelty to now daily use.

heyheyhey• 12 years ago

It's just a downside to the feature, I guess. Of course, I'd imagine you don't HAVE to enable this if you don't entirely trust it.

For me, having a lock screen at work/home is useless and just an annoyance. It's a pain always having to enable it when I leave work/home so this feature is perfect for me.

interpol_p2• 12 years ago

I've been doing this for quite a while now with Knock [1].

It's pretty good, though I have to remember to take my phone with me when I leave my desk at work for an extended period of time.

It's nice to be able to walk up to my desk, tap my phone while it's in my pocket and see the computer unlock.

[1] http://www.knocktounlock.com

clvrly• 12 years ago

I suppose this feature will be more useful with an android wear device.

bsimpson4• 12 years ago

Good thing I don't leave my phone and my laptop to charge in the same room…

khc• 12 years ago

presumably you have to unlock the phone first

IanCal3• 12 years ago

Native office file editing sounds extremely useful, depending on how well it works. I'm somewhat dubious, given other efforts, but if it does work it'll be great.

ChikkaChiChi9• 12 years ago

Honest question: Are the people who are protesting people that paid to get into I/O or do they get in some other way?

simonk• 12 years ago

One of them was in the press area and one of them had a paid badge around their neck.

VonGuard• 12 years ago

Luls, they let in fact press to protest, but didn't let me in for the first time in 6 years... Nice job Google PR!

mrlase2• 12 years ago

Their new redesign is pointless in the first place. OEMs will continue to produce overlays that completely disregard Google's design language. Instead, they'll put in poorly designed, tacky interfaces.

While this doesn't affect the experience on stock Google devices, phones such as the Nexus line represent a crushingly small share of the market, so it doesn't matter.

In addition, I don't understand the pivot towards elevation. The industry has been moving towards flat design. I like flat. It's simple. Less design is often better than more deisgn.

The new Gmail design is a great example of this. The current design is simple. Information is there as soon as you open the application. The new design has increased usage of whitespace and a larger action bar, not to mention that intrusive icon in the bottom right.

There hasn't been a single thing about this year's I/O that has impressed me, or pleased me for that matter. Disappointed that Google continues to pump out new features instead of perfecting the ones they already have.

The way I currently see it, you have Apple putting out less features with incredible levels of polish, or Google throwing features at the wall until something sticks and then only enhancing it a little (i.e. Hangouts).

commandar3• 12 years ago

In addition, I don't understand the pivot towards elevation. The industry has been moving towards flat design. I like flat. It's simple. Less design is often better than more deisgn.

I was absolutely relieved to see the elevation parts of the new design. Flat looks good, but it's been headed to an extreme recently. I can't stand the near total flatness of parts iOS7/8; it makes it very difficult for me to visually distinguish content.

mrlase2• 12 years ago

I'm interested to know which parts specifically you find hard to distinguish in iOS7/8? Are you experiencing any similar problems with current Android design language?

Kiro• 12 years ago

Everyone receiving a Moto 360. Nice.

bsimpson4• 12 years ago

I liked how the whole audience sighed when the 360 wasn't ready to ship.

fidotron• 12 years ago

My main thought from this is Google are damned if they do, damned if they don't. Either they do nothing exciting and we complain about that, but if they did too much we'd complain about them stepping on the toes of everyone in the ecosystem. As it stands it looks a lot like they're licking too many cookies, but underdelivering, and being damned on both fronts, but getting the benefit of neither. Go back to last year's I/O, and Android Studio still isn't really the main IDE for Android yet, and the much lauded Maps has gone off a cliff.

Let's face it, the only impressive tech stuff here today was the cloud debugging. Everything else was fluff. Frankly Amazon put on far more dangerous looking displays of technology prowess these days.

And we still can't mention China. Disappointing, but somewhat inevitable.

jbigelow763• 12 years ago

I'll second your point on Android Studio. I was really hoping to see it was getting some serious attention this I/O (but I'm not watching everything live so maybe there is something I haven't seen yet)

bennyg2• 12 years ago

As someone who literally started developing for Android about 3 weeks ago, I also share this sentiment. Android Studio (and a pet plugin project a couple old coworkers are working on that makes Maven look downright dumb) and Gradle have been a godsend in getting me up to speed in Android development. I tried Eclipse once in the past to port an old app and absolutely hated everything about it - which I naively ascribed towards the entire Android dev ecosystem as well back then.

I'm hoping for some more stable AS releases and a plan for a 1.0.0 soon.

seanmcdirmid• 12 years ago

Google isn't working in China. Even the search box isn't working anymore. Completely blocked now.

scrabble• 12 years ago

I've already got a form of cloud debugging on Azure. I'm honestly surprised all cloud services don't offer it.

I was happy with the auto integration, but didn't really think it was tremendously new. The new design stuff raised more questions than answers for me.

guelo• 12 years ago

L? I guess they wanted to be less whimsical. But in a couple years I'll have a hard time remembering which version that was like I can remember which one Gingerbread was.

wldcordeiro2• 12 years ago

I think they haven't found a nickname for it yet. Remember KitKat was called Key Lime Pie at first.

quux• 12 years ago

Doesn't the codename usually come before the project?

wildpeaks2• 12 years ago

One UX issue with the watch is that it seems it will need many swipes to find the one app you're looking if you have more than a couple apps installed (see the number of apps people have on their smartphones now), let alone find the one screen you're looking for in that app; but I suppose they expect people to use voice commands for that.

rsthesmart2• 12 years ago

Vic Gundotra's absence couldn't have been more conspicuous. That guy was a great presenter and a showman. Also, was it just me or did the keynote feel really long? I don't think it was a good idea for them to change the one-keynote-per-day format, especially when they didn't have stuff like new moonshot announcements or q&a time with the ceo to make it more engaging and interesting. Sundar was perfect for the second day keynotes about chrome and web. I don't think he is a good replacement for Vic for keynotes. The whole keynote felt a bit stale. The protests livened up the keynote more than the presenters did.

I wonder why neither Page nor Brin came on stage.

general_failure• 12 years ago

I think it's just that they had nothing interesting to announce and not the the speakers.

rsthesmart2• 12 years ago

I dunno if they really did have nothing interesting. The part that is intriguing is the fact that they repeated over and over again that this was the biggest overhaul of android yet, while being very unenthusiastic about it.

I think this might be because they've either changed strategic direction or are awaiting an overhaul of senior management, what with the Nest acquisition and Vic and Hugo's departures and all. I think the stuff that they had to announce today was simply a lagging indicator of their current direction.

zmmmmm2• 12 years ago

The lack of any mention of Google+ was absolutely deafening. If we needed any more confirmation that it's been dismantled within Google I think this would be it. Interesting though that nothing was mentioned to take its place or give us any hint about the future. At very least, they need an identity service of some kind to power the other platforms.

72deluxe9• 12 years ago

Is Google+ the new Blogger?

72deluxe9• 12 years ago

Gundotra was a great showman. When he announced Hangouts and the replacement for Talk, I was excited and interested! With his clever skills, he managed to conceal the fact that it was a piece of junk that did away with the most useful features of Google Talk, and so I have never upgraded Talk.

Clever showman.

EDIT: Why the downvotes? Gundotra was a good showman. Hangouts also removed features from Talk, eg. is someone actually online when I want to talk to them. Was this wrong? Or was someone angry about these facts?

Grue3• 12 years ago

You bet somebody got angry. There are all sorts of fanboys who start foaming at the mouth as soon as they see a perceived slight of their sacred cow. For some reason, these tend to be the same sort of people who accumulate scores high enough to be able to downvote on HN.

onedev• 12 years ago

It was a snoozefest

jbigelow763• 12 years ago

iOS, Android and Windows 8 are all greater than the sum of their parts when you buy in to the complete ecosystem. I hope auto manufacturers are going to be able to make mobile OS enhancements modular to their vehicles. I would really hate to pay for CarPlay (iOS for cars) in a car but have cast my lot with Android, or vice versa.

Edit: corrected name of iOS for cars

nl• 12 years ago

Is there a link for the Google Fit APIs?

bsimpson4• 12 years ago

http://developers.google.com/fit

Sounds like they're about six months in to the project, and will have something to show in the next month or so.

mkagenius• 12 years ago

The live captioning - they look good. Wondering if there is any open source tool that is as good as that?

Google I/O 2014

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