The Google Glass demo at Google I/O 2012 was undoubtedly the highlight of the keynote. It showed a bunch of skydivers skydiving and BMXers biking their way down to Moscone Center where they joined Google co-founder Sergey Brin to wrap up the day 1 keynote. The demo was widely talked about on the blogosphere and on social networks like Facebook, Reddit and Twitter.
Google I/O is all wrapped up and done - the main keynotes with major announcements that is - and we have to say, it was a mind-blowing couple of days and the Mountain View company did not fail to impress us in any way.
Android Jelly Bean (4.1) has been ported through to a plethora of devices in its rather short lifespan, and those in ownership of the relatively new Samsung Galaxy S III will be pleased to learn that the latest and greatest iteration of Google's market-leading mobile operating system can now be unofficially installed on the International handset. Well, sort of.
It really isn’t a big secret that the smartphone and tablet industry is an extremely competitive marketplace to be in. The iOS and Android operating systems are undoubtedly the two major players in this space, with Apple having sold more than 250 million iPhones in the last five years following the original launch and Google currently activating 1 million Android devices every day. The competition between the two platforms has always been a fierce one, but with Apple announcing their own mapping system in iOS 6 to rival the tried and tested Google Maps, the competition has ramped up another notch.
It was a pretty action packed couple of hours over at the Moscone Center in San Francisco yesterday, with the building packed with developers to learn about and discuss all the latest that is happening in the world of Google, mobile and social technology breakthroughs. As is usually the case with conferences like the I/O and Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference, proceedings are kicked off with a keynote presentation, headlined by the company executives who talk about the exciting things the company are planning, which in this case is Google.
Google is on a roll at I/O, with the second day of proceedings again bringing in a number of notable announcements and releases that will certainly please iOS users. Day two of the event is well underway with delegates and attending developers being informed that Google's Chrome browser has been released for iPhone and iPad and is now available for download immediately.
As of right now, the existing consumer tablet market is dominated and was essentially created by Apple when it released the first iPad. Since then, Microsoft and Google have been working to catch up and get their foot in the door of this Apple-dominated market. Google's Android tablet OS has managed to gain some ground, and we can expect Windows 8 tablets to hit the shelves later this year. However, in the past two weeks, both Microsoft and Google have announced special tablet hardware devices that they hope will help them gain even more ground in this market.
Apart from all the hardware-based announcements, Google is also updating their Maps app for Android with offline maps support, and a big update to Google Earth, which takes it to version 7.0 and features highly detailed 3D maps of cities around the globe. More details after the jump!
Google I/O 2012 has been simply phenomenal. We’ve seen major new Android announcements, a Nexus 7 tablet, new Google services and apps and updates regarding Google’s ambitious “Google Glass” project. We’ve covered everything else except for the very last part, which is what this post is for. We discuss Google Glass’s new features and availability after the jump.
Google I/O 2012 has so far exceeded all expectations I had from the event. The number and variety of announcements is enough to rival Apple’s at WWDC. So far, we’ve seen an updated version of Android (4.1 Jelly Bean), a Nexus tablet, a show-stopping Google Glasses demo and, the news we will be discussing in this post, new Google+ apps and features. Check it out after the jump.
