Google I/O: the news you need to know

Google I/O’s three hour-long keynote may have ended, but the conference is still going on for the next few days, as developers get together with the company and share ideas, learn new tricks and work on their apps.

In the meantime, the users get to experience some new features found in Google+ and other services; and we’re going to make a summary to fill you, the MyGaming reader, in on everything you need to know.

Some sweet facts from the keynote:

Google predicts 900 million Android device activations this year (2013).
400 Million devices activated in 2012, up 300 million from 2011.
48 billion app installs from Google Play since launch, over 100k apps available.
Developer revenue for apps is 2.5x higher this year thanks to emerging markets picking up Android.
Desktop version of Chrome has 750 million active users worldwide.
Google helped roll out 4G network coverage for 10,000 schools across Malaysia, who teach their students how to use the internet with the Chromebook.

Google Play Games services

Google Play Services:

Locking in your location using GPS, WiFi and Cellular signals now saps 1% of battery life per hour.
Geofencing allows Maps to interface with other APIs to trigger actons when you enter or leave a specific area.
Accelerometer now recognises if you’re walking, cycling, running or driving.
Universal sign-in is a new feature that keeps you logged into your favourite websites and services across devices using Google+.
Google Cloud Messaging, which is how apps talk to servers, has been streamlined and now offers full duplex communication, lowering battery strain.
Notifications now appear on all devices, and removing it from one removes it on all devices as well.

Google Games Services:

GGS now supports achievements and leaderboards (as we previously reported) and can be synced/shared using Google+ through your private circles.
Multiplayer matchmaking is also supported, although this wasn’t detailed as to how it works, e.g. whether its related to gamer score or your location.
Cloud syncing of your games allows you to pick up and play from any of your devices that support the game.

Google Play All Access Music:

All Access is a subscription service like Apple’s iCloud, syncs music across your devices for $9.99 a month, available to use right now and there is a trial service.
Music now gets recommended to you as Google+ learns what you like and what you listen to most. If you listen to a particular genre, it recommends albums important to that musical style.
You can edit playlists and turn them into a looped playlist on an internet radio station, available to share with friends and on all your devices.
You can now reorder music in the playlist, remove, add and shuffle tracks.
All music that you buy and access through All Access is available on all your devices (iCloud, starting to feel nervous?) including the Chrome browser.

An unofficial addition to the Nexus family and more on Pixel:

The Samsung Galaxy S4 LTE is now going to be sold through the Google Play online store for $649.
The device will be unlocked, and will work on most LTE networks.
Has an unlocked bootloader, which uses stock Android and gets the same Nexus treatment as the other devices in the family.
Google wants the Chromebook Pixel to become the best device and will concentrate and accelerate development for apps for the Pixel.

Google Chromebook Pixel

Google Chrome Browser and WebGL:

Chrome (probably after they fork off Webkit) will support WebGL services and real-time rendering.
WebGL will serve as the host for a wide range of future games playable on all devices running Chrome browser.
Thanks to hard work by Mozilla, Javascript performance jumps by a claimed 57% for mobiles, 28% for desktops.
New video compression method, VP9, almost halves the size of videos and requires less bandwidth to buffer, will be rolled out to Youtube soon (wait, what about HTML5?).
An additional photo compression, WebP, reduces photos by around 30% in byte-size, does not lose picture clarity, can replace JPEG, PNG, GIF and TIFF formats.
Both VP9 and WebP are royalty-free, so its likely that once Chrome and Opera adopt it, so will Firefox.
Chrome for Mobile now also offers a web compression proxy on top of WebP and VP9, saving users around 50% of their data usage.
Chrome on all devices will now save your credit card/payment information and sync it so that shopping for stuff becomes easier.

Google and Education:

Google Play for Education branches off specifically for education apps for children of all ages.
A management console is now available for schools and teachers who roll out tablets to students. One app can be silently pushed to all students’ tablets/Chromebooks from the console.
Schools and universities will have their own services available on a yearly or monthly subscription.

Google Plus

Google+ becomes self-aware (not really):

New layout is less restirictive and more interactive and can be personalised for the device you’re accessing Google+ from.
Hashtags will be suggested based on key words from your posts and shares.
Hangouts can now share videos, photos and supports instant messaging.
Google’s got their Whatsapp/BBM/iMessage/SMS competitor with Conversations, which works with phone contacts and friends on Google+.
Google+ now stores photos in their original size but will re-size and crop them for viewing as thumbnails on smaller-screened devices.
The Photos service will notify you of pictures that are blurry, are duplicates, have bad exposures.
Photos will also tag the pictures according to landmarks identified, can recognise facial features and other elements inside the picture as people or physical objects.
Photos additionally has the ability to automatically enhance photos according to a learned pattern set by professional photographers, but it is completely optional

“The end of search as we know it”

Google can now search through any and all information on your device that you allow. Through text or voice it understands context and uses a conversational tone and key words (yes, just like Siri).
Asking Search for details on a trip you’ve planned using a combination of Maps, Chrome and Google+ brings up the trip plan on your screen and highlights the information you were looking for.
On the new version of search, instead of pressing the voice button, saying “Ok, Google” brings up the search interface.
Search integrates with Maps and Google+ to give you info on movies, public transport, books (can scan book covers, bar codes using your camera) and will tell you about things you have planned in your schedule.
Search also indexes personal information for your use. Asking about a location will show you photos you may have taken while there and your travel history.