Google I/O 2016: the biggest news from Google’s biggest event of the year – The Verge

A closer look at Google’s modular phone prototype

2016-05-20T17:05:30-04:00

I just sat down with Rafa Camargo and several members of his Project Ara team to learn more about the modular smartphone - because there's a lot going on with this thing. The project, which many had assumed was on its way to being Spring Cleaned by Google is instead coming out in almost the biggest way possible: it's the first phone ever that Google is manufacturing itself, and it's going to be available to consumers next year.

We talked about a lot in our discussion, but for now I'll just share some quick thoughts and quick photos. One note on these photos: this device is very much still a prototype. Not only will the eventual consumer ver …

Read the full story at The Verge.

Why Google’s fancy new AI assistant is just called ‘Google’

2016-05-20T14:17:34-04:00

On Wednesday Google kicked off its I/O developer conference by unveiling a series of new artificial intelligence-powered products, including a messaging app with a virtual assistant and a home speaker with a voice interface. Given what we've seen in the explosion of AI assistants and software bots from other companies, you'd expect Google to brand these products' connective tissue with a personality and a name - Apple has Siri, Amazon has Alexa, and Microsoft has Cortana.

Instead, Google's new AI assistant is just called… Google Assistant. What used to be known as Google Now, the predictive assistant inside Android, has been broadened into …

Read the full story at The Verge.

Google’s modular Project Ara phone is shipping to developers this fall

2016-05-20T13:47:59-04:00

On the last day of I/O, Google's ATAP division has finally given us some firm details on when it will release a very real Project Ara modular phone. A developer edition running Android with a 5.3-inch screen is shipping this fall, while a consumer version of the phone will be available some time in 2017. To get your hands on a device this year, you have to head over to ATAP's dedicated Ara website and fill out the form indicating what type of module you'd like to develop for the phone.

Ara has come a long way since it was first demoed at I/O 2014. In fact, more than 30 people are now using Ara phones at Google as their primary device, accor …

Read the full story at The Verge.

Watch Google’s latest Spotlight Story, Pearl, on your phone

2016-05-20T13:42:36-04:00

A month after debuting at the Tribeca Film Festival, Google's latest Spotlight Story, Pearl, just launched at Google I/O and is now available to watch on Android and iOS. The new short film, which follows a father and daughter's lives through the "eyes" of their beloved hatchback, can be viewed in the Spotlight Stories Channel on YouTube and in the Spotlight Stories app on iOS. (You'll want to watch this on a Cardboard if you have one, though.)

Director Patrick Osborne, who won an Oscar for his work on Disney's short film Feast, told The Verge at Tribeca that the film is a folk musical, with the car playing the part of the Giving Tree. Pear …

Read the full story at The Verge.

Google just showed off a lot of cool products, but no ship dates

2016-05-20T11:35:53-04:00

With the dust settling on an unusually ambitious I/O conference, it's worth taking stock of exactly what we just saw. Google announced huge moves in virtual reality, messaging, and personal assistants - three of the industry's most hotly contested categories. But while we know there are big things coming, we still can't say when they'll get here.

To recap, here's what we know about when everything's coming out, as specifically as possible:

Allo: later this summer
Duo: later this summer
First Daydream phones: this fall
Google-built Daydream headset: possibly never
Home: later this year
Android N: in public beta now, full release later this s …

Read the full story at The Verge.

Android Wear 2.0 sharpens Google’s focus on smartwatches

2016-05-20T10:11:56-04:00

For the past two years, smartwatches have been all over the place. As the relatively new category has developed, we have seen countless ideas on what smartwatches should be and how they should work. Despite some success from the Apple Watch and to a smaller extent, Pebble and Samsung, smartwatches have yet to really catch on in the mainstream, with many critics and users complaining that they are too complicated and too duplicative of the smartphones they already own.

Google has been getting these complaints a much as anyone, and its Android Wear platform has yet to gain the traction of even other smartwatch platforms. Despite being on a lo …

Read the full story at The Verge.

Google says ‘hundreds of millions of users’ will have Daydream VR phones

2016-05-19T18:10:45-04:00

Google hopes to quickly make its virtual reality platform Daydream a mass-market product. "Our intention is to operate at Android scale, meaning hundreds of millions of users," senior product manager Brahim Elbouchikhi said at a session on monetizing Daydream apps at the Google I/O developers conference. "In a couple of years, we will have hundreds of millions of users on Daydream devices." And in order to keep those users entertained, Google wants app developers to build experiences that are long, highly interactive, and devoid of "freemium" mechanics that could break users' concentration.

Daydream was first announced yesterday, and Google …

Read the full story at The Verge.

Android apps are just what Chromebooks needed

2016-05-19T13:57:00-04:00

Google just announced that Chrome OS finally has what many people have been clamoring for almost since its introduction five years ago: true native apps. And it has a massive number of them, too. When support for them launches later this year, there will be more and better apps than you can find in the Windows Store. They just happen to all be Android apps.

The Google Play Store, that massive repository of Android apps, is coming to Chrome OS. It will be available to developers in early June, then a month or two later it'll hit the more stable "beta" channel, and finally it will be ready for all users this fall.

Google waited until day two …

Read the full story at The Verge.

Google is working with IMAX to build a cinema-quality Jump VR camera

2016-05-19T13:21:50-04:00

During its second day keynote on virtual reality, Google announced some new hardware partners for its Jump VR platform. Yi Technologies, a Chinese digital camera maker, will be creating an action camera for Jump, and IMAX will be working with Google to create a cinema-quality VR camera. IMAX says it will dedicate a team of engineers and camera specialists to work with Google on designing a new high-resolution camera from the ground up, leveraging technology that has been used by the likes of Christopher Nolan, J.J. Abrams, and Zack Snyder.

It's safe to say that camera won't be priced for consumers. But GoPro, which was announced as the first …

Read the full story at The Verge.

Google will carefully curate Daydream VR apps for the Play Store

2016-05-19T12:47:12-04:00

Compared with its more laissez-faire attitude towards Android apps, Google is being demonstrably more precious with everything around its Daydream VR platform. On the hardware side, there's Daydream-ready device certification, reference designs for headsets and controllers, and a specific set of hardware partners. But Google is also doing something it's shied away from: carefully curating its VR-centric Play Store.

Speaking with The Verge, Google's head of VR Clay Bavor says the company will "take a very, very strong stance" on things like performance, framerate, image latency, and quality:

So on Daydream apps, on VR apps, we're going to t …

Read the full story at The Verge.