Google I/O 2016 Live Blog

11:42AM EDT - We're currently seated at the Shoreline Amphitheatre in Mountain View, waiting the start of the keynote

11:44AM EDT - As a part of lessons learned, this year I've brought a USB->Ethernet adapter and it's clearly paying off right now

12:06PM EDT - In an interesting departure from most keynotes I've attended, this one is outdoors

12:07PM EDT - On the bright side, holding a keynote outdoors means that the lighting here is probably going to be as good as it will ever be.

12:22PM EDT - As expected 2.4 GHz spectrum is fairly crowded with wireless hotspots, but 5 GHz is actually fairly clear

12:26PM EDT - Of course, with the Razer Blade 5 GHz reception isn't the greatest, but in general it looks like 5 GHz is fairly clear.

12:29PM EDT - A new looping animation started so things are starting to pick up now

12:59PM EDT - Looks like we're starting

01:05PM EDT - Sundar Pichai on the stage

01:07PM EDT - Over 50% of searches are now coming from mobile

01:08PM EDT - 20% of searches in the US are done with voice

01:08PM EDT - The goal is rich information in mobile contexts

01:09PM EDT - Search has been evolving towards improvement in assistance

01:09PM EDT - Knowledge graph, and investments in CS to improve assistive search

01:10PM EDT - Google Photos can now show things like "dog videos"

01:11PM EDT - Real time visual translation is another example of how machine learning and AI can be applied

01:11PM EDT - "Today, we are announcing the Google Assistant"

01:13PM EDT - "An order of magnitude ahead of everyone else" with regard to follow-on natural language queries

01:16PM EDT - More elaboration of conversational assistance

01:18PM EDT - Example of context, ordering curry instead of Stephen Curry results.

01:19PM EDT - Early preview of Google assistant in the home

01:20PM EDT - Far field voice recognition is pretty much key to enabling Google Home

01:22PM EDT - Google Home is basically an extension of the Chromecast. Includes wireless audio streaming built in.

01:22PM EDT - Can also control other speakers with Google Home

01:23PM EDT - Multi-room playback is also supported

01:23PM EDT - Can also control video content if the TV is connected to Google Home somehow

01:24PM EDT - This is also apparently an IoT hub yet again

01:24PM EDT - Maybe Google Home is different but I'm profoundly pessimistic about IoT

01:25PM EDT - The whole growth of computing has always been integrating general purpose computing and connectivity in new formfactors

01:25PM EDT - Where applications needed more compute power in order to do more things and do things faster

01:26PM EDT - In my experience IoT doesn't really have this problem of more compute needed

01:29PM EDT - Google Home will be available later this year

01:30PM EDT - Last year Google Photos was announced with a new computer vision twist

01:31PM EDT - Adoption of Photos is at over 200M active users monthly

01:31PM EDT - Over 2T labels applied

01:31PM EDT - 24B labels are for selfies

01:32PM EDT - Eric Kay on the stage for communication

01:33PM EDT - 2 new communication apps that combine communication + machine learning

01:33PM EDT - First up is Allo

01:34PM EDT - Time for a demo of Allo

01:35PM EDT - To add emotion to text there's something called "Whisper Shout" to adjust size dynamically

01:36PM EDT - Also you can draw on photos like it's Snapchat I guess

01:36PM EDT - Quick replies based upon conversation context

01:37PM EDT - Learns from your writing to make reply suggestions

01:37PM EDT - If I use this, every quick reply will probably be "ayy lmao"

01:38PM EDT - Quick replies based upon images as well, which is fairly shocking from a CS perspective

01:38PM EDT - "90% accurate at determining whether a dog deserves a 'cute dog' response"

01:40PM EDT - Google assistant built into Allo to search for things like Italian food

01:40PM EDT - Google search results can show up in a chat for everyone

01:42PM EDT - Also, Google as a chatbot for booking restaurants through OpenTable and other possible applications

01:42PM EDT - @google can automatically search for things at any time

01:43PM EDT - Apparently @google is useful for conversational search

01:44PM EDT - I wonder if you could actually fool people into believing that @google is human

01:46PM EDT - Obviously this sounds rather intrusive, so Allo has an incognito mode

01:47PM EDT - Presumably you can't actually use Google and other features because of end to end encryption

01:47PM EDT - For incognito mode

01:48PM EDT - I'm sure someone in a legislature somewhere is choking on this news

01:49PM EDT - Duo is the second messaging app

01:49PM EDT - Duo can show you a live video stream before you pick up the call

01:51PM EDT - Duo uses WebRTC and QUIC

01:52PM EDT - Video calling is supposed to be more reliable with Duo

01:52PM EDT - Seamless WiFi-Cellular handoff

01:52PM EDT - Channel adaptation

01:54PM EDT - Dave Burke on the stage now for Android

01:57PM EDT - Android N does a lot under the hood

01:58PM EDT - Android N will be crowd-sourced to decide the name, Google reserves right to pick winner

01:58PM EDT - I'm guessing 4chan doesn't get to manipulate this one then

01:59PM EDT - Android N will use Vulkan to achieve API parity with desktop

01:59PM EDT - This also reduces CPU overhead to increase the number of draw calls or do some other work on the CPU instead of OpenGL validation and API overhead

02:00PM EDT - Precompiled shaders are also part of Vulkan, not news but good to know for those that are unfamiliar

02:01PM EDT - Instead of all AOT compilation, JIT compilation and AOT hybrid to improve app install time, performance, storage, and power efficiency.

02:02PM EDT - File level encryption, media framework hardening to avoid stagefright fiascos again

02:02PM EDT - Seamless updates in Android N which uses 2 system images to make it so that OTAs happen seamlessly.

02:03PM EDT - JIT also does away with optimizing per app with OTAs

02:04PM EDT - Mostly a review of Google Play security heuristics and other security measures

02:05PM EDT - SafetyNet checks 8B apps every day

02:05PM EDT - 99% of the time people only select apps in the last seven cards. So auto removal of old cards and a clear all button in response to users

02:06PM EDT - Double tapping recent button will bring up last used app other than foreground.

02:07PM EDT - Split screen and PiP are going to be in the final N release, in case it was ever in doubt

02:07PM EDT - Notifications are also improved in N

02:08PM EDT - Can reply to messages directly in notification drawer

02:08PM EDT - Long tap notifications to change visibility to make them silent or block them (blocking isn't new)

02:09PM EDT - Emoji standards are also being kept up with in android

02:10PM EDT - Beta release of N happening today on Nexus devices and Pixel C

02:11PM EDT - One new unannounced Android N feature announced here

02:11PM EDT - Did I mention VR? Because we're on VR.

02:12PM EDT - Google believes VR should be mobile, approachable, and for everyone

02:13PM EDT - Daydream is the VR platform

02:13PM EDT - Won't be available until fall

02:13PM EDT - VR optimizations in Android N, headset, controller, and apps

02:15PM EDT - Latency under 20 ms using single buffer rendering and other VR tweaks

02:15PM EDT - I'm guessing S810 isn't going to be Daydream ready.

02:16PM EDT - Headset design has a reference design for Daydream

02:17PM EDT - Reference controller has sensors, clickpad, buttons, etc.

02:17PM EDT - Example VR UI in Daydream

02:18PM EDT - The controller approximates Vive motion controllers without using laser sensors. Interesting to see just how precise it is

02:18PM EDT - inertial motion tracking tends to accumulate integration error over time so interested in seeing how they solve these issues

02:18PM EDT - Google Play Store for VR

02:20PM EDT - Google Play Movies for Daydream, as well as Street View

02:20PM EDT - Google Photos will support VR photos too

02:20PM EDT - Youtube will also support Daydream

02:21PM EDT - Android wearables up next

02:22PM EDT - Android Wear 2.0 announced today

02:23PM EDT - audience noise is actually much harder to hear relative to moscone, birds are actually very loud here

02:23PM EDT - open air is reducing volume I think?

02:23PM EDT - Android Wear brings complications to the watchface.

02:24PM EDT - smart reply, handwriting, and a keyboard

02:25PM EDT - I can't believe they did this but apparently they added a keyboard to Android Wear?

02:26PM EDT - Improved fitness integration with no need for a paired phone

02:26PM EDT - I still can't believe they showed a keyboard on a watch

02:26PM EDT - Standalone apps can have direct network access with Android Wear 2.0 instead of relying on phone

02:27PM EDT - Android Wear 2.0 preview available today, full launch in fall.

02:30PM EDT - We're now talking about Chrome but for some reason we're not talking about performance issues with Chrome on Android

02:30PM EDT - AMP support helps with faster page loads

02:31PM EDT - Android Studio improvements as well

02:31PM EDT - 92% of top 125 apps use Android Studio

02:32PM EDT - It looks like this eclipses Eclipse

02:32PM EDT - Android 2.2 improves building and running apps much faster than before

02:33PM EDT - Emulation can now be faster than actual phones on reasonably modern hardware

02:33PM EDT - Build speed is now faster as well

02:33PM EDT - Test recording is also possible, just do some actions in an app and Android Studio will auto generate test code

02:34PM EDT - Layout Designer rewritten with constraint layouts

02:34PM EDT - Constraint layouts does away with nested layouts to improve performance

02:35PM EDT - APK analyzer, layout inspectors, new Android code analysis tools

02:35PM EDT - IntelliJ 2016.1 IDE also included

02:36PM EDT - Android 2.2 supports Android N Jack compiler, lambdas, default methods, and C++ support is enhanced

02:36PM EDT - Support for CMake and NDK build and will work with debugger for better C++ support

02:39PM EDT - Firebase is very dev-targeted so I'll probably just avoid spending too much time talking about this

02:40PM EDT - There are also an amazing number of insects at this keynote

02:44PM EDT - Guess there's more, Anndroid Instant Apps

02:45PM EDT - You can now click a link and instantly go into an app without installing it

02:45PM EDT - Google Play dynamically streams the application to the device

02:47PM EDT - You can also stream apps using NFC tags and then fetch the app requested over network

02:49PM EDT - Instant apps demo was on Kitkat so this works with everything back to Jelly Bean

02:49PM EDT - Android Instant Apps will be available later this year

02:49PM EDT - Back to Sundar, looks like we're wrapping up now

03:16PM EDT - Final note before closing out the live blog, Google disclosed a tensor processing unit which dramatically speeds up machine learning relative to FPGA or any existing ASIC

03:16PM EDT - Hopefully more details to come, this could change hardware direction

03:16PM EDT - Please stay tuned for more Google I/O coverage soon!