Everything You Need to Know from Google I/O 2015 Keynote

It’s Keynote Day!
On May 28th, I attended Keynote day at Google’s 2015 I/O Conference held in San Francisco, CA at Moscone Centre West, and you know what that means: Cutting edge innovative announcements, announcements, announcements. Here they are:

HBO Now on Android
HBO’s standalone, no cable-required streaming service was exclusive to Apple… temporarily. It’ll come to Android and Google Play this summer.
Google Play Hits Huge Numbers
Google Play now has 1B active users, with 50B app installs in the past 12 months.
The “Family Star”
Apps can now get a “family friendly” designation called The Family Star. These apps will also be available in a special family section, with categories for different age groups.
Android M is coming!
The next version of Android, shipped as a developer preview today. It has 6 flagship new features…
#1: App Permissions
App Permissions (like camera or GPS access) are now requested the first time they’re used, rather than in one big blast at install. Permissions can also be toggled on a one-by-one basis after install.
#2: Chrome Custom Tabs
Developers now have a full featured, skinnable version of Chrome they can embed in their app
#3: App Links
App devs can now lock down Android intents. If you click a link that should open in Twitter, for example, Twitter can keep third-party apps from hijacking that intent
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#4: Android Pay
Remember the NFC, touch-to-pay part of Google Wallet? It’s that, but rebranded and built into the OS by default. Unlock your device, hold it up to an NFC reader (in Whole Foods, McDonalds, or many other retailers), and bam — you’ve paid. Your
#5: Fingerprint Reader Support
While Android phones with fingerprint readers already exist, such things were always built by the device makers — not Google. Android now supports fingerprint readers at an OS level, allowing for things like making purchases in the Play store
#6: Doze
When you haven’t moved your device in a while, apps can be pushed into low-power “doze” modes. Google says this can extend your device’s standby life by up to 2x.
The little things…
Other, smaller features include:
– An improved copy/paste workflow
– Greatly improved volume controls with indepedent settings for ringer/alarm/music volume.
USB C
And as an added bonus: USB C support is coming to Android soon.
Whale
Oh! I forgot to mention. This whale came out briefly right before the keynote started, swimming across the wall-to-wall panoramic projection display. People. Went. Bananas. Really. It was probably the loudest applause of the day. It was kind of
Android Wear
Android Wear is getting an overhaul. The gist: wrist flicking gestures for fast (if goofy) navigation, emoji recognition, an always on display, and a rearranged (and improved!) UI flow.
Google goes after the Internet of Things
Google announced two new projects focusing on the Internet of Things: Brillo and Weave. Brillo is a Android-based operating system for IoT devices; Weave is a standard for IoT devices to communicate with each other. Gadget makers can use
Speech Recognition
Google has improved the speech recognition error rate from 23% in 2013 to 8% in 2015.
Now On Tap
Google Now can now use the current, on screen information as context to provide you info. If you’re looking at a text about a certain restaurant, holding the home button will bring up details about that restaurant or movie. If you’re listening to a song by, say, Skrillex, saying “Okay Google, What’s his real name?” will auto-scrape that “his” refers to Skrillex. Mind blowing.
Google Photos
Google is breaking its photo hosting stuff out of Google Plus. Google Photos is a free, unlimited storage service. It’ll host photos up to 16MP, and videos up to 1080p. It’s available for Android, iOS, and the web.
Offline Maps
Google Maps is getting deep offline support. Once you’ve saved a map for an area, you’ll be able to search for businesses within that area, read reviews, and even do turn-by-turn navigation without an internet connection.
Google Cardboard V2
Google released V2 of their super-economical VR viewer. It now supports phones with screens up to 6″ Meanwhile, the incredibly neat magnet-button from V1 has been replaced with a more universal button.
Cardboard In The Classroom
Google will begin shipping teachers “Expedition” kits, complete with everything they take their class on Cardboard fieldtrips. All of the Cardboard viewers in the class are synchronized and controlled by a teacher’s tablet, allowing
JUMP
A counterpart to Cardboard, Google is working on making it easier to film immersive 360° VR video. They’re opening up the plans for a 360° camera rig, and launching server-side software that stitches the video together in a way that
GoPro JUMP Rig
Google isn’t selling a VR camera rig of their own, but GoPro is building one based on the JUMP specifications

New Google Photos Breaks Free Of Google+, Now Offers Free, Unlimited Storage

Google officially announced its long-rumored revamp of its photo-sharing service, Google Photos, at its I/O developer conference in San Francisco today. The killer feature? Users can now backup up full-resolution photos and videos – up to 16MP for photos and 1080p for videos – to Google’s cloud for free. The service will roll out to Android, iOS and web users starting today, the company says. The free storage option makes more sense for those with point-and-shoot cameras, and lets you keep a copy of your photos that’s good for your typical printing and photo-sharing needs. However, those with DSLR cameras or who want to store their photos and videos in their original sizes can choose a different plan which taps into your Google Account’s 15 GB of free storage. This is what was available before, and you can add to your storage quota as needed for a fee. We had been hearing for some time that Google would break out Photos from Google+, where it was previously more of a feature within the larger social networking site rather than a standalone product. With the relaunch of Photos, which will now be available from any device, Google wants to provide a way for users to privately and securely back up and share their photos from a single destination.

As before, the photos you snap using your mobile phone’s camera are automatically backed up to Google Photos using the new app, which displays the most recent photo at the top of the stream.

The app also lets you sort your photos by day, or even scroll back through the months or years. While the app looks a lot like an improved version of your phone’s native photo gallery at first glance, the images themselves are not actually being stored on the device. That saves space on mobile phones’ sometimes limited storage. Google claims that photos will still load fast, however, making it seem as if they’re stored locally.

As before, the photos you snap using your mobile phone’s camera are automatically backed up to Google Photos using the new app, which displays the most recent photo at the top of the stream.

The app also highlights Google’s machine learning capabilities better than it did when it was part of Google+. Many users weren’t aware they could search their photos on Google+ for persons, places or things, but the new Photos app calls this out more visually in its user interface.

“Google Photos can automatically sort photos based on the people and places that matter in your life,” explained Anil Sabharwal, director of Photos, on stage. “I did not tag a single one of them, and these information is private – it’s for your eyes only.”

This feature means that you’ll be able to more easily find specific photos – whether it’s a dog, your kid’s birthday, your beach vacation, and more – without having to first tag or organize photos into albums.

This ability to understand and locate photos by what’s in them directly competes with the new photo sorting and search features Yahoo’s Flickr recently debuted – something which has gotten it in hot water, however, as its auto-tagging capabilities have been a little rough around the edges.

As before, Google Photos will also help users do more with their photos without requiring them to manually create things like collages. The new app will build videos and collages for you, and with a swipe to the left, an “Assistant” feature will appear to offer suggestions if you need inspiration. For example, it might suggest you build a montage of your recently uploaded GoPro video, or a timelapse of recent photos.

Essentially, this is an update on Google+’s earlier “auto awesome” feature, though with an improved interface.

In addition to collages, Google Photos can also help you build GIF-like animations, movies with soundtracks, and more.