Android: Past, Present and Future

Google I/O's first keynote was all about Android and there were many imposing announcements.

Android stats continue to be surprising: 100 million activated Android devices, 400,000 Android devices activated every day, 200,000 apps in the Android Market, 4.5 billion apps downloaded from the Android Market, 310 Android devices.

The next major Android release is called Ice Cream Sandwich and the goal is to create a united operating system that runs on phones, tablets and TVs. Ice Cream Sandwich will be released later this year, but there's a Honeycomb 3.1 update that adds support for USB accessories and for Google TV. This summer, people who bought Google TV devices will be able to put in Android 3.1 and run apps from the Android Market

Android users from the US can now rent movies from the Android Market. "You can decide to rent from thousands of movies starting at $1.99 and have them available across your Android devices — rent a movie on your home computer, and it'll be obtainable for viewing on your tablet or phone. You can rent from Android Market on the web today, and we'll be systematic out an update to Verizon XOOM customers beginning today. We'll start undulating out the update to Android 2.2 and above devices in the coming weeks," informs Google.

There's no music subscription service, but Google launched an invitation-only service that stores all your music on Google's servers and lets you stream it from roughly any computer and Android device.

iPhone/iPod/iPad users can install the latest software updates for at least two years, but that's not always the case when it comes to Android devices. Some Android phones run outmoded software at launch and not all of them are updated to the latest version because phone manufacturers and carriers don't think that's really important. Google and some of the other members of the Open Handset Alliance (Verizon, HTC, Samsung, Sprint, Sony Ericsson, LG, T-Mobile, Vodafone, Motorola and AT&T) started to expand some guidelines for updating firmware. "To start, we're equally announcing that new devices from participating partners will be given the latest Android platform upgrades for 18 months after the device is first released, as long as the hardware allows," informs Google.

Google also urbanized Android Open Accessory, "which allows external USB hardware (an Android USB accessory) to interrelate with an Android-powered device in a special accessory mode. (...) Many previously released Android-powered devices are only able of acting as a USB device and cannot initiate connections with external USB devices. Android Open Accessory support overcomes this limitation and allows you to build accessories that can interact with an collection of Android-powered devices by allowing the accessory commence the connection."

Probably the most interesting announcement is Android@Home, a framework that allows Android devices to converse with home appliances and other devices. It's an ambitious project that could make home automation part of everyday life. That's also one of the main reasons why Google bought Android: bringing Google's software to new devices, finding new ways to use Google's information in each day life, creating an ecosystem of smart devices with standard features and APIs that make "the world's information" more useful.

Google Calendar Adds Event Colors

Google Calendar still doesn't offer sustain for labels, but you can now pick a color for each event. By default, each event inherits the calendar's color, but you can change it by clicking the happening and using the small drop-down displayed next to the event's title.

"Color Coded Events lets you allocate specific colors to sure events: put pink on your daughter's soccer practice or make your lunch dates red. It's a great way to stay prepared, keep track of returning events, and add a little flair to your calendar. Color coding is private to you and anybody who can edit your calendar," explains Google.

If you want even more options, go to Google Calendar Labs and enable "Event flair" to be able to add icons to your events.

Google's Humans.txt File

Google has a robots.txt file that lists all paths that can't be crawled by Web spiders, but there's also a humans.txt file which tries to show that Google is not all concerning bots and algorithms

"Google is built by a large group of engineers, designers, researchers, robots, and others in many different sites across the globe. It is rationalized continuously, and built with more tools and technologies than we can shake a stick at. If you'd like to help us out, see google.com/jobs."

Google's Tim Bray connected to this text file and the Google Jobs Twitter account made it more popular.

YouTube's robots.txt file has lately added a humorous comment: "Created in the distant future (the year 2000) after the robotic rebellion of the mid 90's which wiped out all humans.

Google moms share tech tips for your family

As a Googler I frequently take my work home with me—in a good way. With two young boys at home, life is always busy, so my husband and I are always looking for ways to save time, get prepared and enrich our lives in simple ways. Because the products I beta test and use in the office have become an essential part of my own family life, for Mother’s Day this weekend I’d like to share some favorite tips, counting a few from other Googler parents.

Capturing and sharing memories

* Instead of observance 500 crayon masterpieces, store digital photos of all your kids’ artwork in Picasa Web Albums

* Collect trip or party photos in one place by letting all of your paparazzi upload their snapshots to a joint online album

* Tag friends and family in Picasa photos so you can easily create and share modified collages, gift CDs/DVDs or movie slideshows

* Use Picnik to edit your Picasa Web Albums photos. Use the “Create” tab to add text, stickers, frames and other effects to your photos—your kids can help, and you can email them as digital cards to far-away relatives

* Safely share home videos with family by attractive them to view a private YouTube video

* Keep a running family history by encouraging relatives around the world to add stories and biographies in a shared Google doc or blog

Communicating and entertaining

* Video chat through Gmail for free with long-distance grandparents and friends—this is also great for between kids with their parents when traveling

* Entertain kids on the run with kid-friendly YouTube channels—like Sesame Street and School House Rock—Android apps or your own photos and videos on your mobile phone (kids love watching themselves!)

* Have your kids help you create a video card or a cartoon on YouTube

* Explore the world from the couch—fly around Google Earth on your mobile phone or tablet

* On camping trips, use Sky Map to discover and name constellations. You can even travel back in time to show your kids what the sky looked like on the day they were born

* Read the classics—like Anne of Green Gables, The Wind in the Willows and Grimm’s Fairy Tales—for free from Google eBooks; for older kids, many books that are necessary reading for school are also free. Google eBooks are accessible and readable on devices your family probably already has—like laptops or smart phones

Organizing and planning

* Plan a group trip by creating a communal Google document or site with proposed dates and activities. Navigate around traffic and find the adjacent pit stop with Google Maps for mobile

* Using My Maps, get family and friends to help you collect ideas for activities in your area that are family-friendly

* Schedule family events, playdates and birthdays on a shared Google Calendar

* Track everything from infant feeding schedules, holiday gifts and thank-you notes to travel packing lists and family budgets with Google spreadsheets; look at the Template Gallery to modify yours

* Use forms in Google spreadsheets to send invitations to birthday parties and collect RSVPs (there are templates for these, too)

* Use the element filter in Recipe View to find recipes that exclude ingredients your kids won’t eat—like [meatballs without onions]—or use the time filter to find easy recipes your children can help prepare like chocolate chip cookies that take under 30 minutes

* Share a shopping list on Google Docs—whomever goes to the store can easily access it from the new Google Docs app on Android

I hope these tips motivate moms (and dads) to celebrate your family this weekend. Here’s hoping you can save time and energy to focus on having fun with your kids!

Google's New Snippets for News Sites

After altering the snippets for Twitter accounts, Google now displays the newest headlines in the snippets for news sites. Search for [washington post], [nytimes], [le monde], [gazzetta dello sport] and you'll find the newest news from the snippets.

Probably the best way to try the new attribute is to search for [news] and check the new snippets.

It's likely that the headlines are obtained from Google News, but not all the sites incorporated in Google News have the new snippets.

Google's New Link for Bypassing Country Redirects

Google has always displayed a link on the homepage that bypassed country redirects: "Google.com in English" or "Go to Google.com", depending on the language. The link sent users to google.com/ncr (ncr=no country redirect), the pure savor of Google that has all the new features and it's not partial towards the pages from a certain country.

Now the link to Google.com is also displayed under the search box so you can check the search results for the same inquiry at Google.com. It's an useful feature, but Google also changes a cookie value and users are no longer redirected to the country-specific domain. Maybe a clasp link similar to the link to iGoogle and the classic homepage would be more useful.

Google Chrome Tests numerous Profiles

As previously promised, Google in progress to test multiple profiles for Google Chrome. It's a Chrome OS feature that's now obtainable in Chrome's Canary builds and Chromium. Just enter about:flags in the address bar, enable "Multiple profiles" and click "Re launch browser" at the bottom of the page.

The new feature connections each window with a profile and lets you sync some of the settings with a Google account. Until now, you could create new profiles physically, but you had to use special shortcuts for each profile (Chrome has briefly added support for multiple profiles in the interface back in 2009, but it was quickly dropped). This feature is now available in the interface, even though it's more incomplete and you can only recognize profiles using Google accounts.

"The multiple profiles feature will allow the user to connect a profile with a specific set of browser windows, rather than with an entire running example of Chrome. Allowing different windows to run as different Chrome identities means that a user can have different open windows connected with different Google accounts, and correspondingly different sets of preferences, apps, bookmarks, and so on -- all those elements which are jump to a specific user's identity. Having multiple profiles in the Chrome browser also makes it easy to browse with divide identities without having to log in as separate users at the operating system level," explains a Google Chrome intend document.