
Google I/O 2012 - Achshar
https://developers.google.com/events/io/#last-post-for-this-url-was-more-than-100-days-old
======
SandB0x
The Nexus Q will bomb. $299 for a very confused offering. From the Guardian:

> So yes, Nexus Q is a "small Android-powered computer that's designed to live
> in your home", connecting to speakers and the cloud, as well as the Google
> Play store. It's controlled from a smartphone or tablet, but not to stream
> content from the device to the Nexus Q.

Nobody cares about how the streaming is achieved technically, and I think the
"social" aspect is massively over-sold. If I want to show someone content on
my tablet wouldn't we just sit next to each other and look at the tablet?

The Nexus 7 apparently already has HDMI out (I think) so I just can't see
anyone forking out $299 for some bizarre social content streaming concept
party.

~~~
zbowling
For $299 I can get a PS3 with Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon Prime with 250GB of
space.

Or for $299 I can get an XBOX with lots of apps, Netflix, Hulu, and 250GB of
space.

Or for $99 dollars I can get an Apple TV with Netflix and iTunes rentals.

Or for $79 I can get a Roku with USB, and buy an external drive with 250GB at
$100 ($179 total) and get Netflix, Amazon, and Hulu.

Or for $299, I can get Google Nexus Q with 16GB of space and no apps yet.

~~~
ajross
To be fair: the "TV thing" market is a huge mess, and none of those devices
are making much real progress replacing the cable and satellite boxes users
already have. We're still waiting on the proper innovation here.

It seems like the Q (despite the pretty blatant mispricing -- I agree that
they'll move essentially zero of these at $300) has at least a new mix of
features to try. The built-in amp makes it an attractive audio box at least.
The idea of driving content from the handsets in the room seems better to me
than the (IMHO ridiculous) idea the TV vendors have of making handsets into
"remote".

The lack of storage isn't really a problem if everything is sourced from the
cloud (which it is already for most of those gadgets anyway). And the "no
apps" is silly -- it's an android box. Though I didn't see much about a UI
metaphor. Obviously the HDMI display isn't going to be a touchscreen, but you
can always plug in a keyboard and mouse (this works today on your GNex if you
have the right cable).

~~~
keypusher
I disagree. Most of my peers own an Xbox360 or PS3, and those that don't have
some kind of Roku / NAS / whatever setup. I think fewer and fewer young people
have cable boxes, they are fine with just a solid internet connection. There
is, of course, a huge existing install base that is not going anywhere soon.

~~~
ajross
I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that your peers are early 20's tech
people living in shared urban apartments. That's not representative. Outside
the geeks in the cities, people have satellite dishes and cable boxes. Just
check revenue numbers for Comcast or Dish.

Obviously these devices "could" replace the legacy content delivery systems.
But they aren't yet, and frankly their grown numbers aren't going to get them
there any time this decade. It needs something more.

~~~
cookiecaper
Yes, it needs the legal privilege to decode the cable stream. This is likely
not legal under the DMCA; I would guess it constitutes the distribution of a
tool intended to circumvent "copy protection", and I would further guess users
of such a device could also be held legally liable for actually _using_ a tool
to circumvent copy protection.

Besides that, I think that almost all of the set-top boxes blow away the boxes
of the carriers on practically every front.

------
TazeTSchnitzel
Dull, and then suddenly...

Sergei Brin walks on, and they hold a LIVE Google Glass demo with skydivers in
a hangout, and bikers, and you see them falling and cycling to the studio.

Wow.

~~~
donum
Here's the video: <http://youtu.be/D7TB8b2t3QE>

It was really awesome!

------
TillE
"The latest release of Android, with buttery graphics and silky transactions."

Can I nominate "buttery" (and related phrases) as the most annoying tech
buzzword that's caught on recently? Particularly as it never really means
_perfectly_ smooth - even iOS on the latest hardware has the occasional
stutter.

~~~
lnanek
At the fireside chat afterwards the Android team said the real term they use
internally is jackbusting. Butter is just a marketing term.

------
zbowling
The title of this post is time dependent. Can a mod swap it out with the page
title?

Edit: THANKS SECRET MODS. The original title was "Google I/O 2012 Keynote
begins in 10 minutes".

~~~
SquareWheel
I'm pretty new here. Are the mods actually secret? I guess I'm used to the
open atmosphere of Reddit administration (but couldn't stand the memes/image
macros).

~~~
AndrewDucker
You get access to edit certain things as your Karma gets higher, but there's
no central list of which people have breached which limits.

~~~
SquareWheel
I see, so it's closer to Stack Overflow. I've only recently earned downvotes,
so I guess I have a ways to go.

------
fab1an
The style of presentation strikes me as awkward - why wouldn't they let the
main presenter just use the phone and control the slides himself? It adds a
lot of unnecessary "next slide please" interruptions.

~~~
saurik
Or, as the presentation is put together ahead of time, you train the people in
control of the slides to know when the slides should be advanced.

(That said, there is a playful back/forth between the guy running the demos
and the speaker that is, at least to me, something that makes it more fun.)

------
digitalnalogika
Direct YouTube link, loads faster:
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_PmU9mpdnqM>

------
tejaswiy
So, "Google Now". Freaky ? What's HN's first impression?

~~~
zyb09
My first impression is nothing of this will probably work if you don't live in
San Francisco or New York.

~~~
drivebyacct2
Why? Google has a huge source of information for traffic analysis, time
estimates via Google Maps. The "ETA" on Nav is precise no matter whether I'm
in podunk Midwest city or Seattle and I get traffic overlays in both as well.

~~~
moe
_Why?_

Ever tried any of their location based features in europe?

~~~
auxbuss
Pretty much every day for the last two years. My Android phone is my satnav.
It works. Faultlessly.

------
politician
I was disappointed that during the Google Glass free-fall, the Moscone Center
didn't have one of those Google Maps pins on top of it to demonstrate the
obvious augmented reality capabilities.

~~~
akashshah
That is because you were just seeing the output of Google Glass's camera, not
seeing what gets shown on the Glass's display. It may already be showing the
Maps overlay for all you know.

~~~
Achshar
I think that is highly unlikely though.

------
rdl
Seems weird to promote a (ok, not great) tablet by promoting how it works with
Google Play. I've heard of Google Play, but rarely used it (except to download
android apps). I certainly wouldn't consider "access to the huge Google Play
library" to be a compelling advantage for a new piece of hardware.

Sell one thing at a time, don't try to sell a new tablet AND an as-yet-
unsuccessful content platform at the same time, I think.

~~~
mdellavo
Google Play is the rebranded Google Market app. This has been out for awhile
now. This is not new to an Android user. "as-yet-unsuccessful" is a bit of a
stretch.

~~~
rdl
For apps, sure, but it's not a huge place for ebooks, video, music, etc.

~~~
mdellavo
Google has been selling content outside of apps for awhile now. Your comments
seem to have a high degree of bias.

~~~
rdl
Mainly because I bought a Google TV.

------
samarudge
While it looks like a very fancy site, I wish they'd made it a fluid layout.
It looks weird on my big monitor

[http://gopotato.co.uk/grabs/Screen%20Shot%202012-06-27%20at%...](http://gopotato.co.uk/grabs/Screen%20Shot%202012-06-27%20at%2017.33.16.png)

------
flatline
So the Nexus Cube is an ablated sphere? That is an unfortunate name...

~~~
tree_of_item
Nexus Q, I believe.

~~~
flatline
Thanks, that's it, it was very hard to tell.

~~~
rdl
They really could use some mic training. The guy talking about the "porn video
game" for a few minutes was also really surreal (I think it's "Corn" or "Torn"
or something.)

~~~
yew
It's Horn. Google seems averse to accent retraining - which is maybe not
entirely a bad thing.

------
_feda_
"If I want to show someone content on my tablet wouldn't we just sit next to
each other and look at the tablet?"

To me this seems like one of those features that you wouldn't want until it
becomes available, almost like Bill Gates saying how we'd never need any more
than whatever ridiculously small amount of ram he mentioned. Whatsmore, It
sounds like a very interesting feature to be designed around to me, and keep
in mind that the same idea of instant one-to-one sharing is one of the selling
points of the galaxy s3.

~~~
SquareWheel

      almost like Bill Gates saying how we'd never need any more than whatever ridiculously small amount of ram he mentioned.
    

I'm pretty sure that's a misquote.

~~~
RyanMcGreal
The "640K ought to be enough for anyone" quote is apocryphal at best:

[https://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9101699/The_640K_quo...](https://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9101699/The_640K_quote_won_t_go_away_but_did_Gates_really_say_it_)

------
feefie
It's working perfectly for me. Thanks OP.

------
bradleyjg
Anyone know why only the android session seems to be working? (Circa 4PM EST)

------
yuvadam
_Error: Server Error_

Seriously, Google?

~~~
Achshar
Yes, the page randomly gives 503. Maybe some last minute updates.

------
Trufa
Dart is looking very interesting if you want to check it out!

------
zbowling
The skydivers with google googles in a G+ hangout was neat.

------
white_devil
Summary: Accompanied by much fanfare and circus acts, Google offers you ways
to let Google data-mine your life on a whole new scale.

------
steelaz
Magazine reading mode is great.

------
eagsalazar
OMG so boring. Google needs to learn how to put on a show.

Also, Hangouts _is_ G+ best feature but sadly it is really hard to get people
together on it. Why when I invite someone do they not get an email or IM??
They _only_ get notified within g+ itself and it isn't easy to find the
invite. On recent jobs several times I've tried to get meetings together on g+
only to resort back to conference calls (!!? WTF??) every time because people
couldn't get on the Hangout. That is a real shame.

~~~
rdl
Google Glass just stole the show. Maybe the earlier parts were just
parody/setup for this. Skydiving live over SF during the show using Glass?

~~~
alttab
I was fairly impressed with this. I can't wait for glass.

~~~
clawrencewenham
All they really showed in the skydiving stunt was that they were wearing head-
mounted cameras.

~~~
rdl
Head mounted cameras with live video streaming and two way audio, over
commercial cellular networks, using commodity hardware (well, prototype
commodity hardware), is still a thing. I'm more into the thing as a compute
device than headmount camera, but until they come up with a good audio UI or
chording keyboard (ideally as glove), they'll be really limited on input, so
video recording is probably the best use case.

(I worked for a guy who was doing this in the 1980s, with ~50 pounds of
equipment in a backpack, a 5W radio transmitter on his head, etc.)

~~~
falling
_> live video streaming and two way audio, over commercial cellular networks,
using commodity hardware_

Isn’t that the description of any smartphone available for a few years now?
Remove the screen and you can shrink it almost at will.

Project Glass is interesting, I’m curious about the display tech, but this
demo didn’t show anything new.

~~~
josteink
_Project Glass is interesting ... but this demo didn’t show anything new._

But when Apple copies Android's notification center (which has now been
massively bumped in JB) that is a huge thing and everyone is up in arms about
what sort of geniuses the people at Apple are.

Sure.

~~~
falling
I'm not everyone, I have my own opinions.

