Since my first article here in February 2006, I've tried to bring you a unique perspective on software development and the computer industry. Even if you didn't agree with me, I hope you found my articles to be helpful and thought provoking. It's been a privilege working with all the professionals here at ZDNet, and I'm content in the sure knowledge that I leave you in their capable hands.

I'd like to invite you all to follow my future exploits through twitter (@eburnette) and Google +.

Thanks for your support,

--Ed

Reports started surfacing in late January about excessive logging on Exchange servers caused by the upgrade to 6.1. A report on Microsoft Technet states:

I had a user upgrade to 6.1 and immediately after he finished, his phone/IPAD started causing excessive logging on the exchange server.  

I found the problem by using exmon and saw the CPU utilization in conjunction with high session count.

He shut down Outlook and the problem remained.  He turned off his iPad and the problem went away.  The only change he said he made that morning was upgrading to iOS 6.1.

This problem has been confirmed by many sources. Windows IT Pro's Tony Redmond reports:

I’ve picked up a few other reports that cannot be publicly attributed at this point that also refer to excessive transaction log generation after iOS 6.1 devices are introduced into Exchange 2010 or Exchange 2007 environments. I assume the same is true for Exchange 2013 as the underlying cause is likely to be in Apple’s mail app code that calls ActiveSync to synchronize with a user’s Exchange mailbox, with some indications being that the problem is once again associated with calendar events. You’d think that Apple would have learned after the iOS 6.0 calendar hijack fiasco.

Until the bug is fixed, corporate users are advised to not upgrade to iOS 6.1. For users who have already upgraded, though, there is no way to revert to the previous version. IT administrators have no control over when their BYOD users upgrade, so many of them have resorted to blocking iOS 6.1 from accessing Exchange as a temporary mitigation to prevent server outages for everybody else.

Apple has not yet acknowledged the problem or stated when a fix might be available, but hopefully it will be patched soon. Meanwhile, early adopters will have to access their calendars somewhere else.

Updated February 15th: Microsoft has more information about the problem in a Knowledge Base article, and Apple has also acknowledged it in a support note. Sources say that a fix is on the way in version 6.1.2.

BlackBerry announced two phone models today: The Q10 with a physical keyboard and the Z10 with a touch keyboard. Both are using the BB10 operating system. The Z10 touchscreen measures 4.2 inches diagonally and has a very high 356 dots per inch density. The Q10 features a smaller screen with a familiar keyboard underneath.

The central user interface for BB10 is called BlackBerry Flow. All programs are running at once (true multitasking), and you can use a single thumb gesture to take a peek at what is going on in the other windows.

The BlackBerry Hub integrates all your media streams including Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, BBM (instant messaging), calendars, phone calls, and emails. All can be read inside the Hub program without executing third party apps.

Other features highlighted today include:

• An innovative touch keyboard with features such as multi-language support and toss to complete

• BlackBerry Balance allows you to separate your IT-controlled business software from your personal software, yet see both in a consolidated view

• Voice and video calls through BBM

• BBM Screenshare lets you share your screen with the personal you're calling

• BlackBerry Reminder for events and appointments; syncs with Evernote

• New camera and picture-editor application

• Story Maker to build slideshows and videos.

BlackBerry's app store is called BlackBerry World, and it contains over 70,000 apps today. Some of them include:

• Skype

• Amazon Kindle

• WhatsApp

• SAP

• Angry Birds.

Pricing and availability will vary by country and carrier with some available as early as tomorrow. One price mentioned was $170 with a three-year contract for the Z10.

BlackBerry's new global creative director is Alicia Keys. She has been working on a project called Keep Moving that aims to inspire other creative people to use the platform.

Analysis

BlackBerry decided to create BB10 from scratch, so it's an entirely new platform. Developers will have to decide whether or not to support the platform based on how well it sells, and it will sell based on how many apps it has. Starting with 70,000 apps out of the gate will certainly help that. The price is reasonable, the technology competitive, and IT features such as BlackBerry Balance will appeal to BlackBerry's core enterprise audience.

Unfortunately for BlackBerry, though, it's unlikely it'll ever be able to achieve much more than a niche market share. Its customers will be people who are forced to use the devices through work, who will use more popular and better-supported devices running iOS and Android for their personal needs. Consumer features are driving innovation into business, not the other way around, so BlackBerry will always be playing catch-up.

If BlackBerry 10 had come out three or four years ago it would have been noteworthy. But now, the world has moved on.

The second category is much larger. These are people who see technology as a means to an end. When making their buying decisions they are looking at price, features, aesthetics, stability, and customer service. They tend to be much more practical than the first group, with specific needs such as reading, making calls, and web browsing that must be satisfied before anything else is considered. To continue with the political analogy, these are the independents. They'll support whichever side brings them the best results.

The reason I mention all this is because the decision between two devices such as the iPad mini and the Nexus 7 depends first and foremost on which type of person you are. Are you in it for the technology, or for the practical benefits? Do you want the tech to be in your face or to disappear into the background? The answer is much simpler for the first group so let's take them first.

Technology focus

If you fall into this group then you have probably already made up your mind and just don't realize it. Look around at what other devices and computers you use. Do you regularly use a Mac? An iPhone? Do you closely follow Apple announcements of new releases? Did you mourn the loss of Steve Jobs, and feel the company might lose its way without him? Then go ahead and get the iPad. It'll be familiar to you. You'll feel good about yourself, like you're a part of something bigger. 

On the other hand, if you value openness over simplicity and you're not locked into the Apple world, then consider the Nexus 7. You get more cores, a higher clock rate, more memory, a higher resolution, a GPS, and a cheaper price. Spec-wise, the only advantage the iPad has is the physical size of the screen (7.9 vs. 7.0 inches). Some people prefer the iPad's square-ish aspect ratio while others prefer the more movie-friendly rectangular format on the Nexus 7, so that's just a personal choice. The iPad is a bit thinner but both will fit in a pocketbook or a big pair of cargo pants. 

Both the iPad mini and the Nexus 7 enjoy up to date OTA updates direct from Apple and Google, respectively. So there's no worry about having an old OS version. Both are jail-breakable if you're into that kind of thing, though the Nexus, like all Android devices, wins hands down in terms of the breadth and depth of its modding community. It's Linux after all.

Functional focus

Before the Nexus 7, if you asked me what tablet to get for your non-technical family member I would have said iPad every time. Yes, that's right, me, author of a book on Android, writer of many articles espousing the benefits of Android, I was recommending iPads. Why? Well, for one thing I actually do own both Android and iOS tablets. I bought an iPad 1 as soon as it came out. But then something funny happened. It vanished. Stolen!

Ok, not stolen exactly. My wife "borrowed" it. You have to realize, this is a woman who eschews the same high tech devices that I get so worked up about. She won't use laptops because she hates the small screens and trackpads. She won't use a smartphone because the battery doesn't last long enough. When she's out and gets lost she calls me up so I can function as sort of a remote "Google maps viewer" for her. I love her to death, but in my mind she's something of a Luddite. But she. Took. My. Ipad.

My wife is strongly in the functional, practical camp. She practically defines it. For her, the iPad does exactly what she wants: It reads mail, it browses the web, and it plays games. Oh, the games. Whoever invented the freemium in-app purchase model of games owes me a lot of money, let me tell you. But I digress.

Another nice thing about all iPad models is the battery life. You can use it all day and it won't run out of juice. Or even nicer, you can *not* use it for a few days and you won't come back to a dead machine. For functional folks like my wife, there's nothing more frustrating than wanting to get something done but being prevented by the technology. That's true whether it's a tablet, an electric car, or a hand mixer. They want to rule the technology, not the other way around.

The Nexus 7 is different though. I know I'm biased, but I really like this device. It's small so it's easy to carry around. It does everything the iPad mini can do and more. It's fast and buttery smooth. It's easy to use and just works. Because it has a GPS you can use maps, and they work great. The thing that really pushes it over the edge for practical-minded users, though, is the price.

Consider two equally well equipped mini tablets: one Nexus 7 and one iPad mini. Both with lots of room for games and other content. Both with high speed cellular access for those times you can't get a WiFi signal. Look at the price difference:

Google Nexus 7, 32GB, WiFi, HSPA+, AT&T: $299

Apple iPad mini, 32GB, WiFi, HSPA+/LTE, AT&T: $559 ($659 for 64GB)

The iPad mini costs almost twice as much as the Nexus 7. That's incredible. I don't normally use the term "Apple tax", but according to hardware breakdowns the mini only costs about $15 more to make, mostly due to the larger screen. Do the math: you're paying a $249 premium for the Apple device.

Remember the old Hyundai ads where the car was so cheap the guy bought two of them, and then he had to drive both back home? It was funny because it was ridiculous; he would drive one a few feet, get out, walk back to the other one and catch up, then repeat. I'm sure somebody in the comments can find us a link to the video if you missed it. My point is that at this price, you could buy two Nexus 7's for a little more than the less functional Apple mini. One for you and one for your spouse or significant other, perhaps?

Conclusion

If the politics of technology is your main concern and you've intertwined your life with Apple, then just stick with the Apple iPad mini. It's a perfectly capable and fun device. If price is no object and there are other considerations like apps or games that haven't been ported to Android yet, or you just want that Apple status symbol (nothing wrong with that, let's be honest) then you might want to go with the Apple device. However, if you want cutting edge hardware including GPS, or if you're into customization and modding, or if you'd like to either save money or buy two for the price of one, then the Nexus 7 is the clear choice.

Well, it's official: mobile games really are taking over the world. PlayFirst, one of the industry's best known casual gaming brands, has announced that as of next month they are abandoning the PC and Mac markets to focus solely on iOS and Android.

PlayFirst games include Diner Dash, Wedding Dash, Hotel Dash, Doggie Dash, Parking Dash, Garden Dash, and even SpongeBob SquarePants Diner Dash.  They also published Avenue Flo, Chocolatier, NightShift Legacy, Spellagories, Trijinx, and more. In all, over 2400 PC/Mac games are being discontinued.

If you have purchased a PC/Mac game from them over the past few years, you are encouraged to go to their web site and download a copy of your software and digital unlock keys now. Otherwise you might not be able to continue playing the games you have already paid for.

Here's the mail they sent out to customers today:

Dear PlayFirst Fans,

We have a special announcement to share with you today. After an amazing 6 years of developing PC and Mac-based computer games, we have made the decision to discontinue the production and support for these titles. Although you will not be able to purchase any of our PC/Mac titles from the PlayFirst website, third party retailers will continue to sell our games. We will be releasing a list of official retailers shortly.

On Monday the 12th of November, we will be launching a brand new website. In order to avoid losing your digitally purchased games, we encourage all of our players to download and store a copy of their unlock keys and game clients somewhere safe. To do this:

• Head over to https://www.playfirst.com/secure/unlockkeys.html .
• Download the installer files for each game you would like to keep.
• Screenshot and/or write down your unlock keys.

The PlayFirst customer support team will continue to answer your PC/Mac questions until November 11th. If you have questions regarding any of our PC/Mac games or encounter an error after this date, please check the PlayFirst Knowledge Base for information on how to fix them.

Any additional questions regarding your products should now be sent to the company from which you bought the game. If you have any questions regarding the transition and/or how to access your games, feel free to consult the dedicated knowledge base article. For any matters not covered, our customer support team can assist.

While it was a hard decision to discontinue production and support for PC/Mac games, we feel it is for the best. We have established a firm position as one of the leading producers for iOS mobile applications and are currently working on implementing our games into the Android marketplace.

We cannot possibly express how much we appreciate the support from our fans over the past 6 years, particularly the PC/Mac community. We understand this may be a hard transition for some but we promise our new games will be bigger and better than ever!

-- The PlayFirst Team

In addition to PC, Mac, and mobile games, PlayFirst has a catalog of over 1000 free online games on their web site. As of yet, the company has not announced any plans to curtail that list.

Is this another sign of the "Post-PC era" we keep hearing about? Let us know what you think in the comments.

“[Android is] now notching up some 1.3 million activations a day, which includes around 70,000 tablets ("We were late to them", notes Schmidt) every 24 hours.”

This number doesn't appear to count any non-Google Android tablets like the Kindle Fire, B&N Nook, or any of the other Android tablets that don't come with Google Apps (and thus are not activated through Google).

While some regard the tablets number as low, it's only low when compared to phone activations. Comparing the numbers for Android tablets vs. iOS tablets paints a different picture:

“Acknowledging the difference, Schmidt said that the figure is going up — thanks to the success of the Nexus 7. ...

In its Q3 earnings results, Apple reported that it sold 17 million iPads. That breaks down to about 188,889 units a day (using 90 days for the quarter). ”

If these figures hold constant then in a year there will be 25.6M new Android tablets and 68.9M new iOS tablets. That’s in addition to ~10M or more Kindle Fires and Nooks, and is a significant jump over previous estimates (some of which had iPad outselling Android tablets by as much as 30:1).

If Android tablet numbers were to keep increasing on this slope, they would overtake the iPad numbers in a couple of years. But Microsoft’s introduction of the Surface could throw all the numbers out of whack, so it’s hard to predict what will actually happen.

In one of the most anticipated patent trials in recent memory, Samsung and Apple have been facing off against each other in a San Jose courtroom for weeks. Possible damages of up to $2.5 billion and a halt on sales of several popular models of Samsung devices were at stake. Now it's all over. The result?

Apple won, big time.

Court officials announced the jury reached a verdict at 2:35pm Pacific time. Lawyers from both sides were called in, as well as a mob of reporters. Tensions were high as the complex verdict was read:

Complete coverage: Apple v. Samsung: A battle over billions

Re: Apple Inc. vs. Samsung Electronics Co LT, Samsung America Inc, Samsung Telecomm LLC. (A "Yes" means the jury found infringement, and a "No" means they didn't.)

Utility patents infringed?

For claim 19 of the '381 patent (bounce-back or rubberbanding): Answer for all is Yes. This includes the Galaxy Tab 10.1, Captivate, Droid Charge, Epic 4G, Exhibit 4G, Fascinate, Galaxy Ace, Prevail, S4G, SII, Tab, Gem, Indulge, Infuse 4G, Mesmerize, Nexus S 4G, Replenish, and Vibrant.

For claim 8 of '915 patent (distinguishing between one-finger scroll and two-finger zoom): Yes on all except Intercept and Replenish.

For claim 50 of '163 patent (double-tap to zoom): Kind of a mixed bag: Yes for many and No for many.

Design patents infringed?

For design patent D'677 (rounded rectangle,  edge-to-edge glass, thin bezel, horizontal speaker for phone): Yes for all but Galaxy Ace.

For design patent D'087 (home button, rounded corners, front edge border for phone): Yes for S i9000, S 4G, and Vibrant. No for everything else.

For design patent D'305 (grid icon layout, icon dock at bottom): Yes for all.

For design patent D'889 (rounded rectangle, edge-to-edge glass, thin bezel for tablet): No for all.

For the infringed patents, did Samsung willfully and knowingly infringe?

Yes for all except D'087.

Proven invalid?

Not a single one was proven invalid.

Trade dress is protectable and "famous"?

Registered iPhone Trade Dress: Yes
Unregistered iPhone 3 Trade Dress: Yes
Unregistered Combination iPhone Trade Dress: No
Unregistered iPad/iPad 2 Trade Dress: No

Trade dress has been "diluted"?

Registered iPhone Trade Dress: Yes to some, but mostly No
Unregistered iPhone 3 Trade Dress: Yes to some, but mostly No
Unregistered Combination iPhone Trade Dress: No
Unregistered iPad/iPad 2 Trade Dress: No

Damages to Apple from Samsung:

$1.05 billion in total damages.

Samsung was also suing Apple for patent infringement. They didn't fare as well.

Samsung utility patents infringed:

NO on all counts. However the jury did not rule that any of these patents were invalid.

Damages to Samsung from Apple:

$0. Ouch.

There were several questions about the UMTS standard and Samsung's use of patents in it. Essentially the jury ruled completely in Apple's favor on this issue.

Did Samsung fail to license "essential" patents on FRAND terms?

No

Has Apple broken Sherman anti-trust by UMTS?

No

Did Samsung monopolize markets related to UMTS?

No (corrected)

Is Samsung bared from enforcing the following patents against Apple?

(because Apple uses Intel chips and Intel already paid Samsng for the license)

'516 patent (limiting power to reduce interference): Yes

'941 patent (packet transmission): Yes

Samsung reacts:

Samsung issued a statement after the verdict:

Today’s verdict should not be viewed as a win for Apple, but as a loss for the American consumer. It will lead to fewer choices, less innovation, and potentially higher prices. It is unfortunate that patent law can be manipulated to give one company a monopoly over rectangles with rounded corners, or technology that is being improved every day by Samsung and other companies. Consumers have the right to choices, and they know what they are buying when they purchase Samsung products. This is not the final word in this case or in battles being waged in courts and tribunals around the world, some of which have already rejected many of Apple’s claims. Samsung will continue to innovate and offer choices for the consumer.

Apple reacts:

Apple, naturally, is happy with the results. Here's their statement:

We are grateful to the jury for their service and for investing the time to listen to our story and we were thrilled to be able to finally tell it. The mountain of evidence presented during the trial showed that Samsung's copying went far deeper than even we knew. The lawsuits between Apple and Samsung were about much more than patents or money. They were about values. At Apple, we value originality and innovation and pour our lives into making the best products on earth. We make these products to delight our customers, not for our competitors to flagrantly copy. We applaud the court for finding Samsung's behavior willful and for sending a loud and clear message that stealing isn't right.

Conclusion:

The jury has handed Samsung a near complete and utter defeat. It's hard to imagine a better result for Apple.

The only silver lining in the verdict, if there is any, is that the jury did not find infringement of design patent D'889 . That's the one that covers tablets shaped like a rounded rectangle, with a thin bezel, edge-to-edge glass, and minimal extras. It's odd that they didn't strike it down as invalid, but neither did they say Samsung infringed it.

Also, the judge has left Samsung plenty of grounds for appeal. She seriously limited the amount of time given to both sides for cross-examination, and rejected Samsung's attempt to get examples of prior art entered into evidence. The precedent is already set, however, and Apple is likely to use it to go after other Android phone makers.

Total bill for Samsung: $1.05 billion. If upheld on appeal it will the the largest patent award of all time.

Total bill for Apple: $0. Not counting legal fees, of course.

The next step is that Apple will seek an injunction in order to get infringing Samsung products taken off the shelves. A hearing for a preliminary injunction has been scheduled for September 20th. A permanent injunction could come later.

Complete coverage: Apple v. Samsung: A battle over billions

Related articles:

• Apple v. Samsung verdict: What it means
• Apple vs. Samsung verdict: It doesn't matter
• Apple vs. Samsung verdict: Live coverage (thanks Josh!)
• How qualified is the Apple-Samsung jury? We found out
• Apple v. Samsung: The Patent Trial of the Century
• Apple v. Samsung: What's the worst that could happen?
• Samsung's high Apple patent stakes: A third of its value
• Why is Apple scared to compete with Samsung?
• Apple vs. Samsung: the complete guide to a billion-dollar trial

The next version of Eclipse (version 4.3), will be called "Kepler", continuing its astrological theme. The next version of Android will also be something beginning with a K, following its dessert theme. Android's version number is unknown.

The Eclipse foundation decides on a code name in a public discussion and vote over a year in advance, and the version number and release date is decided at about the same time. Google keeps the Android version name closer to the vest, and the number is not known until the day the finished code is released.

Milestone versions of Eclipse are released to developers at regular intervals until the final version is ready in the summer. Android developers get the SDK when everything is done, which could happen at any time without notice.

While both projects are open source, the differences in how they are managed are broad. Which way is better? Let us know your thoughts in the comment section.

For a historical perspective, see these articles from 2005 and 2006:

• EclipseCon 2005 Day 2: The Eclipse Way
• EclipseCon 2006 Day 2: Stories along the Eclipse Way

I thought that would be the end of it, but since then there have been 2 updates to Rachel's article and 4 to mine. In addition, the vendor's PR company contacted ZDNet to complain that my article was "unfair and inaccurate," adding that they wanted us to correct the "factual errors".

First, I want to say that I stand by what I wrote in the article, and I consider it to be factually accurate. The origin of the misleading cropped image was unclear, so I did add this update from Rachel:

Rachel contacted me to say that the vendor supplied the full image and that she inadvertently cropped it while uploading the article.

Second, Webroot asked for an opportunity to respond to the article. Here's what they have to say: 

"The purpose of Webroot’s blog post is to make users more aware of the permissions they grant any application they install, on any device, before they click 'OK.' The London Olympics Widget shows the user aggregated 2012 Olympics news while also harvesting contact lists, device id and SMS messages. While not specifically malicious, an app for Olympic news does not need all of the above functionality to show who won the latest gold medal. We want to make sure users exercise caution and make informed decisions when downloading apps to whatever device they may use."

"The reason we have classified this as a Potentially Unwanted Application is because it is using the Olympics to draw people into installing their apps so they can make money on multiple aggressive advertisement SDK add-ons.  It is the aggressive advertisement SDK add-ons that are requesting permissions to read contacts, look up device ids, and read SMS messages."

Update 4: For the Webroot's response, read: More on Olympics malware .

This article has several problems, including:

GameStop says the 16GB Nexus 7 is "Backordered". A spokesperson told Reuters, "We blew through the first two allotments," and indicated a third allotment of preorders will be available in August.

Online store B&H is taking orders but notes: "This is a new item being released in limited quantity, We are accepting orders and they will be filled in the order they are received."

Office Depot lists the 8GB version as "Coming soon" and the 16GB version as "Temporarily out of stock, check back soon".

Staples only sells the 16GB version and their web site says "Available in-store only". However a check of local stores shows it was not actually avaialble at stores near me.

Kmart carries the 16GB model but lists it as "Out of stock" online and "Unavailable" at local stores.

MobileCity is taking pre-orders for the 16GB tablet but the expected arrival date is shown as "No ETA at this time".

Sam's Club is not even taking orders. Their web site says "This item is out of stock for delivery".

In the UK, Currys PC World Stores are telling customers "they have sold out now pretty much everywhere".

So where can you get a Nexus 7 now?

8GB model: Google is selling the 8GB tablet in their Play Store, and as I write this it says "In stock; Delivered in 3-5 business days".  In a shipping status FAQ, Google writes: "We’ve had incredible demand for our new Nexus 7 tablet and are shipping them as quickly as possible. When your device ships you will receive a notification from Google Play with a shipping tracking number."

16GB model: For the higher capacity model, Google's store says "Ships in 1-2 weeks". The only way to get one earlier is on Ebay. Recently completed listings show the 16GB model going for a 20-30% premium over list price.

Have you had any luck getting a Nexus 7? Let us know in the comments.

Related articles:

• What's new in Android 4.1 (JellyBean)
• Early Nexus 7 benchmarks
• Nexus 7 is reporting tvdpi density
• Optimizing apps for the Nexus 7 screen - Dianne Hackborn
• Google Nexus 7: a device that finally raises awareness of the 7 inch form factor - Matthew Miller
• Nexus 7: Finally, validation for the smaller tablet - James Kendrick
• The Nexus 7 is only missing one thing (an Apple logo) - Jason D. O'Grady

Alert, alert! Security researchers (i.e., people who sell virus scanners) warn of a dread new threat: Android malware posing as Super Mario or Grand Theft Auto wallpaper can get on your phone and, gasp, send SMS messages to a premium-rate number. Oh no, what will we ever do?

Try reading the permissions first. It turns out that in order to activate the software you have to agree to install a program that will "cost you money":

Imagine you're walking down the street and a panhandler approaches you and asks, "Excuse me sir, may I have your wallet for a moment so I can take some money out of it?" And you say, "Sure, go ahead."

"What, you took my money? How dare you?"

Thank you, security research guys, for saving us from this terrible menace.

• Jeff Chang, product manager on the Chrome Browser. His favorite new feature is tab synching.
• Alex Komoroske, product manager on Chrome. Web components are his favorite area of Chrome.
• Erik Kay, engineer in the Chrome team. Has been on the team for almost 6 years. He has worked on auto-update, extensions, native client, and more. He's most excited about web apps.
• Ian Elison-Taylor, director of product manager for the web platform. He says what's coming with the new generation apps will be a game changer. Also he's excited about tooling.
• Pavel Feldman, software engineer on developer tools. His focus areas are memory management, heap profiling, and remote debugging for mobile.
• Felix Lin, product team for Chrome OS. He's most excited about the Samsung ChromeBook and ChromeBox that were just released.

After introductions, the floor was turned over to questions.

Q: Will it be possible to close tabs on other devices?

A: Interesting feature request, we'll have to think about that.

Q: What's the roadmap for VPN on ChromeOS?

A: Already supported, and we're working on improving management.

Q: Is anything in the works to improve drag and drop interop between web apps? For example drag an attachment out of GMail and drop it into some other app.

A: That's a great use case. There isn't a standard for that but the closest thing is Web Intents. That lets you have a loose coupling between apps like GMail and others. We think Web Intents are a big deal. Sites can interoperate without hard coded relationships.

Q: What features are missing from the web platform that will help drive offline app usage?

A: We have local storage, app cache, index db, and others. Thinking about your app as offline by default gives you a new perspective. People think, we have connectivity everywhere, why do we need offline? Sometimes you have spotty connectivity. Sometimes you're at a trade show and WiFi can't keep up. Making your apps resilient to these condition takes some forethought. Assume you're offline and have your code run locally to begin with. Then sync to the server as you have connectivity.

Keep refreshing for more...

Chrome

Chrome now has 310 million active users, who type in 60 billion words every day. It's now the most popular browser in the world, globally.

We use a lot of different computers at home and work, and Chrome lets us synchronize all our settings via the cloud. Just sign in with Chrome and you'll get all your bookmarks and tabs; you can even browse to a page on your desktop and then pull out your phone and continue browsing. Even the back button works to go back through your saved history.

Announcing Chrome on the iPhone and iPad. Synching, omnibox, tabs, swipe to close and swap taps - all the features of Chrome on the other platforms are available. You can see all your devices and the work you were doing on each one, and pick up where you left off on one of those pages. Autofill, passwords, ... everything just works across devices. Incognito mode works too.

Going Google - Google Drive

In 2004 we launched GMail, which currently has 425M active users. Then we added Calendar, Documents, Spreadsheets, and Presentations. About 10 weeks ago we launched Google Drive. But it's not just home. People demand the same experience at work as they use at home.

Government agencies in 45 states have gone Google. 66 of the 100 top universities have gone Google, as have 5M businesses. Most businesses were based on the PC architecture, but now companies need to share and collaborate. Sharepoint doesn't cut it.

Google Drive makes all your files available everywhere.

Announcing Google Drive for iOS and ChromeOS. It's not just browsing, for example you can open a folder of receipts and search for keywords. You can search for words in images; it uses Optical Character Recognition. You can also search for photos: enter the word Pyramid and it uses image recognition technology to find images with pyramids in them.

You can add people and give them edit access for collaboration.

In ChromeOS, Drive is integrated tightly. It becomes your file system. All content is synched across all devices, keystroke by keystroke.

What if you don't have an internet connection?

Announcing Google Documents works for editing offline. You don't have to enter an "offline mode"; it just notices and handles it gracefully. In a demo they turned off the internet, made a change, closed the document, turned on the net, opened the doc again, and instantly the changes appeared on 3 different screens.

Users can create, edit, and share with dozens of applications using the Google Drive SDK. We just updated to version 2 today. Additions show up in the More menu in Google Drive. Files created with 3rd party applications are stored alongside all other types of files. You just click on the document, for example a Lucid Chart, and it opens. Drive developers have found that users spend more time in their apps when integrated with Drive.

ChromeBook

A year ago we launched our first generation ChromeBook. Since then we released a new version of the OS every 6 weeks, and automatically pushed that out to every ChromeBook. We also released new ChromeBooks that were 3 times faster than the original hardware. We call it "the (always) new computer".

Announcing ChromeBooks will be available in Best Buy stores all across the US. It'll also be in the UK.

Let's talk about servers and the infrastructure that makes cloud applications possible. Over the years we've built one of the world's largest data centers and networks. Then we started making this available directly to you.

Google Compute Engine

In 2008 we launched AppEngine. Today we have 1M active apps, serving 7.5B hits/day. For example there was an event in Japan that peaked at 24K queries per second, and it all worked smoothly because of App Engine. But you've told us you want more - virtual machines on demand.

Announcing Google Compute Engine. It gives you Linux virtual machines at any scale. There's high performance networking between the nodes so you can form them into a cluster.

One of our beta testers was the Institute for Systems Biology. First they built an in house cluster with 1,000 nodes, but it still took 10 minutes to build a genome association. In a few days they were able to port to Compute Engine. Using 10,000 nodes they could do that work in a few seconds.

This infrastructure comes with a scale, performance, and value that is unparalleled in the industry. What you get from Google is not just the scale but also stable and predictable performance. One customer converted from a "competing engine" (presumably AWS) and got twice the number of connections per server.

CE is now open for testing. For computations we can scale very high. The actual count of the number of cores available to the genome cores was increased from 10,000 to 771,886 during the presentation. Using only 600K cores, lines appeared faster than you could see them in the genome demo. Google calls it "Computing without Limits".

HTML5/CSS3 Web Platform

Infrastructure is only one component; another is the actual underlying platform. Evolution of the web is happening very fast. For example 1.5 years ago we decided to support rich games on the web. We talked to game developers to see what APIs they needed, and then added them to Chrome.

Demo: OnLive Gaikai can be streamed to browsers, with sound and 3D. BulletStorm demonstrated live.

The Chrome Web store has served up over 750M applications and we're just getting started. We're focusing on:

• Making applications always available
• Get an authentic app experience, including full screen
• Have access to every enhanced device API

Example: Circ de Soleil web project. Could the web deliver the experience we envision? Needed to go beyond text, images, and video. Were surprised by the depth and richness of the visual animation available. The combination of great creative minds and new web technology let us make something that wasn't possible before.

The Circ site makes heavy use of CSS3 animations. It's wonderfully portable - the same app works great on a tablet (they demo'd it on an iPad). It takes advantage of hardware features such as the accelerometer, and hardware accelerated 3D graphics.

Announcing I/O attendees will get a Samsung ChromeBox.

Sky jump behind the scenes

Sergey Brin showed up on the roof of Moscone to re-run the sky jump from yesterday. The "challenging wireless environment" needed multiple dishes pointed at the airship using different RF technologies. A fog bank threatened to roll in and spoil the event, but then it dissipated. The jump went off without a hitch on a perfectly blue sky.

That's a wrap, thanks for joining.

On paper, the specs are nearly identical: both have a 7 hour battery, Dual Core Intel i5, 4GB RAM, 128GB SSD. Both weigh 2.9 pounds. Both have a backlit keyboard, and cost around $1100. The ZenBook is practically a clone of the MacBook Air's iconic design. Take a look at them side by side at the Apple store:

I bought the ZenBook because I normally use Windows and because the ZenBook has a much better display (1920x1080 IPS). It turns out this was both a blessing and a curse.

My first hint of trouble was when I was first setting up the Asus and it turned itself off for no reason. That only happened once so I chalked it up as a fluke. Then YouTube videos showed only garbage in the Chrome browser. Turning off hardware acceleration worked around that. I spent several hours applying dozens and dozens of Windows Update patches. That was kind of annoying but it's just a one time thing. I don't understand why a brand new machine that only went on sale at Amazon this month didn't have those already applied, but no big deal.

Another bad sign was the wrist pain I experienced when using the unit for the first half hour. The computer is so thin and the metal edges so sharp that it was actually painful to rest my arms on it. I trained myself not to do that and continued.

The Asus lasted for my entire plane trip from North Carolina to California, including a delay on the tarmac as technicians tried to decide whether or not a dent in the engine was too big for flight or not. That was over 7 hours in battery saving mode, blogging via the in-flight WiFi. Battery-wise, I continue to be impressed.

The real test came on Wednesday, the first day of the conference. I would be sitting in a straight-back chair for hours, typing furiously while trying to watch the presentations and take pictures at the same time. This is where the Asus totally let me down.

I'm a pretty fast touch typist, but I absolutely rely on the computer behaving in a certain way as I type. In particular, I can't have the cursor jumping randomly around the screen, causing text to be inserted in the wrong place. I especially can't have text being selected willy-nilly so that the next key I hit will erase it. Both of these things happened with disturbing frequency on the ZenBook Prime. The culprit was the trackpad.

Last year's ZenBook (non-Prime) got poor reviews because of its lousy trackpad. The Prime was supposed to be much better, according to several online reviews. Well, if this is better, I really feel sorry for the poor souls using last year's model.

As I typed, despite my best efforts the bottom of the my hand would lightly touch the trackpad every so often. That was enough to send the cursor scurrying across the screen, sometimes with text selected, and always with unfortunate results. By the end of the day I had to keep checking the screen to see if I was typing in the wrong place. I can't count the number of times I had to press Ctrl+Z to undo, or retype text that was lost.

Before you conclude that I just got a bum unit, consider that I found another ZenBook user at the conference who was having the exact same problem. Neither of us could find a setting that would make the situation any better. Both of us were extremely frustrated. Last I saw, he was still pecking out his articles on the ZenBook. I didn't have the same amount of patience.

So, as soon as the sessions were over for the day I walked over to the Apple store determined to purchase a MacBook Air.

I already ruled out a MacBook Pro Retina version because of the expense. Regular MacBook Pros were out because I wanted a solid state drive. That left the 13- and 11-inch models to choose from. You can see the 11-inch one in the picture above.

The 11-inch model was very tempting because this is not my primary machine and the smaller screen would be just dandy for writing. However, three factors discouraged me from getting one:

First, the battery life on the smaller Air is rated at 5 hours instead of 7 hours for its larger sibling. 7 hours is just barely enough for my uses, but 5 would fall short without a mid-day charge. Plus there's the problem all laptops have where the battery life gets shorter over the life of the device. Neither MacBooks nor ZenBooks have replaceable batteries.

Second, the 11-incher does not have a built-in SD port. My Nkon Coolpix S8100 uses an SD card, and it is convenient to pop it out of the camera and into the computer in order to import pictures. I could have gone with a cheap SD reader or plugged in a cable to the camera, but that's another piece to lose.

Finally, the top and bottom rows of keys are shorter on the 11-inch Air than on the 13-inch. I tried each a few times (one of the benefits of having a real store) and decided I could definitely feel the difference, especially on the arrow keys which I use often.

So, I'm now a proud MacBook Air owner. As I typed this article, I didn't experience a single glitch or cursor malfunction. The trackpad is incredibly nice on the Air, light years ahead of what the ZenBook has to offer. The keyboard feels rock solid as I bang out these words.

I hope Amazon will give me a refund on the Asus, because this MacBook is here to stay.

One of my favorite parts of Google I/O is the Android Fireside Chat. All the developers are lined up on stage and then grilled with questions from the audience for an hour. This year's session did not disappoint. In this article I have summarized all the questions asked and answers given by the panelists.

Q: There's a gap between the build environment for Eclipse and Ant. It's a battle keeping them in sync. Are there any plans to streamline it?

A: Looking at revamping it to specify things once.

Q: With Chrome on Android what happens to the original Android browser and WebView?

A: ICS->JB upgrade will not pre-install Chrome. WebView will be converted to Chromium based code. Android and Chrome engineers are working together.

Q: Will WebView get updated?

A: WebView and Chrome browser will be the same when the OS is upgraded. Every 6 weeks Chrome will be updated but WebView will not. Just to be careful not to break anything.

Q: Google Maps SDK is getting long in the tooth, any improvements coming up?

A: No ETA but we're working on a new version.

Q: Is there any work to make the support library use the native version of the APIs?

A: Some already do and some don't. For example Fragments always uses the one in the library.

Q: How do you install multiple versions of APK, like prod, dev, QA?

A: Give them different package names.

Q: That screws up our version control.

A: Get better version control. (laughter)

Q: Any changes to ADB backup?

A: No changes in JellyBean.

Q: For my new app I got 30 downloads on Android, 4,000 downloads on iOS. Probably because What's new section was removed from the Play Store. I understand you were getting a lot of spam but are there any plans to bring it back?

A: Looking at it. We care about app discoverability. Launched recommendations, that should help.

Q: With some phones running high resolution, can you identify if a device is a phone or tablet?

A: Resolution doesn't matter - it's DP units. Different devices have different densities.

Q: We like the smart app updates (delta). Will there be a way to download parts of APKs per resolution?

A: Some devices can operate at multiple densities which makes it harder but we're looking at it.

Q: What would be the best thing to focus on learning to become part of your team?

A: Skydiving. (laughter)

Q: As a developer, WebGL is great. Chrome doesn't support it on Android yet. When?

A: It's working internally. Issues are denial of service and GPU availability. There's some work in Chrome OS to make it safer, and we're looking at that right now to see if we can release it in a safe way. Some GPUs are more stable than others.

We are the 93%

Q: 7% of people are using ICS. How are we going to get more people on JellyBean?

A: Free devices. (chuckle)

Acceleration of ICS is increasing. We started the PDK so dev manufacturers can get access earlier. And we're seeing dev manufacturers getting more Android savy. Delta from ICS to JB is quite small so adoption should be quicker.

Q: How much time do we have to transition from C2DM to Google Cloud Messaging.

A: Long time. Plenty of heads up, like a year.

Q: Renderscript question about shaders and variable packaging. It's converting booleans into floats.

A: Don't know.

Q: We've seen a lot of exciting stuff on Google Maps, focussed on desktop users. When running it on a smartphone or tablet the UX is lacking compared to native app. What's the way forward and what should we do as devs that want to leverage Google Maps on Android devices?

A: MapView is getting long in the tooth. API hasn't changed significantly since Android 1.0. It's tricky to solve because of backwards compatability. It came up recently and we're working with the Geo team.

Q: What to do now?

A: Do whatever works for your app. We don't have a best practice at this time.

Q: On N7 the notification bar and the system bar are split instead of combined like on the xoom. What will bigger tablets do?

A: JellyBean on 10" device works as before (both at bottom).

Q: Most of my org uses iPhones and I'm trying to convince them to convert. Nexus doesn't have external storage and you can't just plug it in and mount it like Droid or Razr Maxx. Is there a reason why you chose to do non-block connection?

A: Some has to do with user experience. We don't have a concrete plan. We know some devices do USB mount storage and some don't. There are good user experiences around PTP but it's harder under Linux. USB mount storage is kind of crummy. Not having a FAT file system makes things better so we intend to not do that in newer devices.

Q: Is support for the Google APIs coming to Intel emulators?

A: We're aware of that. Intel did the work and they are contributing patches back. We're working with Intel to release JellyBean. As soon as we can do it we will.

Q: I do Android development on non-tablets and non-phones (set top boxes). The MediaPlayer doesn't work across different devices. Performance, scale, etc., is weird. Tried open source ones but they're buggy and slow. Are you aware of any OS mediaplayer project that will reduce my headache. Android 4.0.

A: MediaPlayer sits on StageFright. New media codec API was just announced. We mandate different codecs and profiles. If we could mandate a standard we would. Probably we need more tests on our side. We struggle with this too.

Q: I worked on a scala plug-in. Is there a way to hook into the Eclipse build tool to handle minified and non-minified version?

A: Not at the moment.

Q: In Radio interface layer, it references version 4 and version 6. I can't find documentation on the AT commands.

A: For the PDK we're trying to build more documentation. We support a subset of AT commands. There are no special ones for Android (we don't think).

Q: Downloaded last Google+ version, has cool navigation. At some point are we going to get that in the support library?

A: No plans at this point. It's a good idea though.

Hey, we have 5 more months

Q: Regarding the PDK, is that targeting AOSP or OEM?

A: OEM. Our team is finite sized so we decided to try this approach. First goal was to speed up getting devices to market.

Q: Whatever happened to the Android Update Alliance.

A: Last year we said devices would be supported for 18 months. It hasn't been 18 months since last year. (laughter) We're working with partners on it.

Q: Will you be able to block internet access in JB like notifications?

A: No.

Q: Can you share resources between packages?

A: Library projects can do some of that. IDEA and Maven can do some of it.

Q: Support for the Now cards, will user apps be able to tie into that?

A: No plans at the moment.

Q: Downloading images, staying within memory budget, is hard. Can you bring it to a level of beginning developers (caching, crisp image, crisp, etc.)

A: We're trying to pick up best practices and making them as developer training. A bitmap one is either there now or coming soon. Also we're working on a ready-made plug-n-play jar that you can use to do this.

Q: Can you increase the memory we have access to?

A: Honeycomb has large memory size option. It's a tradeoff, we don't want to have slow app switching.

Q: Are there going to be any new APIs for the voice search and Google Now?

A: No.

Q: There used to be separate volumes for navigation, what happened to that? Is it coming back?

A: No.

Q: Lint error checking is useful. Could developers add their own rule sets?

A: Yes, we have an API for it but it's not quite ready yet.

Q: What's the best way to merge data from your own content provider with others while performing computations and feeding the data into an adapter?

A: Depends on what you're doing. You'll want to do something that as you iterate through the cursors you don't have to look ahead.

Q: Can an APK be signed with multiple certs?

A: Yes but you should not.

Q: I have a dependency on a third party vendor and I have to give it to them for signing.

A: It's like a different application. You should give it a different package name.

Q: I'm a big fan of library projects but my workspace got really messy. I tried to use Android Maven plug-in but had trouble. Do you plan to manage binary files?

A: Maybe in the future.

Q: It's hard to beat native code, why isn't it getting more love?

A: In terms of portability it's hard to beat Java code. You have ARM cpus, you have x86 cpus, and others. Also we have Renderscript.

Q: Have you guys considered buying Swype?

A: Can't answer. Some people love it, some don't. It's great that they have a nice keyboard you can buy.

Q: Relating to Enterprise apps, will there be an API for 802.1x key management and campus networks?

A: Don't know. Cisco might have that.

Q: I'm excited about the PDK. Will it be unstable 2 months early?

A: We want to get to a rhythm. (Asks audience what the next version is named, they say it should be KeyLimePie.) Say we're working on KeyLime, or K, make sure your device that is running J can run on an early version of K. It should be much quicker to bring the device up to the next version. The specifics and exact timing is something we're still working out. Forward compatability of HAL layers doesn't work today but that's the goal.

Q: If our chipset isn't the one for Nexus devices will it still participate in the PDK program?

A: We have some experience now, gotten better at it, taking feedback. Intersted in making your life easier to bring up Android on new devices. What are the holes, what needs to be there, how can your time to bring it up.

KeyLime is not official. Krispy Creme and KitKat should bid against each other. (laughter)

KeyLime is a great name

Q: When will smallest-width be a filter on Google Play?

A: Soon.

Q: Notification and Ringer streams seem to have combined into one, why?

A: It was a user experience decision.

Q: I have a lot of users that don't like it.

A: UX guys were trying to simplify the experience. We're aware of the feedback. We got lots of complaints from users who didn't understand what was going on.

Q: KeyLimePie is a great name. (laughter)

Q: Working on suite of apps that are not for consumer use. Want to prevent people getting to browser and Angry Birds. We have a service that scan the log but it feels klunky. Is there a better way?

A: You need to do your own build of Android that has those restrictions. Your solution might stop working in the future, might have broken in JB.

Q: Any upcoming changes in Dalvik, JIT optimizations, etc. in JB?

A: Don't know.

Q: When memory is very low (2M free) it's easy to make Dalvik assert. Is that normal behavior?

A: Your device doesn't have enough RAM. It should never kill the system process except in exceptional circumstances.

Q: On Honeycomb we find issues with video playback with segmentation fault. Can you push fixes to older devices?

A: Different devices have different hardware codecs so we can't enforce same level of performance. Maybe in the future we can add more CTS tests.

Q: It's a bug, it crashes. ICS fixes it.

A: JB refreshes the Xoom and Nexus S.

Q: Sometimes you have a suite of apps that has the same core and including the library in each one bloats it. Can you have dependency of apps on Play?

A: No. Look at Windows with VB Runtimes. We're trying to learn from the previous mistakes of others. You trade some bloat for static links vs. knowing that the code stays the same always. We think it would just become a mess.

Q: Regarding low latency audio, what kind of improvements do you have in JB? Is the low latency manifest flag being used?

A: It's a work in progress. We're introducing a global fast mixer to reduce the latency. The targets we're going for are sub-10ms. Anything that preempts you in the system will cause a problem. On the Galaxy Nexus the latency went from 100ms on ICS to 12ms on JB but we want it to always be below 10ms. Other JB devices are not as good as 12ms. We want to mandate a maximum latency but we aren't there yet.

Q: Are you working with manufacturers to encourage audio drivers to be fast, etc.?

A: Yes, Systrace was built for jank-busting (renamed "butter" for marketing). It turned out to be good for audio performance checking too.

(At this point time ran out. But if you have more questions for the team let me know and I'll try to get an answer.)

Gallery: Hands-on with Android 4.1 Jelly Bean

Before you ask, it is not known yet exactly which devices will get JellyBean and which will not. It will appear first (in July) on Google Nexus devices and Xooms that get their updates directly from Google. Any devices shipping now with Android 4.0 are likely to get an upgrade to 4.1. For the rest, we'll have to see what the different Android partners announce in the days and weeks to come. As I mentioned in this post, even orphaned devices can get upgrades through custom ROMs such as Cyanogenmod.

User features

Android 4.1 is an incremental release that contains a several nice features for users, including:

• Faster, more responsive, interface throughout the system. Google started an internal effort called "Project Butter" to make the JellyBean UI "buttery smooth", and you can definitely tell a difference based on side-by-side comparisons. Using a technique that I first suggested to the team months ago, Android will actually use your finger's speed and direction to predict where it will be a few milliseconds ahead of time, and make sure the UI is there to follow it. This should finally (I hope) put to rest complaints that operations like scrolling are slower on Android than other platforms.
• Offline voice. This is a Big Deal. Until now, when you pressed the voice icon and spoke a command or query, Android had to digitize your voice, upload it to the cloud, process the waveform, turn it into text, and send the text back down to your phone. Now the phones are powerful enough that this can be built into the device, with no extra network I/O needed. As you can imagine this results in *much* faster voice recognition than previous versions.
• Google Now. Remember that combined privacy policy that Google instituted across all its sites and apps? That enables them to combine all the information they have about your work habits, appointments, location, and more. You can opt out of this if you like, but it enables new services such as reviews of restaurants as you walk by them, and sports scores of teams you care about delivered automatically to your device. I think this will be especially important for Project Glass, which is supposed to immerse itself unobtrusively into your real life environment. But even now the combination of Offline voice and Google Now provide direct and compelling competition to Apple's Siri program.
• Richer notifications. Android already has the best notification system of any mobile OS, but in JellyBean Google is taking it to the next level. Notifications won't just be a couple of lines of text - they can be pictures, lists, or whole paragraphs, and they can have action buttons for direct access to do things like reply to email, call somebody back, or vote up an article without opening a separate app to do that. Users can expand and collapse notifications, and even block notifications from apps they don't want to hear from.
• Home screen widgets will be easier to use in JellyBean. When you drag a widget to the home screen, other widgets will move out of the way, or the one you are dragging will resize itself to fit.
• New locales and fonts for Arabic, Hebrew, Thai, and others. Right to left text is much improved in this release.

Developer features

Underlying every feature for the user is one or more new Developer features or API that make it possible. Here are the ones I feel are most important:

• New Notifications API. Google added a priority and bigContentView field to Notifications, plus a number of styles such as BigTextStyle, BigPictureStyle, and InBoxStyle to make it easy for developers to provide richer notifications. During the developer talk they showed screen shots from third party apps that have already adopted the new APIs includingFoursquare, Pulse, Spotify, Path, and Pocket Gems.
• Widget improvements. Memory limits can be put on widgets, and they can supply both portrait and landscape orientations. Widgets can be hosted in third party apps, and be notified of size changes.
• Animation improvements. New APIs simplify animations and provide new functionality such as zooming up from a specific point on the screen (such as where the app icon was).
• New navigation. The Up button can be handled automatically by adding one line of XML code. New APIs let you set your back stack to a more predictable state so user's won't get unexpected results when they hit the Back button.
• Accessibility APIs. Enhanced APIs allow handicapped users to do gesture based traversal of all onscreen elements. Text reading is supported by word, line, or paragraph. Custom views with extra semantic structure can be explained to the API so it can do a better job of accessibility.
• READ_EXTERNAL_STORAGE permission. This is a new permission that will be required in a future release for apps that want to read the contents of the SD card. Up to now, anybody could read the SD card. It's not enforced in JellyBean unless you turn on a special developer option. Google strongly encourages all developers that read from the SD card to include this permission now.
• Audio latency. JellyBean shortens the time between when you take an action like pressing a button and when you can hear a sound caused by that action such a click or a gunshot in a game. In current Android versions this delay can be as great as 80ms, which is several frames of a 30 or 60fps game.
• Anti-piracy measures. Starting in JellyBean, applications will be encrypted with a device-specific key so they can't simply be copied and uploaded to the Internet. This means more legitimate sales for developers.
• Incremental APK updates. Let's say you have a 50MB app in the store and you push a bug fix by changing one line of code. In JellyBean (actually in Gingerbread and up now) the Play store will only download the difference between the version the user has installed and the version you pushed, instead of the entire 50MB app again. This is automatic.
• Better NDK support. Now you can build and debug apps that have native components. Previously you had to use a separate tool for debugging the C/C++ parts that was different from what you used for debugging the Java parts.

The good news is that most of the new APIs have been added to the Android Support library, which is used by developers to support older versions of Android. And there are no new icon style guidelines, something all the developers and designers in the crowd applauded.

Have a question about JellyBean? Drop me a line and I'll try to find out the answer while I'm at the conference.

Android

Last year there were 100M total devices activated - this year there are 400M Android devices. Today, 1M new devices are activated every single day. That's about 12 new devices every second.

Google announced Android 4.1 JellyBean. Dave Burke, Android engineering Director, talked about Project Butter. In JellyBean this is the project to made the UI fast, fluid, and smooth.

Project Butter aspects include tying the UI to the 60fps vsync rate. They also introduced triple buffering to make the experience smoother, and they also incorporated my idea of predictive modelling for touch responsiveness. Basically this means it guesses where your finger is going to be at the next vsync and draws the user interface to match it.

A new tool called SysTrace collects info direct from the Linux Kernel. This tool is used by developers to point out problem areas that need to be optimized. Google engineers used it for Project Butter but it will be available to application developers too.

Using a high speed camera, they compared the performance of IceCreamSandwich to JellyBean side by side. The JB device began animations quicker and did them faster. Video is available on Google's web site.

Other JellyBean improvements:

• Dropping widgets on the home screen moves other widgets out of the way.
• Widgets are automatically resized to fit, and you can discard them by tossing them off the screen.
• A better dictionary and predictive typing.
• Offline voice typing using on-device voice recognition (US English first, more later).
• Added Arabic font, plus Persian, Indian, and Thai.
• For accessibility, they added gesture mode which lets you use gestures in combination with speech. Also they can do braille support.
• Improved camera app lets you review existing photos with a swipe. Pinch gives you a film strip view. Toss photo away to delete it.
• New Android Beam features: share photo or video by tapping.
• Notifications are more customizable, lets you take calls, see all your GMail, email guests if you're late. See photos shared on G+, like things on FourSquare, control music, etc., all within the notification area. Use gestures to expand/compact notifications.
• Search redesigned from the ground up: New UI, Voice Search, and Google Now.
• Voice search is much faster and answers you based on the power of the knowledge graph. This is essentially Google's version of Siri.
• Google Now figures out what you're doing now and offers suggestions. For example if you're near a bus stop, GN tells you when the next bus will arrive. It'll show you restaurants around you as you walk down the street, and tell you when to depart to make events. Updates of your favorite teams (it knows which teams you like based on prior searches).
• To get into Google Now you click the search box or swipe up from the bottom of your screen. Cards will get smarter and more accurate as you use them, and they'll be adding more cards over time.

JellyBean will come out as an OTA update in July for Galaxy Nexus and Xoom. The Preview SDK is available right now fromd.android.com .

The Platform Development Kit (PDK) is for hardware developers. It will be available to device partners two to three monthsbefore the platform release date for all future releases. They already started this for a few partners for JellyBean. This will help partners come out with releases on time.

Google Play

Google Play has more than 600K apps and games. More than 1.5 billion installs are done every month, and they just reached 20 billion downloads total. Carrier billing is expanding to over a dozen carriers.

New features for developers:

• App encryption. From JellyBean forward, paid apps are encrypted with a device specific key. This means they won't work if copied and uploaded to a pirate site.
• Smart app updates. Users only download the part of the APK that change. Smart updates are about 1/3rd the size of a full update. It's handled automatically, supported on Gingerbread and above.
• Google Cloud Messaging replaces C2DM. It's free for devs and there are no quota limitations. New features include multicast.

Movies are now available for sale on Google Play. You can also purchase TV shows, either by episode or season. Partnered with Disney, ABC, NBC, Sony Pictures, and more.

Magazines are coming to Google Play. Partnered with top publishers, buy single issues or subscriptions. 14 day free trial is available on the most popular issues.

Nexus 7 Tablet

The Nexus program brings the best of the Google experience. They partnered with Asus to create Nexus 7. Built for Google Play, running Android 4.1 JellyBean.

Specs for Nexus 7:

• 1280x800 display40 grams
• Tegra 3 with quad core CPU, 12 core GPU
• Battery provides up to 9 hours of video playback, up to 300 hours of standby
• 340 grams
• Front facing camera
• WiFi, Bluetooth, NFC

Other features:

• Nexus 7 is great for reading. It has a Readability-like feature to view flowing text in a simplified window.
• New recommendation engine, new "what's this song" feature (bye bye Shazam).
• Ships with Chrome as the standard browser.
• Improved Youtube
• Improved Google Maps - see inside restaurants and bars with compass mode (hooked up to gyroscope).
• Offline maps. Save data for an entire city. Tap on menu and click "make available offline".
• Google Currents. Now has Translate and readable text built-in.

Nexus 7 is a great gaming device too. Demos shown:

• Horn
• Dead Trigger from Mad Finger Games

Availability and price: $199, includes a $25 credit to spend in the Google Play store. Includes Transformers Dark of the Moon movie, a free book, and magazine samples. On sale today from Google, will ship mid-July.

Project Tungsten - Nexus Q

Combination of hardware, software, and the cloud. Brings together Android and Google Play to create "Nexus Q". It's a small Android-based computer that looks like a black softball with a colored ring of light around it.

You use your phone or tablet to control it, and the Q streams content from the cloud. Optical digital audio, micro HDMI output, dual band WiFi and Ethernet, NFC and Bluetooth, USB port for accessories and "hackability".

From Google Play you pick a room to play in, then press play and it starts immediately. LEDs around perimeter respond to the music, and it also shows a visualization on your TV.

Nexus Q is a cloud connected jukebox. Your friends can add their content to your playlist. Anyone can move songs around the queue and take control. Basically your friends can play their music in your living room. Also works with movies and YouTube. No authentication or setup, "it just works".

Nexus Q can be pre-ordered today for $299 and will ship in July.

Interestingly, Google TV was not mentioned. It was unclear how the Q relates to or works with Google TV.

Google+

The one year anniversary is tomorrow and it gains momentum every day. Some things people are using it for include astronomy, health, sports, photograph, music, and even physics. In just one year, 250M G+ accounts have been created. 150M+ monthly active, 50% sign in each day.

The answer for what comes next lies in mobile. Google now has more users engaging from mobile than from desktop.

Announcing Google+ for tablets (finally). Works on Android today, and iPad "very soon". Hangouts on tablets let you pin videos, swipe to other videos, new ribbon bar navigation on the left. Improvements are also available on Android smartphones today.

Announcing Google+ Events. Before, during, and after your next party. Invitations use cinemagraphic themes and deep integration with Google calendar. Guests can be added whether or not they are on G+. During the event, you can go into "party mode" which makes everybody's photos get automatically added to the event. A live slide show can be shown during the party.

After the event, all photos are put in one place in chronological order. You can scroll through all the pictures, and it shows you who took each picture. Creates event highlights based on clicks or +1's.

First official event will be tonight's After Hours party featuring Train and Paul Okenfold. Please download the new Android version available in Google Play today. Everybody at IO will get an invite.

Glass

Sergey Brin made an unexpected appearance to demo Glass. It started with a live hangout from a blimp over Moscone. Skydivers wearing Glass jumped out and parachuted to the roof of the conference center. Then they passed a package to bikers, who passed it to a guy who rappelled down the building, passed to other bikers, who drove the package up on stage. Everybody was part of a hangout with live video through their Glasses. Very cool.

The Glass prototype has a touchpad on the side, a button for taking pictures, accelerometers, compass, multiple radios, etc.. The group started about 2 1/2 years ago, first bulky prototypes wereminiaturized. It's close to your senses but doesn't get in the way. To empower people to use technology naturally it has to be very light. The latest prototype weighs less on your nose than sunglasses.Can be used in different form factors for the frames.

Two main uses will be communicating with images, and instant access to broad range of information. You can capture moments in your life that would otherwise be lost. First person point of view. Easy and seamless to share.

It will be important to be able to access information without disengaging from the physical world.

To get people thinking about Glass and come up with new ideas, Google is making the "Google Glass Explorer Edition" available for pre-order to US-based IO attendees. $1500, will be shipped early 2013.

Android Developer Pack

All 6,000 attendees of Google I/O 2012 will receive:

• Galaxy Nexus Phone (presumably the unlocked developer edition)
• Nexus 7 tablet
• Nexus Q

The Googleplex has a new Android statue today, this one for the "J" (JellyBean) version. It joins statues for Cupcake, Donut, Eclair, FroYo, Gingerbread, Honeycomb, and IceCreamSandwich. The A and B statues were reportedly eaten by Apple lawyers.

The arrival of a new statue can only mean one thing: Android JellyBean will be released to developers soon. Given that Google I/O starts tomorrow, the Software Developer Kit (SDK) will most likely be available to download then. It may also be preloaded (or available with an OTA update) on the rumored Google Nexus 7 tablet.

The SDK contains all the libraries and documentation that developers need to target a particular version of Android. Using the latest SDK and a compatibility library, a programmer can target all versions of Android past and future.

Just as on iOS platforms, Android users do not have to take the most recent version of the operating system when it comes out for their devices. Many don't have a choice or have to wait for their carrier or manufacturer to make it available. So developers have to look at the adoption percentages of each version and decide how far back they want to be compatible. Usually two or three versions is enough to capture the lion's share of the market.

Devices that carry the "Nexus" name, especially those purchased directly from Google, are different because Google controls both the hardware and software. Updates come direct from Google, so Nexus users are expected to see JellyBean before anyone else.

Don't despair if you don't have a Nexus phone or tablet and you use one of the carriers that are less than timely with updates, though. First of all, if you have a recent version, say 2.3.3 (Gingerbread) or above, your device will continue to work just fine and be supported by new applications for at least the next couple of years. Second, you always have the option of installing a custom ROM. Cyanogenmod is the best known custom ROM, and it enjoys "wink-and-nod" unofficial approval by Google. You do have to take the scary step of rooting your device, but nowadays Cyanogen and the team over at XDA have it down to a science.

I'm the kind of person that always wants the latest gadgets and software whether I need it or not. If you are looking to buy a new phone or tablet, and buying a Nexus device direct from Google is not an option, at least get one that runs Android 4.0 (IceCreamSandwich) out of the box. It's very likely that anything running ICS now will be compatible with JellyBean, and will get an upgrade to the new version one way or another.

Image credit: Misha M.-Kupriyanov and Aygul Zagidullina.

Related articles:

• Google heralds next Android with Jelly Bean sculpture
• Android 4.1 "Jelly Bean": Another update most will never see

Read: How freebies are ruining Google I/O

One of the disadvantages of living on the East coast is that all the interesting conferences happen in San Francisco. As I write this I'm flying over Des Moines at 33,000 feet. In-flight WiFi is a godsend, but I wonder why WiFi is allowed and phones are not. I could be playing Radiant Defense on my Galaxy Nexus phone but I don't want to accidentally send the plane into a tailspin. Just kidding!

Here's a quick Android tip for you - did you know you can set your phone to "Airplane mode" and then turn WiFi back on? That leaves the cellular radio off, but lets you surf the net, answer mail, or post rambling comments on your blog. This tip works on iPhones as well. Except for the rambling part. It's hard to ramble with a tiny on-screen keyboard.