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Google I/O 2015 – Keynote

145 points| jsingleton | 10 years ago |youtube.com | reply

119 comments

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[+] niuzeta|10 years ago|reply
The Google Photo recognition and auto-management looks pretty cool; except that:

1. Why would I hand over my photos to a third party, that, quite ostensibly, is capable of indexing and tagging it by face- and location-recognition and store on their storage. I used to trust Google with most of my information, but I've been slowly transitioning them away to either local, or a home-brew solution.

2. What I noticed for the first time is not the cool new shiny things, but the absence of Hangouts and Google+ features. Did they get completely abandoned, or are they to be covered later? It seems like a Google style to make some AI-enhanced or Google-flavored version of pre-existing service(be it RSS, social media, you name it), let it get hyped because "Google", then abandon it when it doesn't reach some internal target.

Honestly, while I definitely agree that they're all cool stuff, but I do not see myself using those features; it's more of a trust issues over convenience. Just my two cents.

[+] acdha|10 years ago|reply
> Why would I hand over my photos to a third party, that, quite ostensibly, is capable of indexing and tagging it by face- and location-recognition and store on their storage

Many people consider all of those to be features: cloud storage means you don't lose things when your phone is stolen or your laptop dies and most people have far more photos than they have the tools or time to organize. Intelligently clustering them based on location, faces, content type, etc. benefits from lots of CPU time and a big training corpus, which is exactly what Google excels at.

That's not to say that there aren't valid concerns about privacy but look at how many people use Gmail or Facebook to estimate what percentage of the computer using public considers that a reasonable deal for a free service.

[+] eugenekolo2|10 years ago|reply
1. The 99.9% that don't care about Google tracking them will have a use for it. Every product has its abstainers.
[+] magicalist|10 years ago|reply
> 1. Why would I hand over my photos to a third party, that, quite ostensibly, is capable of indexing and tagging it by face- and location-recognition and store on their storage. I used to trust Google with most of my information, but I've been slowly transitioning them away to either local, or a home-brew solution.

For the same reason you'd hand over your email to them? Fast, UI, search, cloud whatever, etc etc. If you don't trust them with that, though, then yes, it follows quite naturally you shouldn't give them your photos. Not really a shocker.

[+] jfuhrman|10 years ago|reply
Google tracks what physical retail stores you visit[1][2] on Android phones and iPhones(if you use Google Maps app). People don't care about that, do you think really think they will care about photos? Actually, scratch that, most people don't even know that Google tracks your phone location for store visits if you use location services or Google Now.

>Google cited two case studies of retailers that have been testing this metric. PetSmart’s estimated store visits data showed that 10 to 18 percent of clicks on search ads lead to a store visit.

[1] http://digiday.com/platforms/google-tracking/

[2] http://searchengineland.com/google-store-visits-estimated-co...

[+] tdkl|10 years ago|reply
> Why would I hand over my photos to a third party, that, quite ostensibly, is capable of indexing and tagging it by face- and location-recognition and store on their storage.

"You're the product". I guess the data is used to enhance machine learning, that's why they also offer "unlimited" storage now (although it's compressed with yet to see what quality).

I wonder though if the image indexing etc will have the ability to opt-out from. There's also a question if there will be a good syncing tool to upload existing photos from the desktop device and keep it synced, Google Drive and Photos didn't like each other in the past.

[+] bluedino|10 years ago|reply
Billions of photos are on Facebook. Maybe trillions.
[+] joezydeco|10 years ago|reply
What I noticed for the first time is not the cool new shiny things, but the absence of Hangouts and Google+ features

I'm curious about Google Photos but if Google had proclaimed "you must be a Google+ user to get this" then I wouldn't even give it a try.

I could see it being a hook into Google+ at some later point in time if/when there's momentum.

[+] KB1JWQ|10 years ago|reply
Or, just as bad: they pull a Reader and sunset the service in 4 years once you've stuffed all of your photos into it.

My faith in Google's ability / willingness to support these types of projects long term is minimal at best.

[+] cwyers|10 years ago|reply
Your periodic reminder that there are more people on Ice Cream Sandwich and earlier than are on Lollipop:

http://developer.android.com/about/dashboards/index.html

Heck, Gingerbread is at 6% versus 10% for Lollipop cumulative. And 5.0 has 9 times the adoption of 5.1. Instead of announcing a new Android version, why not announce how you're going to get new versions of Android onto devices already in wild? And if Google wants to blame the OEMs for this, the OEM you owned when I got my Motorola X (and still owned when you shipped 5.0!) still hasn't been updated. It's absurd.

[+] foldor|10 years ago|reply
I dunno, blaming Google for phones not being updated (Other than their branded phones or course), is a bit like blaming Linus Torvalds when routers still use a 2.6.x kernel version. When something is open and able for anyone to do with as they please, it's only natural that the devices it lives on can't be controlled the same.
[+] tdkl|10 years ago|reply
I'd also add that the new App permissions won't be seen on versions prior to M, developers will have to support both for now when targeting the app for M.

So if judging by L, this means new App permissions will be on less then 10% of devices 6 months after release.

[+] neumino|10 years ago|reply
You could have bought a nexus.
[+] jsingleton|10 years ago|reply
New app permissions in Android. Nice.

Edit: Asks when needed, not at install time. Focus on the web with Chrome custom tabs looks good too. I only got 5.1.1 today but 6? (M...) looks great from the small amount seen so far.

[+] tdkl|10 years ago|reply
Does anyone also find the "App link" a step back ? I thought getting a dialog where to open the Intent in is actually an awesome feature of the Android platform, now user will get thrown into whatever app will be defined on the server. Also let me check my crystal ball and predict that this will take a long time to be adapted by "big" companies, just like the design guidelines.

App permissions and copy/paste changes are welcomed, but I got a sense they finally caved in and just copied how some other mobile OS handles it (which is not bad, since it was always better there).

[+] digi_owl|10 years ago|reply
They glossed over this awfully quick in their keynote, but spent a whole lot of time talking about "custom tabs" for Chrome on Android...

And the "granularity" of the permissions seemed on par with the permissions categories they introduced to Play a while back. Meaning that once you ok the use of, say, speakers, the same app can get access to anything inside the same category of permissions...

[+] Someone1234|10 years ago|reply
Very nice.

I hope "phone" includes phone number, as Android has a bad track record of leaking your cellphone number to every single app (and ad network) that you install.

I doubt it does, as Google had made it quite clear they don't consider your cell phone number personal information (but DO consider your email address). I am just waiting until it blows up in their faces, when spammers and scammers start utilising the hole.

[+] biot|10 years ago|reply
This could finally be the year I start using Android. The horrible all-or-nothing permission system has made me stay clear of it so far.
[+] jsingleton|10 years ago|reply
IoT stuff looks promising. Brillo and Weave.

http://gizmodo.com/get-ready-for-google-brillo-the-new-opera...

Edit: Not sure the cross branding will work as well as with KitKat! Ball of metal wires? :)

[+] bravo22|10 years ago|reply
Excited about Weave. Not sure about Brillo. It is unnecessary. Most IoT things are low power Cortex-M devices that need to do very little and are very low power consumption. You don't have SDRAM, or a fancy OS and don't need it. There are plenty free and non-free RTOS available for those chips for whoever needs them.
[+] vidoc|10 years ago|reply
Interesting talks, even though the style of every single presenter so far indicates they must have watched a lot of TED talks and subscribed for at least a year to a toaster club in the south bay.

Once again, embarrassingly, every single reference to the 'developing world' is stereotypical.

[+] zimbatm|10 years ago|reply
New protocol for "Internet of Things" called Weave. Looks like it's going to use JSON or type-compatible. They didn't address why existing solutions aren't good.
[+] Someone1234|10 years ago|reply
When watching that this XKCD immediately came to mind: https://xkcd.com/927/

If they had announced how open and free their new standard was to use, I might have taken notice, but as it stands it is a Google-owned "standard" which likely only Google would use.

[+] drcode|10 years ago|reply
sigh and another system where all kinds of data is managed/owned centrally by Google.
[+] dragonwriter|10 years ago|reply
> New protocol for "Internet of Things" called Weave.

From past news articles, "Weave" -- with that name -- has been Nest's protocol for a long time. What seems to be new is availability outside of Nest/Google.

[+] yc1010|10 years ago|reply
the word Weave reminded of Google Wave, anyone remember that?
[+] tbatchelli|10 years ago|reply
Hmm... networking + Weave, where have I seen that before? Ah, http://weave.works . Google did the same with Go as a language, didn't they?
[+] georgebonnr|10 years ago|reply
Surprised nobody's commented yet about the jarring juxtaposition of the running chat that reflects the sentiment of average Youtube viewers alongside content that's meant for a fairly specific audience (developers).

Or rather... how discouraging it is that it IS such a juxtaposition.

It's well-known by now that Youtube is not the place to go to find quality discussion. It still stings a little bit to see it applied in realtime to people you care about, even if it is just because you loosely share a profession and professional culture.

[+] minthd|10 years ago|reply
>> It's well-known by now that Youtube is not the place to go to find quality discussion.

To solve this problem, i use the AlienTube firefox extension, which brings reddit discussions over to youtube.

[+] jsingleton|10 years ago|reply
There is a button to hide the chat box. I couldn't click it too soon.
[+] fixermark|10 years ago|reply
HIDE CHAT HIDE CHAT HIDE CHAT HIDE CHAT HIDE CHAT HIDE CHAT HIDE CHAT HIDE CHAT HIDE CHAT HIDE CHAT HIDE CHAT HIDE CHAT HIDE CHAT HIDE CHAT HIDE CHAT ;)
[+] PascLeRasc|10 years ago|reply
Yeah, I hope Youtube doesn't try to become Twitch. It might be more appropriate to have a live twitter feed of some related hashtags.
[+] albemuth|10 years ago|reply
Hiding that chat with chrome tools was the first thing I did upon opening the stream.
[+] jfuhrman|10 years ago|reply
> 1.5B casts from Chromecast

Interesting, I didn't know that every cast was reported back to the mothership.

[+] _lce0|10 years ago|reply
isn't the photos message somehow misleading?

"what if we could use google's unique capabilities to help people take back control of their digital lives?

and then the 3 central ideas:

1. a home for all your photos, and videos. A private, and safe place place to keep a life-time of memories, available from any device.

2. help you organize and bring your moments to life. an app that takes the work out of photos and lets you focus on making memories, not managing them.

3. make it easy to share and save what matters. Sharing should be simple and reliable, and when you're on the receiving end, it should be easy to hold on to the photos and videos you care about.

.. then he moves the presentation to show all the data mining that they do on the photos, how they extract information about who is on the photos, which places where those taken, which tags the google's machinery could found from them

.. and for the big final, they announce unlimited free storage!

---

so how exactly will google help users take back control of their digital life?

call me suspicious? I'm staying out.

[+] tdkl|10 years ago|reply
The lack of G+ and Hangouts is quite obvious. I don't remember the last time they've tweeted or used Whatsapp or Viber for product showcase.
[+] 0xFFC|10 years ago|reply
Actually I think this is completely ridiculous point , because G+ and hangout as far as I can remember installed on nexus [you aware enough to know that they use nexus device for demonstration ] by default , so they cannot show the app permission dialog because all default app granted all permission by default .
[+] jsingleton|10 years ago|reply
Doze looks cool. Using the accelerometer to work out how often to sync. Saving power when not being moved.
[+] Someone1234|10 years ago|reply
I wonder how much power running the accelerometer uses? It isn't free to keep track of that. Back on my Note (1) Samsung had a bunch of gestures related to the accelerometer, and leaving them enabled drained a significant amount of battery.
[+] icpmacdo|10 years ago|reply
Also the bi directional charging with type C is super cool.
[+] chinhodado|10 years ago|reply
"Unlimited free storage" for photos is not exactly a new thing. It was already unlimited before with Google+ Photos, the catch was that it will automatically resize your photos to be smaller than 2048x2048 (about 4MP). Now they're just bumping the limit to 16MP.
[+] zimbatm|10 years ago|reply
Android M will be available in preview for Nexus 5, 6, 9 and "player".

I hope it doesn't mean that Nexus 4 is already end of life ?

[+] tdkl|10 years ago|reply
It does, it'll receive security updates only as part of the new devices policy - 2 years for major updates, 3 years for security updates.[1] It is a bit sour though to deprecate a device with a quad-core CPU and 2GB of RAM, while low range devices launched last year will get M.

[1]http://www.androidpolice.com/2015/05/23/rumor-android-m-will...

[+] epmatsw|10 years ago|reply
Nexus 7 too. Just under 2 years of updates :/
[+] lloeki|10 years ago|reply
L preview wasn't available on the N4 either.
[+] iyn|10 years ago|reply
I'm extremely excited about Expeditions - VR for schools (and other people/institutions at some point, I guess) can have great impact on how we learn. This is a long term investment, with better educational system we'll get more innovators and, I hope, better world.

JUMP (camera rig & assembly) is cool too and I hope it won't share the same fate as Glass. In general, seeing all the progress in the VR world makes me feel that we're at the edge of another technological revolution (and it's great that Google wants to bring this experience to everyone, or at least the viewers as the camera ring won't be cheap). I have a great dose of skepticism, of course, but I plan to learn as much as possible about developing for VR platforms in the coming months - can you suggest good resources for this? What languages are the best bet? What concepts are the most important ones? I'd appreciate all suggestions.

[+] tdicola|10 years ago|reply
Audience shot shows just one person with Google Glass--ouch.
[+] icpmacdo|10 years ago|reply
I hope there is going to be a new chromecast today
[+] sidcool|10 years ago|reply
This was the best I/O in over 3 years. Very impressed...