#io2012

One of the things discusses at duing yesterday's conferences at Google I/O was the launch of it's service Google Now, which in a way can delve into Siri-like commands but in-fact does a bit more - and for you. 

Be sure to turn on captioning with the Google, it's quite humorous. I'm unsure of whether the captioning was intentional of it's a new voice-recognition feature on YouTube that's doing a hysterical job at understanding the woman's voice.

Relying heavily on all those hardware sensors in your device it absorbs all the data around you and feeds you the most relevant news on a series of cards. As the video demonstrates, once you start your commute, Google Now can tap into Google's Maps program, look up traffic plans, and then tell you how long the trip will take while offering alternate routes as you go. With Google Now it can give you weather reports in the morning so you can plan your day around rain forecasts, get updated flight information when you're    waiting in an airport and the latest sports scores if you're phone realized you were looking them up on the web earlier that day.

Google is great at integrating other services into one app. Navigation is really Google Maps, despite having a directions feature within. Latitude is really Maps again with a social layer on top. Google Currents is based on the same software used in their magazine app, but is oriented more for RSS and websites. I mean, if What do You Love by Google wasn't enough to showcase everything Google can do with search, which is a very long list, Google Now is certainly a showcase piece.

With another sculpture erected outside building 44 at Google HQ comes another Nexus branded device ready to be the only one to run it.

Standing in front of it's predecessors, Ice Cream Sandwich, Gingerbread and Honeycomb, Jellybean is here to stay.

The Nexus 7 will be the first, and currently, the only device running Android 4.1 Jellybean. With the OS update comes better synchronization and unique integration through widgets to Google Play store, keyboard modifications, updates to ICS's Android Beam, better notification system and a brand new feature called Google Now. It will also be the first phone to be shipped with Google Chrome. (The App is available for most devices through the Google Play Store). The tablet was designed to keep the system running smooth, a "war against lag" as Google puts it.

At 7" it is a direct competitor to Amazon's Kindle Fire, which was released last November and took a pretty large chunk out of Apple's iPad market share - although polls show users are taking a step back from acquiring the glorified e-reader. Amazon banked on all the content people ate while browsing, from it's appstore, to amazon prime and their video streaming service, coupled with the booming business of e-books; they anticipated enough money form people using their services to lower the price to the $200 it cost, while manufacturing costs were actually higher. 

It's simply amazing that Google has managed to pack it with the latest hardware, the newest OS (which amazon had altered so much that it was barely even recognizable and didn't follow Android standard specifications, limiting users from using Google's Marketplace) into a light, ergonomic form factor while keeping the price at the same $200. But I suppose we have the manufacturer ASUS to thank for that. Here's the kicker too, if you really wanted an e-reader, then simply use the native books, magazine and currents application or download the ever-familiar Kindle App for Android.

The $200 model however, is actually for the 8GB version for storage. To get the popular 16GBs found on a lot of smartphone's these days you'll have to dish out an additional fifty dollars - which I'd recommend with all the videos and music and books you'll be buying from the Google Play Store. The hardware specs are as followed:

And if you're interested on what the Google Guys were talking about at todays's conference:

On Day one of Google's I/O conference in San Francisco the company unveiled the "World's First Social Streaming Device". The Nexus Q takes the shape as a sphere, weighs just around 2 pounds and is currently running Android 4.0. It hosts a micro-HDMI jack, connections via NFC, Bluetooth and Wi-Fi (802.11 b/g/n). The sphere allows users to play music from anyone's android phone or tablet and have them sent to the device to play audio locally or externally. When plugged into a TV, users can then also stream Movies, utilize the audio visualizer and watch YouTube Videos together. The latter of which seems just like YouTube's Leanback feature and application. The never been done before part comes into play when a circle of you and your friends can all load up content from their own respective devices, connect to the Nexus Q and had it to the queue. (Wait, was that intentional by Google?). The only cool thing I see coming from it is the fact that with your own phone, you carry everything you own digitally, so you can go to a friend's house, and share music you've purchased over his home theatre system. 

And the presentation at Google I/O:

The thing is, it costs $300. And that's more than what I'm willing to pay. Especially when I'll need another Nexus Q for every room I want to send music too, like my bedroom. And as far as I go, I don't buy that much content from Google Play, actually, I've only bought a handful of apps. I don't even pirate music anymore since Spotify converted me, and I rip my own DVDs to my external hard-drive.