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SAN FRANCISCO--Google Wallet is growing up and it's not just about paying for stuff by tapping your phone anymore.

On Wednesday, the company made three announcements at its Google I/O developer conference with regard to Google Wallet that take the service well beyond specialized tap and go technology to make Google Wallet more usable on the Web.

"We are not pulling away from NFC," Peter Hazlehurst, director of product management for Google Wallet said in an interview. "We are simply making a much richer Wallet experience. There are still places where NFC can't be … Read more

For Google, there's only enough room for one game in town.

The Web giant on Wednesday took the wraps off Google Play, its new game development platform, during the first day of the Google I/O developers conference in San Francisco. The cross-platform game service promises a handful of new developer features, including the ability to sync gaming activity between devices and save game progress on Google's servers.

But something that won't be saved on Google's servers will be the games that Google+ users have been playing for the last couple of years. As part of … Read more

Google rolled out a few photo-related updates at this year's Google I/O conference, and more than anything they deftly illustrate the simultaneous benefits and pitfalls of automation. Highlights promises to select the choicest photos from your endless stream to display only the best, most interesting captures. Auto Enhance promises to clean up on demand the underexposed, flat, and out-of-focus photos that pollute all of our photo streams. And the joyfully named Auto Awesome purportedly creates animated GIFs, all-smiles family portraits, and perfect panoramas.

When they work, these are great features. When they don't, you want to bang … Read more

Google showed a completely overhauled Google Maps service and Web interface today at I/O 2013. The site is receiving changes and updates on the front and back end to make it easier for user to navigate and developers to work with.

The most obvious changes are the visual updates and redesigned elements, featuring a Google Now-inspired "cards" aesthetic, deeper integration of the Google+ social network for recommendations, and a reshuffling of how users interact with the site and how information is presented to them.

Before you start spamming your browser's refresh button over at maps.google.… Read more

Google Search was already scarily good at knowing what you wanted -- sometimes before you even knew what you wanted. And now it'll talk back to you.

At Google I/O 2013, the company announced an update to its Google Now search app for Android and iOS as well as enhanced voice search for Chrome and Chrome OS.

For Google Now on Android and iOS, you'll start seeing six new card types, bringing the total to 23. Four of them seem entirely intended to sell you stuff from Google Play, displaying new music, video games, books, and TV … Read more

The Google I/O keynote for 2013 is here and gone, but not without a fight; at nearly 4 hours, it was enough to challenge even the most rapt attention span.

Yet, Google I/O's central keynote event had precious little of the things we dreamed of and even downright expected. Instead, all most of us can seem to discuss is what we didn't get. Well, for starters:

No new Android OS: Despite a preshow rumor that Android Jelly Bean 4.3 would be unveiled, there wasn't any news. No Android 5.0, not even Android 4.… Read more

SAN FRANCISCO -- Google is nearly done with its VP9 video technology, and it wants the world to use it.

At its Google I/O conference Wednesday, company employees made the case for the royalty-free, open-source technology as a higher-quality alternative to today's dominant video codec, H.264. Moving to VP9 -- available now in testing on Chrome and YouTube -- will save bandwidth costs.

"If you adopt VP9, as you can very quickly, you'll have tremendous advantages over anyone else out there using H.264 or VP8, (its predecessor)," said VP9 engineer Ronald Bultje in … Read more

Nearly two years after the launch of Google+, Google's social strategy looks like less of a joke and more of a calculated maneuver to make its social network the underlying fabric that weaves together relationships spread across desktop and mobile, Android and iOS.

Wednesday, at its annual Google I/O developer conference in San Francisco, the search company announced 41 new features for its Google+ social network, including a Pinterest-like look, auto-generated related hashtags, "Awesome" photo options, and a streamlined messaging experience.

More important than all the cosmetic changes to the stream or the flashy photo enhancements … Read more