google i/o 2010

SAN FRANCISCO--Could the long-awaited marriage of the television and the Web be blessed by a search company?

Google is at least going to make an attempt, unveiling the signature announcement of Google I/O 2010, Google TV, before a crowd of developers at the Moscone Center Thursday. While Google will need developer support to make Google TV happen, the message wasn't entirely aimed at them.

Instead, in convening a panel of some of the most important CEOs in the world of consumer electronics--Sony, Best Buy, and Intel, among others--Google declared its intention to shake up the world of consumer devices the same way it has disrupted countless other industries in its 12 years as an organization. Google is attempting to do what the PC and consumer electronics industries have tried--and failed--to do for years: bring the nearly unlimited content of the Web to the large-screen TV while preserving the tried-and-true television experience that has enraptured three generations of Americans.

If this effort succeeds, there will be a new power broker in consumer electronics. And Google will have found a way to move past its identity as The Search Company in order to focus on a future based around Web-connected consumer-oriented software.

It's far from a slam dunk: powerful entrenched industries tend to not like it when Google comes knocking on their door. And tech conference demos alone--especially buggy ones--do not sell a product. But after the failed attempts of the Wintel duopoly (remember that?) to accomplish this goal in the last decade, Google is pushing ahead with its own take on the problem at a time when people might be finally ready to listen.

So what is Google TV? Essentially, it's an Android-based operating system for televisions and set-top boxes that fulfills one of the key goals that eluded the PC industry years ago: seamless integration of Web content and cable or satellite content.… Read more

Ever since Apple CEO Steve Jobs sparked a firestorm with Adobe over the relevance of Adobe's Flash technology for interactive mobile media, a stepped-up PR campaign looked like Adobe's only ammunition.

On Thursday, Adobe got its first chance to fling back a tangible response with the beta release of its Flash Player for select Android phones.

Adobe Flash Player 10.1 beta (which is already out in final form for PCs) makes a mobile debut on Android phones running version 2.2 of the Android operating system (code-named "froyo") or higher.

What does Flash on a smartphone get you? The long-awaited chance to play online Flash-based games (hands-on) and stream video directly from the browser. For wannabe-foodies like us, Adobe's player also finally makes it possible to view restaurant menus from sites written for Flash. While nobody likes online ads, the fact that you can soon view them in all their shifting, eye-catching glory is a big tip-off that the desktop and mobile experiences of the Web have just scooted even closer together.

Hands-on We tested out an early version of Flash Player 10.1 beta on an Android phone running a pre-release version of the latest 2.2 OS. These compounded caveats mean that we might just have stumbled upon more bugs than you will. We checked out Flash games, streaming video, news sites, and other favorite Web sites that we know take advantage of Flash, and a few of our favorite Flash sites that haven't been modified for Flash mobile.… Read more

One of the most exciting prospects of Flash coming to Android devices has been games. While the iPhone platform has become a developmental heavyweight for indie gaming in just a few short years, it remains unable to take advantage of the rich library of titles developed to work on Adobe's Flash player.

With this week's inclusion of Flash player 10.1 on Android phones as part of the 2.2 software update, however, gamers on the go now have access to these titles. The only problem, it seems, is that not all of them are mobile phone-friendly.

Kongregate, a popular Flash gaming host and community, has gone through the effort to weed through its library and pick out titles that work well on smaller screens. Of the site's more than 28,300 titles, its staff has pulled together around 120 that they think work quite well.

CNET on Monday spoke with Kongregate CEO Jim Greer about the collection, as well as the site's efforts to get some of its top games' developers to make small adjustments, a process he says is going quite well. "There were a few games where developers had to make some buttons bigger, or put some buttons on-screen to replace the need for a keyboard," Greer said. "But they're psyched about it."

Greer said Flash developers who were aiming to port over their games to the iPhone had gotten "the wind taken out of their sails" after Apple's change to the developer agreement back in April. "There were a number of developers who had Flash games that they were working on using Adobe's Flash compiler," Greer explained. After the change in the rules, Greer said many began focusing on Android instead.

As for the battery life, Greer said it's not as horrible as Steve Jobs might have made it out to be in his open letter earlier this month.… Read more

As part of the Android 2.2 "Froyo" update, which is being unveiled at Thursday's Google I/O Conference, a very nice upgrade has been made to Android's built-in camera software. Google has effectively made it a one-handed endeavor, and one that does a better job at matching its user interface to how you hold your device.

The biggest change is that the pull-down menu, which would often require two hands to toggle and navigate, has been removed completely. In its place is a very simple system of transparent dials that pop up with options when … Read more

Editor's note: We used Cover It Live for this event, so if you missed the live blog, you can still replay it in the embedded component below. Replaying the event will give you all the live updates along with commentary from our readers and a few CNET editors. For those of you who just want the updates, we've included them in regular text here. To get the key points from today's announcements, you can check out our summary of what got announced, in our roundup here.

Google's Android Day managed to get upstaged by another announcement: … Read more

A white plastic "cube"* that is slightly bigger than a thumb tip protrudes from the top of an Android phone. A thin slit runs through it; peek inside and you can make out the interior metal nub capable of reading any credit card that swoops through it.

This is Square, an accessory to the recently released Android version of an iPhone app (hands-on) that's aiming to revolutionize personal mobile payments the way that PayPal first simplified payments online. We demoed the Android version of Square at the Google I/O developer conference on Wednesday in San Francisco. … Read more

SAN FRANCISCO--Google's pitch for the enterprise continued Wednesday at Google I/O, as the search giant attempted to make the case that businesses should be considering Web-based technologies for their own applications--not just Google's.

Day One of the Google I/O show was a disappointment to anyone looking for news about Google's Android mobile operating system or reported "Google TV" platform. But those who were in San Francisco's Moscone Center for more information about how they can incorporate HTML5 technologies into their own application-development practices got an earful.

"The Web is ready for … Read more

At the Google I/O conference Wednesday, Clicker (original review) is releasing a new version of its Web-based video directory at the new site Clicker.tv. The old Clicker.com site stays for all you traditionalists who like text-heavy sites you navigate with a mouse. The new one is designed for the "10-foot experience," which is code for the Google TV set-top box we're all expecting to see at the conference today.

I tried a preview of the Clicker.tv site in Firefox (it wasn't quite working in Chrome when I got access). The site points … Read more

For the next two days, Google geekdom will gather at the Google I/O developer conference in San Francisco, bringing with them an opportunity for publishers to spread their products' influence by getting developers on board--and maybe line their own corporate pockets in the process.

Take PayPal, for instance. At the conference opening on Wednesday, the online payment giant announced a developer tool for Android called the Mobile Payments Library, which allows application-authors to add PayPal-powered checkout to apps that sell goods or services, or collect donations.

The tool offers to track and secure customers' financial details, which could help … Read more