Google I / O 2015 through the eyes of a programmer
While I was writing my article on personal experience on Google I / O 2015, I was already ahead of me: “Google I / O 2015 through the eyes of a non-programmer” . But it seems to me that my article will also be useful, since it describes this conference from a slightly different angle - through the prism of an Android programmer who got there. Therefore, there will be a little more specifics and a little less delight.
I have been working in Silicon Valley for about two years, and this year for the first time in my life I was lucky to get on Google I / O. This conference is not similar to all those that I went to this at least by the fact that despite the considerable cost of a ticket ($ 900), it is almost impossible to buy it. And the reason is not only a large number of people from all over the world, but also the fact that the absolute majority of invitations are distributed among employees of companies in one way or another connected with Google technologies.
Unfortunately, there are inaccuracies in the article I mentioned. For example, the phrase
')
It was a few days for everyone to register and authorize their card for $ 900. And then everything happened like the drawing of a recent H1b US visa - by lottery ...
It is curious that most of the employees of the Dobra corporation themselves cannot even go there unless they are engaged in one of the presentations or assistance to them. This is quite logical, since otherwise Google I / O would consist only of Google employees (it currently employs 55,000+ people).
In this article, I would like to share the impressions of an ordinary programmer who came to this event.
I wanted to be in the right mood for such an event, so the day before the conference I decided to attend one of the many free events around I / O. The choice fell on the most potent party from Twitter'a .
However, it brought few positive emotions: tasteless cocktails and food among the many geek strangers to me immediately set up for speedy care. Hope for at least some interest began to dawn when one of the employees of the microblogging company approached me. But it turned out to be a rather boring manager, reluctantly agitating for them to work and telling about the advantages of Crashlytics , which I use for my personal application.
At the same time, he had to struggle hard enough, since a DJ played against the background in a loud and completely out of topic. After the manager told me everything he wanted and retired to entertain other party-goers, I decided to get out for some air. And when it turned out that in case of leaving the building it was impossible to return back - I hurried off to go home to rest.
When I got home and reread the invitation letter from Google, I began to think about the meaning of "first come first serve" regarding viewing the introductory part of the conference (Keynote). It turned out that one had to come to San Francisco early the previous morning to get the desired blue bracelet ...
In the end, I got to the place only at 8 am on the day of the conference itself and received an orange loser bracelet. He allowed to watch this Keynote through the broadcast on the screens of the first floor, and not from the center of Moscone, the largest hall of the 2 nd floor of the center, where it actually took place. Fortunately, this was the only minus of the orange ones, so after a couple of hours I became a full-fledged participant.
But the conference still started a bit from another ... Arriving at the Moscone center an hour before the conference opened, I received a ticket and a bracelet (with NFC technology) for 10 minutes and ... went to stand in line for the orange ones:
Next was another comparable in turn for blue bracelets.
And I have never seen such long queues in my life!
There were so many people that the organizers from time to time came up and turned around in a new snake. And this snake girdled not only the Moscone Center West, but also the nearby business district with the InterContinental hotel.
I was pleased that from time to time we donated donuts, and when the queues started moving, we were even greeted with hot coffee on the way.
While driving, it somehow happened that I was mistaken and when approaching the building I turned out to be among blue and not orange bracelets. Already being saddened by the thought that I would have to start my hike from scratch, I went to one of the organizers, explained the situation and he, surprisingly, let me into the building along with the blue ones.
In the building itself, the NFC chip of my bracelet did not allow me to enter the audience where Keynote was passing ... But after another explanation, I was allowed to go back and go to my Playground for the orange ones:
As a result, I was on the spot around 9 am, and in the schedule this time was listed as the end of breakfast and the beginning of the pre-Keynote Show. That is, I had about half an hour to quietly sit down and eat.
The pre-Keynote show itself was in the game of arkanoid on giant screens surrounding the entire hall between two interested visitors with a blue badge:
Well, then the colorful discovery show started, which is worth seeing once: www.youtube.com/watch?v=7V-fIGMDsmE
The main part was started by local public favorite Sundar Pichai - Google's vice president of projects for Android, Chrome and Google Apps. He briefly spoke about the success of Android in the world, and struck me with the numbers of the Chromecast project:
Then began a digression to improve Android M.
After the terrible Lollipop, I was pleasantly surprised that Google admitted his mistakes and put the main task of the release: "speed up and polishing"! Separately allowing user access rights to private functions, backing up application data and, finally, support for themes instead of shell sheathes made by manufacturers are the right steps.
For web developers, the Polymer project rewritten from scratch is probably the most interesting.
For those who wish, full videos of most sessions are available here: events.google.com/io2015/videos plus there are already a lot of reviews of this conference (for example, here , here and here ) on the Internet, so I will not repeat.
Let me just say that the greatest applause (including mine)) was during the announcement of the unlimited size of the cloud storage of photos and videos for all Google Photos users (even on iOS). Moreover, an unlimited number of photos can now be stored for free with a resolution of up to 16MP, and the video - 1080P! The details are already on Hyktimes in this article .
The Photos app on Android itself also pleased me: from the interface of the group selection of photos to the rocket science of the photo search engine by text request. In the presentation, Google said that their technology is even able to distinguish tree frog from other types of frogs.
It also struck me that, in my personal archive, when I clicked on the face of a familiar child, Photos displays even photos 4 years ago, in which I myself hardly recognize the similarities.
The approach to locations also has not been without innovation. This project uses not only geo-tags recorded in the EXIF ​​field, but also determines the coordinates by analyzing the objects represented on the photos themselves. This allows you to get really relevant answers when searching for a particular place.
I really liked how the zooming gesture processing is implemented: photo icons smoothly change in size from full-screen to tiny squares grouped by months and years. And for any size the corresponding preview tile is formed.
After synchronization, viewing and searching for photos / videos is also available from all devices through the application and from the web interface: photos.google.com
The option of deleting photos and videos from a device after uploading them to the service (menu-> Delete device copy) seemed curious. IMHO, it makes sense with this quality conservation. Plus they are still always at hand in the Photos app.
After the first presentation, I finally went to explore the whole space. Immediately, I note that six months ago I had the opportunity to visit the Samsung Developer Conference , held in the same building. Therefore, it was especially interesting for me to see how Google has posted everything here.
The first floor began with a section on printing and issuing badges, bracelets and souvenir flasks for water:
Then there was a large area to exit the Playground and just sit:
Well, the first floor was completed with a section for selling designer souvenirs from local manufacturers:
I remembered how the queue on the escalator looked after lunch. There were no organizers or limiters - the people themselves lined up in a row and absolutely no one tried to cut them all to the right:
The memories of my recent trip to St. Petersburg were still quite fresh in my memory, but then I clearly felt how far our culture was far from California ...
I can not help but remember the cute hygiene table in the toilets:
This I have not seen even at conferences Samsung and Twitter!
The second floor was given at the mercy of all sorts of seminars. And it began with an unusual format, when all listeners are given out wireless headphones, and the presenter speaks almost in a whisper into the microphone:
The idea is really good, but unfortunately, non-strictly popular seminars were held in this audience, but more technical ones that collected too many interested people, unfortunately, were broadcast into a regular microphone, which was often not heard.
Then there was the “audience” assembled from ordinary boxes, in which seminars were held to increase the audience.
And behind it began stands with representatives of the Good Company, answering questions of those who wish:
Next came the passage to the second floor and to the corner for designers:
In the center of the second floor was allocated a large space with stands for self-study, video games, table football, swings and auditoriums (the main biggest hall on the right in full length):
Finally, the third floor was opened by the Android Auto project:
Then came Android Wear :
Ara , Soli , Jacquard projects with 3D Tango in the background:
In the end - family stands and absolutely not serious Androidify project:
In it, any visitor could create his character and see him dancing on one of the screens:
And also free of charge to order the printing of stickers with this character. Moreover, the project attracted so many people who wanted to stop printing orders at the beginning of the second day ...
After exploring the territories, I got, as it turned out, to the most useless seminar “What's new in Google Play services”:
Unfortunately, instead of a serious review of the most significant product of the entire ecosystem of Android - it was just an advertising show from two comedians with shooting T-shirts at the public ...
For those who want a video of this comedy is available in the full version here .
In the meantime, more technical lectures were held in small "audiences", but there was not enough space there:
In total, I managed to attend about 5 such lectures and I still took some of the useful knowledge from there. Plus, in the meantime, I met one developer from Groupon, which also turned out to be educational and interesting.
At the end of the first day, my colleagues and I went to the Chromecast Party, where there were good drinks and snacks, as well as a pleasant atmosphere for communication. But an hour of communication with each other was enough for us and we headed to the official end of the first day - I / O After Hours :
There were beers, wines and snacks like tacos, hot dogs, burgers. Again, quite a comfortable place to communicate, and even in the fresh air! An extra hour of walking with colleagues, talking with engineers from other companies and I went home.
The next day, unfortunately, began again with queues:
And this time they were divided into those who want to pick up their gift Nexus 9 and those who just want to enter the conference.
About 10 minutes before the opening, everyone began to move very actively. And even my turn for the distribution of gifts ended pretty quickly due to the huge number of stands and prompt issuance of bracelets on NFC.
In my favorite Playground audience, breakfast was already served and people actively occupied hammocks:
The day was opened by a non-singularly entertaining lecture about the project of the clothing of the future Jacquard. There were long explanations for how hard it is to endow casual wear with areas with capacitive controllers.
Then a representative of one of the most unfashionable local companies, Levi's, stepped onto the scene and told how he was excited about building a partnership with modern technology.
It seemed to me that Levi's just really wants to interest young people, without spending money on modern clothing designs.
Then I decided to familiarize myself with various stands, and also talked with representatives of the Good corporation on hot issues for me. Unfortunately, there were practically no Google engineers there. And numerous developer lawyers could not answer my questions about the algorithms of the work of various components.
An interesting idea came up with Google Code labs:
Computers, plus all the necessary devices to perform the exercises at hand, and any visitor can get acquainted with new technologies in conditions close to the fighting.
In the middle of the day I went to a few rather superficial lectures about optimization in Android and was pleasantly surprised by the current state of the Android Auto project:
Hyundai Sonata already sells its cars with the support of this technology along with Apple's CarPlay .
I liked that everything worked quickly, without problems, Google Maps is specially tuned for use in the car, and voice recognition from Google is really a much more useful thing in the car than sluggishly working counterparts from automakers.
The project looked much more viable than the recent DirectPlay implementation that I saw at the Samsung conference. I don’t know whether the technology itself is to blame or just glitches and bad Korean implementation.
The very idea of ​​Android Auto is quite interesting: the machine acts as an I / O device, and the phone (any device with Android L on board is suitable) is the application storage and head of the entire system. The main plus is the simplicity of the system shell update (with the new Android firmware), applications (with their update via Google Play) and the computing part itself (with the purchase of a new smartphone). From the car - only a screen with a capacitive control, a microphone, speakers and GPS (it usually works better than the built-in phone). But on cheap models without navigation, manufacturers, unfortunately, are not going to implement support for Android Auto. Capitalism.
From the lectures of the second day, the most informative seemed to me about this design for virtual reality.
In general, the very fact that Google Cardboard was not a mockery of the Samsung VR, but a serious project for me personally was some kind of revelation after last year’s I / O. It's funny that this year we were presented with a second generation Cardboard .
But how much attention and projects ( Jump , Experiments ) was allotted to him this year shows a very serious attitude of the Good Corporation ...
And the design lecture for Virtual Reality looked really pretty serious:
I remember the tips about the selection of the sizes of surrounding objects, as well as the danger of perception of limited space and sharp corners by some users. For a more convenient VR design, the prefab experience and C # scripts are added to the new Cardboard Unity SDK, which can be easily customized. And to preview the changes directly on Cardboard, it is not necessary to even reassemble the application!
It was also interesting to listen to ideas about attracting the user's attention to a specific place with the help of lighting, sounds and incompletely shown objects.
A lot of useful information on this topic can be found at: google.com/design/vr and developers.google.com/cardboard
Google also officially recognized the backwardness of technology at the moment: for a comfortable viewing of VR, they believe that you need to have at least 60 pixels to display 1 degree of space along any of the axes. At the same time, Nexus 6 allows you to get only 16 ... This, in principle, is pretty obvious so - just look at the giant pixels when using Cardboard.
In the end, there was a really funny comic contest: “Speechless at Google I / O”. It is based on the modern game "PowerPoint karaoke", making fun of boring corporate presentations. It has recently been carried out between various IT companies in Silicon Valley and this year the winner was the famous Google engineer Chet Haase .
Here, other Google engineers and managers became his rivals. Each performance began with the rotation of a virtual drum with themes using the newly introduced Soli wireless controller. Then for the category of the report that came out the audience added specificity. For example, for the theme “Presentation of a new Google product”, the public chose the product “Android underpants” ...
Further, the participant had to hold a report for the entire audience without preparation.
Well, the main thing was that the speaker, though he switched the slides himself, was completely unaware of what would be shown on them.
The slides were, of course, in the spirit of the game itself, very delusional, incoherent, and, at times, even awkward. For example, the winner of this Chet Haase competition, on one of the slides, saw the following:
Moreover, he talked about the efforts of the whole company and included this slide on the phrase: "...”.
In general, I liked the conference. I can’t compare with last year’s, so I’ll not like to say that many people said that there used to be kinder people and cleaner water.
Basically it is, of course, advertising new Google projects. The technical part is very rare and superficial.
In this regard, many similarities with the Samsung Developer Conference. There were Smart Hub ( Project Brillo ), Samsung DirectLink (Android Auto), Samsung VR (Cardboard), and so on.
But the main difference is that Samsung’s technology is used by units, and Google really creates viable and successful ecosystems.
On this topic, I recently heard a local bike: before releasing a new technology into the world, Google secretly hints Samsung at it. Those who are happy to grab it, dying at work, trying to get ahead of everyone and eventually give birth to something like Samsung Knox ...
Next, the Good Corporation looks at how successful this technology is, thanks Samsung for demonstrating how not to implement it and finally produces a fairly viable project ( Android for Work ).
For a deeper immersion in technology, I liked the already mentioned Google Code labs stands.
I also tried to write down at least the names of the main libraries that Google recommended using for solving specific problems. And more detailed technical information on the majority of technologies related to Android is quite easy to find on the Internet when it is really needed.
Another question - is it necessary to get to the conference itself ?
In my opinion, Google largely tries not to create a particularly unique experience for its visitors and therefore puts most of the seminars in public access to the YouTube channel that I already mentioned.
Previously, the gifts were really unique (what is the cost of Moto 360 sent to the house at a time when no one else in the world can buy them). But especially active people managed to sell them off after the conference on Ebay and stay in the black. So this year, the unique Nexus 9 was donated, among other things, so that people in the future do not plan to come to Google I / O to access exclusive products or their successful resale.
Probably, these are the right steps on the part of the Good Corporation, which help to feel that all the developers are important to it.
So I’m not particularly upset if next year I’ll watch “What's new in Android?” Via YouTube.
I have been working in Silicon Valley for about two years, and this year for the first time in my life I was lucky to get on Google I / O. This conference is not similar to all those that I went to this at least by the fact that despite the considerable cost of a ticket ($ 900), it is almost impossible to buy it. And the reason is not only a large number of people from all over the world, but also the fact that the absolute majority of invitations are distributed among employees of companies in one way or another connected with Google technologies.
Unfortunately, there are inaccuracies in the article I mentioned. For example, the phrase
For this you need to have time to buy a ticket for $ 900 - and they end very quickly.not quite true. They do not end. And do not have time to do it.
')
It was a few days for everyone to register and authorize their card for $ 900. And then everything happened like the drawing of a recent H1b US visa - by lottery ...
It is curious that most of the employees of the Dobra corporation themselves cannot even go there unless they are engaged in one of the presentations or assistance to them. This is quite logical, since otherwise Google I / O would consist only of Google employees (it currently employs 55,000+ people).
In this article, I would like to share the impressions of an ordinary programmer who came to this event.
I wanted to be in the right mood for such an event, so the day before the conference I decided to attend one of the many free events around I / O. The choice fell on the most potent party from Twitter'a .
However, it brought few positive emotions: tasteless cocktails and food among the many geek strangers to me immediately set up for speedy care. Hope for at least some interest began to dawn when one of the employees of the microblogging company approached me. But it turned out to be a rather boring manager, reluctantly agitating for them to work and telling about the advantages of Crashlytics , which I use for my personal application.
At the same time, he had to struggle hard enough, since a DJ played against the background in a loud and completely out of topic. After the manager told me everything he wanted and retired to entertain other party-goers, I decided to get out for some air. And when it turned out that in case of leaving the building it was impossible to return back - I hurried off to go home to rest.
When I got home and reread the invitation letter from Google, I began to think about the meaning of "first come first serve" regarding viewing the introductory part of the conference (Keynote). It turned out that one had to come to San Francisco early the previous morning to get the desired blue bracelet ...
Day 1
In the end, I got to the place only at 8 am on the day of the conference itself and received an orange loser bracelet. He allowed to watch this Keynote through the broadcast on the screens of the first floor, and not from the center of Moscone, the largest hall of the 2 nd floor of the center, where it actually took place. Fortunately, this was the only minus of the orange ones, so after a couple of hours I became a full-fledged participant.
But the conference still started a bit from another ... Arriving at the Moscone center an hour before the conference opened, I received a ticket and a bracelet (with NFC technology) for 10 minutes and ... went to stand in line for the orange ones:
Next was another comparable in turn for blue bracelets.
And I have never seen such long queues in my life!
There were so many people that the organizers from time to time came up and turned around in a new snake. And this snake girdled not only the Moscone Center West, but also the nearby business district with the InterContinental hotel.
I was pleased that from time to time we donated donuts, and when the queues started moving, we were even greeted with hot coffee on the way.
While driving, it somehow happened that I was mistaken and when approaching the building I turned out to be among blue and not orange bracelets. Already being saddened by the thought that I would have to start my hike from scratch, I went to one of the organizers, explained the situation and he, surprisingly, let me into the building along with the blue ones.
In the building itself, the NFC chip of my bracelet did not allow me to enter the audience where Keynote was passing ... But after another explanation, I was allowed to go back and go to my Playground for the orange ones:
As a result, I was on the spot around 9 am, and in the schedule this time was listed as the end of breakfast and the beginning of the pre-Keynote Show. That is, I had about half an hour to quietly sit down and eat.
The pre-Keynote show itself was in the game of arkanoid on giant screens surrounding the entire hall between two interested visitors with a blue badge:
Well, then the colorful discovery show started, which is worth seeing once: www.youtube.com/watch?v=7V-fIGMDsmE
The main part was started by local public favorite Sundar Pichai - Google's vice president of projects for Android, Chrome and Google Apps. He briefly spoke about the success of Android in the world, and struck me with the numbers of the Chromecast project:
Then began a digression to improve Android M.
After the terrible Lollipop, I was pleasantly surprised that Google admitted his mistakes and put the main task of the release: "speed up and polishing"! Separately allowing user access rights to private functions, backing up application data and, finally, support for themes instead of shell sheathes made by manufacturers are the right steps.
For web developers, the Polymer project rewritten from scratch is probably the most interesting.
For those who wish, full videos of most sessions are available here: events.google.com/io2015/videos plus there are already a lot of reviews of this conference (for example, here , here and here ) on the Internet, so I will not repeat.
Let me just say that the greatest applause (including mine)) was during the announcement of the unlimited size of the cloud storage of photos and videos for all Google Photos users (even on iOS). Moreover, an unlimited number of photos can now be stored for free with a resolution of up to 16MP, and the video - 1080P! The details are already on Hyktimes in this article .
The Photos app on Android itself also pleased me: from the interface of the group selection of photos to the rocket science of the photo search engine by text request. In the presentation, Google said that their technology is even able to distinguish tree frog from other types of frogs.
It also struck me that, in my personal archive, when I clicked on the face of a familiar child, Photos displays even photos 4 years ago, in which I myself hardly recognize the similarities.
The approach to locations also has not been without innovation. This project uses not only geo-tags recorded in the EXIF ​​field, but also determines the coordinates by analyzing the objects represented on the photos themselves. This allows you to get really relevant answers when searching for a particular place.
I really liked how the zooming gesture processing is implemented: photo icons smoothly change in size from full-screen to tiny squares grouped by months and years. And for any size the corresponding preview tile is formed.
After synchronization, viewing and searching for photos / videos is also available from all devices through the application and from the web interface: photos.google.com
The option of deleting photos and videos from a device after uploading them to the service (menu-> Delete device copy) seemed curious. IMHO, it makes sense with this quality conservation. Plus they are still always at hand in the Photos app.
After the first presentation, I finally went to explore the whole space. Immediately, I note that six months ago I had the opportunity to visit the Samsung Developer Conference , held in the same building. Therefore, it was especially interesting for me to see how Google has posted everything here.
The first floor began with a section on printing and issuing badges, bracelets and souvenir flasks for water:
Then there was a large area to exit the Playground and just sit:
Well, the first floor was completed with a section for selling designer souvenirs from local manufacturers:
I remembered how the queue on the escalator looked after lunch. There were no organizers or limiters - the people themselves lined up in a row and absolutely no one tried to cut them all to the right:
The memories of my recent trip to St. Petersburg were still quite fresh in my memory, but then I clearly felt how far our culture was far from California ...
I can not help but remember the cute hygiene table in the toilets:
This I have not seen even at conferences Samsung and Twitter!
The second floor was given at the mercy of all sorts of seminars. And it began with an unusual format, when all listeners are given out wireless headphones, and the presenter speaks almost in a whisper into the microphone:
The idea is really good, but unfortunately, non-strictly popular seminars were held in this audience, but more technical ones that collected too many interested people, unfortunately, were broadcast into a regular microphone, which was often not heard.
Then there was the “audience” assembled from ordinary boxes, in which seminars were held to increase the audience.
And behind it began stands with representatives of the Good Company, answering questions of those who wish:
Next came the passage to the second floor and to the corner for designers:
In the center of the second floor was allocated a large space with stands for self-study, video games, table football, swings and auditoriums (the main biggest hall on the right in full length):
Finally, the third floor was opened by the Android Auto project:
Then came Android Wear :
Ara , Soli , Jacquard projects with 3D Tango in the background:
In the end - family stands and absolutely not serious Androidify project:
In it, any visitor could create his character and see him dancing on one of the screens:
And also free of charge to order the printing of stickers with this character. Moreover, the project attracted so many people who wanted to stop printing orders at the beginning of the second day ...
After exploring the territories, I got, as it turned out, to the most useless seminar “What's new in Google Play services”:
Unfortunately, instead of a serious review of the most significant product of the entire ecosystem of Android - it was just an advertising show from two comedians with shooting T-shirts at the public ...
For those who want a video of this comedy is available in the full version here .
In the meantime, more technical lectures were held in small "audiences", but there was not enough space there:
In total, I managed to attend about 5 such lectures and I still took some of the useful knowledge from there. Plus, in the meantime, I met one developer from Groupon, which also turned out to be educational and interesting.
At the end of the first day, my colleagues and I went to the Chromecast Party, where there were good drinks and snacks, as well as a pleasant atmosphere for communication. But an hour of communication with each other was enough for us and we headed to the official end of the first day - I / O After Hours :
There were beers, wines and snacks like tacos, hot dogs, burgers. Again, quite a comfortable place to communicate, and even in the fresh air! An extra hour of walking with colleagues, talking with engineers from other companies and I went home.
Day 2
The next day, unfortunately, began again with queues:
And this time they were divided into those who want to pick up their gift Nexus 9 and those who just want to enter the conference.
About 10 minutes before the opening, everyone began to move very actively. And even my turn for the distribution of gifts ended pretty quickly due to the huge number of stands and prompt issuance of bracelets on NFC.
In my favorite Playground audience, breakfast was already served and people actively occupied hammocks:
The day was opened by a non-singularly entertaining lecture about the project of the clothing of the future Jacquard. There were long explanations for how hard it is to endow casual wear with areas with capacitive controllers.
Then a representative of one of the most unfashionable local companies, Levi's, stepped onto the scene and told how he was excited about building a partnership with modern technology.
It seemed to me that Levi's just really wants to interest young people, without spending money on modern clothing designs.
Then I decided to familiarize myself with various stands, and also talked with representatives of the Good corporation on hot issues for me. Unfortunately, there were practically no Google engineers there. And numerous developer lawyers could not answer my questions about the algorithms of the work of various components.
An interesting idea came up with Google Code labs:
Computers, plus all the necessary devices to perform the exercises at hand, and any visitor can get acquainted with new technologies in conditions close to the fighting.
In the middle of the day I went to a few rather superficial lectures about optimization in Android and was pleasantly surprised by the current state of the Android Auto project:
Hyundai Sonata already sells its cars with the support of this technology along with Apple's CarPlay .
I liked that everything worked quickly, without problems, Google Maps is specially tuned for use in the car, and voice recognition from Google is really a much more useful thing in the car than sluggishly working counterparts from automakers.
The project looked much more viable than the recent DirectPlay implementation that I saw at the Samsung conference. I don’t know whether the technology itself is to blame or just glitches and bad Korean implementation.
The very idea of ​​Android Auto is quite interesting: the machine acts as an I / O device, and the phone (any device with Android L on board is suitable) is the application storage and head of the entire system. The main plus is the simplicity of the system shell update (with the new Android firmware), applications (with their update via Google Play) and the computing part itself (with the purchase of a new smartphone). From the car - only a screen with a capacitive control, a microphone, speakers and GPS (it usually works better than the built-in phone). But on cheap models without navigation, manufacturers, unfortunately, are not going to implement support for Android Auto. Capitalism.
- Need offline navigation?
Google promises it for free in Google Maps for all in the near future. - Online music?
Pandora, Spotify, Google Music and others have already implemented compatibility of their applications with the Android Auto SDK. - Messengers?
Facebook, Whatsapp, Telegram and others are also available, but the keyboard, of course, is blocked during movement. This is where all the power of speech recognition comes in handy. I hope that offline recognition will also be tweaked.
From the lectures of the second day, the most informative seemed to me about this design for virtual reality.
In general, the very fact that Google Cardboard was not a mockery of the Samsung VR, but a serious project for me personally was some kind of revelation after last year’s I / O. It's funny that this year we were presented with a second generation Cardboard .
But how much attention and projects ( Jump , Experiments ) was allotted to him this year shows a very serious attitude of the Good Corporation ...
And the design lecture for Virtual Reality looked really pretty serious:
I remember the tips about the selection of the sizes of surrounding objects, as well as the danger of perception of limited space and sharp corners by some users. For a more convenient VR design, the prefab experience and C # scripts are added to the new Cardboard Unity SDK, which can be easily customized. And to preview the changes directly on Cardboard, it is not necessary to even reassemble the application!
It was also interesting to listen to ideas about attracting the user's attention to a specific place with the help of lighting, sounds and incompletely shown objects.
A lot of useful information on this topic can be found at: google.com/design/vr and developers.google.com/cardboard
Google also officially recognized the backwardness of technology at the moment: for a comfortable viewing of VR, they believe that you need to have at least 60 pixels to display 1 degree of space along any of the axes. At the same time, Nexus 6 allows you to get only 16 ... This, in principle, is pretty obvious so - just look at the giant pixels when using Cardboard.
In the end, there was a really funny comic contest: “Speechless at Google I / O”. It is based on the modern game "PowerPoint karaoke", making fun of boring corporate presentations. It has recently been carried out between various IT companies in Silicon Valley and this year the winner was the famous Google engineer Chet Haase .
Here, other Google engineers and managers became his rivals. Each performance began with the rotation of a virtual drum with themes using the newly introduced Soli wireless controller. Then for the category of the report that came out the audience added specificity. For example, for the theme “Presentation of a new Google product”, the public chose the product “Android underpants” ...
Further, the participant had to hold a report for the entire audience without preparation.
Well, the main thing was that the speaker, though he switched the slides himself, was completely unaware of what would be shown on them.
The slides were, of course, in the spirit of the game itself, very delusional, incoherent, and, at times, even awkward. For example, the winner of this Chet Haase competition, on one of the slides, saw the following:
Moreover, he talked about the efforts of the whole company and included this slide on the phrase: "...”.
Total
In general, I liked the conference. I can’t compare with last year’s, so I’ll not like to say that many people said that there used to be kinder people and cleaner water.
Basically it is, of course, advertising new Google projects. The technical part is very rare and superficial.
In this regard, many similarities with the Samsung Developer Conference. There were Smart Hub ( Project Brillo ), Samsung DirectLink (Android Auto), Samsung VR (Cardboard), and so on.
But the main difference is that Samsung’s technology is used by units, and Google really creates viable and successful ecosystems.
On this topic, I recently heard a local bike: before releasing a new technology into the world, Google secretly hints Samsung at it. Those who are happy to grab it, dying at work, trying to get ahead of everyone and eventually give birth to something like Samsung Knox ...
Next, the Good Corporation looks at how successful this technology is, thanks Samsung for demonstrating how not to implement it and finally produces a fairly viable project ( Android for Work ).
For a deeper immersion in technology, I liked the already mentioned Google Code labs stands.
I also tried to write down at least the names of the main libraries that Google recommended using for solving specific problems. And more detailed technical information on the majority of technologies related to Android is quite easy to find on the Internet when it is really needed.
Another question - is it necessary to get to the conference itself ?
In my opinion, Google largely tries not to create a particularly unique experience for its visitors and therefore puts most of the seminars in public access to the YouTube channel that I already mentioned.
Previously, the gifts were really unique (what is the cost of Moto 360 sent to the house at a time when no one else in the world can buy them). But especially active people managed to sell them off after the conference on Ebay and stay in the black. So this year, the unique Nexus 9 was donated, among other things, so that people in the future do not plan to come to Google I / O to access exclusive products or their successful resale.
Probably, these are the right steps on the part of the Good Corporation, which help to feel that all the developers are important to it.
So I’m not particularly upset if next year I’ll watch “What's new in Android?” Via YouTube.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/291106/
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