Google IO 2011: So Much To Come This Year

Last year I could write directly from the IO as I have been there and enjoyed the atmosphere staying together with thousands of geeks and developers and get all the new information on what's up with Google and their new babies live from the sessions in the Moscone Center of San Francisco.

This year I was restricted to remotely access some sessions and watch the keynotes by video streaming. I couldn't make it for the live feeds but was always on of the first two hundred viewers of the keynote feeds. And both were entertaining and brought up lots of new stuff and information.

I can highly recommend both sessions and want to point out some highlights:

• Google announced (unfortunately only in he US) the Music Beta program and the integration of VoD downloads into the Android Market. Even if this seems to be a kind of "mee too" approach it is another cloud based entertainment service under development. 
• Google is no longer focussing exclusively on software developers and addresses hardware developers, too. By defining a new interface API, some protocols and a development reference platform based on the Arduino open source project any developer can now directly integrate sensor controls and interfaces with analogue and digital IO. So this was a real IO extension. 
• Android@home was mentioned as a new target and seems to be intended not only for home automation but also for smart home entertainment integration. The first device shown was the Tungsten controller, a device that can access cloud music and play it out locally. Looked a lot like a "Googlelized Sonos" solution but Google seems to be keen on putting some more hardware supoorted by their ecosystem into the homes.
• last but not least Google announce the Chromebooks coming to the stores mid June. This new device will not only be sold to the customers but also be part of a rental program for enterprises an schools with very interesting rental prices of 28 and 20 USD / month.

Lots of further details can be found under the official Google developer blogsite and lots of reports on the IO itself. This is just a shortlist of some first reactions (partly in German)

• http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2011/05/keynote-and-session-videos-from-google.htm
  The official blogpost from Google with a lot of deep links about the new presented
• http://mashable.com/2011/05/11/google-io-recap/
  The shortest summary I could find about the new things presented on the IO
• http://mashable.com/2011/05/10/inside-google-music-pics/#14129Google-Music-Genre
  Some first pics from the music beta incl. screenshots an Android devices
• http://www.droiddog.com/android-blog/2011/05/google-io-2011-news-round-up/
  Lots of individual postings on the announcements being made. 
• http://news.cnet.com/8301-1001_3-20061698-92.html
  Impressive link collection on all the buzz created at IO 2011
• http://www.heise.de/developer/meldung/Google-I-O-Aufgewertete-APIs-und-Services-1241762.html
  Heise's Rrport zur IO in Deutsch

Hope this helps to get some insight on the new ideas Google presented during the I/O 2011.