google i/o

The Galaxy S4's Key Lime Pie problem

The new Galaxy S4 features cutting edge hardware.

Too bad its operating system will be out of date about four weeks after the phone hits store shelves.

Samsung Electronics' latest phone, which will debut in April at the earliest, will run Android 4.2.2, also known as Jelly Bean. It's also the latest version of Android -- for now.

The problem is another version of Android, widely believed to be called Key Lime Pie, will likely make its debut at Google's I/O developer conference in May.

With the first carriers expected to get the Galaxy S4 … Read more

And just like that, Google I/O is sold out

It took less than an hour for Google's developer conference, Google I/O, to sell out today.

The event, which will be held May 15-17 at the Moscone Center in San Francisco, has always been a popular draw for the developer community. About 50 minutes after the tickets went on sale at 7 a.m. PT today, the "sold out" message appeared. On the registration page instead was a note that the keynotes and top sessions will be available on computer, phone, or tablet.

Google I/O has been the venue for the announcement of major releases … Read more

Google to open registration for Google I/O March 13

Google fans will be happy to know that registration for the 2013 Google I/O conference will open Wednesday, March 13 at 7:00 a.m. PT.

In December, Google announced that it had moved up its annual developer conference by a month. The confab that assembles more than 5,000 developers will take place in San Francisco on May 15-17 this year. Previous Google I/Os had been held in June. The company has posted the registration date and details on its developer Web site and on the Google+ page dedicated to developers.

Google said it will keep registration … Read more

Google I/O 2013 set for May, a month earlier than last year

Anyone curious about how Google plans to top its stunt-filled developer conference from this year will find out 162 days from today.

Google announced today that Google I/O 2013 will return to Moscone Center West from May 15 to May 17. This year it took place in 2012, and wowed the tech world with a presentation that included daredevils skydiving onto the roof of Moscone Center while live-streaming the whole thing on their Google Glasses.

It's not time to register yet; registration details will be announced in February, Google said. Prospective attendees can get a feel for what … Read more

How to turn off notifications for an app in Android 4.1 Jelly Bean

Last month we got our first look at Android 4.1 Jelly Bean and all of its buttery goodness. With plenty of new features coming to the latest release of Android, there are some smaller tweaks that haven't seen a whole lot of discussion.

One of those tweaks is the capability to disable notifications for a particular app. This will come in handy if you have an app that's overloading you with notifications, with no setting in the app to disable them. But now you can do it at the OS level in Android 4.1.

You may … Read more

Episode 3: Where Google has more money than sense

The debate about "unboxing" rages on, so in this week's Always On episode, I actually get down to using a pocket knife to open up the new Google Nexus 7 and Nexus Q. And I try to bring back some of that old Molly snark so many of you have been asking for. Sometimes it's hard to put together a whole show and then remember to write in the personality! I'm working on it, though.

I had a pretty great time running around Google I/O, mainly because of the food, and of course, the … Read more

Don't believe the hardware hype: Google's still an ad company

The big event at every Google I/O conference is the Oprah moment, when the keynoter tells the throngs of developers what gear they'll be taking home. That's when the audience usually goes wild. And so they did again this year, when developers heard they'd be taking home three shiny Google devices -- two of them so new you can't even buy them yet. A fourth gizmo was added during the second-day keynote.

With the focus so much on the new toys, it sometimes feels like Google is shifting its focus to hardware, … Read more

Google I/O dissected on Reporters' Roundtable

We're recording this Roundtable on the final day of the Google developers conference, Google I/O. From my perspective as a jaded and grumpy tech journalist, it has been a pretty cool conference. Google launched its own 7-inch Android tablet, a new living room entertainment streaming appliance called the Q, Chrome for Apple's iOS, a competitor to Evite called Google+ Events... and that's just the shipping products. We also saw wing-suit skydivers wearing Google glasses jump out of an airship hovering over Mosone Center and glide to a landing on the convention center roof.

So there's a lot to talk about, and I've got two great guests to run down the important topics that came out of the Google I/O conference:

In the studio: Stephen Shankland, CNET News senior writer and alpha geek. Via Skype: Esther Dyson. Dyson is an investor in Internet startups in the U.S. and elsewhere, on the board of Airship Ventures (the company that took the Google wing-suit jumpers up), and former chair of the Electronic Fronteir Foundation and of ICANN.

Subscribe: iTunes (MP3) iTunes (640x360) Podcast RSS (MP3) Podcast RSS (640x360)… Read more

Sundar Pichai: Chrome 'exceptionally profitable' for Google (q&a)

SAN FRANCISCO--It began with a mere toolbar, an add-on that gave browsers a handy Google search box.

That modest project is what eventually led to Google Chrome, now used by 310 million people by Google's tally. It's what got the project's leader, Sundar Pichai, promoted to senior vice president of Chrome and Apps. And it's what led to a very lucrative new source of profit for the company.

Chrome has spread steadily over its three-and-a-half years of public existence. It launched on Windows, extended to OS X and to Linux personal computers in the months afterward, … Read more