Photos: Inside Google I/O

Google I/O, taking place this week at Moscone West in San Francisco is a gathering of developers focused on creating the applications, ideas, and code that will power the future of Google's Web ambitions. Together, through lessons, talks, and classes, engineers and Web development leaders from Google are leading engineers in hands on trainings. It's a meeting of the minds for all things Google, and we will take a look at what's coming next.

Google Chairman and CEO Eric Schmidt on stage during the opening keynote at Google I/O 2009. Schmidt told developers that the Internet and all the applications can work together better than it already does, and developers have an opportunity to make it happen.

Inside Moscone West in San Francisco, developers lounge on the Google-colored bean bags scattered around the convention hall.

Vic Gundotra, vice president of Engineering at Google, gave the opening keynote Wednesday at the Google I/O developers conference in San Francisco.

Google I/O and the Android Developer Challenge are pushing developers to design applications using new tools and platforms being released by Google. HTML 5 is an effort to unify and simplify modern Web standards across platforms and browsers.

Developers take a break from session for a little bit of Wii Boxing. Scattered amongst the keynote halls and session rooms are some of the perks of being a Googler, even if just for a day, including racks filled with candy and snacks, pool tables, foos ball, guitar hero, and assorted video games.

Imeem for Android, which is still in production, differs from the iPhone version in a few major ways. For one, it will run in the background, streaming songs while you do other things on the phone. A phonetop widget will give you pause and skipping control, and Imeem will authorize its player to play music stored on your SD card in addition to music from Imeem.com. Also, see Donald Bell's recent Imeem for iPhone review.

Caption: Jessica Dolcourt

Michael Abbott, senior vice president at Palm, onstage during the opening keynote at the Google I/O developer's conference.

Based in Mountain View, Calif., and equipped with video and audio for communication, one of Anybots droids, which is controlled by a user over the Internet, roams the floors of Moscone West.

Social network BrightKite is preparing to unleash its first Android app, which it demoed on HTC's Ion touchscreen phone running Android 1.5. While BrightKite for Android will match the iPhone edition in terms of feature offerings, it will include a few more goodies, like integrated Google maps and background notifications of newly received messages.

Caption: Jessica Dolcourt

Isaac Villanueva from Medhelp Int, picks up his free HTC Ion phone running Google's Android operating system. Every one of the conferences 4,000-plus developer attendees will receive a free phone.

Applications built using Google's Web Toolkit are on display on the floor of the Google I/O developer's conference.

DataViz's popular productivity app Documents To Go announced that an update to its Android application will include new support for viewing PowerPoint and PDF files. Current application owners will receive the update for free.

Caption: Jessica Dolcourt

Google's Holodeck, which surrounds the user with moving pictures, as if traveling through a place, began as a tool for Street View engineers to evaluate picture quality, but is also an immersive way to experience locations.