Chrome and
Google Drive were the main focal points of the second day of the
I/O conference, as
Google made a series of announcements.
Google’s senior vice president,
Vic Gundotra, kicked off the presentation with the announcement that attendees on day one had used the new
Google+ party mode to upload over 13,000 images of the event. This service allows people to manage events using an integration of Google+, Google Calendar and Android. Users are then able to coordinate event details and photos with friends; attendees of an event will be e-mailed and asked to upload photos from the event and all photos get added to a group photo album.
Google’s web-browser, Chrome, is now available for iOS devices from the
iTunes store. The app is available for free as Google is aiming to help users make the most of the web. Vice President of Chrome, Brian Rakowski, announced at the conference that users will be able to sync their activity between devices. This means that users will be able to work on their range of supported devices, and carry their recent actions such as tabs and bookmarks. For example, if you looked up a restaurant and then left the house, but later forgot the address, you could check the same link from your smartphone on the go.
In a welcome announcement for those who work on the go,
Google Drive has been upgraded. Drive is essentially Google’s answer to
Dropbox or
Skydrive and allows users to save files from their computer to a cloud. Through this upgrade, users will now be able to edit documents offline, which will then be applied to the online document once a user reconnects. Google Drive is also now available for iOS devices. Google is currently working on offline Presentations and Spreadsheets, but those aren’t available just yet.
Some of the announcements were geared more towards developers, although users can take joy in some elements of these announcements. Game startup
Gaikai used its cloud technology to stream
Bulletstorm to Google Chrome via a Samsung Chromebox. No release date was mentioned, but Gaikai may be working with Google to bring its streaming service to Chrome. It was also highlighted that Chrome developers will be able to make their apps available offline and break out of the Chrome window and run full screen.
Google closed out the conference with another exhibition of
Project Glass, although no new information was shared. One more day of the I/O conference remains; what could Google have left until last to announce?