Google I/O recap: New updates to products, but no Android 4.3

Google started its annual Google I/O developer conference with a long keynote address today. There were quite a few announcements from the company, including its new All Access streaming music service, a preview of the new Google Maps, and a surprise appearance from CEO Larry Page, who proceeded to take some shots at Microsoft.

Google also announced a new look for its Google+ social networking service during the keynote. The layout now has up to three columns available, with the number of columns influenced by a device's screen resolution and display orientation. Photos and videos can also fill the entire Google+ stream and it can learn to put in the correct hashtags in posts automatically. The company also announced that the service has 190 million users that are active in the stream.

Google Hangouts also gets a new standalone app for Android, iOS and PC platforms, and pictures uploaded to Google+ can now be enhanced with effects such as the ones shown in the video above.

Over on the search end of things, Google will soon be adding voice recognition to the desktop and laptop search via Chrome. It stated:

Soon, you’ll be able to just say, hands-free, “OK Google, will it be sunny in Santa Cruz this weekend?” and get a spoken answer. Then, you’ll be able to continue the conversation and just follow up with “how far is it from here?” if you care about the drive or “how about Monterey?” if you want to check weather somewhere else, and get Google to tell you the answer.

There is one thing that will shut down soon: games on Google+. The company revealed that its Facebook-like game service will close down on June 30th. Instead, Google is supporting web and mobile games with the new Google Play game services as an optional backend for developers to access.

With all of the reveals and previews at Google I/O today, one thing that was not talked about was Android 4.3. While many expected the next version of Android to get some kind of preview at the keynote, no such presentation was made.

Source: Google | Image via Google