We are more than two hours into the Google I/O keynote, the kickoff to a three-day event with 171 sessions. But something is quite different from last year. Google Cloud Platform has risen to the tof of the pack with 25 sessions, second only to Google Chrome with 48 and Google Android that has 35.

Last year, Google Cloud Platform had just been launched and so the sessions were more introductory in nature. This year, it has more sessions than Google+ (15); TechTalk (15); YouTube (13); Knowledge and Structured Data (6); Google Ads (5); Google Wallet (5) and Google Glass with four.

In the opening keynote this morning, Google highlighted Android, gaming, and translation APIs along with a host of other topics. In the Google Cloud platform sessions, pretty much all of what the keynote is covering gets pursued more in-depth. For example, there are sessions about intense gaming, and a session about advanced Go concurrency pattens.

Google Cloud Platform, with 25 I/O sessions, is certainly not as sexy as Google Glass but it’s importance is arguably greater than that of a single (ambitious) product. Google Cloud Platform is being positioned as the foundation for application development with third-party developers — until now, we have not seen Google push so hard to attract developers to its own platforms. But now it is trying to draw in developers with its robust collection of APIs and its vast compute and storage that serves as the backbone for Google’s emphasis on leveraging large data loads.

Android and Chrome are the Google darlings. But their vitality is only as strong as their developer communities. Google Cloud Platform plays an important role in the development of this ecosystem as evident by the broad topic areas that will be covered in the sessions over the next three days.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

Atlassian’s HipChat is in the process of rolling out revised or new native apps across all platforms for it group chat tool, and now it’s introducing HipChat version 2.0 for Android devices. The improved app is the product of a beta testing period that spanned the last few months. HipChat beta tested it through by borrowing a page out of Google Chrome’s book and offering both a developer and a stable channel, but on Android, and intends to continue that strategy.

HipChat for Android 2.0 is the products of feedback from over 4,500 installations of the beta over the past few weeks. It’s designed to take on a more truly native Android user interface, with designs updated to reflect the most recent guidelines for Android apps. Plus, it’s been tested to work optimally even with older versions of Android, including 2.2 and higher.

With version 2.0 there’s a new sliding menu for navigating between rooms and chats, and you can upload photos directly from the Android app, either from your library or from your device’s camera. Creating an experience suited to all devices proved the biggest challenge here, and explains why it made sense to go with a simultaneous beta channel – it widens the field to help compensate for device fragmentation.

“With the Android ecosystem, you definitely have a really wide array of devices, as opposed to iOS where you have only iPhone or iPad, and just a few versions of each,” HipChat mobile developer Doug Keen explained in an interview. “This app is actually compatible all the way back to Android 2.2, and we’ve used a combination of frameworks and features on the device to give the same experience whether you’re on an old phone or a new phone.”

The HipChat beta will continue to operate as a separate channel in the Google Play store, which means that users who want to get access to the latest features and improvements as they’re released can still stay on that channel. For users who prefer a more stable experience, HipChat 2.0 and subsequent, less frequent releases will be the way to go.

iOS is the next target platform for HipChat’s development team. Keen said that the new Android app surpasses the iOS version in terms of look and feel, but that the team aims to even that up with its next big release for Apple’s mobile devices. Both platforms will also see much more frequent updates going forward, he explained.

Recently, HipChat made access to its platform free for teams of five or fewer, including the use of its mobile apps. The company has been working hard on updating its suite of software clients, and the commitment to not stagnate is crucial given the rise of new challengers, including the open source and free (though more demanding of technical expertise) Jabbr.net. Improving the HipChat app, which had a dismal 2.5 star rating, compared to the beta’s 4.5 stars, is a very good step.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

Marketing software company HubSpot is announcing that it has acquired two small startups — Chime and PrepWork.

The financial terms of the deals aren’t being disclosed, but HubSpot says it’s bringing on the full Chime and PrepWork teams and moving them from Toronto and New Haven, Conn., respectively, to the company headquarters in Cambridge, Mass. And these aren’t just talent acquisitions. I spoke to Vice President of Product Strategy and Corporate Development Brad Coffey and Chief Product Officer David Cancel about the deal, and while they didn’t get too specific about their product integration plans, they did say HubSpot is going to incorporate the Chime and PrepWork services to its offerings in some form.

Chime is a Google Chrome plug-in that brings the notifications from a user’s various web apps together into a single feed. PrepWork, meanwhile, sends automated briefing emails to prepare users for upcoming meetings (with content like recent blog posts and social network profiles for whoever they’re meeting with).

Coffey argued that both apps fit into a broader theme: “An important part of inbound marketing is having these personalized conversations and enabling these personalized conversations.” Cancel said both products were used by the HubSpot team prior to the acquisition, and they help HubSpot to expand its tools beyond emails and websites.

These are the company’s third and fourth acquisitions. It was the earlier purchase of Performable that brought Cancel to the team, so he’s seen the HubSpot acquisition process from the other side, too. The thing that convinced him to join HubSpot, and that he’s looking for in acquisitions, is a fit of culture and vision.

“Product will evolve and change over time, so it’s really having the same kind of mission, the same kind of cultural values, that is the number one thing,” Cancel said.

HubSpot raised a $35 million mezzanine round last fall. Coffey said that money was intended, in part, to fund deals like this, so we can probably expect more announcements in the months to come.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

Amazon just launched the Send to Kindle button, which clips Web content and saves it to Kindle readers and apps, for Web developers and WordPress bloggers. The button is also now available on The Washington Post, TIME, and Boing Boing.

The Send to Kindle suite, which Amazon launched last year with its Send to Kindle button for Google Chrome, is being positioned as an alternative to content-clipping services like Pocket and Instapaper, making it easier for users to read content besides e-books on their devices:

The Send to Kindle Button lets you easily send that content to your Kindle to read later, at your convenience. Just send once and read everywhere on any of your Kindle devices or free Kindle reading apps for iPhone, iPad and Android phones or tablets. No more hunting around for that website or blog that caught your eye — just open your Kindle and all the content you sent is right there. The Send to Kindle Button is also great for those who want to collect content from the web to use in work projects, school assignments, or hobbies.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

One of the great things about Twitter is that – unlike email – people are forced to get to the point by the limits on the medium. But unlike email, you can’t CC anyone on a private communication. However, on Moped, a startup based out of Berlin, you can. In fact, Moped’s iPhone and Android app is SO useful for sending private messages to individuals and groups, that I really do wonder why you people are still DM-ing on Twitter. You can also take photos and share them on Moped privately. Today they’ve released photos with filters. Photos are a big way of how we share our private experiences – look at the rise of apps like Path and Pair for that.

The Effects (filters) come in 12 formats. You can crop, add meme-like text to your filters, draw on them.

Moped is a private messaging platform that lets you send IM-like messages, but still with the useful hashtags (#s) and @s you find on Twitter. Users login via Twitter (or get a normal account) and message each other by @-ing recipient(s). It’s WAY simpler than using an app like GroupMe for privately sharing in groups. It’s also integrated with Dropbox, so unlike other messaging or private sharing apps, users can share big files within their messages. Indeed, a Chrome extension lets users to start conversations from a browser window.

Moped for messaging is just very useful. Contacts and conversations are synced across Moped apps, so if you have an iPhone at home, but use an Android when you travel, you don’t miss any conversations because conversations you have on one device, show up on the other. With Dropbox integration and a Google Chrome extension Moped is trying to cover all the bases from desktop to mobile.

The Berlin-based startup has $1 million from SV Angel (Ron Conway), Lerer Ventures, Betaworks and Earlybird Capital.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

Hard to believe President of #Egypt uses twitter to issue statements. He says security will act decisively to PROTECT state institutions

—
benwedeman (@bencnn) February 01, 2013

In an ironic twist of fate, Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi has threatened military force against thousands of student protesters through one of the very mediums used to liberate the country in 2011: Twitter. “Security forces will deal with the utmost decisiveness to law enforcement and the protection of state enterprises,” tweeted the official account, through a string of 1984-ish updates. “Presidency confirms that these destructive practices that have nothing to do with the principles of the revolution and not to any illegal practices in the peaceful expression.” (Google Chrome translation from Arabic).

Deadly clashes have erupted across the country, as protesters demand greater adherence to democratic principles from their newly elected leaders. Instead of being a faithful steward of democracy as Egypt transitions from authoritarian rule, Morsi has made disturbing grabs for executive power by declaring that courts cannot overturn his decisions, and cracking down on protesters with excessive force.

A hallmark of the Arab Spring, Egypt’s coup was hailed as part of the “Twitter Revolution.” While there is some debate about the impact of social media within the country itself after the government tried to block Internet access, Twitter, Facebook and YouTube became an extraordinary rally cry for citizens around the world to spread messages and show solidarity.

Now, in its fragile state, Morsi appears to have co-opted the tools of democracy to announce swift force against protestors. We’ve screen-grabbed the full stream of his tweets below:

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

Google just announced that it has launched a beta channel for its Chrome for Android browser. This means you can get early access to new features, of course, but the beta versions will obviously not be quite as polished as the stable releases. The current beta, which is available here, is up to 30 percent faster in completing some benchmarks and offers a number of HTML5 features like CSS Filters that aren’t available in the stable version yet. But Google also warns that it’s a bit sluggish on the Galaxy Nexus and Nexus S.

As Google Chrome technical program manager Jason Kersey warns users in today’s announcement, “just like our other Beta versions, the new features may be a little rough around the edges, but we’ll be pushing periodic updates so you can test out our latest work as soon as it’s ready.” He also notes that Chrome for Android now “benefits from all the speed, security and other improvements that have been landing on Chrome’s other platforms.

This doesn’t come as a major surprise, given that Google’s Chrome for Android FAQ has long promised that Chrome for Android will “follow the desktop Chrome release cycles starting early 2013.” It does, however, point to the fact that Chrome for Android is now indeed a fully integrated part of the overall Chrome family.

Unlike on the desktop, you will be able to run the stable and beta versions in parallel without having any bugs in the early release version affect your regular browser usage. On the desktop, Google also offers the even more developer-oriented dev and Canary channels. It’s not clear if Google has any plans to also bring those to Android.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

The latest version of Google’s Chrome OS now features a Camera app. That by itself wouldn’t be all that interesting, given that operating systems like OS X have long included built-in camera apps, but Google’s app for its web-centric OS, of course, only uses HTML5, JavaScript and CSS to deliver a Photo Booth-like experience.

The other interesting fact about this app is that it was built by third-party developer Telerik. To develop the app, Telerik used its Kendo UI front-end framework and Google’s relatively new Packaged Apps Platform, which allow developers to create standalone apps for Chrome OS.

As Telerik’s vice president for HTML5 web and mobile tools Todd Anglin told me last week, the team worked very closely with Google to develop an app that could be used as an example for other developers who are interested in writing advanced apps for Chrome OS using the Packaged Apps platform (and, of course, the Kendo UI library). As this is a pretty new platform, Google and Telerik will also team up to co-host a webinar about building Chrome Packaged Apps with the Kendo UI on Wednesday, December 5 at 2:00pm ET (and they are giving away 10 Chromebooks at the event).

The Camera app itself offers 24 real-time photo effects like pinch, bulge, and mirror. It also features custom effects and basic face tracking. As this is a packaged app, users can access it whether they are online or offline. Even though the app uses web technology, the nice thing about the platform is that it looks just like a regular desktop application.

“The Camera app on Chrome OS is a great example of what can be achieved with Chrome packaged apps,” said Josh Woodward, product manager on the Google Chrome team, in a canned statement today. “It showcases the power of packaged apps to create fast and fun apps for everyone, and it also demonstrates to developers the ability to leverage familiar frameworks, like Kendo UI, to quickly build and publish apps for Chrome and Chrome OS.”

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

The folks at Microsoft have just released a clever commercial for Internet Explorer 10, the latest version of the company’s once dominant web browser which has seen great competition from Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox over the past few years. The ad puts you in the perspective of a true troll — dual-screens, a windowless room, old take-out boxes, and a penchant for spewing hate anonymously — and this troll hates IE10 (and Internet Explorer on the whole) with vehemence.

Throughout the ad, you see this dude follow the news on IE10, like any good troll would. Each time Microsoft posts something good (“IE10 is now on Xbox 360″ or “Gizmodo hearts IE10″) our protagonist stands firm in his belief system, that IE10 has lost relevance.

His hatred is an overstatement. If you don’t like IE, you simply don’t use it. But that doesn’t mean it’s dead in the water. NetMarketshare reports that IE8 and IE9 alone account for around 25 percent of the market as of October, a nearly 10 percent lead over Google Chrome 22, which holds 15 percent of the market. This makes sense considering that Chrome automatically updates, whereas users have to opt-in to update Microsoft’s browser.

In any case, the argument isn’t about who’s currently winning. It’s about returning to dominance, and winning over those who abandoned ship years ago for the shiny new thing. IE went from a peak of ~80 percent market share almost a decade ago to having around 50 percent of the market now.

So this commercial is more about an apology, and a promise of something great, than a showy display of the new browser. In fact, you don’t even see the new browser throughout the video (it’s unclear which browser the troll is using). IE10 remains a mystery for those who haven’t tried it out, and the company takes a humble, likable approach.

If you have ever experienced it firsthand, then you know winning over a troll can be impossible. Microsoft does this fairly easily, by appealing to the preferences and priorities of unique individuals — all unique individuals, which has been the message of Windows 8 all along. “We are for everyone, even though everyone is different.”

The troll finally sees the update that is for him, some Karaoke thing, and starts to warm up to the idea of IE10.

The tag reads:

Well played, Microsoft.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

Along with the Thanksgiving-themed Google doodle gracing the Google.com homepage in the U.S. today (this year, it’s a Thanksgiving Day parade with Google’s letters as balloons), Google is also using the valuable advertising space below the search box to push Google+ and other Google properties. The homepage text reads “Hang out with the whole family this Thanksgiving,” but after clicking through, you’ll discover more than just tips on using Hangouts’ video chat.

Instead, what Google has created is a guide to many of Google’s services, including not only Hangouts, but also Google Play, Google+ for iPhone and Android, the Google app for iPhone and Android, Google Docs, Google Knowledge Graph, Nexus, Chromebooks, Google Shopping, Maps, and more.

For those already familiar with everything Google, there really isn’t any new or interesting information contained here, as it’s clearly meant to introduce Google’s services to mainstream users who will hit up the search engine after stuffing themselves with turkey in order to get details on Black Friday sales. (Shopping, of course, is one of the highlighted sections in the new guide, pointing to Google’s now pay-for-play Google Shopping vertical and Google’s indoor maps of malls).

That being said, there are some good examples in this guide to impress those with less familiarity with Google’s offerings. One especially fun demo is of Google’s semantic search integrations collectively known as Knowledge Graph. Here, it’s put to use showing off sports stats. A search for Detroit Lions’ Matthew Stafford includes the entire team’s roster pinned to the top of Google’s search results page, in a scrollable, clickable lineup. Handy.

This isn’t the first time Google has used its homepage as advertising space for its own properties, but it’s the first time so many different Google properties have been featured all at once. In the past, we’ve seen other homepage ads for things like the T-Mobile G1, the Droid, the Nexus One, the Nexus 7, and Google Chrome, for example. Because the Google.com is usually ad-free and not for sale to others, it’s always notable when Google decides to take advantage of the most valuable ad space on the Internet for itself.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch