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Google I/O: Google’s global developer conference (GGDC?) where you’ll be able to “Learn the tech world's latest web, mobile and social breakthroughs and meet the developers who are turning them into tomorrow's startups”.
As you’ll see from the keynote video embedded a couple of paragraphs down, the world’s biggest brother has crossed into the nexus with a core of knowledge about its users and connections, putting on a spectacularly smooth show of its own, too, packed with shocks, suspense and surprises.
These “breakthroughs” also include new hardware, software, content and capabilities, joining Apple and Microsoft in making major announcements in the month of June and in wooing all-important developers and activity to its many platforms.
As leaked and expected, Google launched its own brand 7-inch Nexus 7, although the specs are now confirmed: a quad-core Tegra-3 powered tablet with 12 graphics cores powering a 7-inch IPS 1280x800 screen, 1GB RAM, Wi-Fi b/g/n, Bluetooth, NFC, GPS and a 1.2 megapixel front-facing camera.
To explain the power of the 12-core graphics processor alongside the Tegra 3 quad-core processor, the keynote demo guy was showing off a new game called “Horn” from Phosphor Games in Chicago. Billed as “an epic adventure in a richly detailed world” with beautiful graphics on screen, we’re told even the leaves on the trees are individually rendered, with fluid animation, and “graphics only seen on a dedicated gaming console”.
Then we see "Dead Trigger" from Nab Finger games in Prague – a guns and zombies first person shooter. We see water droplets refracting and running down the screen, realistic fogs and, we’re told, “lots of blood”.
This part of the keynote demo of the Nexus 7 tablet also features a potentially not-safe-for-work (NSFW) headshot of a zombie victim’s head been graphically and bloodily blown off, with the demo guy pointedly asking "Who says mobile gaming has to casual?" in what appears to be an obvious dig at Apple – if not the developers who are presumably yet to truly deliver to this level on Android.
So weighing only 340 grams, which is lighter than both the 7-inch Kindle Fire and Nook tablets, the 8GB model will sell for US $199 and the 16GB model for US $249, with initial deliveries to start in July and shipping to the US, Canada, the UK – and yes, Australia too, “with more countries to follow”.
Watch the Google I/O Full Keynote above, featuring Jelly Bean 4.1, Nexus 7 Tablet, Nexus Q, Google Now and more – in 720P HD if desired.
For plenty more such as the “Death Star”-like Nexus Q, Google Now, Jelly Bean 4.1 Android OS, the amazing Project Glass live skydive to the Moscone Center and plenty more including other Google I/O 2012 developer session videos, please read on to page two!
