Name: How important was the I/O Developers Conference?
Uploaded: 2015-05-29
Duration: 5 min 47 s
Description: Andrew Nusca and Erin Griffith weigh in on this week's 'Next in Tech' segment.

[ MUSIC ] With all the hype surrounding the Apple iPhone, it's easy to forget that Google's Android operating system is used by almost 85 % of smartphone users. Joining me to talk about the upgrade of Android and all things Google from the IO developers conference this week, is Fortune senior editor Andrew Nusca And writer Erin Griffith, thanks so much you guys. Andrew, what is this conference and how important is it? It's hugely important for Google and the rest of the tech industry, I mean, this is a developers conference for software developers and Google. As an engineering company, so for them this is huge. Of course, all of the tech industries are watching. One of the first things that came out was the launch of Android am, which is the next generation operating system for the phone. Tell us about it.. There is lot of new features. It allows for you a longer battery life Google Now is the kind of voice based assistant that Google offers. It gets a lot more capability this time around. Then you've got this amazing thing called Android Pay, which we all now Apple Pay, one touch payment. Google gets its on version. And then with that, you get a fingerprint reader, which helps with security. So a lot going on. And Erin, another thing that came out is that Google said it now has 4, 000 apps on Android Wear, which is its wearables platform. What are some things to look for, and will this give the Apple Watch a run for its money? Well, the funny thing is that Android watches have been out there for a long time. Apple just entered, and they're a little bit late to the game almost. Because Smart watches built on Android have been in the market for over a year. Problem is they weren't really that exciting, and people are super excited about the Apple watch. So the hype factor really plays a big role here. The question will be whether, four thousand apps, how many of those do we actually need? I think the smart watch in general, the question for both Apple and Google to think about, is Whether or not you know what the real case uses are here, and what's actually going to make the watch a must- have. Some of the things are fun. You can actually design your own emojis. You can draw your own emojis. That's true. That had me. [ CROSSTALK ] An advantage that Google has. Oh yeah. Andrew, another thing that came out was the launch of Brillo which is the internet of things for Google. How big a deal is this? Is this one of the bigger things to come out of this week? It's one of the probably the biggest in my view, but it's hard for people to understand. So the internet of things we're talking about connected objects, right? We're used to our phones being connected. Well what about your Fridge or your chair, there's anything that's not wired up today. This is an operating system for those kinds of things, and it's called Brillo because they scrubbed the classic Android clean so that it was a little lighter in terms of processing and memory. For these smaller objects. But, what's interesting about this, so, Google already has an Internet of things play. They have Nest, the smart thermostat, but do people really want a smart refrigerator or a smart chair, I think the interesting thing's going to come when we see what people are putting sensors on and where it actually helps. With a smart thermometer, or, people can actually save money. Right. So I think that's going to be key. I'm a huge Internet of things skeptic, but I have to tell you, they have this thing where you can just say, you wake up and you can say, make me coffee, and your coffee will get made. I mean, that would win me over. There's a lot going on here. I mean, we are all focused on the kind of consumer thing here. But, think about business. I mean, if you were in a skyscraper in a major city. You can wire up that with all sorts of building automation devices. This kind of operating system is for that too. Another huge thing, I think, is major offline support for things like Maps, Chrome and YouTube. And as a subway commuter I spend two hours a day in the subway, and we are a persecuted minorities. People don't ever think we need to get on line two in this mobile revolution. Is this going to be a big deal Andrew? It's a big deal for you and me, certainly. I think it is a small minority but the important thing here is bringing computing power where it's not normally being able to reach. To go in places where there is not a steady availability of connectivity, that's important for other countries, for lot's of other places And, what would you say about that? I mean, the other thing is that it's just as important for bandwidth. I mean, people are paying a lot right now to stream video to stream music on their phones and so the ability to listen to things and watch your media offline is going to be. Going to be important, like you said, for a lot of people. No doubt. Okay, so we've talked about this all show and it's finally here. We're gonna take your questions from social media and pose them to our experts, you guys ready, what do you think? Bring it on. You'll be under the gun. All right, let's go. Padma8376 says have we seen it all in digital disruption? What is the next frontier for us? That's kind of a meta questions. Andrew, what do you think? This is going to sound like a cop out, but I really do think the internet of things is part of this. I mean, the digital disruption is the digitalization of things that aren't digitized. So to me, that's the big there. There we go. Next up. What about VR projects like Morpheus and Oculus? Just entertainment or tech revolution? Erin, what say you? I think to start, it's just going to be entertainment. But I think very quickly we'll se a lot more use cases where people are talking to their doctor face to face or interacting with their family across the world. So I think it's going to start as entertainment, but eventually we'll see it'll be something we can't live without. Absolutely. And lastly from Twitter, @ brent74 asks, I'm tired of driving, when is the autocar here? Andrew? I'm tired of driving too. Me too. The autocar's mostly here. A lot of autonomous tech is already in our cars. They self- park, they self- sense, they self- You know, they stay in their own lane, so it's just a matter of them taking the wheel from us, too. It's a big regulation question, too. I mean people are more scared of, you know, dangers that they don't know about, and self- driving cars is something that people are very scared of as opposed to real cars that they do know about and cause a lot of accidents. Right.

How important was the I/O Developers Conference?

Andrew Nusca and Erin Griffith weigh in on this week's 'Next in Tech' segment.