Moto 360, one of the first Android Wear smartwatches, coming in July

Google wants to win your wrist and the Android Wear-powered Moto 360 is still part of the plan.

At Google's I/O 2014 Keynote address Wednesday Google didn't say much about Motorola's smartwatch, originally revealed in March, and Motorola hasn't released an official list of features. And unlike for the LG G Watch and the Samsung Gear Live, both of which will be available July 7, we don't have a Moto 360 release date (or even a price).

So, despite the Moto 360 still being one of the first watches to arrive running Android Wear OS, there are still many unanswered questions.

Google did, however, demonstrate many of the features that will be available to these devices, including voice commands for sending texts, getting directions, and music playback. With the smartwatch you'll also be able to receive and dismiss notifications, accept or decline calls, and dictate notes and reminders.

What makes the Moto 360 so interesting? For the most part, it's the look.

It's the boldest and most stylish smartwatch of the bunch. According to Google, the round design is meant to appeal to both genders while ditching the sharp corners that can dig into your wrist. Promises aside, the shape is an improvement over the square designs that we normally see and it makes the Moto 360 look like a regular fashion watch from a distance.

And how does it look in person? Very nice, but probably bigger than you'd expect. The round face feels about as large around as a silver dollar, and the steel casing is about as thick as a Pebble Steel. Svelte this is not.

A leather band attaches cleanly to the body and buckles up like a standard watchband; it's comfy and even supple. A single button on the side of the Moto 360 turns the display on and off, but right now it's hard to see how Android Wear will actually work: the few units here at Google I/O were running a set demo reel of rotating notification mock-ups, indicating how they'll look on the screen but not how live interaction will feel.

There's only one button that we can see, plus the touch screen and a microphone. The back of the Moto 360 is mysteriously devoid of standard connectors or charge ports: all signs point to some sort of contactless charging. And there doesn't appear to be a heart rate sensor, but who knows if that back could act as some sort of conductive input.

Southpaws can use it too. The design allows for left- or right-hand use, but we don't know how yet. It's safe to assume the screen will flip depending on orientation.

Yes, you'll be able to change bands. We know of steel and leather bands so far, but hints have been dropped about more detailed Moto Maker-like customization.

It's water-resistant. We don't know how much, or if it's as waterproof as the Pebble. Sounds like it won't be good for swimming.

This won't be the only round Android Wear watch. Android Wear has two standard screen shapes in its SDK: square, and round. Moto 360 adopts the round design that Google is already allowing for. That could mean other round watches, and soon.

There's no camera. According to Motorola, having a camera like the Samsung Gear 2 does didn't mesh with the idea of the watch's contextual-information-gathering design.

Does it have fitness tracking? That hasn't been mentioned yet. However, Android Wear does have fitness-tracking capabilities, so it will come down to what the watch supports, not the OS.

You can talk to it. Google Now will respond to Moto X-style requests.

You can always tell time with it. Funny, but true: you'll always be able to lift your wrist and see the time. Actually, on many current smartwatches, depending on what app you're in, that's not always the case.

It works with any Android 4.3 phone. Expect that to be true for Android Wear devices across the board, most likely.

What's battery life like? Motorola has been coy about giving an actual number, but claims that battery life has been "made a priority." Motorola claims it's learned from its previous experience with its first watch, the MotoActv, and also the Moto X.

When is will it be available? Summer, but no firm date has been announced.

How much will it cost? Costlier than all Android Wears ???

How Can Chromecast Connect To Your Friend’s Phones Without Using WiFi? Ultrasonic Sounds

During yesterday’s I/O keynote, Google announced a rather fantastic new feature coming to the Chromecast: soon, your friends won’t need to be connected to your WiFi to be able to send things to your TV. As long as they’re in the same room, it should just work.
But how?

While Google’s Rishi Chandra mentioned yesterday that the new WiFi-less pairing system used a “variety of technologies” to determine when you’re near a Chromecast unit, he didn’t really breakdown what those technologies might be. Bluetooth? Some proprietary protocol that Google had cooked up? Magic?

Turns out, it’s closest to that last one — or at least, it’ll probably seem like magic to anyone without superhuman hearing.

Thanks to a post-Keynote presentation, we now have a better idea of how it’ll work: ultrasonic soundwaves, inaudible to the human ear.

Once you’ve configured your Chromecast to allow nearby devices to connect, the Chromecast will push a uniquely generated ultrasonic sound through your TV’s speakers. Encoded in that soundwave is everything a phone needs to know to get paired up. You can’t hear these sounds, but your phone can.

Apps using the Chromecast SDK will use your smartphone’s microphone to listen for these soundwaves. Once one is detected, it’ll offer up a Chromecast pairing button just as it would if you were on the same WiFi network.

Sound familiar? Google’s engineers have actually been playing with the idea of ultrasonic networking for at least the last year. Meanwhile, a company called SlickLogin debuted a method of using ultrasonic sounds for 2-factor authentication without the extra typing. They went on to be acquired just five months later. The buyer? You guessed it: Google.

How to set up an Android Wear watch

When you receive your Android Wear watch, you're bound to be eager to get it up and running as fast as possible. So for now, while you wait for the shipment notification, familiarize yourself with the setup process.

In all honesty, the setup process is very simple. You'll need to download the official Android Wear app and any updates available in the Play Store.

An update to Google Play Services is required before your device will be able to talk to your watch, but that should automatically download in the background without you doing anything. Both the Android Wear app and the Play Services update will be made available before the full launch on July 7.

After installing the Android Wear app, you'll be prompted to turn on your watch and pair it with your device. The Gear Livehas a power button on the side, making it easy to power up. The G Watch, however, lacks a physical button of any sort, so you'll need to connect it to the charger to turn it on.

In all honesty, the setup process is very simple. You'll need to download the official Android Wear app and any updates available in the Play Store.

An update to Google Play Services is required before your device will be able to talk to your watch, but that should automatically download in the background without you doing anything. Both the Android Wear app and the Play Services update will be made available before the full launch on July 7.

After installing the Android Wear app, you'll be prompted to turn on your watch and pair it with your device. The Gear Livehas a power button on the side, making it easy to power up. The G Watch, however, lacks a physical button of any sort, so you'll need to connect it to the charger to turn it on.

Your watch will display a unique device number, which you'll need to select on your Android smartphone or tablet as the watch you'd like to connect to. Finally, after pairing, you'll be asked to grant Android Wear permission to access your device notifications.

Once notification access is granted, you're all set up. Any notifications your phone receives will also be displayed on your watch, along with any timely Google Now cards and activity progress.

There's plenty more to learn about Android Wear, and we'll be doing our best to make sure you have a solid understanding before your watch arrives. Keep checking back for more Android Wear coverage. In the meantime, here's how to check if your Android device can work with Android Wear.

Google's next version of Android 'L' - L called as what??

Today at Google I/O 2014, Senior Vice President of Android Sundar Pichai gave us the first taste of Android L, the next generation of Google's mobile operating system. The release is Google's first developer-only preview, and while it's not the final version of the next flavor of Android, it gives us a great look at what's next.

Google names its new Android releases after desserts and sweets, and we've already known that a treat starting with the letter L was next. It seems that Google hasn't yet landed on an official name, leaving us to still speculate if version 4.5 (or perhaps 5.0) will be named Lollipop, Lemon Bar, or something else when it undoubtedly officially debuts later this year.

We hope to see new smartphones launch around the same time which take advantage of all the new features, and also updates to existing smartphones. HTC is amongst the companies committed to bringing it to its existing HTC One family, while others should announce support soon.

Material design
Android will receive a complete visual overhaul aimed at promoting a consistent experience across Android device sizes and types. The new "Material Design" identity is bolder, more colourful, and more animated. Every transition between screens and every user interaction has been refined, down to the system-wide Roboto typeface and the Android navigation buttons.

Screen elements will be able to simulate depth, with automatic shadows and scaling, but will also inherit elements of classic magazine typography and layout. There's more emphasis on simple shapes and consistent actions that lead you from one app into another. Google's new design page offers hints of what is to come.

The change could also be aimed at discouraging third-party vendors from developing custom Android overlays which greatly deviate from Google's vision. A strong enough core UI experience could lead users to reject anything seen as inferior to it.

The Material Design identity integrates elements of responsive Web design and will extend to other Google properties including Gmail, which will be redesigned for the Web as well as mobile apps. Material Design takes into account the fact that touch, voice, mouse and keyboard are all equally important input methods, clearly illustrating goals above and beyond smartphone usage scenarios.

Improved notifications
You will be able to interact with notifications more easily in Android L. For starters, you can choose which ones show up on the lock screen and what amount of detail they'll show. You can decide whether snippets of actual messages are displayed when your phone is potentially visible to others, or whether more details will only be revealed when you unlock it. They also aren't necessarily displayed in chronological order anymore - the OS can learn which ones you're more likely to respond to urgently and prioritise those.

There's also a new type of notification altogether - Google calls these heads ups. These appear on top of whatever you're doing and allow you to take action or dismiss them immediately. These are meant to be less intrusive, and can be used for things that can't wait, such as incoming calls.

Trusted environments
Speaking of the lock screen, you'll soon be able to have your phone detect when it's in a trusted environment, which will dispense with the lock code. This could be triggered by the presence of a Bluetooth device such a smartwatch that you wear all the time, a specific Wi-Fi access point, or other factors. When the environment is deemed safe, you won't have to bother with unlocking your phone.

Project Volta, battery improvements
Android L will be able to manage battery life much better, but Google's moves go beyond that to the app development stage, for which new tools have been developed that let developers track battery drain and optimise apps before they ever reach end users. The battery saver mode is similar to those implemented by third parties so far - non-essential services can be turned off or made to run only at intervals in order to save power. Android L will also be able to lower the screen refresh rate, reduce the frequency of data exchanges, or force apps to change their behaviour to match the prevailing battery state.

Google Fit
Everyone's getting into health and activity tracking, and Google is no exception. The new Google Fit framework will take Apple's Healthkit head on, tying into sensors on phones themselves as well as connected accessories to collect data which will be ready for apps to use. Major partners including Nike, Adidas, Runkeeper, HTC, Asus, LG and Motorola are already on board. Google Fit could monitor physical activity and food intake as well as health indicators such as heart rate and breathing.

Greater Web integration
There's also a change to the way individual tabs and documents in apps are handled by Android L. They'll now show up as individual entries in the Recents menu, allowing users to jump directly between them. This pulls the focus away from apps and puts it onto all the things you do with them. For example, Web apps open in Chrome tabs would appear much like native apps running on your device, and you'd be able to jump in and out of them more quickly.

Links on the Web can now also be used to launch apps instead of websites (presumably falling back to the website in case the app is not installed). For example, Google demonstrated looking up a restaurant in Chrome and then tapping a link to not only launch the OpenTable app, but also have it know that it should bring up that restaurant's booking page. Google search results can also now be links that trigger an app, rather than links to websites.

ART Runtime and Android Extension Pack
Google is ditching the Dalvik runtime which has served well for years, in favour of a new one called ART. It can make apps load and run quite a bit faster while using less RAM. ART is 64-bit compatible, and is also engineered to allow apps to work across hardware architectures such as ARM and X86. This also means that Android devices will be able to address more RAM than the 32-bit limit allowed.

With greater diversity in Android hardware obviously envisioned for the near future, the move is a welcome change. Google has worked with major hardware vendors to enable more fluid graphics, potentially paving the way for new Android-based game consoles and set-top boxes. Desktop-class graphics including tessellation, geometry shaders and texture compression will potentially be possible on Android devices.

Knox
Google also made a few announcements that indicate interesting things on the horizon for enterprise users. The company announced that Samsung's Knox feature for work and personal separation will become a part of Android itself. Knox allows corporate IT administrators to control work-related data and policies on employees' smartphones while letting the employees themselves continue to store personal data and use unrelated apps. This alleviates many of the problems with accessing secure information from mobile devices and could make Android far more attractive to businesses.

Number One Internet Giant Google announces 'Android One'

Google on Wednesday announced it is working on a low-cost  smartphone aimed at emerging  markets as part of an initiative called Android One. The Android-powered handset will be built with a basic set of features including FM radio, have a screen slightly smaller than five inches and be priced at less than $100, Google senior vice president  Sundar Pichai said at the start of the technology giant's annual developers conference.

Sundar Pichai, Google's SVP for Android, Chrome and Apps, made some very interesting announcements at the I/O 2014 Keynote on Wednesday, of which perhaps the most exciting was the revelation of the Android One platform (previously rumoured as Android Silver) and its partners in emerging markets. The program will kick-off in India, with three partners - Micromax, Karbonn, and Spice, starting this 'fall'.

In an effort to help its OEM partners, who are forced to release a new smartphone every 9 months to stay ahead in the intensely competitive market, Google is releasing a new Android hardware and software reference platforms. This will help save OEMs money and time in design, choosing the right components and pushing their smartphones to the market.

It will also help Google and its partners push updates to Android devices, with optimised stock Android experiences being replaced by new ones. With OEMs using the Android One platform, Google will also be able to ensure a minimum set of standards for smartphones.

The Android One initiative works with smartphone makers and others in the "ecosystem" to pool resources and standardize hardware platforms to provide "turnkey solutions" for making handsets, elaborated Pichai.

Speaking more about the Android One software experience, Pichai also spoke about 'Play Auto-installs', which would push a list of recommended apps to Android One users.

The Android One platform is Google's attempt to reach the 'next 5 billion users' who don't currently own a smartphone. Pichai elaborated that in emerging countries, less than 10 percent own smartphones.

Pichai announced Google's first three Android One partners, all from India - Micromax, Karbonn, and Spice. A Micromax Android One smartphone was also showcased on stage, featuring what Pichai called vital features for emerging markets - dual-SIM, a microSD card slot, and FM radio. The Micromax Android One smartphone was also revealed to feature a 4.5-inch display, and cost less than $100 (Rs. 6,000 roughly).

Google's Pichai also said he'd been using a Micromax Android One smartphone for a while now, and was really impressed, despite being used to top-end phones for daily use.