Google's I/O conference: What the rumour mills are saying - Firstpost

Google's I/O conference begins today in Moscone Center in San Francisco. Here's a preview on the latest rumours of what to expect from the conference.

Jelly Bean, the Next Android OS: The successor to Ice-Cream Sandwich and the next Android OS is named Jelly Bean and is likely to be released in this conference. There seems to be some confusion as to whether it will be Android 4.1 or Android 5.0 but that's just quibbling over numbers.

So far not much is known about what the new OS will contain. Rumours of a Google competitor to Siri are buzzing. According to reports the voice assistant project has been codenamed Project Majel.

Mashable reports that the Jelly Bean upgrade could bring with it a final version of Chrome for Android, which has been in beta for a while.  

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Jelly Bean will be the next Android OS. AP

The Google Tablet: Google plans to unveil a $199 tablet co-branded with Tawian's Asustek, according to reports today.

The tablet is being referred to as the Google Nexus 7, presumably because it has a 7-inch screen. Other specifications that have been leaked online are 1.3Ghz quad-core Tegra 3 processor, GeForce 12-core GPU and 1GB of RAM with two different storage variants: 8GB and 16GB. The Nexus tablet will also feature NFC and Android Beam.

Yes, this one too is already being touted as an Apple iPad competitor. For now Apple doesn't seem have much to worry about, especially after a US judge passed an injunction against Samsung Galaxy Tablet sales in the US.

Google Plus: Google's social network which was launched last year hasn't been a Facebook killer exactly. But the fact that Google Plus results are a part of search results shows that Google has no intention of letting this one go down. Flipboard, the social media magazine app, was released last week for Android and it had a new feature: integration from Google Plus and YouTube results.

Google today also added a new feature to the Plus share button on websites. When users hover over a +1 button, they will see recommendations for other great content on the site.  This feature will go live for users all across soon. For most developers Google is likely to release more extensive API's for Plus.

Overall there's a lot of excitement from both developers and tech enthusiasts for this conference. According to CNET, tickets for Google's conference were sold out in flat 20 minutes.