Get ready for two crazy hours of Google awesomeness: I/O's opening keynote is about to begin. This is typically the time for the company to unveil some of its biggest projects and set the tone for the following year. Just two years ago, for instance, co-founder Sergey Brin skydived onto the roof of the venue and biked into the keynote while wearing Google Glass. Whether we'll see anything as adventurous this year remains to be seen, but that's why we liveblog these things -- so you, dear reader, can experience every second of the madness right along with us. So join us right back here at noon (EDT), okay?
June 25, 2014 12:00:00 PM EDT
Hey everyone! It's time for I/O!
So let me tell you a bit about our team. Joining me is esteemed Editor-in-Chief Michael Gorman and esteemed photographer/editor/extraordinaire Zach Honig. Follow us at @phonewisdom @numeson @zachhonig.
But do make sure you're following @engadget, because frankly we may not have much time to tweet during the keynote.
We're in the Moscone Center (West), which is where Apple's and Microsoft's developer conferences were held this year.
BOOM. Folks, get excited... Google's got a huge rube goldberg machine here that I'm pretty sure is the countdown clock. Looking forward to what all the spinning wheels and rolling balls do when the time comes.
The stage is HUGE -- it stretches along the entire side of the ballroom here, and there are multiple stations. There's also a living room-style setup to the right.
Finally, there's a Rube Goldberg machine on the far right side of the stage, which looks like it's being used as a countdown timer.
Good vibe here, some catchy, upbeat tunes of unknown origin playing. All the press is settled, and now the "civilians" are pouring in.
The living room setup looks very similar to what we saw a couple years ago, when the Nexus Q was demoed on stage. In the back we can see a bunch of small Android toys lined up.
Word on the street is that the keynote will last a couple hours, far short of the 3.5 hour marathon from last year.
If you want to tune into the livestream, you can head here: http://ift.tt/ThNaxn
According to the mystery machine, we're still 9 minutes out from the start of this keynote.
Hugo Barra is just a few feet away from us, and apparently he's a big fan of taking selfies.
Love that Hugo Barra's here. My man's in a T-shirt, wearing a backpack and sporting some two-day stubble. Clearly, he's enjoying not being in charge of the stage presentations today.
The Rube Goldberg machine is equipped with an incredibly loud horn, and it blares at oddly random intervals.
There goes that freaking horn again. Really curious to see what happens when we get to all zeroes on that thing.
Voice of God: We're about to begin. Get ready, y'all!
Four minutes. Get those synchronized watches out.
Alright, we're winding down on the clock here! Marbles are coming out of the mystery machine, which is leading to a chain reaction.
Here we go! Got some animations happening on stage showing off Chrome, then Android app icons; Flappy Bird's made an appearance...
"Every little bit matters. Here's to what you build next."
Sundar Pichai is on stage! Sundar is the Senior VP of Android, Chrome and Apps.
"Great to see all of you! Every year we look forward to this day. We've worked hard to get here."
"We have viewing parties in over 85 countries on six continents. There are 1 million people watching on the livestream today."
Sundar's showing us some of the viewing parties happening around the world.
We're seeing people in the UK, Nigeria and Brazil watching live, and needless to say, they're quite excited.
Sundar says that 20 percent of the attendees are female, which is up from 8 percent last year. That's a pretty significant increase.
Sundar's going to start off by talking about mobile momentum.
Platform evolution and developer success are also on the agenda.
There will be updates on Google Cloud Platform and Google Play today as well.
Google's now focusing on 30 day active users instead of total, year over year numbers.
There's been tremendous growth on Android -- over 1 billion active users!
What does this mean? Over 20 billion text messages are sent each day on Android devices; 93 million selfies.
Filed under: Announcements, Cellphones, Mobile, Google
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