During the company’s I/O keynote today, Google announced a new and powerful accessory design kit (ADK) that aims to merge the physical and digital worlds. Using the ADK and a hardware interface, developers can allow digital devices to manipulate physical objects. To illustrate this point, Google constructed a two-ton labyrinth right on the show floor. Using the gyroscope on a Motorola XOOM tablet, conference goers were able to try their hand at manipulating a bowling ball through the over-sized maze. ...

Google’s top-brass got up on stage following this morning’s keynote for a quick Q&A session that we definitely had to check out. Want to know what Andy Rubin and company had to say about today’s announcements? Hit the jump to read find out! (more...)This post originally appeared on BGR.com

Google announced on Tuesday a new feature of the Android operating system called Android @ Home. The framework and associated functions transform an Android device into a home automation controller that connects and directs all of the devices and appliances in the user’s home. Android @ Home framework can be used to control gaming consoles, lighting, appliances, irrigations systems and anything else developers can envision. Google also announced project tungsten as part of the Android @ Home product, wh...

Google just announced Android Open Accessory, which will allow developers to create accessories that take advantage of software installed on Android devices. Google will offer hardware and software support for the open accessory design kit (ADK) there’s no approval process or fees. In one demo, a Google employee showed off a device with a USB accessory called CardioQuest for monitoring his heartbeat while exercising. In another, a user controlled the classic labyrinth board game using his tablet. In yet...

We can’t say it comes as much of a surprise, but Google has just taken the wraps off of a service many of us have been waiting for years to see… or should we say, hear. Google’s freshly unveiled Music Beta service will give users a cloud-based solution for storing and streaming their digital music collections — and we mean, their entire collections; Google’s service supports the storage of up to 20,000 songs as opposed to the 1,000 tracks supported by Amazon’s Cloud Drive prod...

Google just took the wraps off of its new movie rental service for Android devices. Movies rentals will start at $1.99 and users can download their favorite films directly from Android Market. There’s a 30-day rental period and you’ll have 24 hours to complete watching your movie once you’ve started playing it. Google will release separate movie applications for phones and for tablets, and both apps allow users to stream live from the cloud to a device. Movies can also be stored locally for ...

Google is on stage and just announced that the next major Android OS, Ice Cream Sandwich, will launch in Q4 of this year. It will combine the tablet and smartphone operating systems into one joint OS that will support all devices. Google bills it as “One OS everywhere, state of the art UI, advanced app framework, open source.” The universal OS will be able to adapt to the specific form factor of the device it’s running on, and also includes new features like face-tracking and camera enhancem...

Google on Tuesday announced its first major update to the Honeycomb OS. Key feature additions in Honeycomb 3.1 include resizable home screen widgets, added support for new input devices like enhanced keyboards, mice, trackpads and even dedicated gaming controllers. Another key addition is enhanced multitasking support for more fluid transitions and reduced crashes. In addition, Honeycomb will be coming to Google TV in version 3.1 via an automatic OTA update. Among the notable Google TV-specific features is ...

During Google’s I/O conference in San Francisco today, Google confirmed that it has activated more than 100 million Android devices worldwide across 36 OEM’s and 215 carriers. There are now more than 310 Android devices in 112 countries and Google activates 400,00 Android devices each day. Similarly, there are 450,000 Android developers and more than 200,000 applications available in the Android market. 4.5 billion apps have been installed to date.This post originally appeared on BGR.com