SAN FRANCISCO – Last week, The Moscone Center West hosted one of the world’s largest games of Pong while Google presented the products and services it’s been brewing up for the past year. At the I/O keynote, Google showed primary focus on optimizing Android, complemented by a new Google Cardboard and a VR camera system that will be sold by GoPro. Also, we’re found out that right now there are out there over 4,000 distinct devices using Android of which you probably only know a few, such as Samsung, LG, Motorola. And Sundar Pichai, senior vice president, announced HBO coming to Google Play. Android M mostly follows its predecessor L, but comes with a few big improvements. App Permissions – is a way to simplify what data you allow the apps to access. Instead of the long list of permissions upon installation, the user will be prompted for permission when the app needs to use a feature, such as microphone or camera. App Links – or Chrome Custom Tabs, is a useful feature that enables developers to add custom components that overlay on top of apps; for instance, Pinterest can add custom transition animation to link to the web, within the app. Furthermore, there’s a new app linking feature that allows apps to verify links to switch from app to app rapidly. Battery & Charging – introduces Doze, a new feature that in Android M uses motion detection to go into a deeper sleep state if inactive for longer periods of time. While dozing, the device will still be able to respond to high-priority messages and alarms. Their test in which a Nexus 9 running on Lollipop against M Nexus showed that the latter lasted up to two times longer in standby, Google claims....

A wave of announcements flooded Google’s I/O conference this year. The almost three hour keynote included anticipated news, as well as surprises. Gone are the days when technology companies can focus solely on their own products when presenting them. Whenever Google or Apple introduce a new feature, it is instantly compared with the competing counterpart, and the alternative will likely be mentioned with more or less subtlety. Points of comparison are hard to in down as both giants’ mobile platforms seem to resemble one another more and more, in both functionality and purpose: Apple has Continuity between OS X and iOS, and now Google introduced synced notifications between Chrome OS and Android. Apple announced HealthKit and Google presented Google Fit – the mission of both appears to be the development of seamless ecosystems of hardware, software and services that keeps users faithful to one or the other. Here are some highlights from Google’s conference in San Francisco. Android L is the successor to Android Kit-Kat; it was presented as the biggest upgrades ever done to Android. The most noticeable ones are the design changes – the sleek Holo theme of KitKat is being replaced with the colorful new Material Design, a new design language which is based on basic shapes and sheets of paper. Material Design gives developers the ability to add the illusion of depth, featuring a grid-based layout so that it can be easily ported to different screen sizes. L has been deeply integrated with Android Wear platform, fact that allows users unlock their smartphones without a pin code if they are wearing a smartwatch. Notifications received a makeover too, allowing users to respond to notifications directly from the lock screen. Mobile Chrome will take advantage of the Material Design as it...