The Land of Nexus and Tony Stark

Google I/O day one is over and it is very late, but I'm still going to try to throw together a blog post with the small amount of energy I have left.  The keynote focused on lots of new Android features as part of Jelly Bean which are all great, but I will not go through those.  I have not had much time to play with the new features, but I am excited to sit down tomorrow and start using the new operating system.

The big surprise was when Tony Stark Sergey Brin coordinated a skydive onto the roof of the conference center, then a team of stunt bikers, followed by a repeller down the side of the building, and finished by a biker taking the Project Glass proto type right up to the stage.  It was all streamed live through a Google+ Hangout using Project Glass.  It was by far the most impressive demo I have ever seen and it will be very hard to top.

The big reveal was that they would be giving the US attendees of Google I/O 2012 the opportunity to preorder "Glass Explorer Edition" for $1,500 that will ship next year.  Of course I did and now I have some glass as proof.  I am number 718 and I could not be more excited!

Now the freebies this year provide the whole suite of Nexus products.  The Galaxy Nexus (which I already have), the Nexus 7 table, and the just announced Nexus Q.  I already have a Verizon Galaxy Nexus and the one I was given runs on AT&T or T-Mobile and can be instantly updated to Jelly Bean through OTA.  I'm not sure what I am going to do with it yet.  The Nexus 7 is awesome looking.  I still have some doubts with the 7 inch form factor but I'm excited to play with Jelly Bean.  Unfortunately I can not activate the device on the hotel WiFi so I just need to be patient and activate it tomorrow morning at the conference center.  The Nexus Q was a little out of left field and the somewhat evil looking GLaDOS like device has a strange set of features.  I will definitely hook it up and use it when I get home, but I do not see it replacing the Xbox 360 + Kinect I use for most of my media consumption.

After hours were really awesome.  Train put on a great performance and there were endless geeky games and interactive displays.  The one that I spent the most time waiting for was a game that measured how relaxed or "in the zone" you were while you played a rail based shooter.  My score was not horrible, but I did not make it to the leader board.

It is only one day in and it seems like I have been here a long time.  There are still two more days including what should be another great keynote address tomorrow.  I am not sure if they will be able to top live streaming skydivers though.