CNETAnalysis: Apple and Microsoft have made their big announcements for the year ahead, and now it’s Google’s turn: today’s Google I/O in San Francisco will show us the key new developments in Google products from Android to Google+. So what can we expect? Google’s going to show off Jelly Bean Android Jelly Bean , aka Android 4.1 , is the latest version of Google’s Android operating system for smartphones and tablets. The news that Jelly Bean is Android 4.1, not 5.0, indicates that it’ll be an evolutionary change rather than something really dramatic. We’ll see the Google Nexus 7 tablet Rumours of a Google Nexus Tablet have been swirling for so long that it looks like a done deal: a seven-inch Tegra 3 tablet running Jelly Bean or Ice Cream Sandwich and possibly called the Asus Nexus 7. Reports suggest that this new Google tablet will come with a ridiculously low price tag, possibly even undercutting Amazon’s Kindle Fire. We won’t hear from Larry Page CEO Larry Page won’t be speaking at the I/O event, his spokespeople say: he’s lost his voice. We might hear from Google’s Siri Don’t you just love “people familiar with the matter”? They’ve been talking to the Wall Street Journal again, and they’ve been telling it about Google Assistant, which takes Android’s voice control to a whole new level. It’s essentially Google’s version of Siri, a virtual personal assistant that enables you to do pretty much anything by asking rather than typing or tapping. It’s expected to rely heavily on Google’s Knowledge Graph, which attempts to understand what you’re actually looking for rather than just scanning search criteria, and should benefit from Google’s 2010 acquisition of voice specialists Phonetic Arts for its voice output. Voice control is no gimmick: on iOS, Siri takes Google out of search and ! goes dir ectly to specialists (such as Yelp for reviews, Rotten Tomatoes for movies and so on). If the future of search is voice controlled, Google wants to be the ear you yell into – and that could mean annoying partners such as LG and Samsung, who have their own voice offerings . We might see Google’s glasses If Google’s snazzy Project Glass specs are to ship in 2013 , it needs developers to write apps for them – and where better to encourage them to do that than at your annual developers’ conference? According to Global Equity Research ( via eWeek ) that means Google I/O 2012 will have a new focus on wearable devices including Project Glass, Smart Watch and in-car Android: “This year, Google will have a new focus area ‘wearable devices,’ based on Android OS. Developers think Google extended this year’s Google I/O event from two days to three days, probably to accommodate this new focus area.” We could see some home entertainment hardware The WSJ again: “Google is developing a home-entertainment system that streams music wirelessly throughout the home and would be marketed under the company’s own brand, according to people briefed on the company’s plans… one person familiar with the matter said Google was hoping to offer the entertainment system, which would bring a new revenue stream to the company, at more-affordable prices than a similar device made by Sonos Inc., which focuses exclusively on music.” Could that be part of Google TV?
