Is your recently updated Nexus 5 or SHIELD tablet feeling slow after the Lollipop update? You probably are going to need to do a factory reset.

Keep in mind that if you do a factory reset you will lose all locally stored data that hasn’t been backed up to the cloud. That usually means music files, photos (if you don’t have Google+ auto backup enabled), app settings and authorizations and other settings. Most of these things will be saved for you if you are using all of Google’s cloud services, but local music and other files will not be backed up so back those up before you do a factory reset.

In order to do a factory reset, all you have to do is go to the settings potion of the phone, find the Backup and Reset option and then hit Factory data reset. Your phone will prompt you to make sure you want that option and then it will restart after you confirm and reset the phone to factory defaults, which are now going to be the Android Lollipop defaults.

Recently, a lot of phones have been getting updates to Android 5.0 Lollipop and the list is only growing. A lot of users that have updated their Android 4.4.4 Kit Kat devices are reporting that their devices are appearing to perform slower and less responsive after the update. I had this happen with both my Nexus 5 and my SHIELD tablet and a factory reset made both devices as fast as before the update.

The great thing about Android Lollipop that a lot of people haven’t really experienced yet (because most people haven’t had to update their device and do a reset) is that you can completely wipe your device and the Android backup actually does backup all of your apps that were previously installed. In the past, this feature partially worked for me and I didn’t entirely trust it as a result. So, when I did a factory reset of the SHIELD tablet, I was prepared to re-install everything but instead I re-installed nothing and the tablet did it all on its own.

A lot of people are speculating that people are experiencing this issue due to the fact that the OTA files on the phone or tablet were not properly wiped from the phone or tablet’s memory and as a result are causing some sort of an interface lagginess and overall system sluggishness. After all, the OTA is a fairly large file for both devices. There are also speculations that the reason may be some applications that are unoptimized for Lollipo but those are fairly unjustified because after a factory reset those apps return and performance is still fast.

The interesting thing is that it doesn’t actually affect overall system performance as much as we thought, as when we had originally gotten the SHIELD tablet it had performance of 4579 in Futuremark’s PCMark Android benchmark. After the Android 5.0 lollipop update, it went up to 5127 points even with the lagginess and after the factory reset it went up to 5322, which means that when the Android 5.0 lollpop update is applied correctly the SHIELD tablet gets  20% performance bump, not the 15% we had seen.

So if your newly updated Android device is feeling sluggish or slow after the Android 5.0 Lollipop update, then you should seriously consider doing a factory reset as one of the first options before you waste too much time on other things.

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We’ve made up a list of our favorite Android phones of 2014 and they are all some of the best phones that money can buy in 2014. Now that all of the major phones have launched for the year and the holiday shopping season is upon us, there is no reason not to help you find the right phone for you or a loved one.

LG G3

LG’s G3 is probably one of our favorite Android phones of this year for multiple reasons. This is because The LG G3 has a fantastic 5.5″ 2560 x 1440 display and a laser fast 13 MP (literally uses a laser for focus) camera that grabs fantastic photos in both light and dark scenarios. Any camera that can take great photos in the dark is going to be a great all around camera as a rule of thumb. The thing that makes the LG G3 so great is also the fact that the phone itself has almost no bezel on the sides of the phone which makes it feel like there is almost no phone and all screen. As such, the LG G3 has the same screen size as the iPhone 6+ but a much much smaller body and as a result is more comfortable to hold. In addition to having one of the highest resolution displays of any phone to date, LG also gives the LG G3 expandable memory and a removable battery which is a big deal to a lot of users.

The LG G3 also has a Snapdragon 801 and great battery life thanks to the 3000 mAh battery even though it does have a fairly large and power consuming display. On Verizon’s network the LG G3 easily lasts over a day of normal usage and with Wi-Fi could last you up to 2 days. The only drawback of the LG G3 is the fact that it lacks a good speaker or front-facing speakers like the HTC One M8, one of its competitors. However, the G3’s biggest weapon is also price… even though Samsung and HTC launched before LG did with the LG G3, LG’s pricing was so competitive (both on and off contract) that it forced Samsung and HTC to drop their prices in order to compete which immediately resulted in lower prices for consumers regardless of their choice.

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Today was a day of good news for all Nvidia Shield Tablet owners and potential owners.  Nvidia announced today that the Lollipop 5.0 update and the new GRID gaming service are coming to the Shield Tablet in an update on November 18th.  Nvidia Also confirmed that the Green Box they teased yesterday is in fact Half-Life 2, Half-Life 2 Episode One, and Portal.

Today via the Nvidia (NASDAQ:NVDA) blog the company let people know about the upcoming capabilities and content they have made for its Shield Tablet.  The news of the Lollipop 5.0 update that we have known for a while was confirmed to be scheduled for release on November 18th.  The update brings Android’s new material design and performance benefits.  The update will also have an update for the popular Nvidia Dabbler application that has updates in the user interface, full support for layers, and interestingly the ability to stream the app via Twitch (which the tablet already supports for games).  The blog also confirmed that Half-Life Episode One is coming to Android, and it has been optimized for the Nvidia Shield Tablet.  This game will be part of the new Green Box bundle that will be included free with the 32GB/LTE version of the Shield Tablet.  Also confirmed were new games that are optimized for the Shield Tablet.  These games are OddWorld: Stranger’s Wrath, Pure Pool, Strike Suit Zero, and Turbo Dismount.

The biggest surprise was the announcement of the long in-beta GRID gaming service.  This will harnesses state-of-the-art Nvidia GPU servers to deliver a GeForce GTX gaming experience on SHIELD devices.  The lineup already includes 20 AAA game titles including Batman: Arkham City, Borderlands 2, and Psychonauts.  The service will be adding new titles every week.  Essentially this will be like Netflix for games that users can stream right to the Shield devices to play.  But the best part is that the GRID service will be free on Shield devices (both the tablet and the portable) through June 30, 2015.  This is great that Nvidia is giving users more than 7 months of the gaming service free for owners who have already bought devices. This will help make up for the fact that the Green Box is only available with new purchases of the 32GB/LTE tablet and will possibly encourage people to buy SHIELD devices if they weren’t already planning to.

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Google (NASDAQ:GOOG) has finally started to roll out the Nexus update for Android 5.0 Lollipop, which many Nexus users have been waiting for ever since the Nexus 6 and Nexus 9 were announced. Heck, they’ve been waiting for the Android 5.0 Lollipop update ever since it was announced earlier this year during Google I/O.

In an official tweet on Google’s Android twitter feed, Google said, “#Android Lollipop rollout has started and will soon be available on most #Nexus devices. Dessert is served.” There were rumors that it would be rolling out today, and those appear to be correct considering that Google is basically saying that the rollout has begun and people are already getting Android 5.0 updates for their devices.

#AndroidLollipop rollout has started and will soon be available on most #Nexus devices. Dessert is served. pic.twitter.com/XVFX2tEbHv

— Android (@Android) November 12, 2014

However, there’s no official word on exactly which Nexus devices will be getting the Android 5.0 Lollipop update. The expected devices are the Nexus 5, Nexus 7, Nexus 10 and Nexus 4. But there are rumors that even the much older Galaxy Nexus may also see an update to Android 5.0 Lollipop, which is a bit weird since it didn’t get Android 4.4 Kitkat. That will remain a rumor until someone with a Galaxy Nexus ends up getting the update, because that doesn’t seem very plausible. Even so, Android 5.0 is a massive update over Android 4.4 Kitkat and brings a whole host of UI improvements and speed ups that have never been seen before on Android.

Android 5.0 Lollipop also promises to even more closely unify the install base of Android devices so that within 90 days of an update being available, most of the major devices already out have been updated and all new devices are already launching with it. Unfortunately, the Droid Turbo did not launch with Android 5.0 Kitkat, but considering how quickly the 2014 Motorola Moto X got the Android 5.0 update, there’s a very good chance the Turbo could be coming out soon with an update as well. LG’s G3 also already has the Android 5.0 Lollipop update rolling out to unlocked consumers, but carriers are delaying that release for their own customized versions.

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Unless you have been under a rock lately it is very clear that Android 5.0 Lollipop is now here and its the next big thing for mobile computing,  The recently released Nvidia Shield tablet is slated for an update this month to big the devices a shiny new ROM.

Nvidia (NASDAQ: NVDA ) today released a teaser video on YouTube giving a sneak peak into what will be coming in the Lollipop update for the Shield tablet.  Lollipop is the brand new version 5.0 of the Android OS, bringing in a slew of new features and material design,  Nvidia claims that the Shield tablet should be among the first devices with Lolipop, and that it will be released this month via a simple software update.  The Nvidia Dabbler app for the Shield tablet will also be receiving a decent update as well with a new UI and a range of new features.  Also new in the update is a new UI for the Shield Hub that should fall in line with the overall material design changes.

The Lollipop updates should bring a decent performance bump to the tablet thanks to a new Android application runtime environment called ART.  ART should help to improve a few things such as battery life, garbage collections, performance, application debugging, and profiling.  This will help bring a more refined and smoother experience to the Shield, and allow for even better multitasking.  Overall, this should help refine app usage making gaming and other tasks a much more pleasurable experience.

With the update, the Shield tablet will be putting up a good fight with the new Nexus 9 as the choice of a great many users tablet of choice.  The recent reviews of the Nexus 9 have left many wondering if in fact that tablet is as good as they hoped it would be.  With the price of the Shield tablet being $299, a whole $100 less than the Nexus 9.  It should be interesting to see just how well the Shield tablets holds its own against the new challenger.

The post Nvidia Teases Lollipop Update For Its SHIELD Tablet appeared first on VR World.

Google (NASDAQ:GOOG) reported earnings for the third quarter of 2014, reporting $16.52 billion in revenue and $2.81 billion in profit. This represents a 20% increase year-over-year for revenue, but a decrease of 5% profitability over the same quarter a year ago. Google reported an EPS of $6.35 which is lower than what was expected of $6.53 and a fairly significant miss of Thomson Reuters’ consensus expected price.

Part of the reason why Google missed on earnings was due to the fact that a lot of Google’s foreign earnings grew very well, but as a result of a strong dollar those revenues didn’t translate to as much profit. Google also saw smaller growth in paid clicks, which was 17% rather than the expected 23.5% from Wall Street, additionally the cost per click continued to go down. In the quarter Google reported a decrease of 2% in cost per click which is also why Google may have appeared to not look as good as previous quarters. However, analysts expected that Google’s cost per click would actually go down 4% quarter over quarter, so Google actually outperformed expectations there.

Overall, Google still appears to be a very solid company with very solid profitability with operating profit still representing 23% of revenues at $3.72 billion, which is nothing to balk at. Google also announced three new Nexus devices, the Nexus 9, Nexus 6 and Nexus Play devices yesterday with the Nexus 9 and Nexus Play going on pre-order tomorrow. While it remains to be seen how this new hardware will affect Google’s earnings for the 4Q of 2014, they will very likely be very successful with the Nexus 9 and Nexus 6 as both devices have been long awaited. And realistically, the Nexus devices will mostly sell in the fourth quarter and many will very likely be purchased for the holiday season so we could see Google’s revenue take a slight bump. But even so, it is merely a drop in the bucket in terms of Google’s $16 billion+ in revenue per quarter.

For the company’s 4Q 0f 2014, the biggest earnings will come from increased spending from retailers and advertisers for this holiday season and consumers go to Google to search for things to buy. Since the majority of Google’s revenue and profitability still come from traditional Google search, this holiday season should result in a fairly strong quarter if people are actively searching for products to buy.

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We had recently written that you could expect to see the Nexus 9 and possibly Nexus 6 to launch together today, and thankfully our sources held up and we were right. There were some major leaks of the Nexus 6 as well, and we had pointed to the fact that Android 5.0 would very likely launch alongside the two devices and would carry the Lollipop name. Google gave us enough hints to be right, but it still is nice to know that we didn’t mislead you.

Nexus 9

So, with the Nexus 9, since we had essentially already spilled all the beans there aren’t many surprises for our frequent readers. The Nexus 9 is indeed a 9″ (8.9″ exactly) device made by HTC for Google. It should 2560 x 1440 display (not stated on specs) and feature Nvidia’s 64-bit Tegra K1 chip as we had also predicted. As is expected, it does ship with Android 5.0 Lollipop and has front-facing speakers which is almost a standard feature on any HTC device, so the sound will be great on it. It also packs a fairly average sized 6700 mAh battery, which should theoretically get you 8 to 10 hours of use. Also, it has HTC’s fantastic build quality as well as the addition of a snap on keyboard cover, making it far more useful for productivity than any Nexus before. Google hasn’t stated pricing, but it should be $399 for the 16GB model (there is also a 32GB model) in any of the three colors (Black, White or Tan).

Nexus 6

Following the Nexus 9, Google also announced the Nexus 6 which also had quite a few leaks. The Nexus 6 appears to be a massive phablet version of the 2014 Motorola Moto X, since that device is only a 5.2″ 1080P display. It appears to have the same camera as the Moto X, but does not share the same processor as the Moto X has a Snapdragon 801 and the Nexus 6 has a Snapdragon 805. This is very likely because the Nexus 6 has a 6″ screen and a 2560 x 1440 display as we had rumored it would and the added GPU power of the Snapdragon 805 simply made more sense to employ. As a result the rumor is that the Nexus 6 will be much more expensive than the current Nexus 5. In fact, this new Nexus may not carry a very Nexus price at all, as the rumored pricing puts it at $599 to $649 for the 32GB version and an additional $50 for the 64GB version. Those prices are not confirmed yet on Google’s site, but there’s a likely chance they could stand true with all of the added costs of this seemingly premium phone with a massive 3320 mAh battery. The expected release date is November 13th, but pre-orders should go online later this month.

Nexus Player

Last but not least, is the Nexus Play, which is what many people did not see coming nor were there any rumors of its existence. So, bravo to Google for keeping it under wraps. Essentially, the Google Play is an around $99 Android home entertainment console for Android gaming and media streaming. It is very similar to what Amazon is doing with the Fire Play, but running stock Android and not locking you out of the Google Play Store. Additionally, since this isn’t just a Chromecast-style device you can actually play Android games on it and use it like an Android game console, which it pretty much is. Sorry OUYA. The Nexus Play goes on pre-order on the 17th, like the Nexus 9 so we’ll get official confirmation of price there, but it should be $99 as Amazon just dropped the price of the Fire TV to $79, very likely in anticipation of this announcement. Also, some people may not notice, but it is actually running off of Intel Atom hardware rather than Qualcomm or Nvidia like the other two Nexus devices. This may be a nod from Google showing how they are hardware agnostic and that they support all of the major SoC vendors with the new Lollipop Android 5.0 operating system.

Google has also decided to keep the Nexus 5 up on their Nexus page and to continue to sell it, which may be a good move because many people have been complaining about the Nexus 6’s size even before it launched. Unfortunately, Google isn’t making any hardware changes to it, but it should still get Android 5.0 Lollipop fairly soon.

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As many of you already know, the internet is abuzz with rumors of the new Nexus device. Originally, the rumor was that Google would not be making any more Nexus devices and then rumors started to surface of both a Nexus 6 and a Nexus 9. We’ve been lucky enough to have access to Nexus 9 information, but unfortunately Nexus 6 information is much more tightly held. The new Nexus 6 is going to be a roughly 6″ device which is expected to feature a 2560 x 1440 display along with a Qualcomm Snapdragon 805 SoC to power that additional GPU load expected from such a resolution. Thanks to Evan Blass, also known as Evleaks, we’ve got a leaked unwatermarked image of the Nexus 6.

What a depressing few days. I remember 1 thing that used to make me feel better, tho. No mark in deference to Nexus. pic.twitter.com/76zhSfu8rJ

— Evan Blass (@evleaks) October 14, 2014

  Most other details are still fairly highly rumored, but the expectation is that it will launch alongside the Nexus 9 which is supposed to be unveiled this week. This would make sense because both devices are expected to run on Google’s new Android L release, which is rumored to be called Lollipop. Android L is expected to launch simultaneously with both devices and be available to Nexus users as well. To add fire to the Nexus 9 and Nexus 6 rumors, HTC employee and Senior Global Online Communications Manager Jeff Gordon made the following tweet:

Something amazing, beautiful and highly confidential just arrived. pic.twitter.com/0C1KXI3lqO — Jeff Gordon (@urbanstrata) October 13, 2014

Many commenters on the photo made an obvious observation, that the box was too big for any one phone, very likely indicating that he had probably received an HTC Nexus 9 ahead of the launch which is expected to come tomorrow. Many people believe, logically, that if the Nexus 9 is launching tomorrow that we could very likely see the Nexus 6 come along side it.

I would not say that with 100% certainty because we have not been told this by any of our sources, but it isn’t necessarily something crazy to assume. As such, we have no exact idea when the Nexus 6 is coming, but we do know it’ll be big and very powerful. In fact, many people believe that the Nexus 6 is too big for a phone (myself included) and that Google should also release a more reasonably sized version of the Nexus 6, say a Nexus 4.7″ (obviously not going to be the name). Either way, the Android Lollipop (?) release should be an exciting announcement on its own and perhaps Google believes that people wanting a smaller Nexus device might just stick to the Nexus 5 which should still perform quite well.

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Our sources are confirming that the HTC Nexus 9, which we had originally reported thanks to Nvidia’s own legal documents, will indeed be landing this month. The HTC Nexus 9 will indeed feature Nvidia’s Tegra K1 SoC which confirms the rumors of the previous few months that Nvidia had managed to work their way into the newest Nexus tablet. Another detail we were able to learn is that the MSRP for the HTC Nexus 9 will indeed be $399, which isn’t anywhere near the Nexus 7’s $229 price point but indicates that Google is aiming to bring a premium quality device to market at an affordable price.

Details are still murky about whether or not the HTC Nexus 9 will feature Nvidia’s current Tegra K1 SoC or the 64-bit denver-based variant of Tegra K1 that the company has been teasing since they announced Tegra K1 at CES in January of this year. One interesting point is that in the Nvidia blog, the company specifically states, “And for hard-core Android fans, take note that we’re already developing the next version of Android – “L” – on the 64-bit Tegra K1.” This would indicate that we will very likely see the Tegra K1 64-bit version in the HTC Nexus 9 with Android-L (or Lollipop). This all makes sense because Google has a tendency of requiring their chip suppliers to meet a certain minimum spec list and if they don’t meet it, they’re out. It happened with the Nexus 7 when Qualcomm knocked out Nvidia with OpenGL ES 3.0 support and it looks like Nvidia is now doing it to Qualcomm with 64-bit support in the Tegra K1. Qualcomm won’t have any high-end 64-bit devices until 2015 once their partners start building devices with the Snapdragon 810 and 808. They have already announced the Snapdragon 610 and 410 and some devices are even utilizing these processors now, but they are not considered flagship chips like Google likes to use.

It remains to be seen how good Nvidia’s battery life with the 64-bit Denver-based Tegra K1 will be, especially compared to the quad ARM Cortex-A15 version that’s currently in the Xiaomi MiPad and Nvidia SHIELD tablet. One must also consider that there may be a lot of 64-bit optimizations as part of Android-L which may actually help Nvidia see far greater performance per watt than with quad Cortex A15 chips. We don’t have any performance figures just yet, or battery life figures, but once we do, we will be sure to keep you posted here.

Also, here’s a new little tidbit in addition to us being able to confirm most of the rumors… The HTC Nexus 9 will not sold exclusively by the Play Store, meaning that it should be widely available on November 3rd after pre-orders start on October 15th. The HTC Nexus 9 will actually sell at most major retailers online and B&M from what we’ve been told. This means that Google is clearly trying to target a broader audience but at the same time trying to bring a premium experience. And when you think about the fact that they have mini-kiosks in places like Best Buy that already let you buy most things that are sold on the Google Play Store. We don’t have a complete list of retailers yet, but it does mean that Google expects this launch to be much bigger than ones in the past.

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Today Google celebrated their 16th birthday with a nice big cake laden with a fairly sizable amount of lollipop on the top.

In fact, it seems a bit odd that someone would put that many lollipop candies on a birthday cake, well, that is unless you’re Google. Considering that Google’s next version of the Android operating system carries the “L release” name without an official name, there’s a very good chance that the latest version of Android, possible Android 5.0 will be named Lollip0p. Obviously this is a pretty unsubstantiated rumor, but Google loves to allude to things through their posts on social media. They also like to announce their Nexus hardware along with their newest OS version releases, so October will very likely be a very big month for Google and its users.

Google Birthday GIF

As you can see, Google’s post about their 16th birthday has quite a few lollipops on it and there are some other candies around the cake, but noen are as obvious as the lollipops atop the Google 16th birthday cake. This could be making a mountain out of a molehill, but there’s a very good chance that Google has taken an opportunity like its birthday to tease the public about a new Android release. It is interesting that they use Google Now with a supposed user question about candles on birthday cakes to make it seem more natural, but the fact that there aren’t any candles on the birthday cake may be another reason why this is a hint about Android Lollipop because they are clearly trying to draw your attention to the candleless lollipop laden cake.

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After yesterday’s unbelievably long Google I/O opening keynote, Google published a lot of supporting documents. Some of those documents include the Android L Release’s own Material design and the supporting documentation. If you go through that documentation, you will notice that they have renders of familiar Google hardware. That includes the Google Chromebook Pixel and the Google Nexus 5. However, there is also an interesting device that appears to be an Android tablet sitting between them. That device actually fairly accurately represents the description given by rumors of the potential Nexus 9 tablet that is built by HTC and powered by Tegra K1.

The above render looks nothing like a Nexus 7 or Nexus 10. And it looks like it is clearly quite a bit larger than the Nexus 5, unlike the Nexus 7. There are quite a few rumored renders around the internet including the one that we shared a few days ago, but those don’t look that much different from what Google posted as they are all rumored to be a premium device made from an aluminum body. But the tablet that we was supposedly leaked a few days ago didn’t have front-facing speakers, but the Google leak clearly does. Obviously we can’t confirm much else other than how it looks but this is very promising.

Nexus 9 Volantis Rumored Tablet

I suspect that Google will launch this tablet somewhere between now and October, much like they did with the Nexus 5. They will very likely launch the Nexus 9 in a very quiet manner and will probably do it in conjunction with the Android L Release gold release to the public. The Nexus 9 will take a lot of flak for what the rumored price will be, which is $399 and likely will replace the Nexus 10. Considering the price on the Nexus 9 and Nexus 10 is virtually identical, we will probably see the Nexus 10 finally die its much needed death. The Nexus 10 is quite a dated tablet with very dated hardware and many people suspected that it would be upgraded with new hardware, but instead it looks like Google will be replacing it with the Nexus 9.

The post Did Google Leak the Nexus 9 During Google I/O? appeared first on VR World.

This year’s Google IO opening keynote was by far one of the longest keynotes I have ever watched by a single company, let alone a single presenter (2 1/2 hours long). This year’s announcement was squarely focused on the Android operating system and barely on any hardware at all. In fact, almost all of the hardware mentioned today at Google IO has already been announced in one way or another. So, unlike many were expecting, Google did not announce a new Nexus 6, Nexus 9 or any other Nexus devices. They talked about the Moto 360 and the LG G Watch but that was about it.

Most of Google’s focus at Google IO was around Android L and the surrounding design principals it brings to Android. Many people were expecting Google to give Android L a candy-themed nickname like Lollipop or Lemon Pie, but they’ve continually made it clear that they currently intend to call it the L-release. Perhaps Google is waiting for someone like Laffy Taffy or Lindor Truffles to cross-promote the next version of Android like they did with Kit Kat.

In addition to the stats about selfies and how often we check our phones, and Google’s Android tablet market share (not counting Kindle Fire and other Android forks) Google talked about their new version of Android called Android L Release (for lack of a better name). The L developer preview will have a lot of design and UI improvements as well as developer-focused improvements that will improve the ability to improve performance and battery life.

They are doing this through their Material Design principals that operate on the premise that you are interacting with real materials inside of the phone to make the overall experience feel more realistic. They are accomplishing this with multiple layers of the UI as well as shadows and animations that help simulate a more material UI.

Google is also working on making Android more seamless between features like Google Now, Apps and Chrome so they’re employing the switching ability between different applications to make it more seamless and natural so that each part of the Android OS feels less isolated. You will also notice from the screen shots below and above that Google has decided to change the icons for the soft menu buttons to an arrow, circle and square. Simplifying the overall look of these buttons.

Google also made some pretty significant improvements to the phone’s dialer which includes making the buttons bigger again (one of the biggest complaints about the Kit Kat dialer) and they now have little droplets that animate when you press certain buttons so that you can see where you pressed and get a more ‘material’ feel.

In addition to the UI changes and improvements Google wanted to talk about the major performance improvements in Android L which will come with switching from Dalvik to ART. As you can see from the benchmarks below, a simple switch from Dalvik to ART already renders some impressive performance improvements in certain benchmarks that the Nexus 5 immediately realizes with no other changes. These performance improvements will obviously get realized in Android L and should be available to anyone running certain versions of Kit Kat, especially on Nexus devices.

Also, as we had stated, Google is making Android L a 64-bit compatible and optimized operating system. By adding all of the 64-bit features like larger number registers and newer instruction sets they make 64-bit Android a much more standardized platform rather than one that has to be worked on by Google and their partners. Now that Nvidia and Intel already have 64-bit hardware it seems logical that Google would be pushing 64-bit now, especially since Apple already has the lead on them. The increased addressable memory space won’t likely see much of an improvement in memory capacities for most Android devices, but now if you want to build an Android desktop device you could absolutely do so with 8GB of RAM without worrying about OS limitations.

In fact, they even showed a demo on-stage running on Nvidia’s latest Tegra K1 SoC with Android L and 64-bit, meaning that it is Nvidia’s 64-bit Tegra K1 chip with their own custom ARM cores. Something that their biggest competitor, Qualcomm still has yet to do as their Snapdragon 808 and 810 chips won’t be out until 2015. There’s a very good chance we could see 64-bit Tegra K1 devices by the end of the year, but that is completely unsubstantiated by anything other than the prevalence of Nvidia’s 64-bit K1 being mentioned so many times by companies that are not Nvidia.

There are also some major improvements to the battery monitoring so that you can get a better idea of exactly what’s affecting your battery the most and developers can properly analyze power consumption.

Following that, Google talked a lot about Android Wear and all of the awesome features that it helps bring to Android devices. Those include being able to control content that’s located on the phone, like say recipes or the ability to walk up to the phone and unlock it because the phone knows that the watch you’re wearing is within proximity and that you’re you.  Once you leave your phone it will immediately lock the phone with a password and make it unavailable for anyone to unlock without the password or watch being present. It also has a ton of features that other smart watches already have like music control, health activity, phone calls, text messages and the like. However, they do not appear to have a voice texting system established quite yet like the Toq.

Here at Google IO they announced the new Samsung Galaxy Gear Live, which appears to essentially be a Gear 2 without the camera and running Android wear instead of running Tizen. As you can see from the crowd’s reaction below, it didn’t really get much of a reaction from the crowd. Although, they did show the LG G Watch and Moto 360 later on and eventually ended up giving all attendees a Moto 360 (once it becomes available).

Then, Google announced Android TV, an update to their Android for TV’s platform and essentially showed and entirely revamped UI and search system and improved hardware. They overall improved the operating system’s ability to do exactly what people want it to do, easily organize and search for exactly what they want.

The improved hardware will include Qualcomm, Nvidia, Mediatek, Intel, Marvell, Broadcom and STMicro as SoC partners with Android TV to enable TVs to become smarter and more powerful. That includes TVs from Sharp, Sony and TPVision who will have Android TV in all of their smart TVs in the future and some of which will be available by the end of the year.

Following Android TV, Google also announced Android Auto which is effectively their way to enable Android users to plug their phones into their cars and to ‘cast their device’s display into the dash of the vehicle and to mostly control the applications on the phone over voice control. Google has tons of hardware and automotive companies onboard and will be shipping in some cars by the end of the year, keeping competitive with Apple.

Last but not least, Google also announced the Google Fit platform which is designed to help unify the data between the different fitness apps and hardware that users are currently using with their Android devices to help them stay fit and get better data, which ultimately gets shared with Google since it crosses between apps using Google’s platform. So, once again, Google is looking for ways to figure out more about you and unsurprisingly capitalize on that data by selling you ads more effectively. Sure, its an opt-in system, but you basically surrender all rights once you opt-in for such a platform.

At the end, Google announced that they would be giving everyone cardboard notebooks to write down their thoughts (teasing that there would be a tablet, but not actually giving away one) and then announcing that everyone in the audience would be getting a Moto 360. I’m actually a bit glad that Google didn’t give away a ton of hardware this year because maybe it will make it easier for others to attend in the future that aren’t going for the free hardware like in past years.

Overall, Google made a ton of huge announcements and frankly it was very hard for anyone to follow everything over the course of the 2 1/2 hour keynote, but there were almost no hardware announcements that people were expecting which means we will probably get a Google Nexus 5-like launch for that hardware and people will be scrambling to get it.

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