Stories by Zach Miners

At Google I/O, no huge surprises but a honing of critical products

Gone are the days of skydivers landing on the tops of buildings wearing Google Glass, or new Chromebooks, tablets and smartwatches. This year, the focus of much of Google's big I/O conference was to propel the Android operating system into new areas others have pioneered, like peer-to-peer payments and smart home appliances.

Google I/O 2015 in photos

Once again, Google I/O was held at the Moscone Center in downtown San Francisco, May 28 and 29. As Google's annual confab for third-party developers, engineers from across the world attended the show to hear about Google's latest products and services. This year, Google revealed, among other services, Android Pay, a new way to purchase items in brick-and-mortar stores using Android smartphones; a developer preview of "M," the next version of the Android operating system; Brillo, a new OS based on Android to control devices in the home and let them talk to each other; and a new photo sharing app called Google Photos.

This smart fabric from Google can change the music and turn off the lights

Wander around the halls of Google's I/O conference and eventually you'll bump into a large table covered with a blue cloth. But being I/O, this is no ordinary cloth. It's a smart fabric developed by Google's advanced technology group that could one day control your smartphone or the lights in your home.

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