Google I/O Conference Kicks Off With New WebM Video Format

by Sam Dean - May. 19, 2010Comments (2)

The annual Google I/O conference at Moscone Center in San Francisco kicks off today, following Google's announcement all the way back in March that the event is sold out, with more than 4,000 attendees expected. Those who can't attend, though, shouldn't fret. Conference organizers have confirmed that this year's sessions--and there are many of them--will be offered in archived versions online. You can watch the keynotes live at the Google I/O YouTube channel, and many sites are aggregating news from the conference.

This year's Google I/O event features 80 sessions, more than 5,000 developers, and over 100 demonstrations from developers showcasing their technologies. You can tweets updating news from the conference here. The complete session schedule is housed here.

Android applications will have a big presence at this year's conference, and there are now more than 50,000 applications available. Among other things to be unveiled, DataViz will show off its Documents To Go application, which supports Microsoft's Office 2010 suite. Among some of the sessions that look promising are:

A Beginner's Guide to Android
Developing Android REST Client Applications
Google Chrome's Developer Tools
Chrome Extensions--How To

As expected, Google kicked off the conference by announcing its new royalty-free video format WebM. Designed to compete with H.264, WebM has the backing of Mozilla, Opera and, of course, Google's own YouTube. The format is based on technology that Google acquired from On2 earlier this year, and it promises to heat up competition in the video codec wars. As NewTeeVee notes, Google is open sourcing the underlying VP8 technology.

Stay tuned for more updates from the conference this week, and see GigaOM's early news coverage.