Take a photo tour with us through Google’s spectacular, outdoor developer conference.
Google I/O isn’t all developer talks and coding sessions. Well, the majority of it certainly is, but it’s also a festival speckled with things to see and photograph-worthy shrubbery.
The conference takes place at an outdoor venue in the heart of the Silicon Valley, where it’s cool in the mornings and blazing hot in the afternoon. But this year, Google moved most of what’s worth seeing inside into air conditioned tents. The result makes it a tiny bit harder to find some of the technologies on display, but the pay off is a cooled room where you can easily relax while bonding over what’s new with Google.
Welcome to Google I/O 2017.
The Shoreline Amphitheater, where Google I/O is now held annually, is next-door to Google headquarters and a wildlife reserve. Typically just barren festival grounds, this year Google seems to have added more common areas for people to sit and congregate.
Google is offering a fun scavenger hunt around the I/O fairgrounds. Tap your phone to an NFC terminal four times throughout the week and you can take home one of these Android Pay figurines.
There are two tents devoted just to Android Experiments. The one on the right is called Home Screen Arcade, which lets you play a game of Space Invaders (left) on your Home screen. The one on the right is called Giorgio Cam, and it lets you make a melody by snapping different pictures. It uses Machine Learning to figure out what the object it and then turns those labels into lyrics of a song.
Feel like sending a postcard? You can from Google I/O! Grab one of these and drop it in the mailbox to send to a friend.
There are plenty of areas to sit and relax and grab a beverage — water, Coke, or other — under the shade of a tree or an awning in between sessions or just to escape the oppressive mid-afternoon sun. In case you didn’t realize, it’s very hot in Mountain View.
And then when you’re about to go back to work, you can grab a beverage at the Google Assistant-powered Mocktail kiosk, which will whip up a flavorful fruit drink for you.
There are more photos to come! We’ll be updating this throughout the week.
