Google I/O 2023 • Hacker News Board

Re: Google I/O 2023

#21

Post by jefftk » Wed, May 10, 2023, 1:22 PM UTC

packetlost wrote: post #9

jefftk wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When was that? (I expect whatever year you give other people will say it was already just corporate talk before then)

I would say roughly around when they killed their Nexus line.

Ooh, I thought we were going to be arguing about an earlier time. The last Nexus (pretty sure) was the 6P, released 2015-10 and discontinued 2016-10.

I remember this complaint from the IO 2013, when I was there representing mod_pagespeed.

Re: Google I/O 2023

#22

Post by candiddevmike » Wed, May 10, 2023, 1:24 PM UTC

carlycue wrote: post #10

I can’t remember the last time I/O was interesting. I never feel like Google introduces something important or noteworthy.

This I/O is pretty important, IMO, as Google's reputation for being the best cloud for data science is on the line with ChatGPT eating their AI position and BigQuery's waning developer pull. Data is a large driver for companies to use Google Cloud, and without that they're in big trouble, IMO.

Hopefully this I/O gives folks more compelling reasons to use Google Cloud.

Re: Google I/O 2023

#23

Post by Andrew_nenakhov » Wed, May 10, 2023, 1:24 PM UTC

capableweb wrote: post #11

gumballindie wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google is a factory and software is manufacturing. They want to sell their goods to managers not engineers. Makes sense if you think about it. Most of what google does is yesterday’s tech, the web isn’t new and they aren’t making bank by selling stuff to software devs. We want free stuff, preferably open source. There’s so much of it anyway that it has zero value. They might babble a bit about how ai can replace work…

All of that makes sense for Google in general, but Google I/O used to be explicitly a developer conference, with everything targeting developers, which no longer seems true.

Google had built itself such a reputation, that no developers would want building stuff using their tech. Thus, shift to focusing on executives.

Re: Google I/O 2023

#24

Post by kordlessagain » Wed, May 10, 2023, 1:24 PM UTC

clnq wrote: post #18

jefftk wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When was that? (I expect whatever year you give other people will say it was already just corporate talk before then)

Around 2013 is when I/Os became less about showing technological progress and more about corporate talk. Examples of I/O topics before 2013: Android, Maps API, App Engine (cloud), Chrome, AJAX for their APIs, real-time collaboration/Wave, Google TV (early predecessor to Android TV), Chromebooks, Chrome Web Store, Google Drive, Google Docs, Google Glass, Gmail updates, Google+, YouTube updates. Most I/O topics after 2…

Bard needs API access.

Re: Google I/O 2023

#25

Post by jsnell » Wed, May 10, 2023, 1:26 PM UTC

danwee wrote: post #2

I was very enthusiastic about Google I/O in the past (around the year 2010). Full of nice tech talks; I learned a lot. These years, I couldn't care less. It's all business talk. I guess developers are not the target audience anymore (and for newcomers, perhaps the "I/O" may be misleading).

If you pick 10 random sessions from the program[0], I'd think the odds are that you'll end up with like 8-9 technical sessions or workshops. The keynotes of course target a more general audience, but that's always been the case. (E.g. haven't they been announcing consumer hardware during the keynotes basically from the start?). It seems in line with something like the WWDC, which is a developer conference but with a general audience keynote.

[0] https://io.google/2023/program/

Re: Google I/O 2023

#26

Post by verdverm » Wed, May 10, 2023, 1:27 PM UTC

baridbelmedar wrote: post #17

I know I'm going against the grain here, but I'm actually looking forward to the event and plan to watch it :)

Same here, I even took the day off, excited for the ML & Cloud tracks

Re: Google I/O 2023

#27

Post by nailer » Wed, May 10, 2023, 1:27 PM UTC

Is Google relevant? They feel like Microsoft in the Ballmer era, coasting on products released 15 years ago.

Re: Google I/O 2023

#28

Post by maxfurman » Wed, May 10, 2023, 1:27 PM UTC

Am I the only one excited for this conference? My Pixel 4A can't hold a charge any more and I've been holding out for the 7A.

Re: Google I/O 2023

#29

Post by cloudking » Wed, May 10, 2023, 1:28 PM UTC

baridbelmedar wrote: post #17

I know I'm going against the grain here, but I'm actually looking forward to the event and plan to watch it :)

Me too, excited to see what they have planned for Bard and Workspace.

Re: Google I/O 2023

#30

Post by verdverm » Wed, May 10, 2023, 1:29 PM UTC

kordlessagain wrote: post #24

clnq wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Around 2013 is when I/Os became less about showing technological progress and more about corporate talk. Examples of I/O topics before 2013: Android, Maps API, App Engine (cloud), Chrome, AJAX for their APIs, real-time collaboration/Wave, Google TV (early predecessor to Android TV), Chromebooks, Chrome Web Store, Google Drive, Google Docs, Google Glass, Gmail updates, Google+, YouTube updates. Most I/O topics after 2…

Bard needs API access.

There is Vertex AI, which some people are getting early access to (what i hope is) PaLM2 | ULM. The GCP offering only contains tools for your own models, what everyone wants is an alternative to ChatGPT, a pre-trained LLM from Google accessible via API and fine tune-able in Vertex.

There is this in the meantime: https://github.com/acheong08/Bard