Expect a heavy dose of IoT at Google I/O 2016: Forrester analysts

Google jumped on to the Internet of Things(IoT) platform bandwagon at Google I/O last year by announcing Brillo, an underlying operating system for the Internet of Things and Weave – a communications platform for IoT devi ces. Analysts at Forrester tell us to expect more of IoT at Google I/O 2016. Forrester analyst Jeffrey Hammond adds here, “Hopefully there will be a follow-up to last year’s Brillo announcements, and the recent open sourcing of Thread.” Tech2 recently put its own list of speculations together. A strong contender there was Virtual Reality. And given the nature and applications of the technology, we believe that it ties into almost every other emerging technology from Google. Hammond concurs to the theory saying, “(We can expect) an update on Glass, as Microsoft is pushing ahead pretty rapidly with Hololens, and Samsung as well as HTC are making headway in VR as well. Of course Google has Cardboard, but they really need to take a step beyond that.” Google is also expected to make some announcements about its Chrome OS and Android. “On the mobile side, there haven’t been any major innovations from Google around Android or Chrome in some time. I therefore expect to see a push around mobile, driven by the Web (through Chrome), along with new innovations around Google Now and Now on Tap,” says Forrester analyst Michael Facemire. Continuing on the mobile experience, Facemire believes Hangouts is also in for a facelift. He says, “Google’s Hangouts experience is starting to feel rather dated. As messaging platforms (and the bots that run on them) become more and more important to the mobile experience, it would be strange for Google to continue to stay stagnant there.” Facemire also points out that Google I/O this year isn’t the massive event they’ve had in the past. Developers had to submit an application and be accepted to attent. “The announcements at Google I/O should therefore be highly developer driven,” believes Facemire.