Google and LG may team up for a smartwatch this year

LG could well be building a smartwatch for Google, if reports from Barcelona are to be believed. LG has been a major collaborator with Google in the past with the last two Nexus smartphones and it now looks like the two companies are taking the plunge into the smartwatch category too.   CNET has reported that the news of the deal has emerged from the sidelines of the Mobile World Congress event at Barcelona. There’s, however, a good possibility that other manufacturers may be involved in talks with Google. So it would essentially be a Nexus-like model with the manufacturer signed up by Google. Google reportedly plans to unveil the smartwatch’s operating system in March, saving the juicy bits of details about the watch for the I/O event set to be held in June . Serial leakster @evleaks too confirmed that details about the smartwatch will arrive during the I/O.   The central feature for the smartwatch could well be the Google Now voice assistant, which is also a key part of the Glass app ecosystem. While not much else is known about the smartwatch at this stage,  if and when Google does unveil its smartwatch, it will be facing competition from the likes of Samsung, Sony, Pebble and even Huawei now. Even while smartwach sales numbers have been less than impressive in the past year, tech companies are showing great interest in the segment. Google’s rumoured smartwatch will join the likes of Apple’s mythical iWatch , a device that has reportedly been two years in the making.   This smartwatch could well be the first important announcement Google could make at I/O this year. It’s been reported that the company plans to launch a Nexus 8 tablet and the newest iteration of Android, version 4.5 in July this year and not at I/O. It’s going to be quite interesting to see, then, what Google has planned for its developers’ conference.