What does Google have up its sleeve? The tech behemoth quietly sent out invitations on Wednesday night to an event scheduled for 10am EST in New York on October 29.
The only clue as to what the company intends to announce is a single line that reads: "The playground is open."
With all the attention on upcoming Apple and Microsoft events, much of the media's focus on Google of late has moved from speculation about upcoming products to its privacy policies and whether or not they breach EU or US federal law.
However before that, rumors had been rife for a while that Google was planning to launch a sub-$100 tablet, an improved 32GB Nexus-7 tablet and not one, but two Nexus-branded smartphones. Another rumor that came up was that it was days away from launching a completely new version of Android, despite the fact that almost no one in the world has yet been given the chance to upgrade to the current latest version. Rumors that have started to gain traction again over the last seven days or so.
It's also worth considering the content of Google executive chairman Eric E. Schmidt's address to its biggest advertisers and partners at the Google Zeitgeist sales conference on Monday. In it he talked about a future where his bed will wake him automatically at the optimum moment, his car will drive him to work, a robot will go to parties on his behalf while another, microscopic, robot swam around inside him diagnosing potential illnesses and alerting the relevant medical specialists. He also underlined how Google was going to be part of that future.
{{/usCountry}}It's also worth considering the content of Google executive chairman Eric E. Schmidt's address to its biggest advertisers and partners at the Google Zeitgeist sales conference on Monday. In it he talked about a future where his bed will wake him automatically at the optimum moment, his car will drive him to work, a robot will go to parties on his behalf while another, microscopic, robot swam around inside him diagnosing potential illnesses and alerting the relevant medical specialists. He also underlined how Google was going to be part of that future.
{{/usCountry}}So the announcement could be related to a new phone, or it could be that Google has had an astounding breakthrough regarding Artificial Intelligence. The tech world will have to wait until Monday, October 29 to know for certain.