Register for Google I/O 2011

We’ve been counting down the days until Google I/O 2011 and hope that you have been, too. With 91 days, 22 hours and 45 minutes to go, we’re excited to announce that registration is now open at www.google.com/io. Our largest annual developer conference will take place on May 10-11, 2011 at the Moscone Center in San Francisco, Calif.

The focus of I/O 2011 will be all about the cloud, and feature the latest Google products and technologies including Android, Google Chrome, App Engine, Google Web Toolkit and Google APIs. There will be many opportunities to meet members of Google’s engineering teams and take deep dives into the technologies with more than 100 technical sessions, roundtables and more. The Developer Sandbox, which we introduced at I/O 2009, will be back, featuring developers from more than 100 companies to demo their apps, share their experiences and exchange ideas.

If you liked our HTML5 countdown, stay tuned for more surprises. We’ll keep you posted on the latest developments for Google I/O 2011 at the website, on Twitter (@Googleio) and Google Buzz. Get your tickets early—last year we sold out in record time!

Registration opens with an Early Bird rate of $450, which applies through April 16 ($550 after April 16). Faculty and students can register at the discounted Academia rate of $150, which will be allocated on a first-come, first-served basis.

Learn more and register today at www.google.com/io.

Google Chrome OS Providing Click To Call Functionality

Google Chrome OS, their cloud based operating system currently being tested, provides click to call functionality on all Google blended local search results as well as phone numbers visible in general search results or on web pages. The call is connect over the Google VOIP network. The functionality is available on Google apps on smartphones but not in any other current desktop environment (unless you are using the buggy Skype plug in).

The click to call functionality is “turned off” if the user does not have a Google Voice account or is logged in as a guest.

As long as the number is formatted with parenthesis i.e (716) 204-1297, the click to call functionality is available across the web and not just on Google products.

Click the image to view the original Chrome OS full screen shot:

Several months ago Google was testing an enhanced Google Places Dashboard that included tracking of calls by mobile devices using Google Maps for Mobile.

Given the lack of an industry wide call tracking standard for local it appears that Google will be going it alone in providing call tracking information from software, services and devices that they control.

A Chrome Extension for YouTube Activity Feeds

Slave Jovanovski, an engineer at YouTube, has put together a Google Chrome extension that should be of interest to the YouTube API community. It’s called YouTube Feed, and after installing and authenticating with your YouTube account, it automatically will fetch your YouTube social activity stream (both subscriptions and friends’ actions) while you use Google Chrome. When a new event, like a YouTube friend uploading or commenting on a video, takes place, the extension will notify you and provide details on the activity, as well as links to view the actual video. You have control over which types of activities you’d like to be notified about, as well as how frequently you’d like the extension to check for updates.

While you’ll hopefully find the extension useful on its own merits, the fact that the source code has been released as part of an open source project means that the extension’s code can serve as inspiration (or a jumping off point) for writing your own JavaScript code that interacts with the YouTube API. Curious as to how to use OAuth to authenticate YouTube accounts from a Chrome Extension? Or request JSON data with a JavaScript callback? The answers await you in the source code!