Google showed off a VR system called Daydream, along with plans for headsets that will compete with Facebook's Oculus Rift. In a jab at Amazon, the company announced Google Home, an Internet-connected speaker that listens for your voice commands to play music or control lights and thermostats in the home. It is reminiscent of Amazon's Echo and will be available later this year for a yet-unannounced price. In an attempt to outshine Apple, Google is also adding features to its Android operating system, including the ability to run apps without actually installing apps. That's perhaps the one truly new thing Google announced Wednesday. It is Google's answer to the pain of installing phone apps you know you'll use just once or twice, for shopping or booking a parking spot, for example.

If there was a theme to Google's 2016 developers conference, I/O, it was everything you've seen before -- but smarter. More than 7,000 software developers packed the Shoreline Amphitheater in Mountain View, Calif., on Wednesday to hear Google executives talk about products and features coming to consumers and the developer community. With nearly half the amphitheater exposed to sunlight, the tech giant handed out free sunglasses and sunscreen to attendees, who supplemented with their own caps and parasols. A few developers covered the tops of their heads with Google t-shirts and bandanas. The event had been held in San Francisco's all-indoor Moscone Center for the last 10 years, but Google Chief Executive Sundar Pichai told the audience that I/O was breaking tradition to signal new beginnings (if not new tan lines).

Android Studio 2.2 will launch in preview on Wednesday with a bevy of improvements designed to improve speed and application development. Google said that Android Studio will feature emulators that will run faster than the devices apps are designed for. Android Studio will provide faster builds, test code and record it and run locally or via a cloud test lab. Layout will also be tweaked to handle work for rich user interfaces in the background. The preview channel will have the latest version for a test run.

Google said Android N has gone beta and includes virtual reality hooks as well as productivity, security and performance improvements. Dave Burke, vice president of engineering, said Android N is available as a beta to be tried out on primary devices. "A lot of the features in N were inspired by users," said Burke, who added that Google was holding a naming contest to define what the "N" should stand for as a code name. Perhaps the most notable item in Android is the push into virtual reality. Google has a reference design called Daydream with specs for smartphones.

Google is breaking down the walls between web sites and apps in a move that aims to make the two sides of mobile almost interchangeable. For developers, Google's Instant Apps, which were unveiled at Google's I/O conference, the search giant's move offers some interesting possibilities. For Google, breaking down the silos between apps and Web sites means it can bolster monetization. Instant Apps will download just the code needed to complete an action without an app installation. Technically these are deep links.

The speaker is part of Google Assistant which aims to take on Amazon's Alexa and Apple's Siri. Speaking at an event in California, Google's vice president of product management says the speaker will be available at the end of the year

Google had a lot to showcase at its annual developer conference on Wednesday, from a new home virtual assistant to plans to delve deeper into virtual reality. This year's Google I/O focused heavily on machine learning and VR, and how these technologies are being applied to Google's core products. Google Home, launching later this year, is very much what it sounds like: a virtual assistant for your house. It's a voice-activated device meant to be placed in the home that allows for access to Google when your phone isn't nearby. The company also positioned the device as a smart controller for the home during its presentation, saying it's capable of communicating with nearby connected gadgets like smart light bulbs and Nest devices.

It can be a pain to install phone apps you know you'll use just once or twice. The app runs on Google's servers instead of your phone. Only the parts you need get sent to your phone on an as-needed basis. If it works as Google envisions, without lags and other annoyances, users won't have to spend a few minutes downloading and installing that app and having it take up valuable space on the phone. The app maker needs to enable this feature, though.

Jefferson Graham reports from Google's I/O developer conference, where the Internet giant introduced new home products and apps aimed at having Google make your life easier. The standalone device will compete directly with Amazon's popular Echo and should be available to consumers later this year, Google CEO Sundar Pichai announced at the search company's annual developers conference, Google I/O. The move had been anticipated, as Google looks to put its mark on a coming age of artificial intelligence in which machines learn to interpret and answer human queries by leveraging the speed and scope of cloud computing. Though smartphones still hold a lock human-computing interactions, the surprise hit of Amazon's Echo speaker has energized a new category: speakers run by digital assistants connected to a tech giant's app and content ecosystem. Google Home project lead Mario Querioz held the device in his palm, revealing a design that was shorter and wider than Amazon's cylindrical Echo, which is powered by Amazon's virtual assistant Alexa.

If the brand-new, voice-activated Google Assistant inhabiting Google Home could somehow have a private conversation with Alexa, its counterpart and soon-to-be rival inside Amazon Echo, the conversation would ask: "What the heck is Siri up to?" The question takes on added relevance now that Google has unveiled Google Home, its promising, off-rumored answer to Amazon's increasingly popular--and increasingly versatile -- Echo speaker. If Google Home lives up to its promise, and we won't know for sure until this small, yet-to-be-priced, always-listening appliance shows up later in the year, then we'll have another relevant voice-driven device inside the house to play music, control the appliances (Nest anyone?), and, yes, leverage Google's expertise in search. Moreover, Google Home, which brings to mind Google's OnHub routers, also communicates with the Chromecast device you might have plugged into your TV, leading to all sorts of intriguing possibilities with YouTube and other Google properties. So yes, we have Google Home versus Amazon Echo, and it's worth noting that Google CEO Sundar Pinchai credited Amazon during his I/O remarks for "creating a lot of excitement in this space."