Google's Software Sell for Hardware

It was a bit surprising, on Tuesday morning, to see Google's C.E.O., Sundar Pichai, stride onstage in San Francisco's Ghirardelli Square and start talking about the quality of Google's software and the information it brings to people. The event had been billed as a presentation of new hardware devices; some were even describing it as the most significant event of its kind that Google had ever held. And yet, there was Pichai, going on about how Google's software allows people to connect with "over seventy billion facts about people, places, and things." Only at the end of this speech did he get to a hardware-related point: all this impressive software would be embedded in Google's new devices. Google is in the middle of an awkward transition.