William Flew

Do you remember when they used to say that one day you will be able to control all the electrical devices in your home from your computer? Well, that time has arrived. As part of its push to Google-ify every aspect of our lives, the search engine giant has created a new protocol that potentially can turn anything from toasters to floor lights, from washing machines to sprinkler systems, into connected devices controlled by smart phones or tablets running its Android operating system. Yes, Android is invading our homes.

Imagine, for example, being able to link the alarm clock on your phone to your bedroom lights and your music system, so that the lights and music come on low ten minutes before wake-up time, gradually ramping up the brightness and the volume until your desired time of rising. Or how about being able to water the plants while you are on holiday?

The first Android-controlled device on the market is an LED light bulb, manufactured by the Florida-based LightingScience. The $40 bulbs, which the company says will last 50,000 hours, have a tiny built-in transceiver, which connects wirelessly to a “bridge” or control box that can send it commands that have been entered on an Android device. “Lamps in your home can be arranged in different networks, which can all be controlled separately from your phone wherever you happen to be,” Tom Benton, LightingScience’s vice-president for marketing, said at Google’s I/O developer conference in San Francisco this week, where his new product was showcased.

Because Google has made its home automation protocol “open source”, Mr Benton is convinced that other electrical device makers will not be far behind: “It’s open source, so manufacturers can do anything they wish. There will be no shortage of appliance makers leaping in.”

This enthusiasm for open source has been behind the phenomenal growth of Android, Hugo Barra, Android’s product management director, told delegates to the conference — an annual event at which 5,000 developers converge from all over the world for updates on the latest developments at Google. He noted that since its launch three years ago on a single T-Mobile phone, Google’s Android system had become available on 310 Android devices in 112 countries; about 4.5 billion Android apps have been installed and 400,000 Android devices, smart phones and tablets are being activated every day.

“From the very beginning we have taken a community-driven approach, where we have designed and built an operating system that’s open and that others can build products around. It leads to products that are customisable but compatible. And it’s a strategy that allows our partners — companies such as Samsung, HTC, Motorola, Sony Ericsson — to build products using the operating system that we developed and then to add their own flavour, flair and differentiation. Our partners and the open source community have taken the platform that we built and delivered amazing things that we ourselves couldn’t have imagined.”

But Google is not stopping there. Having thrown open its software, it  has said that “interactive games” will be eligible for grants for the first time in 2012. The decision will be seen by many in the industry as marking a clear end to the “are games art?” debate — but it is unlikely to lead to any government crop subsidies for FarmVille players. has developed a toolkit that will enable developers to build hardware accessories, such as headsets, docking stations, game controllers or even devices such as exercise bikes that work with Android devices.

What exactly does Google expect them to produce? It has no idea. But that’s the point, according to Andy Rubin, head of Android. If Google knew what they were going to produce, it would do it itself: “You let these Androids out of their cage, they have feet and you have no idea where they go. That’s the great thing about open source.”

Social network or search engine?

Google’s Android system may be helping it to beat off competition from Apple in the smart phone and tablet markets, but in another sphere it is facing a significant challenge. This time from Facebook.

For years, Google Search and Google News have been the dominant players in sending traffic to digital news sites. Now a new study from the Pew Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism suggests that things are changing. It examined the top 25 news websites in popularity in the United States and used nine months of Nielsen market research data to look at how users got there.

While direct traffic to news websites makes up between 60 and 65 per cent of the total, traffic from links accounts for 35 to 40 per cent, with 30 per cent of traffic to the top sites coming from Google. But the study showed that Facebook, with about 500 million users worldwide, is emerging as a powerful news-referring rival. At five of the top sites, Facebook was the second or third-most important driver of traffic, accounting for 6 per cent of traffic to The New York Times and 8 per cent to The Huffington Post.

“Few domains affect audiences this much,” the study suggests, adding that “Facebook is beginning to join Google as one of the most influential players in driving news audiences.

“If searching for news was the most important development of the last decade, sharing news may be among the most important of the next.”