As of this posting, there is only 21 hours to go before Google IO!

http://www.google.com/events/io/2011/

I'm clearing my schedule, so that I can soak up as many of the lectures as possible!

There will be a lot of exciting content that should keep us talking for some time.

I don't actually believe this falls under Googles pervue. Technically this is outside the Android OS and is no different from the HTC watch app or the Samsung game hub etc. Each manufacturer is competing for a slice of the pie. Its stuff like this that will determine if they get the gaming slice, video slice etc.

In some respects it actually helps the user determine what device they want because they can tailor it towards what they are into.

Me I am still waiting on the Sensation reviews. But every day I head over to clove and expansys and come close to hitting the "Buy Now" button on the Samsung II S

It most certainly is a concern for Google (forgive me, I don't understand what pervue means -- so I assume the context). The Android Market and Google services are a major source of revenue for Android, and creating new app stores is competition plain and simple. It is within Google's best interest to maximize its market reach and have developers develop in way that can be released painlessly in the app market.

But Tegra-Zone or PS Suite are different than just another app store . Most app stores simply requires the developer to publish the APK to the alternate market. Nvidia and Sony seem particularly keen to confine apps to their markets specifically by targeting branded hardware and tightly holding developers with a suite of development tools. This can effectively exclude a game from being published in a working form anywhere other than the designated store.

One of the talks at Google IO is 'Agressively Compatible Android Games' which show's Google's resolve to educate developers to reach the largest market and keep the market from fragmenting, especially since these incompatibilities are purely synthetic and not driven by hardware. I expect Google to continue to fight for its App Market, and to try to convince the general developer why the larger market is worth targeting.

As such, expect new breakthrough ideas, faster implementations of Dalvik, perhaps even a NaCL implementation for Android.

Oh yeah... The acclaimed time-waster Plants-vs-Zomies will be coming to Android very, very soon:


http://getandroidstuff.com/plants-zo...months-popcap/

It's a fun 'tower defense' like game, that is good for passing the time. My girlfriend loves it, and would certainly love it on a Tab 8.9 .

The Galaxy S II GL Benchmarks have begun to surface:
http://www.glbenchmark.com/phonedeta...chmark=glpro20

This new average is very, very impressive. Compared to Hardkernel Odroid-A development platform (also Exynos 4210), the results are similar, which implies that the resolution is weakly correlated with frame-rates up to at least 1366x768. The bottom line? The Exynos 4210 w/ Mali 400 is looking like a very fast SoC.

The Galaxy S 2 should excel at gaming.

HTC is finally throwing its hat into the Honeycomb Tablet ring.

Featuring the HTC Puccini:

http://pocketnow.com/android/htc-puc...tablet-for-att

Strange name.. On the outside, it looks like a 10" slate, but there's more to this than meets the eye..

One big point of interest is that it supports HTC scribe, making this tablet pen-friendly (no not stylus -- pen). This is a very compelling offer for students, artists, and business people that like to jot notes.

It is also said to support ATT 4G.

This is looking very interesting. Lets hope that it has choice internals.

The HTC Sensation benchmarks are still scant, but there is at least one GL Benchmark measurement.
http://www.glbenchmark.com/phonedeta...tgroup=overall

I reserve judgement until I see more benchmarks on final hardware.

It is way too early yet to draw judgement. The Adreno 220 is a powerful GPU, though coupled with the Snapdragon 8260, I have some doubts as to its performance. It should be interesting, though as we'll see what type of a performance gap we can expect with different SoCs.

Remember the benchmarks for the MSM8660 w/ Adreno 220? They were rather impressive:
http://www.anandtech.com/show/4243/d...0-benchmarks/2

Also remember how poorly the early Galaxy S 2 performed:
http://www.anandtech.com/show/4177/s...00-benchmarked
Updates to the drivers/hardware have had a transformational effect on the benchmark results (GPU bench). Similar can be the case with the Sensation.

Lets see when more results start to filter in.

Speak of the devil...

It seems that GSM Arena has done a 'Clash of the Titans' with the Galaxy S 2 and the HTC Sensation:

http://blog.gsmarena.com/htc-sensati...parison-table/

It's just a spec comparison. Of course we know that specs don't tell the full story.

By pervue I mean that Googles interest is in the OS. Whether a company creates its own market is part of the openess of OS itself. Google do provide some incentives to companies to stick to a compatibility standard but they give you the option and thats what makes android such a diverse (and at times difficult to program for) platform. The market was for the longest time truly awful (back in the early days) and even now its nothing to write home about and forced the creation of new markets. This is simply the evolution of that.
It's a simple fact of human nature that we want something unique and different from everyone else (while still staying one of the sheep of course) and the phone companies are simply providing that by Sense UI, touchwiz, watch or in this case a game.

As far as the market being a major source of revenue http://phandroid.com/2011/02/21/in-o...emarkable-862/

Its a drop in the google ocean.

However the market has the widest exposure for developers and any game creator is going to have to be seriously offset by the phone maker to stop them putting the app out to the world instead of a limited handset market. So I wouldn't be worried to much about this ruining the application/game market for the future.

Well they screwed up the front camera on the Sensation - its a 1.3 MP not 0.3