Predictions for Google I/O 2011

As the registration date looms somewhere in the near future, I decided to write my predictions for this years conference. In this post, I will cover my predictions for the registration date and unveilings.

The big topic right now is when the registration will open. Most press releases and announcements are released on a Tuesday morning. Monday is usually the day where people catch up on emails and work from the previous week and weekend. Tuesday is thus the earliest day in the week for publicity to reach an empty inbox.

Vic Gundotra tweeted on Tuesday, January 4th, that “Google I/O registration opens this month”.

History repeats the Tuesday trend with the Google I/O 2010 registration opening on Tuesday, January 12, 2010. Further, Google tweeted on Thursday, November 12, 2010 about the registration date. Therefore:

1. Google will announce the registration date for Google I/O 2011 today (January 13, 2011).
2. The early-bird registration will open on Tuesday, January 18, 2011.

Need further proof that it is coming real soon? The web page for Google I/O has just been updated within the past couple days to fix dates and remove old data.

Now that the dates are out of the way, the following is a list of what I believe will be unveiled at the event.

3. A publicly-available SDK for Google TV
4. The 1.0 release of the new Google Translate that does conversation translations on the fly. This was just released today as an alpha release. With May only being four short months away, Google is likely timing the public release to fall inline with Android 3.0.
5. Devices supporting Android 3.0 (Honeycomb). Google previewed Android 3.0 at CES just last week. Asus is now saying that they may not ship their tablets until summer, allowing preview devices to be distributed at Google I/O.
6. Unlimited storage for Google Docs.
7. Data sync for Chrome OS. Download a file on one Chrome OS machine and it will be synced to your cloud Chrome OS profile.
8. A more public preview of Google’s autonomous cars. In October 2010, Google wrote a blog post stating that they had now driven over 140,000 miles autonomously.
9. And the last prediction will be a far out one… Google TV adds a set-top gaming environment. The games will use Chrome’s Native Client and will have traditional video game controllers.

What do you think will be announced at Google I/O 2011? How far off will I be?