In an interview with Wired, Android and Chrome boss Sundar Pichai, who had just recently taken over Android from Andy Rubin, said that this year’s Google I/O is going to focus on developers, and what Google can do for them:

It’s going to be different. It’s not a time when we have much in the way of launches of new products or a new operating system. Both on Android and Chrome, we’re going to focus this I/O on all of the kinds of things we’re doing for developers, so that they can write better things. We will show how Google services are doing amazing things on top of these two platforms.

Pichai’s wording implies that not only are we not going to see any hardware announcements, but we also won’t be seeing any new versions of Android announced at the show either. Both seem at odds with rumors and speculation from the past few months that suggested Google would be showing both a new version of Jelly Bean and a new Nexus 7 at the annual conference.

It would seem strange to not announce at least a new version of Android at I/O, but Google may be holding off on that for a separate event later this year. We also can’t ignore the possibility that Pichai is intentionally misleading us.

Either way, we’ll know for sure on Wednesday when Google I/O kicks off with a three hour keynote beginning at 9 a.m. PST/12 p.m. EST.

[h/t: Engadget]

“The Google Keep Chrome app launches in its own window, so you can create notes, cross out your to-do lists, and attach photos to tasks while you work on other things,” says Google software engineer Eddy Mead in a blog post. “And if you don’t have an internet connection, don’t fret: the Chrome app works offline because we all know that ideas (big and small) can be sparked at any time.”

You can find the app in the Chrome Web Store here.

In semi-related news, rival Yahoo just acquired Astrid, another to-do list app, so don’t be surprised to see Yahoo launch its own Google Keep competitor in the near future.

Google announced that Chrome Beta for desktop can now open Microsoft Office documents directly in the browser. In other words, all of your Microsoft Word, Excel and Powerpoint files can be accessed in the browser without having to open Microsoft Office.

You could interpret this as Google firing a warning shot across Microsoft’s bow, but Google says it’s only watching out for its users:

In addition to saving you time, the Chrome Office Viewer also protects you from malware delivered via Office files. Just like with web pages and PDFs, we’ve added a specialized sandbox to impede attackers who use compromised Office files to try to steal private information or monitor your activities.

If you want to start viewing Microsoft Office files in Chrome, you’re going to first need the Chrome Beta. You can grab that here. Next up, you’re gonna need the Chrome Office Viewer which is also in beta. Google reminds users to help them squash any remaining bugs in the Office Viewer by submitting bug reports whenever things go wrong.

With Legacy Browser Support, businesses that have custom web apps that were built for older browsers will be able to use them with Chrome.

“When companies use browsers that are two or more versions old, employees and developers are unable to benefit from the incredible web innovations of the past four, or even ten years,” writes Chrome for Business & Education Senior Product Manager Cyrus Mistry. “Deploying a modern browser can help IT bolster security, reduce support costs, and improve browser speed and usability for employees.”

“With Legacy Browser Support, employees on Chrome are automatically switched to a legacy browser when they begin using an older app,” he explains. “IT managers simply define which sites should launch from Chrome into an alternate browser, and then set this Chrome policy for all employees. And while Chrome Frame helps developers build apps for older browsers, Legacy Browser Support lets IT admins of organizations embrace the modern web.”

With the cloud-based management feature, employees will be able to access default apps, custom themes, and curated app web stores when they sign into Chrome with their work account, whether they’re on their work computer or their personal computer.

Admins can customize over a hundred Chrome policies and preferences for employees.

That being said, developers are going to have questions, and Google welcomed those questions with open arms during a hangout yesterday with engineering leads Darin Fisher and Eric Seidel. Some of the issues addressed during the hangout include the relationship between WebKit’s and Blink’s codebase, Blink’s support of multiple programming languages, and when we can expect to see Blink hit Chrome.

For more on Blink, check out Google’s exhaustive FAQ.

Google announced that it’s developing Blink, a fork of WebKit that will become the rendering engine for Chrome and Chrome OS. Google is moving to its own rendering engine in the hopes that it can reduce the complexity found in both WebKit and Chromium projects.

There is bound to be some concern from Web developers over Google abandoning WebKit. Google anticipated that concern, and said that Blink won’t bring a lot of change to how developers currently code for the Web. In fact, the initial work on Blink will be strictly focused on “internal architectural improvements and a simplification of the codebase.”

Of course, the greater implication here is that Google is introducing more competition to the Web. Web developers are already having to optimize Web sites for WebKit, Trident and Gecko. Google says that Blink is only a good thing, however, as it feels “multiple rendering engines… will spur innovation and over time improve the health of the entire open Web ecosystem.”

The philosophy held by Google seems to be shared by Mozilla as the non-profit announced a new Web rendering engine called Servo yesterday. The engine, being co-developed with Samsung, is being built with the mobile Web in mind.

It will be interesting to see if Google’s prediction of increased competition comes true. The company says that it will work with other Web vendors to make sure Web standards are observed, and that interoperability is retained. Still, I’ve always been of the opinion that we already have too many rendering engines, but Google and Mozilla may just prove my fears unfounded as we move into this next wave of Web development.

If you want to follow Blink development, check out Google’s project page.

Google announced the improvements to the stable release today.

“In addition, users who add custom words to the dictionary can now sync their settings to bring those changes to all the devices where they use Chrome,” says Google software engineer Rachel Petterson.

The ‘Ask Google for suggestions’ spell checking feature, powered by the same technologies used by Google search, now supports grammar checking, proper nouns, homonyms, and context-sensitive spell checking in English,” she adds.

Windows, Linux and Chrome OS users will get the enhancements in the coming weeks, as Google continues to work on Mac support.

A new Chrome Experiment lets you turn almost any site into a giant, 3D maze that you can play.

You get to control a marble and direct it around the site maze, picking up little blue crystals for points. You have a time limit, and a limited amount of lives.

What’s really cool is that you can sync your mobile device and play with your phone as a controller. You can connect Chrome on mobile to Chrome on your PC using Android 4.0 or greater or iOS 5.

Or, you can just play using your arrow keys. Either way, it’s pretty fun. Definitely more fun than actual work.

Just visit chrome.com/maze to start playing. Shhh…we won’t tell anyone.

[Google Chrome Japan via Gizmodo]

For example, we’ve recently seen indications of Android’s Google Now functionality coming to Chrome. Even more recently, Android chief Andy Rubin has stepped away from leading the operating system, as Google now has Sundar Pichai leading both Android and Chrome.

Now, former CEO and current Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt has come out and said that Android and Chrome will remain separate products, though we can expect more overlap between the two, according to a report from Reuters. He also said that rumors about him leaving Google were “completely false,” which is helpful to know.

It will be interesting to see just how much overlap does take place between Google’s dueling operating systems, particularly as it is now pushing notebooks with touchscreens (the Chromebook Pixel).

Eventually, it seems, it would make sense for the two to converge as the overlap increases, but even if it’s not going to happen in the near future, who is to say that it never will?

Android has already attained massive popularity, but Chromebook options and availability are really just starting to take off. This week, the company announced availability in six more countries.

Well, here’s a bit of good news: The extension is back.

Finnur Thorarinsson, the author of the extension, announced its return on a Chromium issues thread. According to him, it was removed by mistake.

The extension has been updated to remove Google Reader and iGoogle from the lists of supported feed readers, “to prevent [new users] from getting hooked on Reader and then be disappointed in a few months time,” according to the extension’s author.

Here’s what he had to say:

I’m the author of the RSS Subscription Extension (from Google) and I wanted to provide a quick update on what Peter said.

My RSS extension was removed by mistake but it is now up again on the webstore:

It was not _tied_ to Google Reader, per se, since you choose which feed reader to use — but I’ve now removed the Google Reader option for new users to prevent them from getting hooked on Reader and then be disappointed in a few months time.

Also, please note that even though clones of my extension exist in the webstore, some of them were copied a long time ago and have not been updated since. They might therefore be vulnerable to security issues and can not really be recommended without making sure they’ve kept up with the times.

The RSS Subscription extension allows users to quickly add RSS and Atom feeds to a variety of feed readers. That functionality still remains, minus the ability to subscribe via Google Reader.

So, Google, burned down the house and spared one small possession from the fire. For what it’s worth, Thorarinsson himself is just as upset about the whole Google Reader shutdown as the rest of us.

“I’m an avid user of Google Reader and am pretty unhappy about the Reader situation as well,” he says.

[h/t CNET]