A demo of Dataflow APIs.

At Google's I/O keynote on Wednesday, the company announced several cloud-based services that allow developers to back up and monitor their apps and integrate database analytics within their code. Google calls its new services Cloud Save, Cloud Debugger, Cloud Tracing, Cloud Monitoring, and Cloud Dataflow.

Cloud Save is perhaps the most interesting.

"If you have a game that runs on Android, iOS, and the Web, you can use the Cloud Save service to allow a user to start a game on their Android phone and then continue playing on a tablet, iOS device, or Web browser without losing any of their progress," Google said. "This service can also be used to ensure that a user's gameplay continues from where it left off, even if their device is lost, destroyed, or traded in for a newer model."

Former IRS official Lois Lerner giving testimony to a Congressional committee in 2013. The IRS says it can't find her e-mails from before 2011.

During a hearing held yesterday by the House Oversight Committee, Committee Chairman Darrel Issa said that it was “unbelievable” that the IRS had lost the e-mails of former IRS official Lois Lerner. While Congressman Issa is not generally ignorant on tech issues, he’s clearly not familiar with just how believable such a screw-up is.

The IRS claims that many of Lerner's e-mails were lost when the hard drive on her desktop computer crashed in 2011. In a Monday night hearing, IRS Commissioner John Koskinen told Issa and the Oversight Committee that there was no way to recover these e-mails. “If you have a magical way for me to do that," he told Issa, "I’d be happy to hear about it.”

The IRS is not the only federal agency to lose e-mails over the past few years. In fact, despite efforts at many agencies to standardize and improve e-mail by moving to services like Google Apps for Government and Microsoft Office 365 Government, many agencies still run their e-mail like it’s 1999. It’s not just a technology issue—it’s an IT policy issue, a staffing issue, and a cultural issue within government, one that the federal government shares with many private corporations.

Google's biggest event of the year, the I/O 2014 developers conference in San Francisco, was interrupted today by a stark reminder of the growing class divide in the city: a protester shouting about evictions allegedly caused by a Google employee. The protester, whose identity has yet to be confirmed, began shouting in the middle of Android engineering director Dave Burke's talk at San Francisco's Moscone Center. She held up a T-shirt that read "develop a conscience, stop Jack Halprin," as seen in the photo above and below.

Halprin, a Google attorney who wasn't on stage at the time, has been the target of protesters before. In April, demonstrators assembled outside Halprin's seven-unit home in San Francisco's trendy Mission Dolores neighborhood, protesting his alleged eviction of all other six tenants from the property. At least two of the tenants said they were local teachers in San Francisco, as SF Examiner reported at the time.

At I/O today, the protester was quickly escorted out by security, and Burke seemed mostly unfazed by the disturbance. He later joked about the incident, saying the new Android version L's battery saver feature would be good for the protester: "Maybe you're taking a long hike, or maybe a long protest."

Developing. Check out our Google I/O Live Blog for the latest updates!

Google is adding Android mirroring support to Chromecast. While Chromecast, as the name suggests, has been limited to Chrome tab streaming, that’s being extended to a number of Android handsets soon. HTC’s One M7 is supported, alongside LG’s G2 and G2 Pro, and Google’s Nexus 4, Nexus 5, Nexus 7 (2013), and Nexus 10 devices. On the Samsung side the Galaxy Note 3, Galaxy S4, and Galaxy S5 will all support Android screen mirroring to Chromecast. More devices will be supported soon, but the Moto X is one prominent device missing on the list for now.

Google’s $35 Chromecast streaming device is also getting an upgrade later this year to allow anyone to stream content to a TV. Chromecast currently supports casting from Android devices, but you must be on the same Wi-Fi network to stream content. That’s changing soon, with an opt-in feature that lets Chromecast automatically detect and authenticate nearby Android users. If the automatic detection fails or you’re not nearby then a PIN will act as a way to authenticate with a Chromecast, and it’s clearly designed to make it easier for friends to stream content from their Android devices to any Chromecasts nearby.

Developing. Check out our Google I/O Live Blog for the latest updates!

Google is working to bring Chrome OS and Android closer together, and that'll eventually mean having Android apps running right on a Chromebook. "We're in early days," Sundary Pichai, Google's Chrome and Android chief, said today. At Google's I/O developer conference, he showed how the Evernote Android app looked while running on Chrome OS.

Developing. Check out our Google I/O Live Blog for the latest updates!

Google's suite of productivity software has been making inroads against competitors like Microsoft Office, and the company is ratcheting up the pressure with Drive for Work. As announced at today's Google I/O conference, the program will offer users unlimited storage on Google Drive for just $10 a month per user. In addition, Drive for Work will include enhanced administration controls better suited for corporate environments, and a set of APIs that will help administrators keep track of the work employees are doing.

It's just one of several tweaks to Google Drive that the company announced today. A new "suggested edits" feature will assist users that need more sophisticated redlining features for collaboration, and thanks to the integration of Quickoffice users can natively edit files from Microsoft Office in both Docs and Sheets. According to Google, Drive has 190 million users that have been active over the last 30 days — and with the addition of Drive for Work we wouldn't be surprised to see that number increase in the coming year.

Developing. Check out our Google I/O Live Blog for the latest updates!

First booted up three years ago and only now finally loading its director prompt, MGM’s remake of WarGames is moving forward on an update aimed at today’s Internet-bred audiences, telling the story of how you’ll never believe how my sister’s cousin made $7,240 in four weeks starting a global thermonuclear war from home, click here for more info. According to The Wrap, Project Almanac director Dean Israelite is stepping in for the departed Seth Gordon, replacing the latter’s retro-’80s technology fetishism with his own familiarity with time travel. 

The latest draft of the script hails from Arash Amel, whose work on the Nicole Kidman-starring Grace Of Monaco has obviously given him experience with mechanical simulations. And in the running for the lead of the “teenage hacker”—the kid who unwittingly uses his computer to unleash a world-destroying virus, when he should be destroying ...

During an MTV interview for this summer’s blockbuster alternative Obvious Child, Jenny Slate said she’s plotting a feature-length film starring her adorable stop-motion creation, Marcel The Shell. Marcel The Shell With Shoes On was first introduced through a pair of short films, in which Marcel talks about the various activities, hobbies, hopes, and disappointments of a tiny shell, then discusses with an off-camera interviewer just how tiny he is. (Small enough that he ties skis to his car with a strand of hair.) Slate says she’s planning for the feature-length Marcel to have lots more songs; a preview of the self-explanatory “My Mother Got Lost In The Rug” can be heard below. While there’s nothing official about any of this yet, it’s safe to say that this tiny shell has enough charm to adapt to the big screen. 

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