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Enlarge (credit: Google)

MOUNTAIN VIEW, CALIFORNIA—Today Google is releasing the third developer preview of Android N, the new version of Google's mobile operating system due this fall. Developer Preview 3 continues to tweak existing features while adding new ones, and stability should also be improved; Google tells us that it considers this build to be "beta" quality, ready for developers and more-ambitious users to use it as their daily driver.

One of the largest additions is something we found evidence of in the second preview build: a new Google-developed VR service that will make it easier to turn compatible Android smartphones into modest VR headsets like Samsung's Gear VR. We have more on the feature and its system requirements in a separate article.

Also new to DP3 is a revised partitioning scheme that borrows from ChromeOS in order to expedite the installation of system updates. Android N is already using a combination of just-in-time (JIT) and ahead-of-time (AOT) code compilation to get rid of the lengthy "app optimization" part of system updates. DP3 reduces the amount of time your phone actually shuts down to install updates to the system partition. Theoretically, Android updates should now work more like ChromeOS updates: install them in the background and then do a quick reboot to make the update take effect.

Today, Android N is killing the "Installing System Update" screen. Earlier, Android N killed the "optimizing apps" screen. Overall we should see much faster update installs.

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif.—With Google I/O comes a fresh version of the Android N Developer Preview—we're now up to Developer Preview 3. Google is calling this version of N its "first beta-quality candidate" and is encouraging a wider audience to try it out. Both OTA and image download should be available for the Nexus 6, 9, 5X, 6P, Nexus Player, Pixel C, and Android One (General Mobile 4G).

There's two headline features in this release. The first is a new VR platform, which we're covering in a separate article. The second will make for some great headlines: "Android copies Chrome OS update system!" But it's probably not what you're thinking. Yes, Chrome OS and Android are getting a little closer together, but Android is just borrowing the update installation method from Chrome OS, not the part where Google has full control over everything and delivers reliable updates.

Updates, once they are created by your OEM, approved by your carrier, and downloaded, will now be applied "seamlessly," just like on Chrome OS. You'll be on version 1.0, reboot, and you'll be quickly, transparently upgraded to version 2, without having to wait for any "Android is upgrading" dialog boxes.

Alan Brenner, speaking at BlackBerry DevCon 2010. Brenner, a former Sun executive who dealt with Java licensing, testified on behalf of Oracle in federal court today. (credit: David Paul Morris/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

SAN FRANCISCO—Oracle put two former Sun Microsystems executives on the stand today to testify about how Google's Android hurt the market for Java licensing to phones.

It's the eighth day of the Oracle v. Google trial, the second showdown in a legal dispute that began in 2010, when Oracle sued Google over the use of Java APIs in Android. In 2012, a judge ruled that APIs can't be copyrighted at all, but an appeals court disagreed. Now Oracle may seek up to $9 billion in damages, while Google is arguing that its use of the 37 APIs in question constitutes "fair use."

First to the stand was Neil Civjan, Sun's head of global sales, who testified about how the company's substantial business licensing Java for mobile phones tanked after the launch of Android.

(credit: Google Home)

At its I/O developer conference today, Google unveiled Google Home, a hardware device shipping later this year, and Google Assistant, a conversational digital personal assistant. With this pair of announcements, the company is going head-to-head with Apple's Siri, Microsoft's Cortana, and most significantly, Amazon's Echo and its Alexis voice agent.

The Home is a small round gadget with microphones and speakers that's always listening for your questions and commands. It will plumb into home automation, including Google's own Nest, and it will broadcast video and audio to Chromecast sticks; this is all driven by an always-listening voice interface.

Google's conversational assistant is in the same vein as Cortana and Siri, Google Assistant. Google Assistant will be on phones and wearables too, and Google says that it will be better at picking out the context of what you're doing than any of the competitors. As an example, when standing near Cloud Gate, better known as The Bean, in Chicago, you can ask Google Assistant "Who designed this?" Based on your location alone, Assistant will understand that you're probably referring to the large shiny sculpture in front of you, and answer "Anish Kapoor."

(credit: Cole Marshall)

Charter Communications today said it has closed its acquisitions of Time Warner Cable and Bright House Networks following approvals from the Federal Communications Commission and regulators in California, the final state that had to sign off on the deal.

Charter has nearly quadrupled in size as a result of the transactions, going from 6.8 million customers to about 25.4 million in 41 states, second in the US after Comcast's 28 million. The merger drew opposition from some advocacy groups, including one that took to calling the new Charter "Mega Cable." The cost of the acquisitions was originally expected to be about $67.1 billion, though Charter will reportedly end up paying a bit more than that.

Charter's announcement today said, "The completion of the transactions will drive investment into the combined entity's advanced broadband network, resulting in faster broadband speeds, better video products, more affordable phone service, and more competition for consumers and businesses."

Buzz Aldrin, left of President Obama, visited the Oval Office in 2014. (credit: NASA)

Of all the Apollo astronauts that walked on the Moon, none has made more of his fame than Buzz Aldrin, who followed Neil Armstrong onto the lunar surface in 1969. But long before he danced with the stars and inspired Buzz Lightyear, and even before he served as the Apollo 11 lunar module pilot, Aldrin was known as an expert in orbital rendezvous.

In recent years, Aldrin has used his astronautics expertise and fame to push a cycler concept that he believes would be the best way to visit and eventually inhabit Mars. In his public lectures, however, Aldrin has largely avoided criticizing the present approach being taken by NASA with the development of the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket and Orion spacecraft and its two-decade "Journey to Mars."

That changed at this week's Humans to Mars conference. In his remarks, Aldrin said NASA should change the approach it has had in place since the 1960s, that of designing and managing development of its own rockets. He took direct aim at the SLS vehicle, which he reminded listeners was based on 1970s technology and the space shuttle rather than more modern concepts. "It competes with the private sector," Aldrin said. "I thought most of us were in the process of learning that the government shouldn't do that."