[Hardware] Google I/O 2012 set a high-water mark for innovative hardware that has yet to be approached again

[FazzNoth]

Although this year's Google developer conference was well over a month ago, today marks the tenth anniversary of I/O 2012, a landmark event for the company in both good and bad. While we've lamented the loss of joy and whimsy from recent Google events, this particular occasion was anything but. Not only did the company announce some of its most and least loved products on stage within the span of a couple of hours, but it also took to the skies in one of the most daring and infamous stunts in I/O history.

 

Call this event "The Good, the Bad, and the Daring," because of everything that happened on stage ten years ago, the three biggest moments fall into those categories. Let's start with the daring, because it's one of the most insane things to ever occur on stage during I/O.

Ninety minutes into the event, while Vic Gundotra then-Senior Vice President of Engineering was on stage, Sergey Brin came running out, interrupting a fairly dull presentation on Google+ events with some news. Brin is wearing Google Glass, a gadget announced only two months prior and still shrouded in mystery. As Brin calls his demo "time-sensitive," it becomes obvious something special is about to happen, a feeling that only multiplies as he warns, "this can go wrong in about five hundred different ways."

The video screen behind the stage cuts to a live feed of San Francisco, shot from above and showing off a blimp hovering over the city skyline. As Brin tells the audience, he's there to show off Glass, and the specific model he wants to demo has been lent to a friend who happens to be a mile above the show floor. As the camera cuts to inside the aircraft, it becomes obvious we're watching history. Google is about to show a live recording over Hangouts of several Glass-equipped skydivers jumping into the air.

 

Ten years later, it's hard to call the picture quality glorious, and some of the technical issues with broadcasting between the two locations are glaring. Still, it's a wonderful moment to watch in fact, I won't even describe what happens next in any further detail. Instead, just check out the video below. Sergey walks onto stage at about 1:27:45, though I've embedded the actual jump. In case our embed fails, the jump happens at 1:32:27.

The skydivers make their way to Moscone Convention Center, the crowd cheering as their chutes fly open. After just a couple of minutes, the group lands on top of the building, the video feed cutting to a sharper image of everyone celebrating. It was, truly, an absolutely insane feat accomplished by Google, something no one ever would've expected from a developer conference, and it made Glass into a gadget nearly everyone wanted.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technology/google-i-o-2012-set-a-high-water-mark-for-innovative-hardware-that-has-yet-to-be-approached-again/ar-AAYVS17?ocid=BingNewsSearch