Bottom line: Lots of new gadgets are coming, along with some new services, and some newish Google offerings are getting a little more consumer traction than maybe people realized.
Among the highlights:
Next month, Google will begin selling laptops that run on its browser-based Chrome OS rather than Microsoft Windows. Brett Molina has a lot of the basics on the so-called Chromebook here. The really interesting wrinkle is that Google will offer the computers on a subscription basis -- $28 a month for businesses, $20 a month for the education market -- or for sale at price ranging from tk to tk. If a subscription plan takes off, it has the potential to remake a lot of hardware businesses, but of course that is a huge ``if.'' Critics said prices on the computers for sale are too high for the relatively underpowered machines you get. But USA Today gadget guru Ed Baig gives a preliminary thumbs up.
The really important news: Angry Birds is coming to the PC, via Google's Chrome Web app store.
PHOTOS: Images from Google's developer conference
Google will make Gmail, Calendar and some of its other online services available offline, the better to use with the Chromebook. It makes them more like some of Microsoft's Outlook functions, which of course makes Google and Microsoft more direct competitors.
Google's Chrome browser now has 160 million users, as new versions for Linux and Apple operating systems expanded its potential base outward from Windows users.
Google Music is now available for beta download, by invitation. The cloud-based music storage service got mixed reviews. Critics moaned about how confusing it is to run, and expressed doubt that Apple will cooperate with people who want to use Google to store music bought on iTunes.
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