At Google’s I/O conference today, Google’s Advanced Technology and Projects (ATAP) research unit offered an update on its interactive textiles project unveiled last year, Project Jacquard. ATAP’s Ivan Poupyrev announced that the company was collaborating with iconic clothing company, Levi’s, to launch a “connected” smart jacket aimed at urban cyclists that will allow wearers to do things like control their music, answer phone calls, access navigation and more, all by tapping and swiping on the jacket’s sleeve. Google’s partnership with Levi’s was first announced last year, but the two companies hadn’t yet disclosed how the clothing maker would implement Project Jacquard’s technology. In case you missed it previously, this project involves weaving multi-touch sensors into clothes in order to make what you’re wearing the new…well…”wearable” computing device.
The idea with this new Levi’s Commuter jacket, explained the company, is to make something that’s both fashionable to wear while also representing a practical implementation of the technology. Today, cyclists often have to fuss with their phone while commuting on busy streets, which is dangerous. With Levi’s Commuter jacket, they’ll instead be able to just touch their jacket’s cuff, using gestures to control various functions they would otherwise need to pull out their phone to do. The jacket will be a part of Levi’s Commuter collection of clothing, which is largely aimed at urban dwellers who ride bikes to navigate their city.

During a demo on stage at the event, the companies showed off how the jacket worked. For instance, running fingers up and down the cuff controlled the music volume. Another feature, “Compass,” was accessed with a swipe.

Total online retail revenue for China, Japan, South Korea, India, and Australia will hit US$1.4 trillion in 2020, and is already larger than the combined online retail markets of US and Western Europe.

these five Asian online economies already outpace the combined online retail markets in the US, and all of Western Europe, according to Forrester, with China and India the two largest and fastest-growing markets worldwide. Having surpassed the US market in 2015, China remains the world's largest e-commerce market, despite seeing its economic growth dip below 7 percent for the first time since 2009.

Google began rolling out the Android Marshmallow update to Nexus devices last October, and the latest trio to receive the update are the Sony Xperia Z3 Tablet, Motorola Droid Turbo 2 and the Blackberry Priv. The release of Marshmallow has been slow for many devices – an issue Google must address. Want to know when your phone will get Marshmallow? Check out our list of devices, from Samsung, Sony, LG, Motorola, Google to see which are in line for the latest Android update.

Android 6.0 Marshmallow update: LG 
After Google, LG was the first company to update one of its devices to Marshmallow. LG G4 users in Poland began receiving the update in October, but there were some technical difficulties and the test was halted. In late November, however, users across Europe began reporting that the Android Marshmallow update was beginning to arrive on their devices. You can check if your device is part of the rollout using LG Bridge, the company's PC sync software. In November, LG made the Marshmallow update available to LG G4 owners in Korea, making the company's home nation the second to receive the update. The software was uploaded to LG's website, which enabled customers to apply the update via their computers. T-Mobile lists the LG G3, LG G4 and LG G Stylo among those devices set to receive Android Marshmallow in the first wave of updates. LG released Marshmallow for the V10 in Turkey. As this model is the international variant, it hopefully means a larger scale roll out won't be far behind.

Google will reportedly unveil its much-rumored virtual reality headset at its I/O developer conference next week, The headset-dubbed "Android VR" will supposedly be a self-contained device, according to Peter Rojas, founder of Gizmodo and Engadget, and now entrepreneur-in-residence at Betaworks.

As a self-contained VR headset, Android VR won't need a smartphone to power it 

According to Rojas, Android VR will supposedly offer a better VR experience than the Gear VR, but not quite as advanced as the Oculus Rift or Vive.

Several reports from earlier in the year offered conflicting insight as to exactly what kind of VR headset Google was working on. It's possible Google will release two versions: a self-contained Android VR headset that "aims for the middle ground" as reported by the "Wall Street Journal "and possibly a headset that's more similar to Gear VR and requires a smartphone, but will work with more than just Samsung phones.

Several reports from earlier in the year offered conflicting insight as to exactly what kind of VR headset Google was working on. It's possible Google will release two versions: a self-contained Android VR headset that "aims for the middle ground" as reported by the Wall Street Journal and possibly a headset that's more similar to Gear VR and requires a smartphone, but will work with more than just Samsung phones. There will be an option for distributing apps on Android VR. Cost is also the other big question.

 If Android VR is more powerful than the Gear VR, it'll also likely command a higher price than than the $99 Gear VR sells for. But since it'll also reportedly be less powerful than the Rift and Vive, we expect it to fall below the $500 and $800 those headsets cost respectively. A price anywhere between $100-500 seems fair for a standalone Android VR headset. It's not like self-contained VR headsets don't exist. Sulon Technologies's Sulon Q headset, unveiled in March, is "the world's first and only tether-free, wireless wear-and-play headset that combines virtual reality, augmented reality and spatial computing into an all-in-one platform." Google's plan to release a midrange VR headset could help make VR mainstream sooner rather than later.