Google's annual developer congress and county fair, Google I/O, is traditionally a carnival-style grab bag. This year's show, kicking off with a 9:30 a.m. PT keynote on Wednesday, won't be any different. Google's product portfolio always tends towards the manic, with new ideas appearing and vanishing at a pace that would stun phlegmatic Microsoft and laser-focused Apple. So expect something for everyone at I/O this year. In order of consumer interest, though, here's what most piques my interest.

The Google Nexus Tablet

OK, first, people, Google is not making a tablet. This is very important; this is not the Microsoft Surface. Google will be "blessing" an Asus tablet, which is less terrifying for its OEM partners than Microsoft wading into the tablet market and blowing away all its hardware customers.

We actually saw this tablet at CES, when Nvidia head Jen-Hsun Huang showed it off: it's a quad-core Tegra 3-based, 7-inch Asus tablet. Nvidia said at the time that it would cost $249, but most speculation out there right now is that Google will subsidize it down to $200 to compete more effectively with the Amazon Kindle Fire and Barnes & Noble Nook Tablet. Google is not thrilled by the idea of the nation's most successful Android tablet being an extreme Android variant with all of Google's services removed.

Making the Nexus Tablet a 7-inch device sidesteps the biggest problem with Android tablets today, which is that many third-party apps look lousy on 10-inch tablets. Apps with user interfaces designed for 4- to 4.5-inch screens look decent on 7-inch screens, so Google will be able to tout 400,000 apps available for this tablet.

Android Jelly Bean and Chrome OS

The very first session at Google I/O is titled "What's New in Android?" What's new will be Jelly Bean, which is reported to be Android 4.1. I'm not expecting Jelly Bean to be a huge upgrade, because Google still hasn't been able to get more than 10 percent of existing Android devices onto Android 4.0, which was a major update.

My out-on-a-limb guess is that Jelly Bean will fold Chrome OS into the Android fold. Chrome OS, on Chromebook laptops and Chromebox desktops, has been a market failure, and there are no tracks on Chrome OS development in the Google I/O lineup.

Jelly Bean may also add a non-beta version of Google's Chrome browser and Google's Assistant voice-recognition technology, which competes with Samsung's S Voice and Apple's Siri in terms of providing smart natural-language searches from voice commands.

Fixing Google Play

One of the first sessions at I/O promises "new developments coming soon from Google Play." I really hope so. Google probably means more HD movies and an improved music store. 

But what Google Play really needs is a better way to sort and filter applications by device, so Android tablet owners don't get stuck with lists of big-name apps that look like WAP pages because the designers have never seen an Android tablet in their lives. Android developers also need more ways to easily make money from their apps, and Google needs to get a handle on the huge quantity of spam and junk apps in the marketplace. Fingers crossed.

Continue Reading: Google Drive, Maps, and More>

Google Drive and Cloud

Consumers find these topics stunningly boring, but they're potential moneymakers for Google, and the company has loaded up the I/O sessions menu with ways for developers to leverage Google's Drive and Cloud platform. (Note: Google Drive is the new Google Docs; it is not a navigation program.)

The idea here is for Google to compete with Amazon EC2 as a platform on which businesses can base their apps, getting rid of physical servers and infrastructure to rely on Google's instead. Many businesses have already started to do that - here at PCMag.com, for instance, we ditched our Exchange server for a corporate Google Mail install last year.

Google Maps Downloadable for iOS?

"There [are] a lot of exciting things happening in the world of Maps at Google," the official I/O program says. Google already had a big Maps event on June 6 where it announced offline mapping, improved 3D "fly-by" maps and expansions to Street View. This week, the company slashed prices for businesses using the Google Maps API.

But everyone's wondering how Google will respond to Apple ripping Google Maps out of iOS 6. The most logical approach would be for Google to announce a high-quality suite of Google mapping and navigation apps for iOS at Google I/O, before they're submitted to Apple - and then watch the fireworks if Apple dares reject them from the App Store.

Google TV Restart

Yes, there's a Google TV track at Google I/O. Google TV: it isn't dead!

On the other hand, Google TV is so far an epic failure. While Google TV products keep rolling out, the system has a comically complex remote control and little buy-in from either TV OEMs or content producers. That latter part isn't solely Google's failure; all over-the-top TV solutions have received lukewarm welcomes from content creators addicted to cable-company carrying fees and TV manufacturers addicted to proprietary interfaces (Hi, Samsung Hub!)

If Google really wants to reboot Google TV, it'll have to announce a new interface and some powerful content partners. Otherwise Google TV will putter along as a "hobby," waiting for the day when TV content creators can figure out how to survive without sucking on the cable system operators' teat.

No Larry Page

What do you call a disease that leaves Google's CEO temporarily without a voice? Larry-gitis! (I'm only joking because according to Mashable, he sent around an email saying he isn't seriously ill.)

… And More

Google has a lot of products. Google Wallet has seen poor adoption from banks and wireless carriers, which prefer the to-be-launched ISIS system. Can Google come up with some way to improve its partnerships there? Rumors have been buzzing about a new Google search interface for its core Web-based product. Several sessions on the calendar show Google plugging its Dart alternative to JavaScript for writing Web apps. And what about those kooky Google Project Glass heads-up-display glasses? 

We'll see starting on Wednesday. We'll have analyst Sara Yin and reporter Damon Poeter at Google I/O, so we'll get all the news here on PCMag.com.