The Week Ahead: Trying To Make Sense Of Google's Android Ambitions

The Fourth of July is coming this week, and as a result, it's going to be pretty slow in the tech world, as far as events go. (There will be a flurry of economic data, though.)

In lieu of actual events, what will be keeping our eyes on?

Well, over the weekend, news broke that Facebook conducted an experiment on ~700,000 users to see if it could influence their emotions by showing them positive or negative posts. It turns out (unsurprisingly) that Facebook can influence emotions. We'll be watching the fall out from that over the next couple of days.

Last week Google announced a new version of Android, as well as a bajillion other things - Android Wear, Android Auto, Android TV, Google Fit, and more. In this shortened week, we expect people to dig into those announcements, and unpack all the changes Google made to Android.

We also expect to see a lot of talk about Android Wear, which Google's software for a smartwatch. Tech companies desperately want to make smart watches a thing, but so far there's been almost no reason to buy a smart watch. The early reviews on Google-powered smart watches are negative. Apple is expected to come out with its own smartwatch.