Google I/O 2011 Top Picks

Yes, the Android keynote was very interesting and all. Here are my picks for this year's "best of show":

1. ForPlay. Liked the Angry Birds in Chrome demo? I did too but for technical reasons. I immediately wanted to know what they used to port the game. They obviously have a Java version of the game and the physics are powered by Box2d which has a Java port. Angry Birds for the web is built around GWT and this new library. I'm a big fan of GWT and their new release schedule since version 2.1 is really making it easier to use the library for real work. It will be interesting to see what kind of uptake this has with casual game developers.
2. Android tools. Hopefully, soon, we will finally get relief here. The current emulator isn't good and really hampers progress. The current visual designers are also horrible.