Outgoing Google CEO Eric Schmidt spoke at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona today. Much of his speech was a bit of a pep talk about what is to come (faster speeds, more cloud computing, more personalized search, better apps) and the CEO held a lengthy Q&A session where he discussed Facebook and Android Ice Cream. In between, he did take some time to introduce a new product: Movie Studio for Android.
The new tablet app from Google aims to begin changing the perception that tablets are only meant for consumption. Using the Android 3.0 Honeycomb-powered Motorola Xoom, a Google executive named Gill (no last name was given) put together a short video slideshow of his time in Barcelona thus far.
To demonstrate the power of the cloud, he pulled pictures that were already uploaded to his Picasa account and uploaded them into Movie Studio, which resembled a light video editor, with layers of blocks for different pictures and videos arranged linearly in a timeline. Using his finger he dragged the different pictures around, reordering them, and applied effects like zoom (pinch), and even a fade to black. Finally, after he was happy, he added a song to liven up the video and exported the video straight to YouTube at 720p. Though the internet connection fell apart at the end, it was a very impressive demonstration of what can be done using a touch interface. We’re not so sure any professional editors will be giving up their mouse anytime soon, but hobbyists might.
No pricing or release date for the product was announced.
