SCORES of people from Bournemouth’s digital sector took part in a day of events leading up to the live streaming of Google’s annual keynote speech.

Digital agency Redweb hosted Google I/O Extended – an offshoot of the tech giant’s developer conference in Mountain View, California.

Redweb project manager David Foster said: “When this was coming up, we knew we wanted to do it. “I think there are only about three or four in the country.

"We made sure we were at the forefront, this being the biggest digital economy outside London.”

The day began with guests making paper hats in the Google colours part of a “paper prototype challenge”. Mr Foster said the event was based on Google’s philosophy of prototyping, which held that “two hours of play is worth 1,000 hours of engineering”.

It was followed by a Google pub quiz, with phones allowed, and a quickfire presentation session.

The event finished with 60-70 people watching the live streaming of Google CEO Sundar Pichai’s keynote address.

Announcements included the development of Google Home, an app which will connect to domestic appliances.

Mr Pichai also revealed Google Assistant, which will take the concept of voice-activated personal assistants a step further.

Mr Foster said: “You can ask it to see what’s on at the cinema tomorrow and when it gives you the list of films, you can tell it to book you two tickets to Batman vs Superman and it will go off and book them and come tell you it’s all done.”

He said the developments would make interaction with technology “a lot more seamless”.

The keynote also covered its new operating system, currently called Android N; developments in virtual reality technology; the intelligent messaging app Google Allo; and developments in wearable technology with Android Wear 2.0.

Mr Pichai told of a future where Google apps were controlling connected appliances. "Computing is poised to evolve beyond just phones. It will be about the context. On phones, in cars, in your homes,” he said.

He added: "We live in an extraordinary time for computing.

"The real test is whether humans can achieve a lot more with the support of AI [artificial intelligence] assisting them. Things previously thought to be impossible may in fact be possible."