Google I/O is a yearly event targeted mainly at developers, which is usually where we get our first good look at the yearly Android release and (occasionally) upcoming hardware products. Google usually creates a puzzle or teaser that leads to revealing the dates for I/O, and now the puzzle for I/O 2022 is live.

The new puzzle is live at io.google/2022/svd. The description for the game reads, "this is an interactive puzzle and sound toy brought to you by Google Developers. Complete the challenges to reveal details about an upcoming event!" The game's screen contains multiple puzzles, with overlapping shapes you can manipulate by adding or removing circles. Presumably, once someone solves the puzzle, the dates for I/O 2022 will be revealed.

I'm not great at puzzles, and the directions for this puzzle are purposely vague, so your guess is as good as mine for how to solve this. In some previous years when Google uses games to tease the date, the date is discovered in the HTML and JavaScript code before someone actually manages to solve the puzzle. That might happen again this year, though my quick glance at some of the code didn't reveal anything helpful.

Google I/O 2021 was held in May of last year. Google revealed the first beta release of Android 12, the Material You design language, Wear OS 3.0, eco-friendly routes in Google Maps, Android 11 and stable Linux app support for Chrome OS, and a few tech demos that aren't quite real products yet.

Presumably, this year's event will reveal the company's plans for Android 13, which is currently available as a Developer Preview. The current builds already include multi-user NFC payments, native support for DNS over HTTPS, compatibility with Bluetooth Low Energy Audio, Runtime Permissions for notifications, and more clock layouts for the lock screen. The final release will likely arrive in the latter half of 2022.