GOOGLE has used it's I/O conference to promote its take on the smartwatch, as it prepares to move into wearable tech and ward off the expected Apple iWatch.

Android Wear extends the Android operating system used on phones to a smart watch worn on the wrist.

At Google's I/O event in California, the firm revealed two new smart watches from LG and Samsung which are available to order in the UK now.

A third one, Motorola's Moto 360, is coming later this summer - an announcement that drew groans from the audience, which had hoped for an earlier date.

The company also introduced Android Auto, which has been tailored to work with cars. Android TV, meanwhile, is optimised for TV-watching, aided by a recommendation system and voice searches for things like ''Breaking Bad'' or ''Oscar-nominated movies from 2002''.

About 6,000 developers, bloggers and journalists flocked to the event. Following Google's recent revelation that showed that just 30% of its employees are women, the company said the number of women attending its conference grew to 20% this year from 8% a year earlier.

The three-hour keynote address was interrupted at several points by protesters who were quickly escorted out. Google has been the subject of disapproval for its use of shuttle buses to ferry its employees from San Francisco to its Mountain View headquarters.

The buses have become a symbol of the divide between Silicon Valley's tech millionaires and those left out of the latest boom.

Nonetheless, Google loyalty was apparent among conference attendees, many of whom wore Google Glass, sported Google shirts and collected Android-themed freebies in between workshops, which range from the likes of ''Large scale data processing in the Cloud'' to ''Polymer and the Web Components revolution''.