At Google I/O, the company has just announced crossing a major milestone: There are three billion Android devices out there being actively used. From phones to TVs to cars, that's nearly one Android device for every two people in the whole world — and, at last year's count, that's somewhere around three times as many devices as Microsoft can claim are active and running Windows 10.

As the announcement is specific to "active" devices, that probably excludes the G1 in your drawer — unless you fired it up recently, so this astronomical number really is that much more significant. It's not total sales, that's phones and tablets and ATV-powered dongles live in the wild as we speak, with folks actively using them.

Google announced crossing the 2.5 billion threshold back at I/O 2019. While more than 500 million devices have assuredly been sold in the interim, devices have also been retired and replaced at a steady rate.

Though the application of the two platforms varies and Microsoft has all but given up on its own non-Android mobile efforts, I can just imagine some executive at the company apoplectic with fury at the news that Android has three times as many active devices (in Android alone, apparently ignoring Chrome OS's massive success) as Microsoft does.

Here's to one major milestone.

For more I/O-related news, keep an eye on our front page — Google shows no signs of slowing down as the keynote continues.