Posted by Wesley Chun (@wescpy), Developer Advocate, Google Cloud
An optional migration
Serverless Migration Station is a video mini-series from Serverless Expeditions focused on helping developers modernize their applications running on a serverless compute platform from Google Cloud. Previous episodes demonstrated how to migrate away from the older, legacy App Engine (standard environment) services to newer Google Cloud standalone equivalents like Cloud Datastore. Today's product crossover episode differs slightly from that by migrating away from App Engine altogether, containerizing those apps for Cloud Run.
There's little question the industry has been moving towards containerization as an application deployment mechanism over the past decade. However, Docker and use of containers weren't available to early App Engine developers until its flexible environment became available years later. Fast forward to today where developers have many more options to choose from, from an increasingly open Google Cloud. Google has expressed long-term support for App Engine, and users do not need to containerize their apps, so this is an optional migration. It is primarily for those who have decided to add containerization to their application deployment strategy and want to explicitly migrate to Cloud Run.
If you're thinking about app containerization, the video covers some of the key reasons why you would consider it: you're not subject to traditional serverless restrictions like development language or use of binaries (flexibility); if your code, dependencies, and container build & deploy steps haven't changed, you can recreate the same image with confidence (reproducibility); your application can be deployed elsewhere or be rolled back to a previous working image if necessary (reusable); and you have plenty more options on where to host your app (portability).
While we've recently begun to produce videos for such migrations, developers can already access code samples and codelab tutorials leading them through a variety of migrations. In today's video, we have both Python 2 and 3 sample apps that have divested from legacy services, thus ready to containerize for Cloud Run. Python 2 App Engine apps accessing Datastore are most likely to be using Cloud NDB whereas it would be Cloud Datastore for Python 3 users, so this is the starting point for this migration.
Because we're "only" switching execution platforms, there are no changes at all to the application code itself. This entire migration is completely based on changing the apps' configurations from App Engine to Cloud Run. In particular, App Engine artifacts such as app.yaml, appengine_config.py, and the lib folder are not used in Cloud Run and will be removed. A Dockerfile will be implemented to build your container. Apps with more complex configurations in their app.yaml files will likely need an equivalent service.yaml file for Cloud Run — if so, you'll find this app.yaml to service.yaml conversion tool handy. Following best practices means there'll also be a .dockerignore file.
App Engine and Cloud Functions are sourced-based where Google Cloud automatically provides a default HTTP server like gunicorn. Cloud Run is a bit more "DIY" because users have to provide a container image, meaning bundling our own server. In this case, we'll pick gunicorn explicitly, adding it to the top of the existing requirements.txt required packages file(s), as you can see in the screenshot below. Also illustrated is the Dockerfile where gunicorn is started to serve your app as the final step. The only differences for the Python 2 equivalent Dockerfile are: a) require the Cloud NDB package (google-cloud-ndb) instead of Cloud Datastore, and b) start with a Python 2 base image.
The Python 3 requirements.txt and Dockerfile
Next steps
To walk developers through migrations, we always "START" with a working app then make the necessary updates that culminate in a working "FINISH" app. For this migration, the Python 2 sample app STARTs with the Module 2a code and FINISHes with the Module 4a code. Similarly, the Python 3 app STARTs with the Module 3b code and FINISHes with the Module 4b code. This way, if something goes wrong during your migration, you can always rollback to START, or compare your solution with our FINISH. If you are considering this migration for your own applications, we recommend you try it on a sample app like ours before considering it for yours. A corresponding codelab leading you step-by-step through this exercise is provided in addition to the video which you can use for guidance.
All migration modules, their videos (when published), codelab tutorials, START and FINISH code, etc., can be found in the migration repo. We hope to also one day cover other legacy runtimes like Java 8 so stay tuned. We'll continue with our journey from App Engine to Cloud Run ahead in Module 5 but will do so without explicit knowledge of containers, Docker, or Dockerfiles. Modernizing your development workflow to using containers and best practices like crafting a CI/CD pipeline isn't always straightforward; we hope content like this helps you progress in that direction!
Posted by Mike Bifulco, Developer Relations Engineer
Every day, millions of users ask Google Assistant for help with the things that matter to them: managing a connected home, setting reminders and timers, adding to their shopping list, communicating with friends and family, and countless other imaginative uses. Developers use Assistant APIs and tools to add voice interactivity to their apps for everything from building games, to ordering food, to listening to the news, and much more.
The Google Assistant Developer Relations team works with our community and our engineering teams to help developers build, integrate, and innovate with voice-driven technology on the Assistant platform. We help developers build Conversational Actions, Smart Home hardware and tools, and App Actions integrations with Android. As we continue our mission to bring accessible voice technology to Android devices, smart speakers and screens, we’re excited to announce that we are hiring for several roles!
What Assistant DevRel does
In Developer Relations (DevRel), we wear many hats - our developer ecosystem stretches across several Google products, and work with our community wherever we can. Our team consists of engineers, technical writers, and content producers who work to help developers build with Assistant, while providing active feedback and validation to the engineering teams to make Google Assistant even better. These are just some of the ways we do our work:
Google I/O and other conferences
Google I/O is Google’s annual developer conference, where Googlers from across the company share the latest product releases, insights from Google experts, as well as hands-on learning. The Assistant DevRel team is heavily involved in I/O, writing, producing, and delivering a variety of content types, including: keynotes, technical talks, hands-on workshops, codelabs, and technical demos. We also meet and talk to developers who are building cool things with Assistant.
We also participate in a variety of other conferences, and while most have been virtual for the past year or so, we’re looking forward to traveling to places near and far to deliver technical content to the global community.
One of the best ways to get our content out to the world is via YouTube. Members of our team make frequent appearances on the Google Developers channel, producing segments and episodes for The Developer Show, Assistant On Air, AoG Pro Tips, as well as tutorials on new features and developer tools.
Open Source Projects
Another exciting part of our work is the creation and maintenance of Open Source libraries used as samples, demos, and starter kits for devs working with Assistant. As a part of the team, you’ll contribute to projects in GitHub organizations including github.com/actions-on-google and github.com/actions-on-google-labs, as well as projects and libraries created outside of Google.
Developer Platform Tools
The Assistant DevRel team also helps build and maintain the Assistant Developer Platform - we contribute to the tools, policies and features which allow developers to distribute their Assistant apps to Android devices, smart screens and speakers. This engineering work is a truly unique opportunity to shape the future of a growing developer platform, and to support the future of voice-driven and multi-modal technology – all built from the ground up.
Open positions on our team
Our team is headquartered in Mountain View, California, US. If contributing to the next generation of Google Assistant excites you, read below about our openings to find out more.
Developer Relations Engineer Location: Mountain View, CA, New York, NY, Seattle, WA, or Austin, TX
As a Developer Relations Engineer (or DRE), you’ll work to build developer tools, code samples, and demos for Google Assistant. You’ll work with our community to educate and support developers using our APIs to build their software. You will also be the 0th customer for new features on Assistant - testing, verifying, and giving active feedback to the PM, UX, and Engineering teams that make Assistant come to life. You’ll work with Google Developer Experts to build and scale content to be shared at conferences, events, and hackathons. DREs may also occasionally contribute to blog posts, help write and produce scripts for educational videos on YouTube, and speak at events like conferences, Google Developer Groups, and meetups. Candidates should have experience building native Android apps with Java or Kotlin - experience creating web applications with HTML, JavaScript, and CSS is a plus.
Location: Mountain View, CA, New York, NY, Seattle, WA, or Austin, TX
Developer Relations Engineering Managers help coordinate and direct teams of engineers to build and update developer tools, APIs, reference documentation, and code samples. As an Engineering Manager, you’ll work with leadership across the company to prioritize new features, goals, and programs for developer relations within Assistant. You’ll manage a variety of roles, including Developer Relations Engineers, Program Managers, and Technical Writers. You’ll be asked to work across a variety of technologies, with a strong focus on building tools and libraries for Android.
Thanks for reading! To share your thoughts or questions, join us on Reddit at r/GoogleAssistantDev.
Follow @ActionsOnGoogle on Twitter for more of our team's updates, and tweet using #AoGDevs to share what you’re working on. Can’t wait to see what you build!
Posted by Erica Hanson, Global Program Manager, Google Developer Student Clubs
What have we learned from the challenges that we’ve faced over the past year and continue to face today? How absolutely vital it is to protect our planet and the people living on it.
Enter the Solution Challenge, our annual contest inviting the global Google Developer Student Clubs (GDSC) community to develop solutions to real world problems utilizing Google technologies. This year’s Solution Challenge asks participants to solve for one or more of the United Nations 17 Sustainable Development Goals, intended to promote employment for all, economic growth, and climate action.
The top 50 semi-finalists and the top 10 finalists were announced earlier this year. It all comes down to Demo Day on August 26th, where the finalists will present their solutions to Google and developers all around the world, live on YouTube. Here, judges will review their projects, ask questions, and choose the top 3 grand prize winners!
You can RSVP here to be a part of Demo Day, vote for the People’s Choice Award, and watch all the action as it unfolds live. Ahead of the event, get to know the top 10 finalists and their incredible solutions below.
Cameroon - Flow, University of Bamenda
UN Sustainable Goal Addressed: Goal 6: Clean Water & Sanitation
Flow is a mobile app that helps users easily find clean water sources nearby using Google Maps. Selecting a water source location on the map will tell users the name of the location, the status of the water source, and the approximate distance to the water source from the user’s current location. Flow was built with Firebase, Flutter, Google Cloud Platform, and Google Maps Platform. The app was developed by Alouzeh Brandone Mahbuh, Chi Karl Junior, Meh Mbeh Ida Delphine, and Nuikweh Lewis.
“The lack of water and quest for clean water in my community inspired us to select this goal. Our solution is a mobile application which makes use of a ‘live location’ feature to help members in my community easily find clean water sources.”
Canada - Helppier, University of Toronto
UN Sustainable Goals Addressed:Goal 3: Good Health & Wellbeing, Goal 10: Reduced Inequalities, Goal 11: Sustainable Cities
Helppier is an Android app that creates volunteering opportunities in local neighborhoods. With Helppier, you can volunteer to help out others, request a volunteer, and earn rewards. Unlike traditional volunteering positions with organizations, Helppier fosters a sense of community by allowing people to make a direct impact in their neighborhood. Helppier's ultimate goal is to make volunteering a regular part of peoples’ daily routines. The Android app was developed using Google Cloud Platform, Firebase, and Cloud Run by James Lee, Janice Cheung, Mohamed Amine Belabbes, and Oluwateleayo Oyekunle.
“With loneliness rates skyrocketing due to COVID, many people are feeling more isolated and in need of help, but may not have anyone in their neighborhood to turn to. Helppier facilitates the opportunity for people to connect with one another through acts of kindness, regardless of who they are or where they came from.”
Egypt - E-Owl, Future Academy
UN Sustainable Goals Addressed:Goal 3: Good Health & Wellbeing, Goal 4: Quality Education
E-Owl is a virtual education platform that helps professors create virtual meetings, exams, and posts. With E-Owl, students can also check their grades and assignments online. The web application features focus detection and monitors real-time emotion of students to help instructors improve their students’ learning experience. E-Owl was created using Firebase, Google Cloud Platform, and TensorFlow by Ahmed Mostafa Ibrahiem, Kerolos Kamal Botros, Khaled Abdel-Fattah Ahmed, and Mahmoud Said Ramadan Gad.
“Our main target is education and well-being. We are working on how to maintain learners' attention and motivation in the virtual classrooms and also effectively managing the progress of each student online.”
Germany - SimplAR, Technical University of Munich
UN Sustainable Goals Addressed:Goal 4: Quality Education, Goal 8: Decent Work & Economic Growth, Goal 10: Reduced Inequalities
SimplAR is an app that utilizes the power of Natural Language Processing to translate any text (newspapers, books, manuals, etc.) into simplified language just by taking a picture of it. The app is catered towards people with functional illiteracy who sometimes have difficulty comprehending text. SimplAR delivers text following plain language principles that is easy to understand, making reading experiences more accessible for everyone. Almo Sutedjo, Maria Pospelova, Sami Wirtensohn, and Viviana Sutedjo used Flutter and Firebase to develop their app.
“Around 1 in 7 people worldwide have difficulties understanding complicated texts due to functional illiteracy. We want to enable people with functional illiteracy to gain understanding about any text in any form, and therefore giving them the chance to lead a more independent life.”
India - Eye Of God, K. J. Somaiya College of Engineering
Eye of God is an app featuring an easy-to-use navigation system that helps people with visual impairment navigate to their destination by themselves without needing the assistance of others. The Eye of God navigation system uses voice feedback through the user’s smartphone which is mounted on a VR Headset, and vibrational feedback through a custom-made waist belt, to guide users in both indoor and outdoor settings. The app is built with Firebase, Flutter, Google Cloud Platform, TensorFlow, and more, by Anish Pawar, Gayatri Vijay Patil, Jatin Nainani, and Priyanka Hotchandani.
“Being blind or visually impaired doesn’t need to mean the loss of independence of getting to and from places. The advancement of technology can make it possible to help people move freely within their environments and get around safely regardless of their amount of vision.”
India - Swaasthy, Chitkara University
UN Sustainable Goals Addressed: Goal 3: Good Health & Wellbeing, Goal 4: Quality Education, Goal 8: Decent Work & Economic Growth
Swaasthy is a medical app made to uplift user health and increase access to healthcare. It contains medicine reminder functionality and the ability to make an SOS call to nearby ambulances, get an appointment with a virtual doc, and more. The team behind the app believes that their all-in-one approach will go a long way towards bringing down the death rate faced by patients in India due to delays in health services. Additionally, Swaasthy promotes education and economic growth by providing first responders with valuable training opportunities when they sign up via the app. Bhavesh Goyal, Himanshu Sharma, Ishan Sharma, and Kushal Bhanot used Flutter and Firebase to bring their idea to life.
“When it comes to saving a life, every millisecond counts! One in 10 patients in India dies on the way to the hospital. And we're here to change that. We're Swaasthy! The only health app you'll ever need. Solving real-life problems isn’t easy, but at the same time, it's not impossible.”
Indonesia - Game Your Fit, Binus University International
UN Sustainable Goal Addressed:Goal 3: Good Health & Wellbeing
Game Your Fit is an app that keeps track of your movements in real time using your smartphone's movement sensors. It promotes exercise and staying active by turning the experience into a game! The app features a variety of aerobic, anaerobic, and calisthenics exercises to target different areas of the user’s body. One of the app’s game modes, CardioCamera, uses Google’s MLKit AI library to detect movements that the user makes. The app is written in Kotlin and connected to a Firebase project, and was developed by Aric Hernando, Jason Christian Hailianto, Jason Jeremy Wijadi, and Monique Senjaya.
“We are interested in creating a solution for target 3.4, which is to reduce mortality from non-communicable diseases and promote mental health. We aim to improve the health of many, specifically teens and young adults, by designing a gamified exercising application experience.”
Philippines - i-RISE, University of the Philippines in the Visayas
Project Island Response and Intervention for Systematic Evacuation, or i-RISE, is a disaster risk management system that aims to bridge the information gap between local government units, disaster risk management offices, and the island communities of Tubigon, Bohol. The app includes tidal and weather information, evacuation warnings, rescue request functionality, climate change education, and more. i-Rise consists of a web app and mobile app, built with Flutter, Cloud Functions, Cloud Firestore, and Firebase. The project was built by Jian Hurl A. Asiado, Joerian E. Gauten, Patricia Marie C. Garcia, and Rex Ronter G. Ruiz.
“The Philippines is one of the world's most affected countries by climate change as it experiences the most frequent and strongest typhoons and sea level rise. The vision of Project i-RISE is disaster resilience as a national imperative where all Filipinos anywhere in the archipelago are inclusive of growth and are able to adapt to the adverse effects of climate change.”
Singapore - DementiCare, Nanyang Technological University
UN Sustainable Goal Addressed:Goal 3: Good Health & Wellbeing
DementiCare is an app equipped with a wide range of features to compliment caregiving for people living with dementia. With the app, caregivers can send notices to patients, access discussion forums, create a patient dashboard, and more. A user with dementia can send an SOS, access memories, view family data, and read notes from caregivers. DementiCare includes a simple interface for users living with dementia, and a feature-rich dashboard to help caregivers carry out their responsibilities without relying on any additional software. Aishik Nagar and Ritik Bhatia used Flutter and Firebase to build their app.
“Having personal relations suffering from Dementia and having cared for them several times, we knew firsthand how tough it was for patients and their caregivers to cope with Dementia. Our solution is DementiCare, a mobile application made to reduce, digitize, and revolutionize the barrier to skills, knowledge, and experience required for providing care to patients suffering from Dementia.”
Turkey - QRegister, Middle East Technical University
UN Sustainable Goals Addressed:Goal 3: Good Health & Wellbeing, Goal 12: Responsible Consumption & Production, Goal 15: Life on Land
QRegister is an app that removes the need for physical paper receipts upon transactions and instead encourages the use of QR codes for users to virtually keep track of all their receipts. The app reduces waste generation by eliminating paper receipts that usually end up as litter. BPA, a chemical often used in thermal receipts, can be absorbed through the skin and has been linked to a number of health concerns. By digitizing receipts, QRegister reduces the chemicals that we’re exposed to daily. QRegister was created with Firebase and Flutter by Alkım Dömeke, Deniz Karakay, Humeyra Bodur, and Murat Kaş.
“QRegister wants to raise awareness regarding the wastefulness of paper receipt production. Our team developed an environmentally friendly smart register that eliminates paper receipts and effortlessly stores purchase data.”
________________________
Feeling inspired and ready to learn more about Google Developer Student Clubs? Find a club near you here, and be sure to RSVP here to watch our upcoming Solution Challenge Demo Day on August 26th.
Posted by Erica Hanson, Global Program Manager, Google Developer Student Clubs
What have we learned from the challenges that we’ve faced over the past year and continue to face today? How absolutely vital it is to protect our planet and the people living on it.
Enter the Solution Challenge, our annual contest inviting the global Google Developer Student Clubs (GDSC) community to develop solutions to real world problems utilizing Google technologies. This year’s Solution Challenge asks participants to solve for one or more of the United Nations 17 Sustainable Development Goals, intended to promote employment for all, economic growth, and climate action.
The top 50 semi-finalists and the top 10 finalists were announced earlier this year. It all comes down to Demo Day on August 26th, where the finalists will present their solutions to Google and developers all around the world, live on YouTube. Here, judges will review their projects, ask questions, and choose the top 3 grand prize winners!
You can RSVP here to be a part of Demo Day, vote for the People’s Choice Award, and watch all the action as it unfolds live. Ahead of the event, get to know the top 10 finalists and their incredible solutions below.
Cameroon - Flow, University of Bamenda
UN Sustainable Goal Addressed: Goal 6: Clean Water & Sanitation
Flow is a mobile app that helps users easily find clean water sources nearby using Google Maps. Selecting a water source location on the map will tell users the name of the location, the status of the water source, and the approximate distance to the water source from the user’s current location. Flow was built with Firebase, Flutter, Google Cloud Platform, and Google Maps Platform. The app was developed by Alouzeh Brandone Mahbuh, Chi Karl Junior, Meh Mbeh Ida Delphine, and Nuikweh Lewis.
“The lack of water and quest for clean water in my community inspired us to select this goal. Our solution is a mobile application which makes use of a ‘live location’ feature to help members in my community easily find clean water sources.”
Canada - Helppier, University of Toronto
UN Sustainable Goals Addressed:Goal 3: Good Health & Wellbeing, Goal 10: Reduced Inequalities, Goal 11: Sustainable Cities
Helppier is an Android app that creates volunteering opportunities in local neighborhoods. With Helppier, you can volunteer to help out others, request a volunteer, and earn rewards. Unlike traditional volunteering positions with organizations, Helppier fosters a sense of community by allowing people to make a direct impact in their neighborhood. Helppier's ultimate goal is to make volunteering a regular part of peoples’ daily routines. The Android app was developed using Google Cloud Platform, Firebase, and Cloud Run by James Lee, Janice Cheung, Mohamed Amine Belabbes, and Oluwateleayo Oyekunle.
“With loneliness rates skyrocketing due to COVID, many people are feeling more isolated and in need of help, but may not have anyone in their neighborhood to turn to. Helppier facilitates the opportunity for people to connect with one another through acts of kindness, regardless of who they are or where they came from.”
Egypt - E-Owl, Future Academy
UN Sustainable Goals Addressed:Goal 3: Good Health & Wellbeing, Goal 4: Quality Education
E-Owl is a virtual education platform that helps professors create virtual meetings, exams, and posts. With E-Owl, students can also check their grades and assignments online. The web application features focus detection and monitors real-time emotion of students to help instructors improve their students’ learning experience. E-Owl was created using Firebase, Google Cloud Platform, and TensorFlow by Ahmed Mostafa Ibrahiem, Kerolos Kamal Botros, Khaled Abdel-Fattah Ahmed, and Mahmoud Said Ramadan Gad.
“Our main target is education and well-being. We are working on how to maintain learners' attention and motivation in the virtual classrooms and also effectively managing the progress of each student online.”
Germany - SimplAR, Technical University of Munich
UN Sustainable Goals Addressed:Goal 4: Quality Education, Goal 8: Decent Work & Economic Growth, Goal 10: Reduced Inequalities
SimplAR is an app that utilizes the power of Natural Language Processing to translate any text (newspapers, books, manuals, etc.) into simplified language just by taking a picture of it. The app is catered towards people with functional illiteracy who sometimes have difficulty comprehending text. SimplAR delivers text following plain language principles that is easy to understand, making reading experiences more accessible for everyone. Almo Sutedjo, Maria Pospelova, Sami Wirtensohn, and Viviana Sutedjo used Flutter and Firebase to develop their app.
“Around 1 in 7 people worldwide have difficulties understanding complicated texts due to functional illiteracy. We want to enable people with functional illiteracy to gain understanding about any text in any form, and therefore giving them the chance to lead a more independent life.”
India - Eye Of God, K. J. Somaiya College of Engineering
Eye of God is an app featuring an easy-to-use navigation system that helps people with visual impairment navigate to their destination by themselves without needing the assistance of others. The Eye of God navigation system uses voice feedback through the user’s smartphone which is mounted on a VR Headset, and vibrational feedback through a custom-made waist belt, to guide users in both indoor and outdoor settings. The app is built with Firebase, Flutter, Google Cloud Platform, TensorFlow, and more, by Anish Pawar, Gayatri Vijay Patil, Jatin Nainani, and Priyanka Hotchandani.
“Being blind or visually impaired doesn’t need to mean the loss of independence of getting to and from places. The advancement of technology can make it possible to help people move freely within their environments and get around safely regardless of their amount of vision.”
India - Swaasthy, Chitkara University
UN Sustainable Goals Addressed: Goal 3: Good Health & Wellbeing, Goal 4: Quality Education, Goal 8: Decent Work & Economic Growth
Swaasthy is a medical app made to uplift user health and increase access to healthcare. It contains medicine reminder functionality and the ability to make an SOS call to nearby ambulances, get an appointment with a virtual doc, and more. The team behind the app believes that their all-in-one approach will go a long way towards bringing down the death rate faced by patients in India due to delays in health services. Additionally, Swaasthy promotes education and economic growth by providing first responders with valuable training opportunities when they sign up via the app. Bhavesh Goyal, Himanshu Sharma, Ishan Sharma, and Kushal Bhanot used Flutter and Firebase to bring their idea to life.
“When it comes to saving a life, every millisecond counts! One in 10 patients in India dies on the way to the hospital. And we're here to change that. We're Swaasthy! The only health app you'll ever need. Solving real-life problems isn’t easy, but at the same time, it's not impossible.”
Indonesia - Game Your Fit, Binus University International
UN Sustainable Goal Addressed:Goal 3: Good Health & Wellbeing
Game Your Fit is an app that keeps track of your movements in real time using your smartphone's movement sensors. It promotes exercise and staying active by turning the experience into a game! The app features a variety of aerobic, anaerobic, and calisthenics exercises to target different areas of the user’s body. One of the app’s game modes, CardioCamera, uses Google’s MLKit AI library to detect movements that the user makes. The app is written in Kotlin and connected to a Firebase project, and was developed by Aric Hernando, Jason Christian Hailianto, Jason Jeremy Wijadi, and Monique Senjaya.
“We are interested in creating a solution for target 3.4, which is to reduce mortality from non-communicable diseases and promote mental health. We aim to improve the health of many, specifically teens and young adults, by designing a gamified exercising application experience.”
Philippines - i-RISE, University of the Philippines in the Visayas
Project Island Response and Intervention for Systematic Evacuation, or i-RISE, is a disaster risk management system that aims to bridge the information gap between local government units, disaster risk management offices, and the island communities of Tubigon, Bohol. The app includes tidal and weather information, evacuation warnings, rescue request functionality, climate change education, and more. i-Rise consists of a web app and mobile app, built with Flutter, Cloud Functions, Cloud Firestore, and Firebase. The project was built by Jian Hurl A. Asiado, Joerian E. Gauten, Patricia Marie C. Garcia, and Rex Ronter G. Ruiz.
“The Philippines is one of the world's most affected countries by climate change as it experiences the most frequent and strongest typhoons and sea level rise. The vision of Project i-RISE is disaster resilience as a national imperative where all Filipinos anywhere in the archipelago are inclusive of growth and are able to adapt to the adverse effects of climate change.”
Singapore - DementiCare, Nanyang Technological University
UN Sustainable Goal Addressed:Goal 3: Good Health & Wellbeing
DementiCare is an app equipped with a wide range of features to compliment caregiving for people living with dementia. With the app, caregivers can send notices to patients, access discussion forums, create a patient dashboard, and more. A user with dementia can send an SOS, access memories, view family data, and read notes from caregivers. DementiCare includes a simple interface for users living with dementia, and a feature-rich dashboard to help caregivers carry out their responsibilities without relying on any additional software. Aishik Nagar and Ritik Bhatia used Flutter and Firebase to build their app.
“Having personal relations suffering from Dementia and having cared for them several times, we knew firsthand how tough it was for patients and their caregivers to cope with Dementia. Our solution is DementiCare, a mobile application made to reduce, digitize, and revolutionize the barrier to skills, knowledge, and experience required for providing care to patients suffering from Dementia.”
Turkey - QRegister, Middle East Technical University
UN Sustainable Goals Addressed:Goal 3: Good Health & Wellbeing, Goal 12: Responsible Consumption & Production, Goal 15: Life on Land
QRegister is an app that removes the need for physical paper receipts upon transactions and instead encourages the use of QR codes for users to virtually keep track of all their receipts. The app reduces waste generation by eliminating paper receipts that usually end up as litter. BPA, a chemical often used in thermal receipts, can be absorbed through the skin and has been linked to a number of health concerns. By digitizing receipts, QRegister reduces the chemicals that we’re exposed to daily. QRegister was created with Firebase and Flutter by Alkım Dömeke, Deniz Karakay, Humeyra Bodur, and Murat Kaş.
“QRegister wants to raise awareness regarding the wastefulness of paper receipt production. Our team developed an environmentally friendly smart register that eliminates paper receipts and effortlessly stores purchase data.”
________________________
Feeling inspired and ready to learn more about Google Developer Student Clubs? Find a club near you here, and be sure to RSVP here to watch our upcoming Solution Challenge Demo Day on August 26th.
Posted by HyeJung Lee, MJ You, ML Ecosystem Community Managers
Google Developers Experts (GDE) is a community of passionate developers who love to share their knowledge with others. Many of them specialize in Machine Learning (ML).
Here are some highlights showcasing the ML GDEs achievements from last quarter, which contributed to the global ML ecosystem. If you are interested in becoming an ML GDE, please scroll down to see how you can apply!
Leigh Johnson (USA) wrote an article titled Soft-launching an AI/ML Product as a Solo Founder, covering GCP AutoML Vision, GCP IoT Core, TensorFlow Model Garden, and TensorFlow.js. The article details the journey of a solo founder developing an ML product for detecting printing failure for 3D printers (more on this story is coming up soon, so stay tuned!)
Aqsa Kausar (Pakistan) gave a talk about Explainable AI in Google Cloud at the International Women’s Day Philippines event. She explained why it is important and where and how it is applied in ML workflows.
Finally, ML Lab by Robert John from Nigeria, introduces the ML landscape on GCP covering from BigQueryML through AutoML to TensorFlow and AI Platform.
Greece-based George Soloupis wrote a tutorial “Fine-tune a BERT model with the use of Colab TPU” on how to finetune a BERT model that was trained specifically on greek language to perform the downstream task of text classification, using Colab’s TPU (v2–8).
JAX
India-based Aakash Nain has published the TF-JAX tutorial series (Part1, Part2, Part3, Part 4), aiming to teach everyone the building blocks of TensorFlow and JAX frameworks.
Online Meetup TensorFlow and JAX by Tzer-jen Wei from Taiwan covered JAX intro and use cases. It also touched upon different ways of writing TensorFlow models and training loops.
Notebook “Simple Bayesian Ridge with Sentence Embeddings” by Ertuğrul Demir (Turkey) about a natural language processing task using BERT finetuning followed by simple linear regression on top of sentence embeddings generated by transformers.
Advances in machine learning and deep learning research are changing our technology, and many ML GDEs are interested and contributing.
Karim Beguir (UK) co-authored a paper with the DeepMind team covering a novel compositional approach using Deep Reinforcement Learning to solve robotics manipulation tasks. The paper was accepted in the NeurIPS workshop.
Finally, Sayak Paul from India, together with Pin-Yu Chen, published a research paper, “Vision Transformers are Robust Learners,” covering the robustness of the Vision Transformer (ViT) against common corruptions and perturbations, distribution shifts, and natural adversarial examples.
If you want to know more about the Google Experts community and their global open-source ML contributions, please check the GDE Program website, visit the GDE Directory and connect with GDEs on Twitter and LinkedIn. You can also meet them virtually on theML GDE’s YouTube Channel!
Posted by Charles Maxson, Developer Advocate & Justin Wexler, Strategic Cloud Engineer
As Google Workspace is redefining the future of team collaboration and Google Chat Rooms evolve into Spaces, webhooks are a useful feature that already exists in the current Chat rooms of today that allow you to deliver asynchronous messages directly into Chat rooms where users work. Webhooks in Chat are powerful and simple to use. Unlike the more well known Chatbots, which are applications built specifically for interacting synchronously with users using the Google Chat API, webhooks enable asynchronous messaging into Google Chat from applications that aren't bots themselves. In this post, we’ll explore using webhooks in Chat and demonstrate a real world use case from our work internally at Google.
The Case for Webhooks in Google Chat
Teams create and use Rooms (now Spaces) in Google Chat for many purposes. Some rooms may work along themes, such as Sales Support or Customer Service topics, while others may be more generic for specific departments or company-wide conversations. But all these use cases are centered on human activity, and as we rely on them more and more, they have become a critical way we communicate with each other.
Webhooks allow you to add another dimension to rooms by introducing information and updates from other systems and applications that fit in with the theme of these rooms and conversations. For example, in a Sales Support room, a webhook could provide alerts from a CRM system notifying users when a deal closes or when a RFP deadline is approaching. In a Customer Service room, a webhook can post urgent alerts for requests to immediately get the attention of the whole team. For more generic scenarios, webhooks can be used to remind folks in a department about upcoming deadlines or broadly share a company’s stock price with all employees at the close of the market. Whatever the situation, webhooks can help efficiently deliver data and information in real time.
A Google Real World Use Case
We have a Chat room at Google named G Workspace Community that is used to connect Googlers who want to ask questions and stay up to date with news across our product and customer teams focused on Google Workspace. As you can imagine, this room is widely used, resulting in a constant flow of posts and responses every day. One of the most commonly discussed topics is around new features, which includes keeping track of their launch timing and status on our roadmap.
At Google, we also produce the Google Workspace Updates blog, a public feed that lets everyone know when new Workspace features ship. It would be logical to assume every member of the G Workspace Community also subscribes to the Updates blog and is up to date on every feature release. But the truth is the G Workspace Community Chat room has become the main resource where Googlers get the latest information about Google Workspace. Instead of referring room members to check the blog first before posting in the Chat room asking about releases, we decided to bring the Google Workspace Updates feed into the Google Workspace Community room. Webhooks in Google Chat made it easy, and now everybody can easily stay up to date on all the updates from Google Workspace.
Meet the Google Workspace Updates “bot”
As posts about new Workspace features are released on the Updates blog, the Google Workspace Updates “bot” (aka the Google Wexbot as its known internally after its creator, Justin Wexler) adds a new thread to the Chat room that calls out the post’s title and the first 250 characters of it’s main content. This offers room members a quick glimpse of what just launched, as well as a place to quickly have a discussion around the blog content. Users can ask questions or add comments about the feature release, making it a much more enhanced and collaborative experience, and they can get the full story on the Updates blog by simply clicking READ MORE.
Webhooks + Apps Script = Magic
For community members receiving these timely updates, this “bot” may seem magical. In reality, it’s neither magic nor a traditional Chat bot, so the reference in the Chat UI calling it a “bot” is a bit of a misnomer. The Google Updates “bot” is in fact a simple Google Apps Script application that parses the RSS feed about new posts, and sends them asynchronously to the room via webhooks.
Apps Script is well suited to help deliver on this use case, as it offers triggers (ie. cron jobs) that can run on time-based intervals to check the Updates blog for new posts, parse the feed XML from those posts, and return those results using the Chat Card format to the waiting webhook via a UrlFetchApp call.
In our internal implementation of the Google Workspace Updates “bot”, an Apps Script trigger runs hourly to check for new posts to the Update blog. Beyond that, the project itself is a single Apps Script project file that doesn't require a significant amount of coding, is super easy to configure with Chat rooms, and has been essentially maintenance free. Justin’s effort to create the original version only took a couple of days -- and the value for the users is clearly worth it -- hence why they insisted on naming it after him ;)
Add Google Workspace Updates “bot” (aka Wexbot) to your own Chat rooms
If you are interested in adding your own Google Workspace Updates “bot”, or you’d like to see how you can leverage Apps Script to fulfill other use cases for sending asynchronous messages to Google Chat via webhooks, the project is available up on GitHub for you to explore and implement:
Posted by Charles Maxson, Developer Advocate & Justin Wexler, Strategic Cloud Engineer
As Google Workspace is redefining the future of team collaboration and Google Chat Rooms evolve into Spaces, webhooks are a useful feature that already exists in the current Chat rooms of today that allow you to deliver asynchronous messages directly into Chat rooms where users work. Webhooks in Chat are powerful and simple to use. Unlike the more well known Chatbots, which are applications built specifically for interacting synchronously with users using the Google Chat API, webhooks enable asynchronous messaging into Google Chat from applications that aren't bots themselves. In this post, we’ll explore using webhooks in Chat and demonstrate a real world use case from our work internally at Google.
The Case for Webhooks in Google Chat
Teams create and use Rooms (now Spaces) in Google Chat for many purposes. Some rooms may work along themes, such as Sales Support or Customer Service topics, while others may be more generic for specific departments or company-wide conversations. But all these use cases are centered on human activity, and as we rely on them more and more, they have become a critical way we communicate with each other.
Webhooks allow you to add another dimension to rooms by introducing information and updates from other systems and applications that fit in with the theme of these rooms and conversations. For example, in a Sales Support room, a webhook could provide alerts from a CRM system notifying users when a deal closes or when a RFP deadline is approaching. In a Customer Service room, a webhook can post urgent alerts for requests to immediately get the attention of the whole team. For more generic scenarios, webhooks can be used to remind folks in a department about upcoming deadlines or broadly share a company’s stock price with all employees at the close of the market. Whatever the situation, webhooks can help efficiently deliver data and information in real time.
A Google Real World Use Case
We have a Chat room at Google named G Workspace Community that is used to connect Googlers who want to ask questions and stay up to date with news across our product and customer teams focused on Google Workspace. As you can imagine, this room is widely used, resulting in a constant flow of posts and responses every day. One of the most commonly discussed topics is around new features, which includes keeping track of their launch timing and status on our roadmap.
At Google, we also produce the Google Workspace Updates blog, a public feed that lets everyone know when new Workspace features ship. It would be logical to assume every member of the G Workspace Community also subscribes to the Updates blog and is up to date on every feature release. But the truth is the G Workspace Community Chat room has become the main resource where Googlers get the latest information about Google Workspace. Instead of referring room members to check the blog first before posting in the Chat room asking about releases, we decided to bring the Google Workspace Updates feed into the Google Workspace Community room. Webhooks in Google Chat made it easy, and now everybody can easily stay up to date on all the updates from Google Workspace.
Meet the Google Workspace Updates “bot”
As posts about new Workspace features are released on the Updates blog, the Google Workspace Updates “bot” (aka the Google Wexbot as its known internally after its creator, Justin Wexler) adds a new thread to the Chat room that calls out the post’s title and the first 250 characters of it’s main content. This offers room members a quick glimpse of what just launched, as well as a place to quickly have a discussion around the blog content. Users can ask questions or add comments about the feature release, making it a much more enhanced and collaborative experience, and they can get the full story on the Updates blog by simply clicking READ MORE.
Webhooks + Apps Script = Magic
For community members receiving these timely updates, this “bot” may seem magical. In reality, it’s neither magic nor a traditional Chat bot, so the reference in the Chat UI calling it a “bot” is a bit of a misnomer. The Google Updates “bot” is in fact a simple Google Apps Script application that parses the RSS feed about new posts, and sends them asynchronously to the room via webhooks.
Apps Script is well suited to help deliver on this use case, as it offers triggers (ie. cron jobs) that can run on time-based intervals to check the Updates blog for new posts, parse the feed XML from those posts, and return those results using the Chat Card format to the waiting webhook via a UrlFetchApp call.
In our internal implementation of the Google Workspace Updates “bot”, an Apps Script trigger runs hourly to check for new posts to the Update blog. Beyond that, the project itself is a single Apps Script project file that doesn't require a significant amount of coding, is super easy to configure with Chat rooms, and has been essentially maintenance free. Justin’s effort to create the original version only took a couple of days -- and the value for the users is clearly worth it -- hence why they insisted on naming it after him ;)
Add Google Workspace Updates “bot” (aka Wexbot) to your own Chat rooms
If you are interested in adding your own Google Workspace Updates “bot”, or you’d like to see how you can leverage Apps Script to fulfill other use cases for sending asynchronous messages to Google Chat via webhooks, the project is available up on GitHub for you to explore and implement:
Welcome to #IamaGDE - a series of spotlights presenting Google Developer Experts (GDEs) from across the globe. Discover their stories, passions, and highlights of their community work.
Today, meet Diana Rodríguez— Maps, Web, Cloud, and Firebase GDE.
Google Developer Expert, Diana Rodríguez
Diana Rodríguez’s 20 years in the tech industry have been focused on community and making accessible content. She is a full-stack developer with experience in backend infrastructure, automation, and a passion for Python. A self-taught programmer, Diana also learned programming skills from attending meetups and being an active member of her local developer community. She is the first female Venezuelan GDE.
“I put a lot of myself into public speaking, workshops, and articles,” says Diana. “I want to make everything I do as open and transparent as possible.”
Diana’s first foray into working with Google Maps was in 2016, when she built an app that helped record institutional violence against women in Argentina. As a freelance developer, she uses the Google Maps Platform for her delivery services clients.
“I have plenty of clients who need not only location tracking for their delivery fleet, but also to provide specific routes,” says Diana.
“The level of interaction that’s been added to Maps has made it easier for me as a developer to work with direct clients,” says Diana, who uses the Plus Codes feature to help delivery drivers find precise locations on a map. “I’m a heavy user of plus codes. They give people in remote areas and underserved communities the chance to have location services, including emergency and delivery services.”
Getting involved in the developer community
Diana first became involved in the developer community 20 years ago, in 1999, beginning with a university user group. She attended her first Devfest in Bangkok in 2010 and has worked in multiple developer communities since then. She was a co-organizer of GDG Triangle and is now an organizer of GDG Durham in North Carolina. In 2020, she gave virtual talks to global audiences.
“It’s been great to get to know other communities and reach the far corners of the Earth,” she says.
Favorite Google Maps Platform features and current projects
Diana is excited about the Places API and the Maps team’s continuous improvements. She says the Maps team keeps the GDEs up to date on all the latest news and takes their feedback very seriously.
“Shoutout to Claire, Alex, and Angela, who are in direct contact with us, and everyone who works with them; they have been amazing,” she says. “I look forward to showcasing more upcoming changes. What comes next will be mind-blowing, immersing people into location in a different way that is more interactive.”
Of the new features released in June 2020, which include Cloud-based maps styling and Local Context, Diana says, “Having the freedom to customize the experience a lot more is amazing.”
As a Maps GDE in 2021, Diana plans to continue working on open source tech projects that benefit the greater good, like her recently completed app for Diabetes users, ScoutX, which notifies emergency contacts when a Diabetic person’s blood glucose values are too high or too low, in case they need immediate help.
She envisions an app that expands connectivity and geolocation tracking for hikers in remote areas, using LoRaWan technologies that can withstand harsh temperatures and conditions.
“Imagine you go to Yellowstone and get lost, with no GPS signal or phone signal, but there’s a tracking device connected to a LoRaWan network sending your location,” Diana says. “It’s much easier for rescue services to find you. Rack Wireless is working on providing satellite access, as well, and having precise latitude and longitude makes mapping simple.”
In the future, Diana sees herself managing a team that makes groundbreaking discoveries and puts technologies to use to help other people.
Welcome to #IamaGDE - a series of spotlights presenting Google Developer Experts (GDEs) from across the globe. Discover their stories, passions, and highlights of their community work.
Today, meet Diana Rodríguez— Maps, Web, Cloud, and Firebase GDE.
Google Developer Expert, Diana Rodríguez
Diana Rodríguez’s 20 years in the tech industry have been focused on community and making accessible content. She is a full-stack developer with experience in backend infrastructure, automation, and a passion for Python. A self-taught programmer, Diana also learned programming skills from attending meetups and being an active member of her local developer community. She is the first female Venezuelan GDE.
“I put a lot of myself into public speaking, workshops, and articles,” says Diana. “I want to make everything I do as open and transparent as possible.”
Diana’s first foray into working with Google Maps was in 2016, when she built an app that helped record institutional violence against women in Argentina. As a freelance developer, she uses the Google Maps Platform for her delivery services clients.
“I have plenty of clients who need not only location tracking for their delivery fleet, but also to provide specific routes,” says Diana.
“The level of interaction that’s been added to Maps has made it easier for me as a developer to work with direct clients,” says Diana, who uses the Plus Codes feature to help delivery drivers find precise locations on a map. “I’m a heavy user of plus codes. They give people in remote areas and underserved communities the chance to have location services, including emergency and delivery services.”
Getting involved in the developer community
Diana first became involved in the developer community 20 years ago, in 1999, beginning with a university user group. She attended her first Devfest in Bangkok in 2010 and has worked in multiple developer communities since then. She was a co-organizer of GDG Triangle and is now an organizer of GDG Durham in North Carolina. In 2020, she gave virtual talks to global audiences.
“It’s been great to get to know other communities and reach the far corners of the Earth,” she says.
Favorite Google Maps Platform features and current projects
Diana is excited about the Places API and the Maps team’s continuous improvements. She says the Maps team keeps the GDEs up to date on all the latest news and takes their feedback very seriously.
“Shoutout to Claire, Alex, and Angela, who are in direct contact with us, and everyone who works with them; they have been amazing,” she says. “I look forward to showcasing more upcoming changes. What comes next will be mind-blowing, immersing people into location in a different way that is more interactive.”
Of the new features released in June 2020, which include Cloud-based maps styling and Local Context, Diana says, “Having the freedom to customize the experience a lot more is amazing.”
As a Maps GDE in 2021, Diana plans to continue working on open source tech projects that benefit the greater good, like her recently completed app for Diabetes users, ScoutX, which notifies emergency contacts when a Diabetic person’s blood glucose values are too high or too low, in case they need immediate help.
She envisions an app that expands connectivity and geolocation tracking for hikers in remote areas, using LoRaWan technologies that can withstand harsh temperatures and conditions.
“Imagine you go to Yellowstone and get lost, with no GPS signal or phone signal, but there’s a tracking device connected to a LoRaWan network sending your location,” Diana says. “It’s much easier for rescue services to find you. Rack Wireless is working on providing satellite access, as well, and having precise latitude and longitude makes mapping simple.”
In the future, Diana sees herself managing a team that makes groundbreaking discoveries and puts technologies to use to help other people.
Posted by Brian Daugherty, Product Solutions Engineer
In order to protect users' personal information across the web, Google continues to make signing into apps and services secure by default. Delivering on this promise, we recently announced Google Identity Services, our new family of Identity APIs that consolidate multiple identity offerings under one software development kit (SDK). As we move to further simplify the number of sign-in methods and user experience we are announcing the deprecation of the JavaScript based Google Platform Library for web apps and plan to fully retire it on March 31, 2023.
What does this mean for you?
Evaluate if you are affected by the deprecation.
Complete your migration before March 31, 2023, after which the Google Platform Library will no longer be available for download. If you’re making the switch, we’ve provided a Sign In With Google migration guide to help you out.
Are you affected?
The deprecation applies only to web apps using the Google Sign-in JavaScript library. If your web pages currently load the Google Platform Library (apis.google.com/js/platform.js), you are affected and need to migrate to the newer Sign In With Google client library.
Your suite of apps and platforms may be using the Google Platform Library to support authentication only flows for user sign-in, an authorization flow for data-sharing (for example, sharing a user’s calendar or photos), or both at the same time. The migration includes both authentication and authorization flows.
Your suite of apps and platforms may also be using multiple methods of authentication and authorization offered by Google. The following are NOT affected by this deprecation announcement:
Android or iOS native app SDKs,
apps or platforms directly calling Google’s OAuth2 or OpenID services.
Changes and benefits
As part of our ongoing effort to improve user sign-in we released a new JavaScript library for Sign In With Google. In addition to prior authentication and authorization functionality, it also offers a new user experience to improve user visibility, trust and decrease friction during sign-in.
Migration to our new JavaScript library offers a number of benefits, some of which are:
Low-friction user sign-in and sign-up.
Providing your users with a consistent sign-in experience across the web.
Adding a secure sign-in method to your site using either HTML or JavaScript.
Visit our developer site for more information and check out the google-signin tag on Stack Overflow for technical assistance. Offer your suggestions and feedback using [email protected].
