Hi, everyone! We've released Chrome Beta 98 (98.0.4758.13) for iOS: it'll become available on App Store in next few days.
You can see a partial list of the changes in the Git log. If you find a new issue, please let us know by filing a bug.
Harry Souders
Google Chrome
The Quirinale Palace in Rome is one of the world’s most renowned heritage sites. Once home to popes it has been the official residence of the President of the Italian Republic since 1946. However, using the words of said President, Sergio Mattarella, the Quirinale Palace is also the “Home of All Italians”. This is due to its importance for Italian political and institutional life, as well as its incomparable artistic and cultural heritage, representing the genius and creativity of Italians.
Google is proud to join forces with the office of the Italian Head of the State to invite everyone — Italians and people from all over the world — to make this place their home. But you wouldn’t want to call somewhere you’d never visited before “home”, right? So, put on your fancy clothes and let’s open the doors of this house together, courtesy of Google Arts & Culture’s new online experience.
Welcome to the Quirinale Palace: let’s begin. Before entering, you will spy the Courtyard of Honor (Cortile d'Onore), a large arcaded square with a harmonious appearance, the result of decades of work and passion. From here, we might stroll up the noble Staircase of Honor (Scalone d'Onore) where you will have access to the main rooms in the building. Marvel at the immense spaces all around you, with ornate frescos and adornments at every turn.
Let’s continue down the halls and experience even more uniqueness. Art can be so original, especially when it finds a way to relate to every age and interest! For astrology lovers or those just curious to delve deeper into a particular artwork, these hallways are lined with decorations where you can find your zodiac sign among beautiful astrological images. In doing so, you can feel part of something greater, and imagine others doing the same centuries ago. This theme continues with the furnishings: leaning against the walls are twelve armchairs made at the beginning of the 18th century by Andrea Brustolon, an artist described as the "Michelangelo of wood" by the one and only Honoré de Balzac.
Next, keep walking down the halls and chambers and you will soon notice a certain love for clocks and pendulums. In fact, the Quirinale Palace holds over 200 of them! Time really is a precious commodity and you won’t be able to forget it in this place. Home to hand made clocks and pendulums imported from all over the world, you can explore how they are cared for and repaired in the watchmaker’s laboratory. Get your clocks right by learning about how “telling time” has changed and trended in history.
Here we are. The moment has come to hop into the President’s office (no pictures with flash, please!) and uncover all the details that he works next to as he performs his duties, attends functions, and receives foreign guests and members of Parliament. Few know that, originally, when the Quirinale Palace was the seat of the Vatican, the lavishing room was the Pope's summer bedroom. During the Napoleonic restyling, it was used as the emperor's dining room and at the end of the 19th century, King Umberto I turned it into an office that linked to the bedroom in the adjoining Sala di Druso (Room of Drusus the Elder).
It was an eclectic group of people who lived — and live — in this Palace over the years. Here is one such example: the Savoy family, and other former habitants, used the Great Hall of the Cuirassiers, the largest of the rooms, as an indoor tennis court. At a point in time, it was also used as a skating rink for the entertainment of the Savoy princes. Which explains why, during some recent restorations, a tennis ball was found behind the tympanum (decorative arch) that tops the access portal of the Pauline Chapel, a space dedicated to Pope Paul V, who commissioned this and other large rooms at the South of the Palace.
Last but not least, you will arrive at the beautiful outdoor gardens which you can also see through the Street View technology on Google Arts & Culture. You can also see the Porta Giardini, a nineteenth-century gate entering the Viale delle Palmen, bordered on both sides by twelve geometric flower beds with a rare and rich collection of tree species.
Your trip to the Quirinale Palace doesn’t end here! Browse over 1000 images, photoshoots of 13 artworks through Art Camera and more than 100 km of Street View digitizations in the Palace and President’s summer location in the woods, Castelporziano Residence.
Visit g.co/quirinale, or download Google Arts & Culture’s Android or iOS app to continue learning and having fun. And if this exhibition got you in the mood to see more of Italy and its beauties, embark on our other online experiences, such as a trip to Parma Capital of Culture 2020+21 .
The Quirinale Palace in Rome is one of the world’s most renowned heritage sites. Once home to popes it has been the official residence of the President of the Italian Republic since 1946. However, using the words of said President, Sergio Mattarella, the Quirinale Palace is also the “Home of All Italians”. This is due to its importance for Italian political and institutional life, as well as its incomparable artistic and cultural heritage, representing the genius and creativity of Italians.
Google is proud to join forces with the office of the Italian Head of the State to invite everyone — Italians and people from all over the world — to make this place their home. But you wouldn’t want to call somewhere you’d never visited before “home”, right? So, put on your fancy clothes and let’s open the doors of this house together, courtesy of Google Arts & Culture’s new online experience.
Welcome to the Quirinale Palace: let’s begin. Before entering, you will spy the Courtyard of Honor (Cortile d'Onore), a large arcaded square with a harmonious appearance, the result of decades of work and passion. From here, we might stroll up the noble Staircase of Honor (Scalone d'Onore) where you will have access to the main rooms in the building. Marvel at the immense spaces all around you, with ornate frescos and adornments at every turn.
Let’s continue down the halls and experience even more uniqueness. Art can be so original, especially when it finds a way to relate to every age and interest! For astrology lovers or those just curious to delve deeper into a particular artwork, these hallways are lined with decorations where you can find your zodiac sign among beautiful astrological images. In doing so, you can feel part of something greater, and imagine others doing the same centuries ago. This theme continues with the furnishings: leaning against the walls are twelve armchairs made at the beginning of the 18th century by Andrea Brustolon, an artist described as the "Michelangelo of wood" by the one and only Honoré de Balzac.
Next, keep walking down the halls and chambers and you will soon notice a certain love for clocks and pendulums. In fact, the Quirinale Palace holds over 200 of them! Time really is a precious commodity and you won’t be able to forget it in this place. Home to hand made clocks and pendulums imported from all over the world, you can explore how they are cared for and repaired in the watchmaker’s laboratory. Get your clocks right by learning about how “telling time” has changed and trended in history.
Here we are. The moment has come to hop into the President’s office (no pictures with flash, please!) and uncover all the details that he works next to as he performs his duties, attends functions, and receives foreign guests and members of Parliament. Few know that, originally, when the Quirinale Palace was the seat of the Vatican, the lavishing room was the Pope's summer bedroom. During the Napoleonic restyling, it was used as the emperor's dining room and at the end of the 19th century, King Umberto I turned it into an office that linked to the bedroom in the adjoining Sala di Druso (Room of Drusus the Elder).
It was an eclectic group of people who lived — and live — in this Palace over the years. Here is one such example: the Savoy family, and other former habitants, used the Great Hall of the Cuirassiers, the largest of the rooms, as an indoor tennis court. At a point in time, it was also used as a skating rink for the entertainment of the Savoy princes. Which explains why, during some recent restorations, a tennis ball was found behind the tympanum (decorative arch) that tops the access portal of the Pauline Chapel, a space dedicated to Pope Paul V, who commissioned this and other large rooms at the South of the Palace.
Last but not least, you will arrive at the beautiful outdoor gardens which you can also see through the Street View technology on Google Arts & Culture. You can also see the Porta Giardini, a nineteenth-century gate entering the Viale delle Palmen, bordered on both sides by twelve geometric flower beds with a rare and rich collection of tree species.
Your trip to the Quirinale Palace doesn’t end here! Browse over 1000 images, photoshoots of 13 artworks through Art Camera and more than 100 km of Street View digitizations in the Palace and President’s summer location in the woods, Castelporziano Residence.
Visit g.co/quirinale, or download Google Arts & Culture’s Android or iOS app to continue learning and having fun. And if this exhibition got you in the mood to see more of Italy and its beauties, embark on our other online experiences, such as a trip to Parma Capital of Culture 2020+21 .
In the summer, Dr. Gino Caspari’s day starts at 5:30 a.m. in Siberia, where he studies the ancient Scythians with the Swiss National Science Foundation. There, he looks for burial places of these nomadic warriors who rode through Asia 2,500 years ago. The work isn’t easy, from dealing with extreme temperatures, to swamps covered with mosquitos. But the biggest challenge is staying one step ahead of tomb raiders.
It’s believed that more than 90% of the tombs — called kurgans — have already been destroyed by raiders looking to profit off what they find, but Gino is looking for the thousands he believes remain scattered across Russia, Mongolia and Western China. To track his progress, he began mapping these burial sites using Google Earth. “There’s a plethora of open data sources out there, but most of them don’t have the resolution necessary to detect individual archaeological structures,” Dr. Caspari says, pointing out that getting quality data is also very expensive. “Google Earth updates high-res data across the globe, and, especially in remote regions, it was a windfall for archaeologists. Google Earth expanded our possibilities to plan surveys and understand cultural heritage on a broader geographic scale.”
While Google Earth helped Dr. Caspari plan his expeditions, he still couldn’t stay ahead of the looters. He needed to get there faster. That’s when he met data scientist Pablo Crespo and started using another Google tool, TensorFlow.
“Since I started my PhD in 2013, I have been interested in automatic detection of archaeological sites from remote sensing data,” Gino says. “It was clear we needed to look at landscapes and human environmental interaction to understand past cultures. The problem was that our view was obscured by a lack of data and a focus on individual sites.” Back then, he tried some simple automatization processes to detect the places he needed for his research with the available technology, but only got limited results. In 2020, though, Gino and Pablo created a machine learning model using TensorFlow that could analyze satellite images they pulled from Google Earth. This model would look for places on the images that had the characteristics of a Scythian tomb.
The progress in the field of machine learning has been insanely fast, improving the quality of classification and detection to a point where it has become much more than just a theoretical possibility. Google’s freely available technologies have help
This technology sped up the discovery process for Gino, giving him an advantage over looters and even deterioration caused by climate change.
“Frankly, I think that without these tools, I probably wouldn’t have gotten this far in my understanding of technology and what it can do to make a difference in the study of our shared human past,” Gino says. “As a young scholar, I just lack the funds to access a lot of the resources I need. Working with Pablo and others has widened my perspective on what is possible and where we can go.”
Technology solutions have given Dr. Caspari’s work a new set of capabilities, supercharging what he’s able to do. And it’s also made him appreciate the importance of the human touch. “The deeper we dive into our past with the help of technology, the more apparent it becomes how patchy and incomplete our knowledge really is,” he says. “Technology often serves as an extension of our senses and mitigates our reality. Weaving the fabric of our reality will remain the task of the storyteller in us.”
In the summer, Dr. Gino Caspari’s day starts at 5:30 a.m. in Siberia, where he studies the ancient Scythians with the Swiss National Science Foundation. There, he looks for burial places of these nomadic warriors who rode through Asia 2,500 years ago. The work isn’t easy, from dealing with extreme temperatures, to swamps covered with mosquitos. But the biggest challenge is staying one step ahead of tomb raiders.
It’s believed that more than 90% of the tombs — called kurgans — have already been destroyed by raiders looking to profit off what they find, but Gino is looking for the thousands he believes remain scattered across Russia, Mongolia and Western China. To track his progress, he began mapping these burial sites using Google Earth. “There’s a plethora of open data sources out there, but most of them don’t have the resolution necessary to detect individual archaeological structures,” Dr. Caspari says, pointing out that getting quality data is also very expensive. “Google Earth updates high-res data across the globe, and, especially in remote regions, it was a windfall for archaeologists. Google Earth expanded our possibilities to plan surveys and understand cultural heritage on a broader geographic scale.”
While Google Earth helped Dr. Caspari plan his expeditions, he still couldn’t stay ahead of the looters. He needed to get there faster. That’s when he met data scientist Pablo Crespo and started using another Google tool, TensorFlow.
“Since I started my PhD in 2013, I have been interested in automatic detection of archaeological sites from remote sensing data,” Gino says. “It was clear we needed to look at landscapes and human environmental interaction to understand past cultures. The problem was that our view was obscured by a lack of data and a focus on individual sites.” Back then, he tried some simple automatization processes to detect the places he needed for his research with the available technology, but only got limited results. In 2020, though, Gino and Pablo created a machine learning model using TensorFlow that could analyze satellite images they pulled from Google Earth. This model would look for places on the images that had the characteristics of a Scythian tomb.
The progress in the field of machine learning has been insanely fast, improving the quality of classification and detection to a point where it has become much more than just a theoretical possibility. Google’s freely available technologies have help
This technology sped up the discovery process for Gino, giving him an advantage over looters and even deterioration caused by climate change.
“Frankly, I think that without these tools, I probably wouldn’t have gotten this far in my understanding of technology and what it can do to make a difference in the study of our shared human past,” Gino says. “As a young scholar, I just lack the funds to access a lot of the resources I need. Working with Pablo and others has widened my perspective on what is possible and where we can go.”
Technology solutions have given Dr. Caspari’s work a new set of capabilities, supercharging what he’s able to do. And it’s also made him appreciate the importance of the human touch. “The deeper we dive into our past with the help of technology, the more apparent it becomes how patchy and incomplete our knowledge really is,” he says. “Technology often serves as an extension of our senses and mitigates our reality. Weaving the fabric of our reality will remain the task of the storyteller in us.”
Caption: OSS-Fuzz and Jazzer finding the Log4Shell Vulnerability
Posted by Murat Yener, Android Developer Advocate
That’s a wrap! We’ve just finished a new MAD skills series on Gradle and Android Gradle plugin build APIs. In this series we shifted gears and took a look at how you can extend your build by using Gradle and brand new Android Gradle plugin APIs.
We covered how Gradle works, how you can configure the Android Gradle plugin, and learned which APIs to use to help customize your builds and keep your builds fast and efficient. If you missed this series or some of the episodes, here is a quick recap of what to expect.
Gradle is a general purpose build tool which can build specific project types by using plugins. Plugins introduce a way to configure the build and decide which tasks are needed to build that project. Gradle configures and executes these tasks in different phases. Understanding how the build phases work and how to configure the Android Gradle plugin can help you customize your build according to your project’s needs and keep build times efficient.
You can check out the following video or if you prefer, read the article.
Extending your build by writing your own plugin gives you a way to customize your build even further! Starting with version 7.0, Android Gradle Plugin now offers stable extension points for manipulating variant configuration and the produced build artifacts. In this episode we started with writing a custom task and used the new Variant API to initialize and modify properties of Variants.
You can find the same content in article form.
As we saw in previous episodes, keeping your config phase fast and resolving values lazily can help keep your builds efficient. Providers and Properties let you pass inputs and receive outputs from Gradle tasks lazily. In this episode we also take a look at the new Artifacts API to access and modify the app manifest.
Check out the article or the following video.
In the last episode in the series, we feature Alex Saveau, who maintains the Gradle Play Publisher and Version Orchestrator plugins. Alex shares a tip on using modern AGP and Gradle APIs to manipulate Android build artifacts.
To learn more, check out the following video.
Finally, we wrapped up this series with a live Q&A session where we answered your questions. If you missed the Q&A, make sure to check out the following recording.
If you are interested to learn more, make sure to check out the resources and the Gradle recipes repo linked below! See you in the next MAD Skills series.
Recipes repo: https://github.com/android/gradle-recipes
Extend the Android Gradle plugin: https://developer.android.com/studio/build/extend-agp
AGP Roadmap: https://goo.gle/3EuNYXz
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.
Evelyn Mendes, the first transgender Google Developer Expert, is based in Porto Alegre, Brazil, and has worked in technology since 2002. “I've always loved technology!” she exclaims, flashing a dazzling smile. As a transgender woman, Evelyn faced discrimination in the tech world in Brazil and relied on her friends for emotional support and even housing and food, as she fought for a job in technology. Her excruciating journey has made her a tireless advocate for diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI), as she works toward her vision of a world of empathy, acceptance, and love.
Meet Evelyn Mendes, Google Developer Expert in Firebase
Current professional role
Evelyn works in systems analysis and development and currently focuses on Angular, Flutter, and Firebase. “I believe they are technologies with frame frameworks and architectures that have a lot to offer,” she says.
As an architecture consultant and specialist software engineer at Bemol Digital, Evelyn manages development teams that work with many different technologies and led Bimol Digital, through the process of switching their mobile app, originally developed in React Native, to Flutter. Now, Evelyn supports the migration of all Bimol Digital’s mobile development to Flutter. “Today, all of our new mobile projects are developed in Flutter,” she says. “I’m responsible for the architecture. I'm a PO and a Scrum Master, but I also enjoy teamwork, and I love helping the team work better, more efficiently, and most importantly, enjoy their work!”
DEI Advocacy
Evelyn’s kindness toward others is reflected in her advocacy for diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) in the IT and tech world. She takes a broad approach to diversity, advocating for safe spaces in technology for mothers, women in technology, Black founders, immigrants, and Native Brazilians to learn. “Diversity and inclusion are not just values or attitudes to me; they are a part of who I am: my life, my struggles,” she says.
Evelyn views technology as a way to help underrepresented groups achieve more, feel empowered, and change their own lives. “Technology will give you a better shot to fight for a better life,” she says. “I want to bring more trans people to technology, so that they have real chances to continue evolving in their professional lives.”
When Evelyn came out as transgender, she experienced intolerance that kept her out of the workforce for over a year, despite her innumerable skills. “Brazil, especially the southern part where I’m from, is still, unfortunately, not a very tolerant society,” she says. “Due to who I was, I wasn’t able to find a job for over a year, because people didn’t want to work with someone who is transgender.”
Evelyn was fortunate enough to have friends who supported her financially (there were times when she didn’t even have enough money to buy food) and mentally, helping her believe she could be true to herself and find happiness. She encourages others in her position to seek financial and emotional independence. “In terms of your emotional wellbeing, I’d recommend starting with identifying the abusive relationships around you, which can come from different sides, even from your family,” she says. “Try distancing yourself from them and those who hurt you. This will help you in your evolution.”
Evelyn recommends trans people in Brazil connect with groups like EducaTransforma, which teaches technology to trans people, and TransEmpregos, which helps trans people to enter the labor market. For trans and cis women in Brazil, Aduaciosa Oficial facilitates networking (tech 101 for women, classic dev community, meetups workshops), and B2Mamy supports women’s entrepreneurship.
Evelyn often speaks to companies about diversity in IT and how to be welcoming to women, LGBTQIA+ people, and other underrepresented groups. “I like it because I see that more and more companies are interested in the subject, and I think I can be a voice that has never been heard,” Evelyn says. “I support inclusive events, and when invited, I participate in lectures, because I know that a trans woman, on a stage where only white, ‘straight,’ cis people are normally seen, makes a lot of difference for many people, especially LGBTs.”
At BrazilJS 2017, Evelyn invited every woman at the event to join her on stage for a photo, to show how many women are involved in technology and that women are integral to events. She called her fellow speakers and attendees, as well as the event’s caterers, cleaners, and security personnel to the stage and said, “Look at the stage. Now, no one can say there aren’t any women in tech.”
At her current company, Evelyn approaches diversity as a positive and transformative thing. “I know that I make a difference just with my presence, because people usually know my story.”
In addition to her technology work, Evelyn is involved in the Transdiálogos project, which aims to train professionals to end discrimination in health services. She is also part of TransEnem in Porto Alegre, an EJA-type prep course to help trans people go to college. “I don't miss the chance to fight for diversity and inclusion anywhere,” Evelyn says. “That's what my life is. This is my fight; that's who I am; that's why I'm here.”
Learning Firebase
Evelyn said she was drawn to Firebase because “Firebase is all about diversity. For poor, remote areas in Brazil, without WiFi or broadband, Firebase gives people with limited resources a reasonable stack to build with and deploy something to the world. Firebase uses basic HTML, is low code, and is free, so it’s for everyone. Plus, it’s easy to get familiar with the technology, as opposed to learning Java or Android.”
To demonstrate all the functionality and features that Firebase offers, Evelyn created a mobile conversation application that she often shows at events. “Many people see Firebase as just a NoSql database,” she says. “They don't know the real power that it can actually offer. With that in mind, I tried to put in it all the features I thought people could use: Authentication, Storage, Realtime Database with Data Denormalization, Hosting, Cloud Functions, Firebase Analytics, and Cloud Firestore.”
Users can send images and messages through the app. A user can take a picture, resize, and send it, and it will be saved in Storage. Before going to the timeline, messages go through a sanitization process, where Evelyn removes certain words and indexes them on a list called bad_words in the Realtime Database. Timeline messages are also stored in Realtime. Users can like and comment on messages and talk privately. Sanitization is done by Cloud Functions, in database triggers, which also denormalizes messages in lists dedicated to each context. For example, all the messages a user sends, besides going to the main list that would be the timeline, go to a list of messages the user sent. Another denormalization is a list of messages that contain images and those that only contain text, for quick search within the Realtime Database. Users can also delete and edit messages. Using some rules Evelyn created in Cloud Firestore, she can manage what people will or will not see inside the app, in real time. Here’s the source code for the project. “I usually show it happening live and in color at events, with Firebase Analytics,” Evelyn says. “I also know where people are logging in, and I can show this working in the dashboard, also in real time.”
Becoming a GDE
When Evelyn first started learning Firebase, she also began creating educational content on how to use it, based on everything she was learning herself—first articles, then video tutorials. At first, she didn’t want to show her face in her videos because she was afraid she wasn’t good enough and felt embarrassed about every little silly mistake she made, but as she gained confidence, she started giving talks and lectures. Now, Evelyn maintains her own website and YouTube channel, where she saves all her video tutorials and other projects.
Her expertise caught the attention of Google’s Developer Relations team, who invited Evelyn to apply to be a GDE. “At first, I was scared to death, also because I didn't speak any English,” Evelyn recalls. “It took me quite some time, but finally I took a leap of faith, and it worked! And today, #IamaGDE!”
As a GDE, Evelyn loves meeting people from around the world who share her passion for technology and appreciates the fact that her GDE expertise has allowed her to share her knowledge in remote areas. “The program has helped me to grow a lot, both personally and professionally,” she adds. “I learned a lot and continue learning, by attending many events, conferences, and meetups.”
Evelyn’s advice to anyone hoping to become a GDE
“Be a GDE before officially becoming one! Participating in this program is a recognition of what you have already been doing: your knowledge, expertise, and accomplishments, so keep learning, keep growing, and help your community. You may think you’re not a big enough expert, but the truth is, there are people out there who definitely know less than you and would benefit from your knowledge.”
The Dev channel has been updated to 98.0.4758.9/10 for Windows and 98.0.4758.9 for Linux and Mac.
A partial list of changes is available in the log. Interested in switching release channels? Find out how. If you find a new issue, please let us know by filing a bug. The community help forum is also a great place to reach out for help or learn about common issues.
Srinivas Sista
