Organization applications for the 2022 Season of Docsare now open!
Through Season of Docs, Google awards grants to open source projects and organizations to hire technical writers to work on documentation projects. Participating organizations hire and pay the technical writers directly (we use Open Collective to help transfer grant funds). Organizations have up to six months to complete their documentation project. At the end of the program, organizations submit a case study outlining the results of their documentation projects, including the metrics they used to evaluate the success of their new or improved documentation. The case studies from the 2021 Season of Docs program are available online, and we will be releasing a summary report for the 2021 Season of Docs shortly—join our Season of Docs announcements list to be notified when it’s available!
How does my organization apply to take part in Season of Docs?
Organization applications are now open! The deadline to apply is March 25, 2022 at 18:00 UTC.
Take a look at the examples of project ideas, then create a project proposal based on your open source project’s actual documentation needs. Your goal is to attract technical writers to your organization, making them feel comfortable about approaching the organization and excited about what they can achieve.
We strongly recommend reading through the proposals and case studies submitted by organizations participating in the 2021 Season of Docs.
Organizations can submit their applications here: https://goo.gle/3dRyD7P. Organization applications close on March 25th at 18:00 UTC.
How do technical writers take part in Season of Docs?
Technical writers interested in working with accepted open source organizations can share their contact information via the Season of Docs GitHub repository; or they may submit proposals directly to the organizations using the contact information shared on the organization project page. Technical writers do not submit a formal application through Season of Docs.
Technical writers interested in participating in the 2022 Season of Docs should read our guide for technical writers on the Season of Docs website. Please note that technical writer recruiting began on February 3, 2022.
If you have any questions about the program, please email us at [email protected].
General timeline
February 23 - March 25
Open source organizations apply to take part in Season of Docs
April 14
Google publishes the list of accepted organizations, along with their project proposals and doc development can begin.
June 15
Organization administrators begin to submit monthly evaluations to report on the status of their project.
November 30
Organization administrators submit their case study and final project evaluation.
December 14
Google releases submitted case studies.
May 2, 2023
Organizations begin to participate in post-program followup surveys.
Explore the Season of Docs website at g.co/seasonofdocs to learn more about participating in the program. Use our logo and other promotional resources to spread the word. Check out the timeline and FAQ, and apply now!
By Kassandra Dhillon and Erin McKean, Google Open Source Programs Office
Posted by Greg Hartrell, Product Director, Games on Play/Android
With over three billion players showing strong engagement worldwide, the games market continues to remain resilient and grow beyond expectations. As we look ahead this year, the influx of new and returning players creates a great opportunity for developers to scale their games businesses.
The Google for Games Developer Summit returns virtually on March 15, 2022 at 9AM Pacific. From mobile to cloud, learn about our new solutions for game developers that make it easier to build high-quality games and reach audiences around the world.
Join us for the keynote at 9AM Pacific followed by over 20 developer sessions on-demand. We’ll share deep-dives and updates on the Android Game Development Kit, Google Play Games beta on PC, Play Asset Delivery, Play Console, and more. The summit is open for all. Check out the full agenda today at g.co/gamedevsummit.
We are happy to announce ML Olympiad, an associated Kaggle Community Competitions hosted by Machine Learning Google Developer Experts (ML GDE) and TensorFlow User Group (TFUG).
Kaggle recently announced "Community Competitions" allowing anyone to create and host a competition at no cost. And our proud members of ML communities decided to dive in and take advantage of the feature to solve critical issues of our time, providing opportunities to train developers.
Why the ML Olympiad?
To train ML for developers leveraging Kaggle’s community competition. This is an opportunity for the participants to practice ML. This is the first 2022 global campaign of the ML Ecosystem team and this helps build stronger communities.
Competition will be focused on the Enem (National High School Examination) data. Competitors will have to create models to predict student scores in multiple tests.
Hosts: Vinicius Fernandes Caridá (ML GDE), Pedro Gengo, Alex Fernandes Mansano / Tensorflow User Group São Paulo
The aim of this competition is to build a multi-class classification model capable of accurately predicting the most suitable driver for one or several given orders based on the destination of the order and the paths covered by the deliverers.
Google Developers support ML Olympiad by providing swag for top 3 winners of each competition. Find your interest among the competitions, join/share them, and get your part of the swag for competition winners!
Build high-quality Windows apps that also run on mobile and web
Since we launched Flutter, we’ve focused on delivering a cross-platform solution for beautiful, tailored apps that are compiled to machine code and take full advantage of the underlying graphics hardware of your device. Today marks a significant expansion of this vision with the first production release of support for Windows as an app target, enabling Windows developers to benefit from the same productivity and power that mobile developers have been enjoying.
Our goal with Flutter is to give you the tools you need to build a great experience, regardless of which operating system you’re building for. And so we want to bring the same core framework and tools to every place you might want to paint pixels. Flutter allows you to handcraft beautiful experiences where your brand and design come to the forefront. Flutter is fast, compiling directly to machine code; with support for stateful hot reload, you get the productivity of an interactive environment that allows you to make changes while your app is running and see the results immediately. And Flutter is open, with thousands of contributors adding to the core framework and extending it with an ecosystem of packages.
So far, we’ve seen momentum that has exceeded our expectations, with nearly half a million apps now released that use Flutter, including big apps from companies like Betterment, BMW, and ByteDance, and apps from thirty teams at Google. In 2021, Flutter became the most popular cross-platform UI toolkit, as measured by analysts like Statista and SlashData:
Our own data backs this up, with a consistent 92% of Flutter developers expressing positive satisfaction with our tools in all four quarterly surveys in 2021. To the other 8% of you, we’re listening to your feedback and want you to be happy as well!
One common survey request has been for Windows support. Today, we’re thrilled to announce the full availability of support for Windows apps for Flutter in stable builds.
Windows and Flutter
A couple of years ago, we laid out an ambitious vision for Flutter to expand from mobile apps on iOS and Android to other platforms including web and the desktop. The core of Flutter carries across platforms: from the portable, hardware-accelerated Skia graphics engine, to the Flutter rendering system; core primitives like animation, theming, text input, and internationalization; and the hundreds of widgets that Flutter offers.
But desktop apps aren’t just mobile apps running on a bigger screen. They’re designed for different input devices, such as a keyboard and mouse. They have resizable windows that often run on a widescreen monitor. There are different conventions for critical things like accessibility, input method editors, and visual styling. And they integrate with different APIs in the underlying operating system: desktop apps support everything from file system pickers to device hardware to data stores like the Windows registry.
So while we’ve brought Flutter to Windows, we’ve also tailored it for Windows.
Just as with our support for Android and iOS, the Windows implementation of Flutter combines a Dart framework and C++ engine. Windows and Flutter communicate through an embedding layer that hosts the Flutter engine and is responsible for translating and dispatching Windows messages. Flutter coordinates with Windows to paint your UI to the screen, handles events like window resizing and DPI changes, and works with existing Windows modalities for internationalization (such as input method editors).
On Windows, Flutter uses exactly the same Dart code, but takes advantage of native Windows APIs.
Your app can use every part of the Flutter framework, and on Windows, it can also talk to the Win32, COM, and Windows Runtime APIs either directly through Dart’s C interop layer, or using a platform plugin written in C++. We’ve also adapted a number of common plugins to include Windows support, including camera, file_picker, and shared_preferences. More importantly, the community has already added Windows support for a broad array of other packages, covering everything from Windows taskbar integration to serial port access.
For a fully tailored Windows UI, you can also use Flutter Favorite packages like fluent_ui and flutter_acrylic to create an app that expresses the Microsoft Fluent design system beautifully. And using the msix tool you can wrap your app in an installer that can be uploaded to the Microsoft Store on Windows.
There are already hundreds of packages that have been adapted to support Flutter apps built for Windows.
Together, this fosters creation of apps that look great on Windows, run fast on Windows, and still transfer to other desktop or mobile devices, as well as the web. Here are a few early examples that we’ve seen so far:
Some early community examples of Windows apps built with Flutter, including Harmonoid and Rows.
Microsoft and Flutter
Several teams from Microsoft have contributed to today’s announcement. In particular, we’d like to express our gratitude to the Fluent design team for their contribution of iconography for Flutter apps on Windows. Their fluentui_system_icons package has been awarded Flutter Favorite status to signify its quality.
Of course, Visual Studio Code provides a key part of the tooling experience for Flutter apps. Our Dart extension has been downloaded over 4 million times, and we’ve been grateful for their partnership and support of our feature requests to improve Flutter development using their tools.
We asked the Windows team if they’d be willing to share a few words about Flutter’s support. Here’s what Kevin Gallo, Corporate Vice President for Windows Developer Platform at Microsoft, has to say:
“We're delighted to see Flutter adding support for creating Windows apps. Windows is an open platform, and we welcome all developers. We're excited to see Flutter developers bring their experiences to Windows and also publish to the Microsoft Store. Flutter support for Windows is a big step for the community, and we can’t wait to see what you’ll bring to Windows!”
We’ve been particularly impressed with the investments Microsoft has made around accessibility for Windows, and we’re grateful for their team’s assistance to ensure Flutter has support for screen readers from day one. It’s a mistake to dismiss accessibility as a niche interest. As this diagram from Microsoft’s inclusive design toolkit illustrates, we all have reason to care about delivering experiences that adapt for different permanent, temporary, or situational needs.
The video below demonstrates how Flutter integrates with Windows Narrator. For the purposes of this video, we’ve deliberately blurred the screen to give you a sense of how important this feature is to users who need it.
An ecosystem of tools for Windows development
Our tooling partners are also adding support for Windows.
Realm is a super-fast local data store. The latest version, shipping today, now supports building Windows apps with Flutter, with fast access to the underlying database using Dart FFI, adding to their existing support for mobile platforms like iOS and Android.
Rive announced today an upcoming Windows version of their popular graphics tooling suite, allowing designers and developers to create interactive vector animations that can respond to code in real time using a state machine. The upcoming Windows edition of their app offers screaming fast performance and a lower memory footprint, and will be available soon in the Microsoft Store for download.
Syncfusion have updated their suite of widgets to take full advantage of Windows. If you subscribe to their toolkit, you’ll find data visualization components like treemaps and charting, a rich data grid widget, calendars and even support for PDF creation and Excel spreadsheets.
Lastly, Nevercode has updated their Codemagic CI/CD tool to support Windows, enabling you to test and build your Windows apps in the cloud and automate deployment of your app to the Windows Store.
It’s very exciting for us to see a mature ecosystem built around Flutter, and we’d encourage you to check out each of these partners as you start building Windows apps with Flutter.
Windows support arrives in Flutter 2.10
Stable, production-quality support for building Windows apps is available as part of Flutter 2.10, which releases today. Flutter 2.10 also includes many other features, performance improvements and bug fixes, which we’ll cover in more detail in a separate blog post.
In the coming months, you’ll hear more from us on completing stable support for macOS and Linux, making the full set of desktop, web, and mobile platforms available for your production Flutter apps.
In the meantime, thank you for your support of Flutter. We’re excited to see what you build for Windows!
Google Open Source is delighted to announce Season of Docs 2022!
The Season of Docs program supports better documentation in open source and provides opportunities for skilled technical writers to gain open source experience.
Participating projects receive funds to create, improve, or expand their documentation, while contributing to our knowledge of effective metrics for evaluating open source documentation through their shared case studies.
About the program
Season of Docs allows open source organizations to apply for a grant based on their documentation needs. If selected, the open source organizations use their grant to hire a technical writer directly to complete their documentation project. Organizations have up to six months to complete their documentation project.
Participating organizations help broaden our understanding of effective documentation practices and metrics in open source by submitting a final case study upon completion of the program. The case study should outline the problem the documentation project was intended to solve, what metrics were used to judge the effectiveness of the documentation, and what the organization learned for the future. All project case studies will be published on the Season of Docs site at the end of the program.
Organizations: start your exploration engines
2022 Season of Docs applications open February 23, 2022. We strongly suggest that organizations take the time to complete the steps in the exploration phase before the application process begins, including:
Creating a project page to gauge community and technical writer interest in participating (see our project ideas page for examples)
Publicizing your interest in participating in Season of Docs through your project channels and adding your project to our list of interested projects on GitHub
Lining up community members who are interested in mentoring or helping to onboard technical writers to your project
Brainstorming requirements for technical writers to work on your project (Will they need to be able to test code? Work with video? Have prior experience with your project or related technologies?)
On your mark, get set, project page!
Every Season of Docs project begins with a project page. Your project page serves as an overview of your documentation project, and it should be publicly visible. A good project page includes:
A statement of the problem your project needs to solve (“users on Windows don’t have clear guidance of how to install our project”)
The documentation that might solve this problem (“We want to create a quickstart doc and installation guide for Windows users”)
How you’ll measure the success of your documentation (“With a good quickstart, we expect to see 50% fewer issues opened about Windows installation problems.”)
What skills your technical writer would need (break down into “must have” and “nice to have” categories. “Must have: access Windows machine to test instructions”)
What volunteer help is needed from community members (“need help onboarding technical writer to our discussion groups”) and links to where the community can discuss the proposal
Most importantly, include a way for interested technical writers to reach you and ask questions!
Technical writers: express your interest
Technical writers interested in working with accepted open source organizations can share their contact information via the Season of Docs GitHub repository; or they may submit proposals directly to the organizations using the contact information shared on the organization project page. Technical writers do not submit a formal application through Season of Docs.
General timeline
February 23 - March 25
Open source organizations apply to take part in Season of Docs.
April 14
Google publishes the list of accepted organizations, along with their project proposals and doc development can begin.
June 15
Organization administrators begin to submit monthly evaluations to report on the status of their project.
November 30
Organization administrators submit their case study and final project evaluation.
December 14
Google publishes the 2021 case studies and aggregate project data.
May 2, 2023
Organizations begin to participate in post-program followup surveys.
Explore the Season of Docs website at g.co/seasonofdocs to learn more about participating in the program. Use our logo and other promotional resources to spread the word. Check out the timeline and FAQ, and get ready to apply!
By Kassandra Dhillon and Erin McKean, Google Open Source Programs Office
Posted by Kateryna Semenova, DevRel Engineer; Rahul Ravikumar, Software Engineer; Chris Craik, Software Engineer
Why is startup time important?
A lot of apps find correlation between app performance and user engagement. People expect apps to be responsive and fast to load. Startup time is one of the major metrics for app performance and quality.
Some of our partners have already invested a lot of time and resources for app startup optimizations. For example, check out the Facebook story.
In this blog post we’ll discuss Baseline Profiles and how they improve app and library performance, including startup time by up to 40%. While this blogpost focuses on startup, baseline profiles also significantly improve jank as well.
History
Android 9 (API level 28) introduced ART optimizing profiles in Play Cloud to improve app startup time. On average, we’ve seen that apps' cold starts are at least 15% faster across a variety of devices when Cloud Profiles are available.
How do Profiles work?
When the app is first launched after install or update, its code runs in an interpreted mode until it is JITted. In an APK, Java and Kotlin code is compiled as dex bytecode, but not fully compiled to machine code (since Android 6), due to the cost of storing and loading fully compiled apps. Classes and methods that are frequently used in the app, as well as those used for app startup, are recorded into a profile file. Once the device enters idle mode, ART compiles the apps based on these profiles. This speeds up subsequent app launches.
Starting with Android 9 (API level 28), Google Play also provides Cloud Profiles. When an app runs on a device, the profiles generated by ART are uploaded by the Play Store app and aggregated in the cloud. Once there are enough profiles uploaded for an application, the Play app uses the aggregated profile for subsequent installs.
Problem
While Cloud Profiles are great when they are available, they aren't always ready to be used when an app is installed. Collecting and aggregating the profiles usually takes several days, which is a problem when many apps update on a weekly basis. Many users will install an update before the Cloud Profile is available. The Google Android team started looking for other ways to improve the latency of profiles.
Solution
Baseline Profiles are a new mechanism to provide profiles which can be used on Android 7 (API level 24) and higher. A baseline profile is an ART profile generated by the Android Gradle plugin using a human readable profile format that can be provided by apps and libraries. An example might look like this:
The binary profile is stored in a specific location in the APK assets directory
(assets/dexopt/baseline.prof).
Baseline Profiles are created during build time, shipped as part of the APK to Play, and then sent from Play to users when an app is downloaded. They fill the gap in the ART Cloud Profile pipeline, when Cloud Profiles are not yet available, and automatically merge with Cloud Profiles when they are.
This diagram displays the baseline profile workflow from creation through end-user delivery.
One of the biggest benefits of Baseline Profiles is that they can be developed and evaluated locally so developers can see realistic end-user performance improvements. They are also supported on a lower version of Android(7 and higher) than Cloud Profiles, which are only available starting in Android 9.
Impact
App devs
In early 2021, Google Maps switched from a two-week to a one-week release cycle. More frequent updates meant more frequently discarding local pre-compilation, and more users experiencing slow launches without Play Cloud Profiles. By using Baseline Profiles, Google Maps improved their average startup time by 30% and saw a corresponding increase in searches by 2.4%, an immense gain for such an established app.
Library devs
Code in a library is just like that of an app - it's not fully compiled by default, which can be a problem if it does significant work on the critical path of startup.
Jetpack Compose is a UI library that is not a part of the Android system image and thus not fully compiled when installed, unlike much of the Android View toolkit code. This was causing performance problems, especially for the first few cold launches of the app.
To solve this problem, Compose uses profile installer. It ships baseline profile rules which reduce startup time and jank in Compose apps.
Google PlayStore’s search results page has been re-written with Compose. After incorporating the Baseline Profile rules from Compose, time to render the initial search results page with images improved by ~40%.
The Android team has also added Baseline Profiles to relevant AndroidX libraries. This benefits all Android apps using these libraries. Constraint Layout has found shipping profile rulesreduces animation frame times by more than one millisecond.
How to use Baseline Profiles
Create a custom Baseline Profile
All apps and library developers can benefit from including Baseline Profiles. Ideally, developers create profiles for their most critical user journeys to ensure that those journeys have consistently fast performance regardless of whether cloud profiles are available. Check out the detailed guide on how to set up Baseline Profiles for both app and library developers.
Update dependencies
If you are not ready to generate Baseline Profiles for your app right now, you can still benefit from them by updating your dependencies. If you build with Android Gradle Plugin 7.1.0-alpha05 or newer, you'll get Baseline Profiles included in your APK that are already provided by libraries (such as Jetpack). Google Play compiles your app with these profiles at install time. You can supplement these profiles as part of building your application.
Posted by Miguel Guevara, Product Manager, Privacy and Data Protection Office
At Google, we believe in democratizing access to privacy technology for all. Today, on Data Privacy Day, we’re sharing updates on our effort to create free tools that help the developer community – researchers, governments, nonprofits, businesses and more – build and launch new applications for differential privacy, which can provide useful insights and services without revealing any information about individuals. We hope to push the industry forward in creating a safer ecosystem for every Internet user with products that are private by design.
Enabling more developers to use differential privacy
In 2019, we launched our open-sourced version of our foundational differential privacy library in C++, Java and Go. Our goal was to be transparent, and allow researchers to inspect our code. We received a tremendous amount of interest from developers who wanted to use the library in their own applications, including startups like Arkhn, which enabled different hospitals to learn from medical data in a privacy-preserving way, and developers in Australia that have accelerated scientific discovery through provably private data.
Since then, we have been working on various projects and new ways to make differential privacy more accessible and usable. Today, after a year of development in partnership with OpenMined, an organization of open-source developers, we are happy to announce a new milestone for our differential privacy framework: a product that allows any Python developer to process data with differential privacy.
Previously, our differential privacy library was available in three programming languages. Now, we’re making it available in Python, reaching nearly half of the developers worldwide. This means millions more developers, researchers, and companies will be able to build applications with industry leading privacy technology, enabling them to obtain insights and observe trends from their datasets while protecting and respecting the privacy of individuals.
With this new Python library, we’ve already had organizations begin experimenting with new use cases, such as showing a site’s most visited webpages on a per country basis in an aggregate and anonymized way. The library is unique as it can be used with Spark and Beam frameworks, two of the leading engines for large data processing, yielding more flexibility in its usage and implementation. We are also releasing a new differential privacy tool that allows practitioners to visualize and better tune the parameters used to produce differentially private information. Finally, we are also publishing a paper sharing the techniques that we use to efficiently scale differential privacy to datasets of a petabyte or more.
As with all open-source projects, the technology and outputs are only as strong as its community. Internally, we’ve trained a team that develops differentially private solutions, including the infrastructure behind our Mobility Reports and the popular times feature in Google Maps. Being true to our goal, we took the step of helping OpenMined build a team of experts outside of Google as well to serve as a resource for anyone interested in learning how to deploy differential privacy technologies.
Looking forward
We encourage developers around the world to take this opportunity to experiment with differential privacy use cases like statistical analysis and machine learning, but most importantly, provide us with feedback. We are excited to learn more about the applications you all can develop and the features we can provide to help along the way.
We will continue investing in democratizing access to critical privacy enhancing technologies and hope developers join us in this journey to improve usability and coverage. As we’ve said before, we believe that every Internet user in the world deserves world-class privacy, and we’ll continue partnering with organizations to further that goal.
In 2021, we saw many changes and improvements to the Google Workspace Platform geared at helping developers build new solutions to keep up with the challenges of how we worked, like hybrid and fully remote office work. More than ever, we needed tools for virtual collaboration and digital processes to keep our work going. As paper processes in the office were less viable and we continued to go see digital transformations become necessary, many new custom solutions like desk reservation systems and automated test logging have evolved.
2021 was also a year for Platform milestones, Google Workspace grew to more than 3 billion users globally, we reached more than 5,300 public apps in the Google Workspace Marketplace, and we crossed over 4.8 billion apps installed (up from 1 billion in 2020)! We were also busy bringing Platform innovations and improving our developer experience to help building for Google Workspace easier and faster. Here’s a look at some of the key enhancements the Google Workspace Platform brought to the developer community.
Google Cloud Champion Innovators program
Community building is one of the most effective ways to support developers, which is why we created Google Cloud Innovators.This new community program was designed for developers and technical practitioners using Google Cloud and we welcome everyone.
And when we say everyone, it’s not just professional developers, data scientists, or student developers and hobbyists, we also mean non-technical end users. The growing Google community has something for everyone.
GWAO Alternate Runtimes goes GA
Google Workspace Add-ons are customized applications that tightly integrate with Google Workspace applications, and can be found in the Google Workspace Marketplace, or built specifically for your own domain. The development of these applications were limited to using Apps Script, our native scripting language for the Google Workspace Platform. With the launch of Alternate Runtimes you can now develop add-ons with your preferred hosting infrastructure, development tool chain, source control system, coding language, and code libraries; it was a highly requested update from the developer community, opening up the Platform to many new developer scenarios.
Card Builder UI Application
The GWAO Card Builder tool allows you to visually design the user interfaces for your Google Workspace Add-ons and Google Chat apps projects. It is a must-have for Google Workspace developers using either Apps Script or Alternate Runtimes, enabling you to prototype and design Card UIs super fast without hassle and errors of hand coding JSON or Apps Script on your own.
Card Builder tool for building Google Workspace Add-ons and Chat Apps
Recommended for Google Workspace
This program showcases a selection of market-leading applications built by software vendors across a wide range of categories, including project management, customer support, and finance in our Google Workspace Marketplace. These apps undergo rigorous usability and security testing to make sure they meet our requirements for high quality integrations. They must also have an exemplary track record of user satisfaction, reliability, and privacy.
Recommended for Google Workspace program showcases high quality applications
Chat Slash Commands and Dialogs
Slash commands simplify the way users interact with your Chat bot, offering them a visual leading way to discover and execute your bot’s primary features. As a developer, slash commands are straightforward to implement, and essential in offering a better bot experience. In addition to Slash Commands, Dialogs were a new capability introduced to the Chat App framework that allows developers to build user interfaces to capture inputs and parameters in a structured, reliable way. This was a tremendous step forward for bot usability because it simplified and streamlined the process of users interacting with bot commands. Now with dialogs, users can be led visually to supply inputs via prompts, versus having to rely on wrapping bot commands with natural language inputs.
Forms API beta
Google Forms enables easy creation and distribution of forms, surveys, and quizzes. Forms is used for a wide variety of use cases across business operations, customer management, event planning and logistics, education, and more. With the Google Forms API Beta announcement, developers were able to provide programmatic access for managing forms and acting on responses, empowering developers to build powerful integrations on top of Forms.
Google Workspace Marketplace updates
We made many updates to the Google Workspace Marketplace to improve both the user and developer experience. We added updates to the application detail page that included pricing and when the listing was last updated. The homepage also saw improvements with various curated categories by the Google team under Editor’s Choice. Finally, we launched the marketplace badges for developers to promote their published applications on websites and marketing channels. Oh, and we also had a logo update if you hadn’t noticed.
Google Workspace Marketplace Badges for application promotion
Farewell 2021 and here’s to welcoming in 2022
2021 brought us many innovations to the Google Workspace Platform to help developers address the needs of their users and it also brought more empowerment to knowledge workers to build the solutions they needed with our no-code and low-code platforms. These are just the highlights for the Google Workspace Platform and we look forward to more innovation in 2022. To keep up with all the news about the Platform, please subscribe to our newsletter.
Posted by Arjun Dayal, Group Product Manager, Google Play Games
In December, we announced that Google Play Games will be coming to PCs. As part of our broader goal to make our products and services work better together, this product strives to meet players where they are and give them access to their games on as many devices as possible. Today we're excited to announce that we’re opening sign-ups for Google Play Games as a beta in Korea, Taiwan, and Hong Kong.
Users participating in the beta can play a catalog of Google Play games on their Windows PC via a standalone application built by Google. We’re excited to announce that some of the most popular mobile games in the world will be available at launch, including Mobile Legends: Bang Bang, Summoners War, State of Survival: The Joker Collaboration, and Three Kingdoms Tactics, which delight hundreds of millions of players globally each month.
This product brings the best of Google Play to more laptops and desktops, enabling immersive and seamless gameplay sessions between a phone, tablet, Chromebook, and Windows PC. Players can easily browse, download, and play their favorite mobile games on their PCs, while taking advantage of larger screens with mouse and keyboard inputs. No more losing your progress or achievements when switching between devices, it just works with your Google Play Games profile! Play Points can also be earned for Google Play Games activity on PCs.
We’re thrilled to expand our platform for players to enjoy their favorite Android games even more. To sign up for future announcements, or to access the beta in Korea, Taiwan, and Hong Kong, please go to g.co/googleplaygames. If you’re an Android developer looking to learn more about Google Play Games, please express interest on our developer site. We’ll have more to share on future beta releases and regional availability soon.
Windows is a trademark of the Microsoft group of companies. Game titles may vary by region.
Posted by Erica Hanson, Global Senior Program Manager, Google Developer Student Clubs
Have you ever thought about building an application or tool that solves a problem your community faces? Or perhaps you’ve felt inspired to build something that can help improve the lives of those you care about. The year ahead brings more opportunities for helping each other and giving back to our communities.
With that in mind, we invite students around the world to join the Google Developer Student Clubs 2022 Solution Challenge! Where students from around the world are invited to solve for one of the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals using Google technologies.
About the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals
Created by the United Nations in 2015 to be achieved by 2030, the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) agreed upon by all 193 United Nations Member States aim to end poverty, ensure prosperity, and protect the planet.
If you’re new to the Solution Challenge, it is an annual competition that invites university students to develop solutions for real world problems using one or more Google products or platforms.
This year, see how you can use Android, Firebase, TensorFlow, Google Cloud, Flutter, or any of your favorite Google technologies to promote employment for all, economic growth, and climate action, by building a solution for one or more of the UN Sustainable Development Goals.
What winners of the Solution Challenge receive
Participants will receive specialized prizes at different stages:
Top 50 teams - Receive customized mentorship from Googlers and experts to take solutions to the next level, a branded T-shirt, and a certificate.
Top 10 finalists - Receive additional mentorship, a swag box, and the opportunity to showcase solutions to Googlers and developers all around the world during the virtual 2022 Solution Challenge Demo Day live on YouTube.
Contest Finalists - In addition to the swag box, each individual from the additional seven recognized teams will receive a Cash Prize of $1,000 per student. Winnings for each qualifying team will not exceed $4,000.
Top 3 winners - In addition to the swag box, each individual from the top 3 winning teams will receive a Cash Prize of $3,000 and a feature on the Google Developers Blog. Winnings for each qualifying team will not exceed $12,000.
How to get started on the Solution Challenge
There are four main steps to joining the Solution Challenge and getting started on your project:
Create a demo and submit your project by March 31, 2022.
Resources from Google for Solution Challenge participants
Google will provide Solution Challenge participants with various resources to help students build strong projects for their contest submission.
Live online sessions with Q&As
Mentorship from Google, Google Developer Experts, and the Google Developer Student Club community
Curated codelabs designed by Google Developers
Access to Design Sprint guidelines developed by Google Ventures
and more!
When are winners announced?
Once all the projects are submitted by the March 31st, 2022 deadline, judges will evaluate and score each submission from around the world using the criteria listed on the website.
From there, winning solutions will be announced in three rounds.
Round 1 (April): The Top 50 teams will be announced.
Round 2 (June): After the top 50 teams submit their new and improved solutions, 10 finalists will be announced.
Round 3 (July): In the finale, the top 3 grand prize winners will be announced live on YouTube during the 2022 Solution Challenge Demo Day.
With a passion for building a better world, savvy coding skills, and a little help from Google technology, we can’t wait to see the solutions students create.
Learn more and sign up for the 2022 Solution Challenge, here.
