Tag Archives: Firebase

#IamaGDE: Diana Rodríguez Manrique

#IamaGDE series presents: Google Maps Platform

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.

Image of Diana Rodriguez

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.

Follow Diana on Twitter at @cotufa82

Check out Diana’s projects on GitHub

For more information on Google Maps Platform, visit our website.

For more information on Google Developer Experts, visit our website.

#IamaGDE: Diana Rodríguez Manrique

#IamaGDE series presents: Google Maps Platform

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.

Image of Diana Rodriguez

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.

Follow Diana on Twitter at @cotufa82

Check out Diana’s projects on GitHub

For more information on Google Maps Platform, visit our website.

For more information on Google Developer Experts, visit our website.

Behind the scenes: How the Google I/O photo booth was made

Posted by the Google Developers team

A closer look at building a Flutter web app with Google Developer products

If you attended Google I/O this year, you probably stopped by the Google I/O photo booth for a selfie with our Google Developer mascots: Flutter’s Dash, Android Jetpack, Chrome’s Dino, and Firebase’s Sparky. If you didn’t, it’s not too late to jump in, take a selfie, and share it on social media! We loved seeing all of the pictures you posted and your favorite props! Want to learn more about building a camera plugin, layouts, and gestures used in a photo booth for Flutter on the web?

Android, Dino, Dash, and Sparky all gathered around the photo booth

It took a combination of Google developer products to make the photo booth successful. The Flutter and Firebase teams joined forces to build a best in class example of Flutter on the web that used Firebase for hosting, auth, performance monitoring, and social sharing. Take a closer look at how the photo booth was built here and then grab the open source code on Github!

Flutter team members having fun in the photo booth

Flutter team members having fun in the photo booth!

Announcing DevFest 2020

Posted by Jennifer Kohl, Program Manager, Developer Community Programs

DevFest Image

On October 16-18, thousands of developers from all over the world are coming together for DevFest 2020, the largest virtual weekend of community-led learning on Google technologies.

As people around the world continue to adapt to spending more time at home, developers yearn for community now more than ever. In years past, DevFest was a series of in-person events over a season. For 2020, the community is coming together in a whole new way – virtually – over one weekend to keep developers connected when they may want it the most.

The speakers

The magic of DevFest comes from the people who organize and speak at the events - developers with various backgrounds and skill levels, all with their own unique perspectives. In different parts of the world, you can find a DevFest session in many local languages. DevFest speakers are made up of various types of technologists, including kid developers , self-taught programmers from rural areas , and CEOs and CTOs of startups. DevFest also features a wide range of speakers from Google, Women Techmakers, Google Developer Experts, and more. Together, these friendly faces, with many different perspectives, create a unique and rich developer conference.

The sessions and their mission

Hosted by Google Developer Groups, this year’s sessions include technical talks and workshops from the community, and a keynote from Google Developers. Through these events, developers will learn how Google technologies help them develop, learn, and build together.

Sessions will cover multiple technologies, such as Android, Google Cloud Platform, Machine Learning with TensorFlow, Web.dev, Firebase, Google Assistant, and Flutter.


At our core, Google Developers believes community-led developer events like these are an integral part of the advancement of technology in the world.

For this reason, Google Developers supports the community-led efforts of Google Developer Groups and their annual tentpole event, DevFest. Google provides esteemed speakers from the company and custom technical content produced by developers at Google. The impact of DevFest is really driven by the grassroots, passionate GDG community organizers who volunteer their time. Google Developers is proud to support them.

The attendees

During DevFest 2019, 138,000+ developers participated across 500+ DevFests in 100 countries. While 2020 is a very different year for events around the world, GDG chapters are galvanizing their communities to come together virtually for this global moment. The excitement for DevFest continues as more people seek new opportunities to meet and collaborate with like-minded, community-oriented developers in our local towns and regions.

Join the conversation on social media with #DevFest.

Sign up for DevFest at goo.gle/devfest.




Still curious? Check out these popular talks from DevFest 2019 events around the world...

Reviewing ad issues in mobile apps with the Google Mobile Ads SDK

In order to help mobile app publishers review ad issues (e.g., out-of-memory caused by graphic intense creatives, violations of Ad Manager policies, or AdMob policies and restrictions) in production apps, we have recently added an ad response ID to the ResponseInfo and GADResponseInfo objects in the Google Mobile Ads Android SDK (v. 19.0.0) and iOS SDK (v. 7.49.0). An ad response ID is a unique string for each ad response from the AdMob or Ad Manager server, regardless of ad formats. If the same ad is returned more than once, the ad response ID will differ each time.

You can look up an ad response ID in the Ad Review Center (AdMob, Ad Manager) to find and block the offending ad. You can also report problematic ads to Google using the ad response ID, especially when it is difficult to capture a mobile ad's click string.

The screenshot above shows an ad response ID in Android Studio logcat.

If you use Firebase, you can refer to the Firebase Crashlytics Android (AdMob, Ad Manager) or iOS (AdMob, Ad Manager) guide for logging the ad response ID. This technique can be useful for debugging production app crashes as you would have both the SDK symbols and the ad response ID data in the same log.

We hope this new feature makes it easier to troubleshoot ad issues.

If you would like to give us feedback on this feature, please post your comments and questions on our Google Mobile Ads SDK Technical Forum.

 - Thang Duong, Mobile Ads Developer Relation

Reviewing ad issues in mobile apps with the Google Mobile Ads SDK

In order to help mobile app publishers review ad issues (e.g., out-of-memory caused by graphic intense creatives, violations of Ad Manager policies, or AdMob policies and restrictions) in production apps, we have recently added an ad response ID to the ResponseInfo and GADResponseInfo objects in the Google Mobile Ads Android SDK (v. 19.0.0) and iOS SDK (v. 7.49.0). An ad response ID is a unique string for each ad response from the AdMob or Ad Manager server, regardless of ad formats. If the same ad is returned more than once, the ad response ID will differ each time.

You can look up an ad response ID in the Ad Review Center (AdMob, Ad Manager) to find and block the offending ad. You can also report problematic ads to Google using the ad response ID, especially when it is difficult to capture a mobile ad's click string.

The screenshot above shows an ad response ID in Android Studio logcat.

If you use Firebase, you can refer to the Firebase Crashlytics Android (AdMob, Ad Manager) or iOS (AdMob, Ad Manager) guide for logging the ad response ID. This technique can be useful for debugging production app crashes as you would have both the SDK symbols and the ad response ID data in the same log.

We hope this new feature makes it easier to troubleshoot ad issues.

If you would like to give us feedback on this feature, please post your comments and questions on our Google Mobile Ads SDK Technical Forum.

 - Thang Duong, Mobile Ads Developer Relation

Reviewing ad issues in mobile apps with the Google Mobile Ads SDK

In order to help mobile app publishers review ad issues (e.g., out-of-memory caused by graphic intense creatives, violations of Ad Manager policies, or AdMob policies and restrictions) in production apps, we have recently added an ad response ID to the ResponseInfo and GADResponseInfo objects in the Google Mobile Ads Android SDK (v. 19.0.0) and iOS SDK (v. 7.49.0). An ad response ID is a unique string for each ad response from the AdMob or Ad Manager server, regardless of ad formats. If the same ad is returned more than once, the ad response ID will differ each time.

You can look up an ad response ID in the Ad Review Center (AdMob, Ad Manager) to find and block the offending ad. You can also report problematic ads to Google using the ad response ID, especially when it is difficult to capture a mobile ad's click string.

The screenshot above shows an ad response ID in Android Studio logcat.

If you use Firebase, you can refer to the Firebase Crashlytics Android (AdMob, Ad Manager) or iOS (AdMob, Ad Manager) guide for logging the ad response ID. This technique can be useful for debugging production app crashes as you would have both the SDK symbols and the ad response ID data in the same log.

We hope this new feature makes it easier to troubleshoot ad issues.

If you would like to give us feedback on this feature, please post your comments and questions on our Google Mobile Ads SDK Technical Forum.

 - Thang Duong, Mobile Ads Developer Relation

Google Play services and Firebase migrating to AndroidX

Posted by Doug Stevenson, Developer Advocate

Later this year, the Google Play services and Firebase SDKs will migrate from the Android Support libraries to androidx-packaged library artifacts. We are targeting this change for June/July of 2019. This will not only make our SDKs better, but make it easier for you to use the latest Jetpack features in your app.

If your app depends on any com.google.android.gms or com.google.firebase libraries, you should prepare for this migration. To quickly test your build with androidx-packaged library artifacts, add the following two lines to your gradle.properties file: 

android.useAndroidX=true
android.enableJetifier=true

If your build still works, then you're done! You will be ready to use the new Google Play services and Firebase SDKs when they arrive. If you experience any new build issues or want more information on this migration, visit the official Jetpack migration guide. We will communicate when the androidx migration is complete in the near future, stay tuned!

New ML Kit features easily bring Machine Learning to your apps

Posted by Brahim Elbouchikhi, Director of Product Management and Matej Pfajfar, Engineering Director

We launched ML Kit at I/O last year with the mission to simplify Machine Learning for everyone. We couldn’t be happier about the experiences that ML Kit has enabled thousands of developers to create. And more importantly, user engagement with features powered by ML Kit is growing more than 60% per month. Below is a small sample of apps we have been working with.

But there is a lot more. At I/O this year, we are excited to introduce four new features.

The Object Detection and Tracking API lets you identify the prominent object in an image and then track it in real-time. You can pair this API with a cloud solution (e.g. Google Cloud’s Product Search API) to create a real-time visual search experience.

When you pass an image or video stream to the API, it will return the coordinates of the primary object as well as a coarse classification. The API then provides a handle for tracking this object's coordinates over time.

A number of partners have built experiences that are powered by this API already. For example, Adidas built a visual search experience right into their app.

The On-device Translation API allows you to use the same offline models that support Google Translate to provide fast, dynamic translation of text in your app into 58 languages. This API operates entirely on-device so the context of the translated text never leaves the device.

You can use this API to enable users to communicate with others who don't understand their language or translate user-generated content.

To the right, we demonstrate the use of ML Kit’s text recognition, language detection, and translation APIs in one experience.

We also collaborated with the Material Design team to produce a set of design patterns for integrating ML into your apps. We are open sourcing implementations of these patterns and hope that they will further accelerate your adoption of ML Kit and AI more broadly.

Our design patterns for machine learning powered features will be available on the Material.io site.

With AutoML Vision Edge, you can easily create custom image classification models tailored to your needs. For example, you may want your app to be able to identify different types of food, or distinguish between species of animals. Whatever your need, just upload your training data to the Firebase console and you can use Google’s AutoML technology to build a custom TensorFlow Lite model for you to run locally on your user's device. And if you find that collecting training datasets is hard, you can use our open source app which makes the process simpler and more collaborative.

Wrapping up

We are excited by this first year and really hope that our progress will inspire you to get started with Machine Learning. Please head over to g.co/mlkit to learn more or visit Firebase to get started right away.

Web Notifications API Support Now Available in FCM Send v1 API

Posted by Mertcan Mermerkaya, Software Engineer

We have great news for web developers that use Firebase Cloud Messaging to send notifications to clients! The FCM v1 REST API has integrated fully with the Web Notifications API. This integration allows you to set icons, images, actions and more for your Web notifications from your server! Better yet, as the Web Notifications API continues to grow and change, these options will be immediately available to you. You won't have to wait for an update to FCM to support them!

Below is a sample payload you can send to your web clients on Push API supported browsers. This notification would be useful for a web app that supports image posting. It can encourage users to engage with the app. 

{
  "message": {
    "webpush": {
      "notification": {
        "title": "Fish Photos ?",
        "body":
          "Thanks for signing up for Fish Photos! You now will receive fun daily photos of fish!",
        "icon": "firebase-logo.png",
        "image": "guppies.jpg",
        "data": {
          "notificationType": "fishPhoto",
          "photoId": "123456"
        },
        "click_action": "https://example.com/fish_photos",
        "actions": [
          {
            "title": "Like",
            "action": "like",
            "icon": "icons/heart.png"
          },
          {
            "title": "Unsubscribe",
            "action": "unsubscribe",
            "icon": "icons/cross.png"
          }
        ]
      }
    },
    "token": "<APP_INSTANCE_REGISTRATION_TOKEN>"
  }
}

Notice that you are able to set new parameters, such as actions, which gives the user different ways to interact with the notification. In the example below, users have the option to choose from actions to like the photo or to unsubscribe.

To handle action clicks in your app, you need to add an event listener in the default firebase-messaging-sw.js file (or your custom service worker). If an action button was clicked, event.action will contain the string that identifies the clicked action. Here's how to handle the "like" and "unsubscribe" events on the client: 

// Retrieve an instance of Firebase Messaging so that it can handle background messages.
const messaging = firebase.messaging();

// Add an event listener to handle notification clicks
self.addEventListener('notificationclick', function(event) {
   if (event.action === 'like') {
       // Like button was clicked

       const photoId = event.notification.data.photoId;
       like(photoId);
   }
   else if (event.action === 'unsubscribe') {
       // Unsubscribe button was clicked

       const notificationType = event.notification.data.notificationType;
       unsubscribe(notificationType);
   }

   event.notification.close();
});

The SDK will still handle regular notification clicks and redirect the user to your click_action link if provided. To see more on how to handle click actions on the client, check out the guide.

Since different browsers support different parameters in different platforms, it's important to check out the browser compatibility documentation to ensure your notifications work as intended. Want to learn more about what the Send API can do? Check out the FCM Send API documentation and the Web Notifications API documentation. If you're using the FCM Send API and you incorporate the Web Notifications API in a cool way, then let us know! Find Firebase on Twitter at @Firebase, and Facebook and Google+ by searching "Firebase".