November 2019 Summaries

DevFest events worldwide are showcasing the talents and innovations of young developers, known as DevKids, who are making significant strides in fields such as robotics and augmented reality. Among them is Ider from Morocco, who presented on the future of programming for kids at DevFest Agadir, while Selin from Istanbul, recognized as the European Digital Girl of the Year, shared her journey of building a robotic guide dog for the blind at a DevFest event in Istanbul. Radostin from Bulgaria, a core member of the DevFest Organizing Team, developed an app for event feedback and previously discussed his chess teaching app for Google Assistant at DevFest Sofia. Canadian siblings Artash and Arushi demonstrated their facial recognition robot at DevFest Toronto, inspired by the need for mental health monitoring during space travel. These young innovators are not only advancing their technical skills but also inspiring others to pursue their passions in technology within a supportive community.

Coral has announced significant updates, including the release of Mendel Linux 4.0 for the Coral Dev Board and System on Module (SoM), which is now based on Debian 10 Buster and includes improvements such as upgraded GStreamer pipelines, support for Python 3.7, OpenCV, and OpenCL. The new release enables faster GPU conversions of YUV to RGB pixel data and enhances performance for running inferences with YUV-producing sources like cameras. Additionally, Coral is integrating with MediaPipe, allowing developers to build real-time perception models and deploy them on the Coral Dev Board, leveraging the Edge TPU for accelerated performance. The introduction of a new Teachable Sorter project tutorial highlights the use of the Coral USB Accelerator and Google’s Teachable Machine 2.0 to create a physical sorting machine capable of rapidly recognizing and sorting objects. Furthermore, pre-trained Coral models are now available on TensorFlow Hub, offering new interfaces for testing model performance. These updates are part of Coral's ongoing platform development, supported by a network of global distributors and partners.

Flutter Clock is a contest organized by Google in collaboration with the Flutter, Google Assistant, and Lenovo teams, inviting participants of all skill levels to design a creative and beautiful clock face application using Flutter for the Lenovo Smart Clock, with over $10,000 in prizes available. Submissions are due by January 20, 2020, and will be evaluated by expert judges based on visual beauty, code quality, novelty, and execution. Prizes include a fully loaded iMac Pro, Lenovo Smart Display, and Lenovo Smart Clock, and valid entries will receive a digital certificate. Winning designs may be featured in the Lenovo Smart Clock's lineup or inspire future clock faces, with results to be announced at the Mobile World Congress 2020 Keynote. Participants are encouraged to explore their creativity and have fun with the challenge.

Japan's reputation for innovation is furthered by its vibrant startup ecosystem, highlighted by initiatives like Google's newly announced accelerator program at the Google for Startups Campus in Tokyo. This three-month intensive program, aimed at AI-focused startups, builds on Google's Launchpad experience to support high-potential companies by addressing their technical challenges with guidance from Google experts. Participants will benefit from mentorship in machine learning best practices and receive support in product design, customer acquisition, and leadership development. Google aims to strengthen the Japanese economy by equipping these startups with the necessary tools, mentorship, and industry connections. Applications for the program, which will run from February to May 2020, are open until December 13, 2019.

The DevFest events, organized by Google Developers Groups (GDG) around the world, are drawing attention for their inclusive and collaborative environment, where young students are increasingly taking the stage to discuss advanced topics like machine learning and robotics. A notable example took place in San Francisco, where GDG Lead Vikram Tiwari engaged in a dynamic conversation with 11-year-old Aaron Ma, the youngest speaker at the event, about programming preferences and techniques. Both shared their enthusiasm for languages—Vikram favors JavaScript for its flexibility, while Aaron prefers Python for its ease of use and versatility—and their strategies for improving coding skills through open-source projects. They emphasized the importance of community support and collaboration in the DevFest environment, highlighting how these gatherings foster skill development and break down social barriers by creating a welcoming space for developers of all ages and backgrounds.

Celebrating its 10th anniversary, the Go programming language, also known as Golang, has evolved significantly since its inception at Google, becoming a popular choice for building fast, reliable, and efficient software at scale. With over a million users worldwide and contributions from more than 2,100 developers, Go has thrived due to its simplicity, expressive syntax, and ability to enhance productivity for large-scale, multicore, networked machines. Major companies, including American Express, Dropbox, and Uber, have adopted Go for critical enterprise workloads. MercadoLibre, a notable example, transitioned from a Grails and Groovy stack to Go, achieving significant performance improvements and cost savings, such as reducing server usage by 88% and accelerating build and test times. Go's growing community is further supported by the newly launched go.dev, a hub offering resources and case studies to help developers leverage the language effectively.

In response to the severe impact of the Fall Armyworm (FAW) on maize crops in Africa, particularly in Uganda where agriculture forms a significant part of the economy, a small team of Ugandan developers devised a machine learning solution to aid local farmers. Leveraging TensorFlow, they developed the Farmers Companion app, which uses smartphone images and TensorFlow Lite to detect FAW damage in maize crops and suggest solutions. Despite challenges such as limited resources and data collection difficulties, the team has continued to expand their dataset and improve the model's accuracy. Their efforts have gained recognition through features on national TV and international events, and the app is continually updated to support more crops and integrate cloud services for better performance. The initiative aims to enhance food security and reduce hunger by employing advanced technology in agriculture.

Google Pay has been integrated into Stripe Checkout, allowing businesses that use Stripe Checkout on their websites to offer a streamlined payment experience for Google Pay users. This integration enables a fast, simple, and secure way to pay online by utilizing the payment options saved in a user's Google Account. For businesses not using Stripe Checkout, direct integration with Google Pay is also possible by following the Google Pay Setup Guide. Additional resources and integration options can be found in the Google Pay Developer documentation.

Google has announced the open sourcing of its Google Cardboard project, initially launched five years ago as an affordable and simple virtual reality (VR) viewer that has reached over 15 million users worldwide. While the usage of Cardboard has declined and Google is no longer actively developing the Google VR SDK, Cardboard remains popular for educational and entertainment VR experiences, such as YouTube and Expeditions. By open sourcing the project, Google aims to allow developers to continue enhancing and expanding Cardboard's capabilities, offering libraries for building VR apps on iOS and Android, as well as APIs for head tracking, lens distortion rendering, and input handling. The open source initiative also includes an Android QR code library to support a variety of smartphone configurations and Cardboard viewers. Google will continue to support the project with contributions like a new SDK package for Unity, encouraging the developer community to innovate further using the Cardboard platform.