Learn about developing Geo applications over Coffee with Ankur Kotwal - Coffee with a Googler Video Lecture | Coffee with a Googler - IT & Software

welcome to coffee with a Googler today
I'm meeting with Ankur Kotwal to talk
all about Google Maps and great things
that you can build with them will even
have a chat about the Santa tracker app
that anchor work done anchor I've been a
Maps developer for a while I love doing
and almost every time I go to anything
Maps I see your videos I see your blogs
I see stuff that you've done so it's
great to have you here but tell us all
about Google Maps and what it is that
you do with it yeah I'm part of the
Google Maps API developer relations team
and what we do is we're a conduit
between third-party developers and our
internal engineering teams so as
third-party developers give us feedback
on our AP is or they talk to us about
use cases that they'd like to see us
address we take that feedback to our
product and engineering teams they then
take it and prioritize it and start to
build those things out and then we have
a team of tech writers that write the
technical documentation that you see at
developers.google.com we have a team of
engineers that actually build libraries
and samples and in fact they like to see
themselves as a zeroth customer of the
API to engineer zeroth customer that's
it and so they get to have that initial
first feedback pass and then we have
developer advocates like myself like
yourself that go and then tell the
developers that we've built this that
we've taken their feedback on and then
the cycle repeats right so it's great
that this stuff isn't just built in
isolation right you've got folks like
yourself over there was that conduit
between the developers in the outside
world and the engineers are actually
building it but I hear you've got like a
little bit of an announcement of some
new things that you're going to be doing
in that space yeah so actually to take
that relationship with that community
further we've just recently launched at
the Google Maps API beta program at
developers.google.com slash beta and
what this really is is a way for us to
get feedback on a POS before we launch
them and for developers the advantages
they can see the types of things that
we're working on ahead of time and catch
us at that point of our development
cycle that they can give us feedback
that's quite meaningful and actionable
so we can take that feedback make any
changes to the product make sure that
the
and we launched at the quality is there
but also its usefulness is really there
so it's available it's out now for sign
up you know we are looking to take
people in in batches so if anyone sort
of hits the site and see that the form
is closed we will open it up again at a
later time ok cool so and what was the
site again developers.google.com / maps
/ beta am I allowed to go sign up I
think you have special access already
now one of the things like with maps
that I remember seeing that and I know
it's a project that you've been working
on I've been dying to ask you about is
the Santa tracker you've been doing this
as a 20-percent project at Google yeah
it's a 20-percent project that's a true
labor of love because we work through
our holidays and over the end of year
holidays and the Christmas Eve and
Christmas Day but basically it's it's
the reason we love to work on it is that
it brings joy to children and adults who
feel like children and so the point is
that we can throughout december we can
play some games on our website on the
android apps as well we have some games
and then on Christmas Eve on the
December 24th when Santa takes off you
can track Santa's progress through the
world as he delivers presents and he
stops by your city and so on so we
started working on the Android app about
four years ago as one of the founding
members of it and I love contributing to
it every year and and just watching all
the reactions online as people use it
throughout their holidays now does this
get you off his naughty less than an to
his nice list I hope so but no it's it's
just it's so much fun working with him
because when we put the Android device
on his sleigh so that he can give us his
location you know everything has to work
so we don't get another shot at this and
we don't even get to delay our launches
so it is actually a lot more pressure
than you would typically expect really
neat and actually I did have one
question that inquiring minds want to
know as you were the Santa tracker
expert but it's summer now where is he
where is Santa yeah well he's relaxing
for status usually we find that he's
relaxing on a beach he's often hard to
reach at this time of the year Byron to
break yeah he definitely earns his break
but if you happen to go to the Senate
tracker website or if you have have a
look at our launch videos often he's
coming off
sort of island or like a cruise he it's
funny for someone that lives in the
North Pole he enjoys the warm weather I
can't say I blame it now I hear you had
a really tough project manager on this
at one point I did it was my
four-year-old son Oh three-year-old son
at the time so I had a newborn and a
three-year-old son and unfortunately i
told my three-year-old son before my
second son was born that I would build a
day/night cycle in Santa tracker so that
when you touch the Sun it would set and
the moon would come up and when you
touch the moon it would do the opposite
at the same time my second son was born
and so we we were in and out of the
hospital but my three-year-old son was
relentless he would say to me every day
dead does the Sun go down and the moon
come up yet and so I spent many an hour
trying to build this out for him and
it's the reactions from from people like
my kids that really drive me to a Santa
tracker that's what makes it all work
yeah absolutely but he was a tough
project manager he is tough he is really
tough right but he was happy with the
end result I got his tick of approval at
the very cool now it's not just Maps
right like in the Geo AP ice is a whole
bunch of other stuff that we can work
with can you tell us about some of them
yeah so typically people think of the
Maps API is the visualization pieces but
it's actually much more than that we
have the sort of data API through our
web services so things like the
directions API are immensely valuable
where you can get step-by-step
directions from point A to point B
actually more than that you can you can
add waypoints as well to say i want to
get from here to here but i want to pass
through this this and this okay and you
can get it with different modes of
transport and then you can look at ways
to visualize that but these data api's
are really really valuable they help you
create some magical experiences the
places API is another example where you
can find out about real-world places
things like their opening hours things
like their ratings even photos but my
favorite will probably be the roads API
so something that we don't often realize
about our mobile devices is that the GPS
sensors on them they're not always very
accurate so even though you're driving
along the road or
half you'll find that the the data
that's coming from your GPS sensor is a
little bit noisy it's it's a bit of a
zigzag rather than a straight line right
now developers came to us and said hey
can you help us solve this because we
know that the user is driving we know
that they're on a road but we don't have
a nice way to represent this and so we
built this roads API so you can submit a
bunch of lat longs to it latitudes and
longitudes and it will snap them to a
road and return them back to you and
follow the path of the road so it may
even insert more points as you go
through roundabout something's last nice
I've noticed that on the east coast of
the US like the freeways tend to have
service roads yeah so like you can be on
the inside lane of the freeway and
there's a service road parallel to that
and then sometimes my gps has me saying
you're on the service will get on the
freeway and that kind of thing well at
least in two roads between that's true
sometimes I get can you get GPS points
in like a field right and the roads API
really helps that cool cool you
mentioned that you're really excited by
some of the innovative ways that
developers are using google maps and the
various Google Maps API you have an
example you can share yeah actually you
know right now one of the big topics of
conversation is VR and what I'm really
interested in is VR as an educational
tool and so when you start to take
Street View and put it into VR and take
that into classrooms and be able to take
young students through the pyramids in
Egypt right there is a great barrier
reef and show them what it looks like
it's a very different experience to when
you and I grew up where we look at
pictures in books oh yes it's here we
had to use our imagination a lot more
but they get to see what it's actually
like and I think that's really really
wonderful I've seen the Barrier Reef e
or experience that you mentioned and the
one thing is that for me is that a put
it into context just how precious it is
so when we talk about like you know
protecting the Barrier Reef it's when
you see it and you can feel it you feel
more emotionally attached to wanting to
protect it so yeah and I mean I hope it
stays as pristine as it has been in the
past but now we have a snapshot of what
it look like and you can really
experience it it's really if you haven't
taken a google cardboard and played with
the street view app you really should
and the API enables all of that to great
example thank you now also I know
there's a whole bunch
like helper libraries to be able to do
some great map scenarios like polyline
encoding and all that kind of stuff for
Android developers could you tell us a
little bit about them and yeah so we
have this open source library called the
Android Maps utils and it has a number
of features I'm going to call that two
of my favorite ones which are different
ways to represent markers so often you
know we have markers on a map but
sometimes we're showing lots and lots of
data and different developers deal with
it differently sometimes they restrict
how many markers they show and they'll
restrict to a viewport but some
visualizations that you can look at are
things like market clustering right so
that as you zoom out it will combine the
markers and represent it in some visual
way typically a number and then as you
zoom in it splits up and then populates
the markers elsewhere so if you zoom far
out from the city and you're looking for
example at restaurants there could be a
thousand markers but instead of having a
thousand things drawn you're going to
cluster them into us exactly because
there's no value in presenting a
thousand markers like how a user's
hitter yeah but how is the user supposed
to choose it's not meaningful at that
point so market clustering really helps
and the other one is heat maps so again
if you're talking about things like
restaurants you can start to see the hot
spots in the city as to where some of
the more popular or well rated
restaurants are and maybe you want to
just sort of head there and decide on
the spot as to which restaurant you want
to eat it so heat maps are a really good
way to visualize that as well Wow anchor
I mean there's just so much things we've
covered from like how you're getting
feedback from developers to the product
team so that we can build stuff and the
new beta channel minus beta program that
you're opening up Santa tracker and all
the stuff was involved in that it's like
that was hilarious and some good stuff
there and now just all of the different
things different API is the services API
is the Android libraries you're a busy
man you know what it's the the product
that really drives me the Maps API was
one of the first API so Google launched
and it's actually been more than 10
years since we launched that API and
we've seen such innovative uses of maps
on the web and even in mobile apps so I
can't wait to see where we go next with
it sounds good so thanks everybody if
you've any questions for me or if you
have any questions for anchor just
please leave them in the comments below
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