Coffee with a Googler: Chat with Timothy Jordan about Ubiquitous Computing (100 Days of Google Dev) Video Lecture | Coffee with a Googler - IT & Software

welcome to the Googleplex this is an
incredible place with lots of great
stuff being worked on every single day
before I worked here I always wondered
what it'd be like to come to the
Googleplex meet up with a Googler I have
coffee with them I just chat about what
they do how they do it and why they do
it and today we're going to do exactly
welcome to coffee with a Googler I'm
Laurence Moroney today I'm really
honored to speak with Timothy Jordan and
Timothy works with ubiquitous computing
here at Google and it's it's a really
interesting turn of phrase ubiquitous
computing could you tell us really what
does that mean what's it all about so
it's it's more complex sounding that it
actually is right ubiquitous computing
is kind of the combination of wearables
and living room and auto and Internet of
Things okay however I like the term
ubiquitous computing because we're
trying to help developers be successful
not just on individual platforms but
across all platforms that is to say
maybe implement a wearable strategy with
their app but also have it available on
the phone so the user can use their app
wherever it makes sense for them mm-hmm
now that the term ubiquitous seems to
suggest that like the computing platform
spreading to whole new interesting areas
beyond the phone beyond the watch and
maybe glass what kind of things are you
seeing compute happens are you seeing
compute happen to different form factors
you mentioned watch TV google cast
android TV there's also android auto and
we just recently released beacons which
we talked about these beacons which we
talked about and a you know Internet of
Things more generally is just on the
other side of the horizon and this is
brillo and weave which we talked about
at Google i/o which enables embedded
devices in all kinds of things yeah i'm
looking forward to my fridge being able
to compute tell me when the moat go sour
you know I mean that's those kinds of
examples have been the conversation that
the industry is used to drive forward
like general thought like protocols
interoperability though there are sort
of more practical needs that users have
today and it's simple stuff like I want
to be able to go running without taking
my phone yeah and I'd like to have that
run tracked and I'd like to be able to
listen to music and you can do that
today with Android wear
right so there and that's something that
like you ask a user like yes absolutely
I want that and those are the things
that we should first address the milk
thing yes it's it's hit or miss whether
people like you know actually care about
getting additional information around it
I just changed the black coffee because
my milk keeps going up sorry imagine
beacons I keep going to bacon because of
the fridge but you mentioned beacons
early on it tell me like what's what's
the thing with beacons I mean what's
what makes it so interesting it's a
really good question right because we've
been talking about beacons as an
industry for years and it's a simple
idea of there's a thing that has
information associated with it however
the conversation seems to be around
retail or conferences almost exclusively
but it turns out beacons have a vast
number of applications we're centered
around the one idea beacons are about
context okay right it's the idea that
you could make the user experience
better by making it more efficient and
yet have the same value by being able to
short-circuit the context traditionally
users have to tell you where they're at
or what they're doing to be able to get
the information they need go with
beacons you can get that information
from the environment and then just take
the user directly to their value now
you've explained a little bit in some of
your videos about like a bus stop
scenarios about like a bus stop scenario
a bit more about that yeah you can
imagine the user gets to their bus stop
now a bus app today might mean that they
have to load up the app and say okay I'm
at this bus stop even if it has location
it's like is it the one across the
street or this one really sensitive
location to right and I and they have
probably only a few routes that they
travel per day but the app doesn't know
that unless I'll get actually tell it
these are the routes that I care about
well with beacons the app could sense
which bus stop there at all right the
signal attenuation will give them very
fine information on the location right
but then the buses they get on can also
have beacons right beacons don't have to
stay in place and that adds additional
context so now when they get to their
bus stop there's a notification waiting
for them telling them that that route is
light but they can take the Express cool
or maybe the Express is running late so
it's better to take the local who knows
yeah so okay cool so now when it comes
to like developing for be
it's there must be so much diversity and
like how do we make sure that there's a
great user experience across the mall
there's a few things to pay attention to
first off is the beacon forum at this is
what we release is called Eddystone this
is an open flexible format that's
extensible and it's it's really
important for manufacturers to know
about it so they can build them that
compatibility in their beacons which
they've already done all right there's a
lot of hardware beacons out there today
that have Eddie stone built in and it's
important for app developers to know
about so that when they acquire beacons
and deploy them and they can make sure
that they're compatible with Eddie stone
then there's the proximity beacon API
and this is where developers can
register their beacons and associate
data this beacon means this thing nice
and you can even attach JSON right like
it's pretty flexible the data that you
can associate with that beacon and then
finally there's the nearby API and this
is what you use in your app to be able
to cite and get data for those beacons
it's a subscription thing that the
developer can just say hamad in these
kinds of beacons and then when one of
those beacons is nearby nearby will
inform the app giving them the data
that's associated with it right now so
there's a lot for a developer to learn
here and I believe you've recently
launched a course yes to learn about
ubiquitous computer all about ubiquitous
computing so this is our ubiquitous like
this is on Udacity and it teaches
developers some information about you
big woose computing in general learnt
the big ideas that we've been talking
about but also design paradigms and
technical specifics kalan Android wear
Google cast Android TV and Android auto
cool so it's a great place if you're
already an Android developer and you
understand you know building for the
phone and you want to get into building
for some of these other platforms as
well it's great place to start and like
developers can just go and access the
materials all the videos all that kind
of thing for free that's right right so
it's like it's not like it's going to be
an expensive thing if you got time to go
learn and this is a great new frontier
for developers right yeah and you'd ask
you is a great place for anybody around
the globe to start engaging with this
material but also we're having an event
this fall and SS card about this tell us
about it
really want to have a conversation with
developers and with our friends across
industry and across companies about
ubiquitous computing about wearables
living room auto about Internet of
Things right because a big component of
this is making that service available
anywhere that it makes sense right so
you really want to talk about
interoperability we want to talk about
platforms and standards and so we're
gathering that conversation together
here in San Francisco cool I look
forward to it so Thank You Timothy this
has been great thank you you know so
thanks everybody for watching this
episode of coffee with a Googler and I
hope you learned a little bit or hope
you learned a lot about your backward as
computing and Timothy it's been fabulous
having you as a guest take a look in the
link underneath will have a link to the
conference so to this summit that
Timothy had actually mentioned so that
you can register for that and it will
also put a link down there to do dascon
course so you can go you can sign on and
you can take a look at learning how to
do your big words computing and develop
for the ubiquitous computing platform
for yourself if you've any questions for
me or if you have any questions for
Timothy please leave them in the
comments below and if you want to watch
any more of the great videos that we
have in the Google Developers Channel
please go ahead and subscribe