· 2 min read
What we got out of Google I/O Extended Cebu 2018
GDG Cebu ran Google I/O Extended Cebu 2018 on July 21 at the University of San Carlos, Talamban. We played Pacman with machine learning, watched a Firebase face detection demo and went home with new knowledge.
Google Developers Group (GDG) - Cebu organized Google I/O Extended Cebu 2018 on July 21 at the Richartz Hall, University of San Carlos, Talamban, and once again it was a remarkable day for us.
There were freebies: 3000 USD worth of Google Cloud and Firebase credit for startups, raffle prizes of Google home minis, golden tickets for this year's DevFest, event shirts and, of course, food. We also went home with a lot of new knowledge about modern technologies and how companies in different industries, and individual professionals, can apply them.
These three sessions are what made the day for us.
1. Playing Pacman with machine learning
Symph's Chief Technological Officer Albert Padin talked about TensorFlow for web, showing the basics of machine learning and how it is applied in practice.
The technology is changing how businesses operate, and we were also wowed that we could play the legendary Pacman game with our faces on camera instead of our hands on the keyboard. This snippet shows how it went:
2. Bboom bboom
Wait what?
3. Face detection with Firebase
Jirawat Karanwittayakarn, a Firebase Google Developer Expert from Thailand, spoke on "What's new with Firebase for Web and Mobile."
He demoed the face detection API in ML Kit, the mobile SDK that brings Google's machine learning expertise to Android and iOS apps. The API detects faces in an image and identifies key facial features, and apps can use it for video chat, games that respond to the player's expressions, or avatars generated from a user's photo.
The one-day event also had sessions from many other speakers: Franchette Camoro (Fullstack Developer at Symph), Johnny Benitez (Google Cloud Solutions Engineer), Toni-Jan Keith Monserrat (Web Google Developer Expert), Arnelle Balane (Web Developer at ChannelFix), Arth Limchiu (Android Developer), Emmanuelle Lodovice (Lead Web Developer at ChannelFix) and the ever-enthusiastic GDG - Cebu Community Manager, Shad Roi dela Cruz.
The awesome-st Google Developers Group - Cebu!
The event showed again that it is worth looking forward to every year, so we hope to see you there next year. Our media volunteers from Symph made this same-day-edit video of the day with love.
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