Google Cloud Platform Podcast

On this episode of the podcast, Mark and Melanie delve into the fascinating world of robotics and reinforcement learning. We discuss advances in the field, including how robots are learning to navigate new surroundings and how machine learning is helping us understand the human mind better. Raia Hadsell Raia Hadsell, a senior research scientist at DeepMind, has worked on deep learning and robotics problems for the past 15 years. After completing a PhD at New York University, which featured a self-supervised deep learning vision system for a mobile robot, her research continued at Carnegie Mellon’s Robotics Institute and SRI International, and in early 2014 she joined DeepMind in London to develop artificial general intelligence. Her current research focuses on the challenge of interactive learning for AI agents and robots, including subjects such as neural memory for real world navigation and lifelong learning. Cool things of the week AI Adventures How to Make a Data Science Project with Kaggle site Predict your future costs with Google Cloud Billing cost forecast blog and site Kaggle Competition Winning Solutions site Google Cloud Platform Podcast Episode 84: Kaggle with Wendy Kan podcast Introducing Jib — build Java Docker images better blog Google Container Tools site Interview Raia Hadsell site Learning to Navigate Cities Without a Map research paper and blog Unsupervised Predictive Memory in a Goal-Directed Agent | MERLIN research paper Nature: Vector-based navigation using grid-like representations in AI research paper DeepMind has trained an AI to unlock the mysteries of your brain site Navigating with grid-like representations in artificial agents blog DeepMind site and blog Boston Dynamics site Google Brain Robotics site Transylvanian Machine Learning Summer School site IMPALA: Scalable Distributed Deep-RL with Importance Weighted Actor-Learner Architectures research paper Edward Mozer - Grid Cells and the Brain’s Spatial Mapping System video The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 2014 site TensorFlow site Question of the week How do you connect a Google Cloud Source repository to an existing Git repository? site and blog Where can you find us next? We’ll both be at Cloud NEXT! Mark will be talking about Agones blog Melanie will speak at PyCon Russia July 22nd

On this episode of the podcast, Melanie and Mark talk with Emiliano (Emi) Martínez to learn more about how VirusTotal is helping to create a safer internet by providing tools and building a community for security researchers. Emiliano (Emi) Martínez Emiliano has been with VirusTotal for over 10 years. He has seen the business grow from a small startup in southern Spain into a Google X moonshot under the new Chronicle bet. He is a software engineer acting as the Tech Lead for VirusTotal. Throughout the past 10 years, not only has he been immersed in coding and architecting the platform, but he has also participated at all levels of the business: from bootstrapping the very first sales to working close with marketing and other teams in order to take the project to the next level. His main interests are IT security (more specifically malware) and designing products and services from scratch. VirusTotal and Chronicle are Hiring VirusTotal is part of Chronicle, and Chronicle is hiring! Come join our team experts to help build out the next generation of security intelligence solutions. We are looking for talent that is comfortable operating in an organization that is scaling quickly, that loves variety in their work and wants to get their hands dirty with all things cyber security, cloud computing, and machine learning. We are a dynamic organization that likes to run experiments so we are looking for colleagues that are excited about trying new things and offering a creative yet efficient, and client-centric approach to engineering solutions. You are scrappy and resourceful, creative and driven – and excited to share in the magic of working at Chronicle Cool things of the week BigQuery in June: a new data type, new data import formats, and finer cost controls blog Dataflow Stream Processing now supports Python blog Associate Cloud Engineer blog Six AI & ML Sessions to Attend at NEXT blog Interview VirusTotal site VirusTotal Use Cases site and videos VirusTotal Intelligence site VirusTotal Malware Hunting site VirusTotal Monitor site VirusTotal APIs site VirusTotal Community site VirusTotal Contact site Data Connectors San Jose on July 12, 2018 site Data Connectors Raleigh on July 26, 2018 site BSides Las Vegas on August 7-8, 2018 site If you are interested in a 1:1 meeting with VirusTotal, please email info@virustotal.com Google Cloud App Engine site Google Compute Engine site Google Cloud Kubernetes Engine site BigQuery site Google Cloud Data Studio site Google Cloud MemoryStore site Google Cloud SQL site G Suite site Question of the week This week’s question comes from Andrew Sheridan, with a special guest answer from Robert Kubis. What is the best practice for multi tenancy in Google Cloud Spanner, especially if customers are not of the same size and have unequal load? What DBAs need to know about Cloud Spanner, part 1: Keys and indexes blog Cloud Spanner - Choosing the Right Primary Keys video More questions about Spanner? Robert will be presenting on it at Cloud NEXT. Where can you find us next? We’ll both be at Cloud NEXT! Melanie will speak at CERN July 17th and PyCon Russia July 22nd

Happy 4th of July! Today, Melanie and Mark go in depth with Brett Bibby and Micah Baker to learn more about Unity and its new strategic alliance with Google Cloud. We explore how an alliance between Google Cloud and Unity means easier development for game creators and better gaming for fans. Brett Bibby Brett Bibby is Unity’s Vice President, Engineering. Prior to his current role, Brett served as a Field Engineering and Evangelist at Unity consulting with developers throughout Southeast Asia, Australia, India, and greater Asia. Before Unity, Brett founded and ran a game studio developing console titles, and has more than 30 years of experience developing games and game engine technology. Micah Baker As Product Manager leading the strategy for Gaming on the Google Cloud Platform, Micah is committed to enabling developers to realize their vision for great games. An avid gamer on all major platforms, he never hesitates to get involved in games that were built with a passion for immersive storytelling, innovative multiplayer experiences, and breathtaking artwork. Cool things of the week The 2018 World Cup Visualized: All the Goals So Far site Why we believe in an open cloud blog Kubernetes 1.11: a look from inside Google blog Understanding error budget overspend - part one - CRE life lessons blog Good housekeeping for error budgets - part two - CRE life lessons blog New GitHub repo: Using Firebase to add cloud-based features to games built on Unity blog Interview Unity site Google Cloud Spanner site Unity Hackweek site Unity Connected Games site Bringing connected games within reach with Google Cloud blog Unity Hackweek 2018: Creating X Together blog Brett Bibby Question of the week How do I report errors to Stackdriver from a cloud function? Where can you find us next? We’ll both be at Cloud NEXT!

Brahim Elbouchikhi and Sachin Kotwani talk with Melanie and Mark about Firebase’s ML Kit and how it enables machine learning on mobile and cloud apps. We delve into why ML Kit was developed, how it makes machine learning easier, what it’s used for now and plans for the future. Sachin Kotwani Sachin Kotwani is a product manager with a special passion for making software development easy and fun. He has worked on several teams at Google, including Google Cloud, Play, and now Firebase. Before joining product management he worked worked as a strategy & ops manager in Google’s Sales organization, and prior to Google, he worked in finance at Amazon. He holds an MBA from Carnegie Mellon University, and dual bachelor’s degrees in Business Management and Computer Science from the University of Missouri - Columbia. His hobbies include traveling with his family, chasing his daughter around the house, and tinkering with mobile apps and backends. Brahim Elbouchikhi Brahim Elbouchikhi is a Group Product Manager on the Android team. On Android, Brahim is responsible for developer and consumer facing ML products, including Camera and developer SDKs. Prior to Android, Brahim led Daydream’s software team. Brahim was also a founding PM of the Google Play store where he led monetization, search, and discovery. Brahim holds an MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business and a BS in Computer Science and Engineering from UCLA. Brahim has also worked at Amazon and Deloitte in addition to starting a company in the past. Cool things of the week Our 10th Doodle 4 Google winner is dino-mite blog Google Podcasts now on Android blog Machine Learning with TensorFlow on Google Cloud Platform Specialization site Introducing Cloud Dataflow’s new Streaming Engine blog ML Explorer: talking and listening with Google Cloud blog #131 Actions on Google with Mandy Chan podcast Interview ML Kit for Firebase site TensorFlow Hub site TensorFlow Lite site Federated Learning document and blog TensorFlow.js site Question of the week What is a Developer Programs Engineer? Developer Programs Engineer — Say What!? blog Franziska Hinkelmann twitter Where can you find us next? Mark is going to the Unity Hackweek. Read how Google Cloud is teaming up with Unity for gaming blog Melanie is speaking at Stanford AI4ALL on June 28th. We’ll both be at Cloud NEXT!

Thadeu Luz from Hand Talk shares with Melanie and Mark how the free Hand Talk education application translates and interprets spoken and written Portuguese into Brazilian Sign Language (aka LIBRAS or BSL). The application uses an animated avatar Hugo to deliver the signs through gestures and facial expressions and its built off of a statistical machine translation system and Firebase. Future plans include expanding into other languages with a priority on ASL and they welcome support. Thadeu Luz Thadeu Luz is entrepreneur, data scientist and full-stack engineer with a background in 3D Animation, Video Compositing and Architecture. In early 2018 I have joined the Google Developers Experts program as a Firebase Expert. He’s CPO and founder of Hand Talk, an internationally decorated company that produces automatic sign language interpretation with the help of a friendly virtual 3D Character named Hugo. Cool things of the week Our video for NEXT video First research center in Ghana blog GCP in Finland blog AI Adventures BigQuery and Open Datasets video Dockercon and value of childcare at conferences tweet What is going on in Unite Berlin 2018 blog & Powering up Conncected Game Development blog Interview Hand Talk site & video Firebase Hosting site docs Cloud Functions for Firebase site docs Cloud Functions for Firebase Sample Library github Launchpad Studio site and podcast TensorFlow.js site ML Kit for Firebase site & podcast coming next week Serve Dynamic Content with Cloud Functions docs Google Translate Community site Cloud Machine Learning Engine docs Hand Talk Question of the week What DOES a Go developer need to know about GCP? Where can you find us next? Mark is speaking at the Online Kubernetes Community Meeting on the 21st of June, at 10am Pacific. Melanie is speaking at a joint WiMLDS and PyLadies event “Paths to Data Science” on June 26th and Stanford AI4ALL on June 28th.

This week is all about Voices! 🎶🎤🔊 Mandy Chan joins Melanie and Mark to discuss the intricacies of building user Voice user interfaces with Actions on Google, developing with SSML and more! Mandy Chan Mandy Chan is the developer community manager for the Actions On Google team. Her role is to help expand the funnel of the Actions on Google developer community by creating practical tools and content like http://bit.ly/aog-codelab-1 and http://bit.ly/aog-codelab-2 Mandy began to build voice applications back in early 2016, and since then, she has built more than a dozen Voice Applications on Actions On Google and other platforms. One of her most frequently downloaded open source projects is called the SSML-Builder which creates well-formed Speech Synthesis Markup Language without worrying about string concatenation. You can learn more about her open source project on http://bit.ly/ssml-build When she is not pondering about how to improve the developer experience, you can find her hiking at mountains or learning new magic tricks. You can also learn more about Mandy by following @MandyChanNYC Cool things of the week AI at Google: our principles blog Incorporating Google’s AI Principles into Google Cloud blog Deploying to Google Kubernetes Engine blog Fighting fire with machine learning: two students use TensorFlow to predict wildfires blog Together, we can help Puerto Rico recover donation match Introducing sole-tenant nodes for Google Compute Engine — when sharing isn’t an option blog docs Interview Actions on Google site docs github console g+ community ssml-builder site npm Advanced SSML by Leon blog Actions on Google: SSML docs Actions on Google Codelabs level one level two Dialogflow site docs console Google Assistant SDK for devices site Cloud Functions for Firebase docs Google Action Firebase Services docs To get inspired by some interesting voice applications voice experiment Mandy Chan medium github Systers on June 21st 9AM PST – Getting started with Actions on Google Workshop site Question of the week I want to push a Docker image to Google Container Registry via docker push. How can I set things up so that I don’t have to use gcloud docker -- push every time? Pushing and Pulling Images docs Authentication Methods docs Where can you find us next? Mark is speaking at the San Francisco Kubernetes Meetup: Scaling Game Servers and the Conduit Service Mesh on June 14th, and also speaking at the Online Kubernetes Community Meeting on the 21st of June, at 10am Pacific. Melanie is speaking at a joint WiMLDS and PyLadies event “Paths to Data Science” on June 26th and Stanford AI4ALL on June 28th.

Juliet Hougland and Michelle Casbon are on the podcast this week to talk about data science with Melanie and Mark. We had a great discussion about methodology, applications, tools, pipelines, challenges and resources. Juliet shared insights into the unique data science ownership workflow from idea to deployment at Stitch Fix, and Michelle dove into how Kubeflow is playing a role to help drive reliability in model development and deployment. Juliet Hougland Juliet Hougland leads the Workflow, Environment, and Execution team at Stichfix. She is a data scientist and engineer with expertise in computational mathematics and years of hands-on machine learning and big data experience. She has built and deployed production ML models, advised Fortune 500 companies on infrastructure and worked on a variety of open source projects (Apache Spark, Scalding, and Kiji) at the intersection of big data and machine learning. Michelle Casbon Michelle Casbon is a Senior Engineer on the Google Cloud Platform Developer Relations team, where she focuses on open source contributions and community engagement for machine learning and big data tools. Prior to joining Google, she was at several San Francisco-based startups as a Senior Engineer and Director of Data Science. Within these roles, she built and shipped machine learning products on distributed platforms using both AWS and GCP. Michelle’s development experience spans more than a decade and has primarily focused on multilingual natural language processing, system architecture and integration, and continuous delivery pipelines for machine learning applications. She especially loves working with open source projects and is an active contributor to Kubeflow. Michelle holds a masters degree from the University of Cambridge. Cool things of the week Sandeep Dinesh: Kubernetes Best Practices YouTube CNCF TOC voted to accept Helm as an incubation-level hosted project to CNCF site Andriod P in Beta blog Agones 0.2.0 site Securing cloud-connected devices with Cloud IoT and Microchip blog Interview flotilla-os repo Kubeflow repo Cloud Dataproc site & docs Spark site & community site scikit-learn site xgboost repo PyTorch site TensorFlow site and github Kubernetes site github Introducing ultramem Google Compute Engine machine types blog #114 Machine Learning Bias and Fairness with Timnit Gebru and Margaret Mitchell podcast Machine Learning Flash Clards site Open Source Data Science Masters site DockerCon SF site Question of the week If I have written a gRPC Service, but I’m using a language/platform that isn’t supported - is there any way I can access it as REST? grpc-gateway Envoy proxy Transcoding Where can you find us next? Mark is speaking at the San Francisco Kubernetes Meetup: Scaling Game Servers and the Conduit Service Mesh on June 14th. Melanie is speaking at a joint WiMLDS and PyLadies event “Paths to Data Science” on June 26th and Stanford AI4ALL on June 28th.

Mandy Waite joins Mark and Melanie to share what is developer relations and how trust and empathy are key to its success. We discuss meeting developers where they are and the wide variety of differing communities that exist across the technology ecosystem. Mandy Waite Mandy Waite has worked at Google for nearly 8 years, 6 of which have been spent growing and nurturing the Cloud Advocacy team. She heads up the Infrastructure and Ops Advocacy team in Google Cloud with a focus on Cloud Native, DevOps, SRE, Observability and Security. Cool things of the week Better cost control with Google Cloud Billing programmatic notifications blog Music in Motion: a Firebase and IoT story blog Google Cloud Codelabs and Challenges codelabs Kubernetes Podcast site and blog Interview Google Cloud Platform site #46 Borg and K8s with John Wilkes podcast #118 OpenCensus with Morgan McLean and JBD podcast Felipe Hoffa & BigQuery reddit, blog and podcast Livestreaming with Jen Tong Twitch, Holden Karau Twitch, and Chris Broadfoot Twitch Ben Treynor on What is ‘Site Reliability Engineering’ interview Solomon Hykes at dotScale on Docker video Istio site and #85 Istio with Varun Talwar and Sven Mawson podcast Kubernetes site Docker site The Core Competencies of Developer Relations blog Question of the week Where do I go to learn about GDPR in regards to Google Cloud Platform? Google Cloud: Ready for GDPR blog Google Cloud & the General Data Protection Regulation site Where can you find us next? Mark is speaking at the Monthly SF Game Development Community, presenting on You Can’t Just Add More Servers on May the 30th in San Francisco. Melanie is speaking at a joint WiMLDS and PyLadies event “Paths to Data Science” on June 26th. More details to come.

Cassie Kozyrkov, Chief Decision Scientist at Google Cloud, introduces the concept of Decision Intelligence and the combination of behavioral and data sciences. She discusses the importance of understanding decision context and utilizing data while exploring challenges in AI and machine learning.

This week is a clash of titans! Liz Fong-Jones and Seth Vargo join Mark and Melanie, to battle out on which is better: SRE or Devops (hint - everyone wins!). Liz Fong-Jones Liz is a Staff Site Reliability Engineer at Google and works on the Google Cloud Customer Reliability Engineering team in New York. She has worked on services ranging from Google Flights to Cloud Bigtable in her 10+ years at Google. She lives with her wife, metamour, and a Samoyed/Golden Retriever mix in Brooklyn. In her spare time, she plays classical piano, leads an EVE Online alliance, and advocates for transgender rights. Seth Vargo Seth Vargo is a Developer Advocate at Google. Previously he worked at HashiCorp, Chef Software, CustomInk, and a few Pittsburgh-based startups. He is the author of Learning Chef and is passionate about reducing inequality in technology. Seth is an active member of the DevOps community and has written thought-leader-y pieces such as the 10 Myths of DevOps. Cool things of the week Google I/O session youtube What’s new in Firebase at I/O 2018 blog Introducing ML Kit for Firebase blog Jeff Dean is new Head of AI wired Introducing Cloud Memorystore: A fully managed in-memory data store service for Redis blog Google Group Issue tracker Interview class SRE implements DevOps youtube series DevOps wikipedia Site Reliability Engineering (SRE) site Terraform site Chef site Puppet site Ansible site SaltStack site Prometheus site Datadog site Stackdriver site The Site Reliability Workbook: Practical Ways to Implement SRE amazon Seeking SRE o’reilly Customer Reliability Engineering Blog Series blogs Question of the week I’m a researcher at a regionally accredited academic institution and I need compute resources. Does Google Cloud have any programs that can help me out? Google Cloud Platform announces new credits program for researchers blog faq Where can you find us next? Mark will be speaking at the Monthly SF Game Development Community, presenting on You Can’t Just Add More Servers on May the 30th in San Francisco. Melanie is speaking at the Understand Risk Forum on May 17th, in Mexico City.