CatDroid talk: thinking different, sharing ideas

Think different,Unleash your potential!

@LoicOrtola

http://loicortola.com

A changing world

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AUG | Barcelona, May 13th 2015

A changing world

3 AUG | Barcelona, May 13th 2015

New challenges

!   Battery life !   Connectivity !   Diversity of devices, versions, screen sizes !   Lack of standards !   DORA (Develop Once, Run Anywhere)

But also !   Increase of chemical waste !   Electromagnetic radiations !   Security leaks, ID Theft

AUG | Barcelona, May 13th 2015 4

New tools for new uses

Gyroscope, Accelerometer, GPS, BLE, Cardio frequency meter, NFC, WiFi

Location, location, location

! Where you are on earth !   The direction you’re looking at

… Basically, we can see through your eyes.


Relative Location: Virtual Reality

!   Oculus Rift !   Google Cardboard Dive city rollercoaster Proton Pulse VRSE

Orbulus Vanguard V Use cases: IMMERSION


Relative + Absolute Location: Augmented Reality

! Layar ! VuForia ! MetaIO ! evenTribe AR (Stay Tuned)

Use cases: Advertisement / Services / Gaming


Meet BLE

!   Relies on GATT (Generic Attribute Profile) ! Device Advertises itself ! When paired to a central device, will stop advertising. (only one-to-

one) !   Exchanges Data at periodic intervals !   Transaction = Set of services, which hold Characteristics !   Official services (16bit address):

https://developer.bluetooth.org/gatt/services/Pages/ServicesHome.aspx

!   Custom services: (128bit address) More info https://developer.android.com/guide/topics/connectivity/bluetooth-le.html

Example: HeartRate Service: 0x180D 3 Characteristics: Heart Rate measurement, Sensor Location, Heart Rate control point


BLE limitations

! Throughput: !   ACK vs no-ACK? ! Packet <= 20byte data !   Max number of packets / event (usually btw 2 and 6) ! Connection interval (central & peripheral, usually tens of ms)

Example: iOS 8.3, 30ms min connection interval iPhone 6, iOS 8.3 + nRF51822 = 16kbps throughput ! Frequency emission:

!   2.4 Ghz (same as Wifi) !   Can be diffracted, absorbed, or interferred by water


iBeacons

! Instead of being constrained by a one-to-one relationship to push and pull information, one can use the payload bits of the advertisement mode to broadcast data.

!   Pros: Costless, energy efficient, asynchronous

!   Cons: Unidirectional, public, lightweight Looks like a hack! But that’s awesome! Even better: Signal strength can be used to give « proximity » contextual info. Some also say « indoor geolocation » (Woooow)


Proximity: Target Advertisement

! BeaconWatcher ! Kontakt ! BlueUp

“Welcome to the underwear department. Tap here to get 20% off the latest Superman boxers” Use cases: Advertisement / Services / Gaming


Let’s brainstorm

How to extend the actual technologies to brand new concepts?

Indoor Geolocation

! iBeacons have algorithms to compute distance to Beacon Question: How can we perform indoor Geolocation with this idea?


Indoor Geolocation


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Indoor Geolocation

!   Truth is… The distance computation algorithm looks like this:

! txPower: Factory calibrated, read-only constant which indicates the expected RSSI at a 1 meter distance of the beacon

!   RSSI: Received Signal Strength Indicator

protected static double computeDistance(int txPower, double rssi) { if (rssi == 0) { return -1.0; } double ratio = rssi / txPower; if (ratio < 1.0) { return Math.pow(ratio,10); } else { return 0.89976 * Math.pow(ratio,7.7095) + 0.111; } }


Indoor Geolocation

!   Truth is… The distance computation algorithm is completely arbitrary.

!   Does it work? !   No. There can be complete aberrations in terms of distance

!   Can we do something? !   The more beacons, the better the estimation? Not really -> Device calibration deltas, Battery level, Device position blurs everything away

!   Why? !   2.4Ghz


Indoor Geolocation

!   Solution: Stop thinking like everyone else. Let’s change the paradigm.

!   I cannot do triangulation and distance estimation with beacons.

!   But I can tell which is the closest!


Indoor Geolocation

!   Solution 1: Beacon Grid


Indoor Geolocation



!   But water absorbs or creates interferences with the signal


Indoor Geolocation

!   Solution 2: Signal heatmaps

Calibration Runtime

-76dbm

-80dbm -78dbm

-77dbm -90dbm

-80dbm -78dbm

-77dbm


Indoor Geolocation



!   But bluetooth or wifi advertising does tell me there is a device around.


Indoor Geolocation

!   Solution 3: Wifi / Bluetooth proximity

Results should be close to Solution 1

00:0C:XX:XX:XX -76dbm


00:0C:XX:XX:YY -56dbm

Inter-Device communication

!   NFC needs a compatible device (Android vs iOS) ! Wifi requires a router !   Bluetooth is only one-to-one

Question: How can we develop other ways of inter-device

communication?



!   The Old-fashioned Way:

Every phone has a camera. We can scan coded visual information QRCodes… … Or encoded images



!   The SquareUp Way:

Every phone has an audio jack. …Remember morse code?

Cons: May look like we are exchanging Pokemons with our Cable Link



!   Audio Watermarking

How to hide bytes in the 12-15khz frequencies? è AWT2

Play your favorite music, and seamlessly transport information …Radios already do this remember?



!   P2P gods !   If Device 1 connects to Device 2 and 3 and Device 2 to Device 3

and 1 etc… !   We are creating an Ad-Hoc P2P network!

Wait… Are you saying we could solve internet connectivity problems in the subway? After crowdsourcing, why not crowdconnectivity?


Exchanging ideas: Developer Libraries & Marketing tools

New libraries, Memory Leaks finder,

Automated App Deployment Instant App Bundling

Out this week

! LeakCanary, by Pierre-Yves Ricaud (Square) !   20+ Android leaks discovered and issued to google in a couple

days !   Amazingly useful to understand design flaws in your app !   Discreet, lightweight, transparent in production


Maps

!   Google Maps: Requires API-Key, requires commercial license if commercial use, lack of good caching, brings Google Play Services and its 40k methods…

! OpenStreetMap: Yes! You can do anything if you know how to make a TileServer (switch2osm.org)

!   But… !   Libraries still too young for vector tiles (OperPassAPI/mapbox-gl) !   Historical android library (osmdroid) sucks! !   Since 02/15, mapbox-android-sdk can be considered mature

enough, with an interesting set of technologies and a solid community of contributors


Misc

!   Dagger 2 ! CouchBase Mobile? !   Jackson !   Android Annotations ! OkHttp !   Picasso, Universal Image Loader ! Crashlytics ! Piwik !   Fabric !   Retrofit

What about you?


App Templating

!   You developed the Awesome World Congress 2015 App

!   May be used for lots of similar events, with pretty much the same codebase.

!   Feature-driven developments are interesting but tough to loosely couple with content.

!   Deployment is time-consuming, upgrades and migrations even worse.

Question: How can we provide loose coupling btw code and content, and optimize deployments and upgrades?


App Templating

!   You are developing the Awesome World Congress 2015 App (Congratulations! :D )

!   Features: !   3D-Map (an embedded MBTiles file, plus an OpenStreetMap layer

with coordinate bounds) !   AR View !   Schedule of the conferences !   Set of POIs (companies, stands) and their description !   Speakers Biography !   Built-in tweetdeck


App Templating

!   Develop, templatize

! Develop your app as usual

! Backend, DB, Android/iOS Mobile App, Website

!   Brand your product for the Awesome World Congress 2015, and make a huge impression.

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!   Develop, Templatize

! Classical way: !   for each show { git checkout –b congressXXX2015 git commit… git commit… git commit… git rebase / git merge / etc… }

!   Stop making n-times the necessary adjustments and customizations.

! Proposed Way: ! Templatize your code once, then customize with content

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Now, your app was SO cool that 50 more shows and events want you to make theirs, with the same features

Congress XXX App

App Templating

!   Why do this? !   Because you completely separate your codebase from your content. !   Because deploying new versions is easier (no 50 branches to rebase) !   Because you gain loads of time (compilation can even be avoided)

!   Metrics? !   Depends ;)

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App Templating

Instant App Creation

!   Sometimes, an app template really makes sense for anyone to make very custom services.

!   Sometimes, an app is disposable (POC). !   Marketing guys only care about TTM.

Question: How can we allow non-technical people to create real native apps in a friendly environment?


Instant App Creation

!   Well, you’ve already made a template and separated your code from your content !   Simply APIfy and bring nice widgets to provide an abstraction of the

complexity

Example: the “Make your congress App” website: •  Upload an excel or csv file with your POIs •  Upload a Google calendar file with the schedule of conferences •  Upload an excel or csv file with the list and bios of speakers •  Choose the coordinate bounds and overlay your map •  Choose the theme color, customize the wording, change the app

name, the app icon, the splashscreen •  Click “Generate”, wait 20 seconds, download your APK


Thanks guys, it was a blast!

!   Let’s follow each other! @LoicOrtola

!   And let’s keep in touch!


[email protected] concept.designmyapp.mobi developer.designmyapp.mobi

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CatDroid talk: thinking different, sharing ideas