DANIEL SIEBERG: Hi there.
I'm Daniel Sieberg.
As we continue with our I/O Live coverage, we are now in
the YouTube space, and I am joined
by Jason from Flipboard.
Now Flipboard, as a lot of people will know, is this,
well, you flip through your content, whether it's news
that's been pulled for you, social media.
It's got a very distinctive way of interacting with it.
Tell me how you're here and why you're here with YouTube?
JASON CULVERHOUSE: Yes.
Well, a couple reasons.
So two weeks ago, a week ago, we released
Flipboard on Android.
So we're running on the new Nexus tablet, and the phones
and the phone form factor.
And we did integrations with both YouTube--
so we're directly accessing the YouTube data APIs--
and we had early access to the writeable Google+ APIs.
So now you can interact with that content, right on
YouTube, right on Google+, leave comments, +1 stuff, Like
it, and that's why we're here.
DANIEL SIEBERG: OK.
Very cool.
So you've got a demo you can do for us.
So if you do come across a YouTube video in your
Flipboard content, what can you do?
JASON CULVERHOUSE: Yeah.
So I'm a developer, so I do things like here I'm following
the Google Developers feed.
And if this is a video that I like, I can just come right
here and I can Like it.
I could play it in our client full screen.
And I can go and I can see, hey, here's who
commented on it.
If I want to leave a comment, I can do that.
And then we sort of do it in our magazine format.
These are my subscriptions, so some games and stuff, and some
developer stuff.
But we can also go look at everything else like the
popular YouTube feeds, what's trending, what's popular.
You know, trending is always pretty good.
Like it.
Oh, if I like this video right here, I can actually just
click right here, and then I can say, share this video,
right to everybody on my Google+ account.
And then that video is going to be shared on
Google+ right now.
And we'll go look at my feed and we'll see it.
DANIEL SIEBERG: Fantastic.
So tell me about the experience of working with the
YouTube API, any sort of learnings or tips you want to
pass along to folks.
JASON CULVERHOUSE: Yeah.
First of all, we got a lot of help from YouTube.
We did this really quick and so they're very responsive.
There's a new YouTube API coming out, so it's useful.
I'd say we learned a lot, try to be minimal
in our request sizes.
We worked with YouTube about our quotas, a
very popular app.
A lot of accesses.
So they were very responsive in helping us with resolving
quota issues and things like that.
And I'll say the same thing, the Google+ team.
Because no one really saw this app and then we released it,
so some of the people on the Google+ team were, like, our
best QA, because they really went through it, and they were
the deep Google+ users.
DANIEL SIEBERG: And what's the response been like to this
since you rolled it out?
JASON CULVERHOUSE: It's really good.
Just standing here, everybody comes by, they
say, love it, great.
Of course the most frequent request is, can we get it on
the tablet form factor?
And right now we're pretty much the phone form factor,
but it will run on a Android tablet in that form factor.
But it's been really positive response.
I think you could see the downloads on the graph, and we
got a great rating on the Google Play Store, so
it's all been good.
DANIEL SIEBERG: What's the future of this, do you think,
for you guys?
Any sort of iterations coming down the pipe?
JASON CULVERHOUSE: Yeah, I think there's always lots of
stuff, better UI, more responsive, we
always like to be faster.
And working with Google to refine some APIs, because we
have a very specific usage.
So I think all that just leads to a better user experience.
DANIEL SIEBERG: Cool.
Jason, thank you so much.
We're going to flip on out of here.
JASON CULVERHOUSE: All right.
Thank you.
DANIEL SIEBERG: All right.
Appreciate it.
All right.
We're joined now by Alex, who is the creator of Code Hero.
I am not even going to pretend to be an expert at code, so I
think this might be something that would work well for me.
ALEX PEAKE: Yeah.
DANIEL SIEBERG: Help me understand, what is
Code Hero all about?
ALEX PEAKE: So yeah.
Code Hero is a game that teaches you how to make games.
Do you like games?
DANIEL SIEBERG: Love games.
ALEX PEAKE: Do you want to learn code?
DANIEL SIEBERG: Do want to learn code.
ALEX PEAKE: Check.
So you're the target audience.
DANIEL SIEBERG: OK.
ALEX PEAKE: So we've been asked, who's it for?
Like, middle school is like the classic group that's going
to most get into games and learning programming, but
everybody's welcome.
The magic thing about this is it's actually a game.
It's not like an easier way to learn programming that's
actually secretly tutorials with lots of reading.
So it looks like a game.
It is a game.
And you hit, of all, buttons, New Game, and you're in it.
And what's awesome about this is that you're being
orientated from the very beginning in a
first person world.
DANIEL SIEBERG: [INAUDIBLE] gaming environment.
ALEX PEAKE: Right.
So it's kind of like Tron, but backwards.
If we made everything dark, it'd be a little
scary to some kids.
And you pick up these magic glasses, and it says, type,
click hello world, and copy that code.
And then when you shoot the code, it executes, and you go
to the next challenge.
And the next one is change the code.
So up until now you just copied the code, but now we
have to type it in.
And so the essence of this is to walk people step-by-step
through each challenge.
So now they're probably thinking, OK, is this just a
bunch of text?
The key is to show programming is fun.
So this is some blocks, and there's a target.
And it says, just push the blocks, but
you'll have to add zeros.
So this code here says, add force,
transform forward 100,000.
That sounds like a lot, but in the world of physics that's
actually not enough force, and the cubes
are just not impressed.
But if we add zeros, you realize code is power and you
can blast these blocks apart.
And you can get that very quickly in programming, you'll
be able to get the gold star and accomplish things.
As long as you don't get eaten by the poison laser lava
safety sharks.
DANIEL SIEBERG: Doctor Evil would approve.
ALEX PEAKE: Yeah.
And so the integration that we did with YouTube was based on
the fact that people that are learning programming are
really going to be proud of what they're accomplishing,
and they'll want to show off to their friends.
And especially since the goal of Code Hero is to make your
own game, to produce a video game.
That's the first thing you do.
You want to share that game.
And so a long time ago I thought, wouldn't it be great
if I could upload directly to YouTube what
the player is doing?
And they wouldn't have to do that themselves.
And I saw Black Ops was doing it.
There's tons of videos--
Call of Duty.
Mind Craft had people building computers and uploading them.
So we implemented at a hackathon in three days, the
Unity YouTube API, which wasn't for
Unity, it was just Mono.
All we did was download the Mono DLL and compile it in
MonoDevelop.
And I made this little cube where, when you touch this
cube, you won't really see much happening.
But it's saying add frame, add frame.
It's recording live video from the game.
So you'd be able to show people anything you can learn
in the game, and then they can learn too, or
anything you can create.
And the end result is, it just says upload completed.
And this is the first video we ever uploaded on stage, sort
of crossing our fingers, and it worked the first time we
ever tried it.
DANIEL SIEBERG: And that's only four seconds, but of
course it can be much longer than that.
ALEX PEAKE: Yes.
So the API for YouTube in a game makes a lot of sense,
because when you learn how to make a game, you
want to show it off.
When you learn anything, or do anything cool, you want to
show it off.
And because people are learning make games with
Unity, they're going to want this plug-in, which we made,
which is called Unity CapTube.
Sort of like Unity Capture but with a B.
And Unity CapTube just plugs into any Unity-based game.
Which is what Code Hero's teaching them, is the Unity
game engine, which is the most popular game engine.
You can plug those games into your Android device, your
web-based games, anything, native client.
And to be able to upload videos straight to YouTube
means that your game is going to spread faster, and more
people are going to see it.
So that's Code Hero.
DANIEL SIEBERG: Help your game go viral, or
something in the sense.
ALEX PEAKE: Yes.
And hopefully help programming go viral.
DANIEL SIEBERG: Right.
ALEX PEAKE: You know, we live in an era
where code is literacy.
English might be our first language, but we're kind of
like Romans, like, adapting to English, or we have to get
with the times and learn programming.
So it's time for programming to go viral.
DANIEL SIEBERG: That's fantastic.
When can people get their hands on this, if they want to
check out Code Hero in a bigger way?
ALEX PEAKE: So what we did a big Kickstarter.
We raised $170,000, which was great.
And we're going to be launching in September the
final version of, like, the first complete
version of the game.
But you can get it now if you want.
You can go to the website at codehero.org.
That's codehero.org.
And if you just buy the game for whatever donation you
want, just like the Kickstarter backers, you can
get the same pledge rewards, like t-shirts and stuff, and
get the game, an early version, and
try it right away.
DANIEL SIEBERG: This is such a fantastic idea, I have to say.
This is great.
I wish you all the best with it.
ALEX PEAKE: Thanks.
DANIEL SIEBERG: Thank you so much, Alex.
And maybe one day I'll be a Code Hero, too.
ALEX PEAKE: Thanks.
And thanks for making the YouTube API awesome.
Our pleasure.
This is seriously really--
The last stop in our tour of the YouTube booth is with the
guys from Parrot.
And we're talking about the AR Drone 2.0.
The AR Drone's been around for a little while, and the reason
that you're here is to talk about the tie-in with YouTube,
of course, but walk us through what the AR Drone is capable
of doing first.
PIERRE BUREAU: OK.
So the AR Drone is a flying device that you can control
from a smartphone or a tablet running Android or iOS.
And it's embedding a camera.
So well, what's new with the 2.0 version is that you have a
HD camera to record your videos.
And so it has a lot of sensors, it's a really smart
device, so it can stabilize by itself.
Basically that stuff, it's flying by itself.
So all you got to do is you press a button, it takes off,
and then it stabilizes right there.
And in the new version of the app, we have integrated the
possibility to record and manage your media, so photos
and videos.
And you can share them online directly from the app.
DANIEL SIEBERG: Because that's really cool.
I mean the ability to fly it in some neat location, and
then share that with everybody through YouTube, right?
PIERRE BUREAU: Exactly.
Through YouTube.
So everybody can see where your flights are, what cool
things you have seen, and you can share that
with the world, basically.
DANIEL SIEBERG: Now, there's a tie-in with Google TV, that
maybe we should mention as well?
PIERRE BUREAU: Yeah.
So we just finished an integration on the new Google
TV, that's also running Android.
So you can have the video stream from the drone directly
on your TV, and control the drone with
the Google TV remote.
DANIEL SIEBERG: So what was it like working with the YouTube
folks to put all of this together?
Maybe some learnings you can offer to the other
developers out there?
PIERRE BUREAU: That was actually very easy.
The integration of the YouTube sharing mechanism was very
straightforward, both on the iOS and Android.
So actually I don't have a lot of things to say about
possible problems, because we didn't have any.
And what we're doing is still quite basic.
We're only doing online sharing.
Later on, maybe, we'd like to work with some editing, adding
some music, things like that.
This is still some work in progress, and we'll use the
YouTube APIs to do that.
DANIEL SIEBERG: Can you tell me about some of the more
unusual or unique places that people have
flown their AR Drones?
PIERRE BUREAU: We have users that have posted videos from
all over the world.
DANIEL SIEBERG: Really?
OK.
PIERRE BUREAU: So we have videos from the Grand Canyon
in the US, some fjords in northern Europe.
So really, everywhere.
DANIEL SIEBERG: People get pretty creative.
PIERRE BUREAU: Yes, they can get pretty creative,
definitely.
DANIEL SIEBERG: What's next for--
can you tell us anything about the next
version of the AR Drone?
PIERRE BUREAU: Well, I can tell you that we are already
working on the next generations.
They're not coming out soon.
This has just been released a couple of weeks ago.
So we have maybe one year, one year and a half development
time before we can release a new one.
But we are working on better videos, better video
capabilities, higher definitions, things like that.
DANIEL SIEBERG: And tell me about that camera again.
It was an HD camera that's on this?
PIERRE BUREAU: Yes.
It's HD camera, 720p camera.
DANIEL SIEBERG: OK.
PIERRE BUREAU: And you can record your videos through the
Wi-Fi link, or you can plug your own USB stick inside the
drone so that you have the perfect quality all the time.
DANIEL SIEBERG: And then when you want to share it on
YouTube, you do it through the app?
PIERRE BUREAU: You're doing it through the app.
Yeah.
So--
DANIEL SIEBERG: How long can the video clips be that you
want to share through?
PIERRE BUREAU: The video can be--
DANIEL SIEBERG: As long as the memory gets [INAUDIBLE]?
PIERRE BUREAU: Yeah, as long as the memory is.
So you can fly for 10 minutes.
10, 12 minutes, so that's longest video you can make.
DANIEL SIEBERG: OK.
Well, I think maybe we should pause here and get a little
demo, what do you think?
PIERRE BUREAU: Yes, that's good.
DANIEL SIEBERG: All right.
Pierre, thank you so much.
I appreciate it.
PIERRE BUREAU: Thank you.
DANIEL SIEBERG: All right.