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IoT, Fuchsia, Android, Augmented Reality, Flight Simulation, Linux, Open Source, Ex-Google

 
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Wayne Piekarski was a Developer Advocate at Google for the Fuchsia operating system, and previously for Google's IoT platform, the Google Assistant, Android Things, Wear, and Auto.

I have worked for 20 years in academia and industry in the areas of operating systems, IoT, mobile devices, wearable computing, and outdoor augmented reality. I do research, development, and public speaking. My whole career has been based around open source and Linux, and applying this to build interesting things and solve hard problems. I've worked as an individual contributor as well as in large teams, and managed a research lab. I designed tools, SDKs, and samples for developers to use with Android and Fuchsia. I've done research in outdoor augmented reality, and designed multi-user virtual reality systems. I've given presentations to thousands of developers, taught university courses on operating systems, and run training for Fuchsia hardware driver development. I work on open source projects for flight simulators. I design my own custom IoT devices with surface-mount electronics and 3D printers. I am intrigued by exploring the oceans and my current hobby is designing full ocean depth robot vehicles.

I am currently based in the San Francisco Bay Area of California in the United States. I grew up in Adelaide, Australia, where I studied Computer Systems Engineering and then did research for a PhD, and worked for a number of years as the Co-Director of the Wearable Computer Lab, doing a lot of early research work in outdoor augmented reality. Previously at Google, Qualcomm, WorldViz, and University of South Australia.

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Selected Projects and Blog articles



Google Developer Advocate

I worked for Google as a Developer Advocate from 2014 to 2023. My work involved educating developers about new technologies, and also to advocate for developers within Google, ensuring developers have the right tools and information to support their work. I had to quickly understand new developer products, work on sample code and documentation, and give live presentations as well as record videos and publish blog posts. I also had to work with large engineering teams, product management, marketing, and legal to coordinate product announcements.
  • Fuchsia
  • Android Things and Internet of Things
  • Google Assistant and Actions on Google / Smart Home
  • Weave
  • Brillo
  • Android Wear
  • Android TV
  • Android Auto
YouTube videos: Developer Advocacy Playlist


Major blog post announcements:

Qualcomm Research Silicon Valley
I was previously working at Qualcomm Research Silicon Valley in Santa Clara, California (formerly known as BARD - Bay Area R&D). I did work on concurrency, multi-core, and heterogeneous computing research for mobile devices. The last project I worked on was called MARE and allows developers to more easily exploit concurrency on their mobile devices. MARE is available for public download at the QDevNet site. Previously, the team worked on web browser optimizations, and we implemented our own prototype web browser from scratch, called Zoomm. Most of my research work was done on Android devices based on Snapdragon processors, using the Android Native Development Kit (NDK), and implemented in C++.

WorldViz

I was previously Development Manager at WorldViz in Santa Barbara, California. I worked on the development of the Vizard toolkit, the PPT optical tracking system, and the design and implementation of many large HMD and CAVE systems.

I developed the low level firmware and synchronization technology of the PPT-H and PPT-E camera systems, which run an embedded real-time operating system to process camera images at 640x480 at 180 fps.

I also designed and implemented the software for one of the largest VR systems in the world, which supported 4 users in a Motion Analysis mocap system, all wearing wide field of view head mounted displays from Sensics, combined with a 4 wall CAVE system from MechDyne. It was truly one of the most awe inspiring and realistic virtual reality systems I have ever built and used. I wrote a short blog post about it.

Wearable Computer Lab - University of South Australia

I was formerly a Senior Lecturer and researcher at the School of Computer and Information Science, University of South Australia. I was the Co-Director of the Wearable Computer Lab, where we developed new technologies for augmented reality, 3D user interfaces, and mobile computers. I taught courses in Operating Systems and Computer Graphics.

My previous research papers are available on my research page, and my PhD thesis is also available for reading. I worked on a number of projects, with my main project being the Tinmith mobile outdoor augmented reality system.

I have graduated three PhD students and also numerous undergraduate students: Ben Avery, Ross Smith, Aaron Stafford .

For more information about my academic work, please see my publications page which has PDFs of all my research papers.


Contact Details

If you need to get in touch with me, my contact details are:
Name Wayne Piekarski (PhD)
Social Networks Twitter @waynepiekarski - LinkedIn
Location San Jose, California, USA
Email wayne AT tinmith.net
Web http://www.waynepiekarski.net
Resume / CV Short CV / Expanded Academic CV
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Google Developer Advocate 2014-2023


X-Plane plugins and apps for flight simulation


IoT water meter monitoring


IoT computer vision monitoring


Tiny and cheap offline Wikipedia project 2017


Outdoor augmented reality research
Tinmith 1998-2007


Outdoor augmented reality 3D modelling
Tinmith 1998-2007


Outdoor augmented reality gaming
ARQuake 1999-2007


Scanned physical objects outdoors
Hand of God 3D 2006

Google Developer Advocate 2014-2023


X-Plane plugins and apps for flight simulation


IoT water meter monitoring


IoT computer vision monitoring


Tiny and cheap offline Wikipedia project 2017


Outdoor augmented reality research
Tinmith 1998-2007


Outdoor augmented reality 3D modelling
Tinmith 1998-2007


Outdoor augmented reality gaming
ARQuake 1999-2007


Scanned physical objects outdoors
Hand of God 3D 2006

Contact Wayne Piekarski via email wayne AT tinmith.net for more information
Last Updated 2023