Game developers, check out the latest updates to the Google Play games services SDKs. They give you a consistent set of services across platforms, a refreshed UI, and better visibility into what users are doing in your games.

First, the Google Play Games C++ SDK now supports Real-Time Multiplayer (RTMP), bringing it to feature parity with the Play services SDK on Android and the Play Games iOS SDK.

We’ve also incorporated material design into the user-interface of the latest Play Games services SDKs.

New quest features and completion stats make this popular service easier to implement and manage. 

Multiplayer stats in the Developer Console let you see trends in overall usage.

New game services alerts in the Developer Console notify you if there are problems with your multiplayer implementation and more.

You can get started with all of these right away. Visit the Google Play game services developer site to download the updated SDKs. 

Documentation and downloads here:
https://developers.google.com/games/services/

#googleplaygameservices

All Google+ widgets have been updated to use the script[async + defer] pattern! E.g. +1 button docs: http://bit.ly/YHoj96

What's the benefit? Loading widgets via script[async+defer] does not block the document parser (see [1]), and allows the preload scanner to discover the script resource and initiate an earlier fetch (see [2]). Net outcome, both your page and the widget load faster! Have a G+ widget on your page? Check out the docs for guidance on how to update your snippets.

Kudos to the G+ team for taking the lead on this! Hope to see more widget providers adopt the same pattern.

[1] https://developers.google.com/web/fundamentals/performance/critical-rendering-path/adding-interactivity-with-javascript#parser-blocking-vs-asynchronous-javascript
[2] https://www.igvita.com/2014/05/20/script-injected-async-scripts-considered-harmful/

Wearables are here, and extending your user experience to wear devices is the first step in your weaeible strategy. +Colt McAnlis explains how the new DataLayer Apis for Android make it quick and easy to sync events, data, and images between your handheld and wearable device. 

DevBytes: Wearable DataLayer API

If you want to make maps hosted in Google’s Cloud, have a look at Google Maps Engine and its API, which reached v1 today! http://goo.gl/kYhGEQ

We just pushed the latest Web Fundamentals update with lots of new content, updates to existing content and new videos to help get you started quickly.

https://developers.google.com/web/fundamentals/

The entire tools section has been updated to help you get up to speed faster and allow you to spend more time building your site. Learn what you need in your development toolkit to build an experience that works great on any device.

https://developers.google.com/web/fundamentals/tools/

There’s a new article on Webfont optimization that covers everything from the anatomy of a font to optimization and more.  

https://developers.google.com/web/fundamentals/performance/optimizing-content-efficiency/webfont-optimization.html

Add to Home Screen covers all the info you need to know about how to make your site or app feel more integrated with the device when users add it to their home screen.

https://developers.google.com/web/fundamentals/device-access/stickyness/

This release also includes some core infrastructure updates that makes it possible to provide Web Fundamentals in other languages. Thanks to the help of several community members, we already have articles translated into Chinese, Hebrew, Japanese, and Korean.  Check out the translation.md in GitHub if you want to help out.

Thanks to everyone who’s filed issues, created pull requests or given us feedback! In the last six weeks, we’ve closed over 100 issues, merged 66 pull requests and had over 400 commits from 22 people. Check out the contributors page to see who’s helping out and how you can get involved.

#WebFundamentals   #tldr  

Sudoku, Linear Optimization, and the Ten Cent Diet

Yesterday, we posted an image of a tasty looking dish, and asked you to guess what it had to do with Computer Science. The dish, Foie Linéaire à la Stigler, was made from a list of ingredients that are the solution to the “Stigler Diet”, a classic linear optimization problem (http://goo.gl/JUDpTg).  

Today we’re proud to announce two new ways for everyone to solve linear optimization problems. First, you can now solve them in Google Sheets with the Linear Optimization add-on; Second, we’re open-sourcing the linear solver underlying the add-on, Glop (the Google Linear Optimization Package), as part of the or-tools suite.

At Google, our engineers work on plenty of optimization problems, such as the YouTube video stabilization system, and the lighthearted Google Sheets Sudoku add-on. Head over to the Google Research Blog, linked below, to learn more.

Care to take a guess at what the dish pictured below has to do with Computer Science? Give it your best shot by leaving your guess in the comments!