Garth Shoemaker

I started my career as an engineer specializing in product problems, and later evolved into a full-time product person. I am a generalist, having worked on everything from ads compliance, to identity, to privacy, and mapping, but I have particular depth in gesture input, virtual reality, and interaction techniques.
Google logos
Google, Product Manager
Identity & Contacts
2015-present
  • Owner for People experiences in G Suite, including Contacts apps, people widgets (in Gmail, Contacts, and elsewhere), and administrator controls for the domain directory.
  • Moved Google user identity out of G+. Decoupled all Google products (e.g. YouTube, Play, Maps) from G+.
Privacy
2013-2015
  • Built Google-wide COPPA compliance infrastructure from scratch, supporting display ads, Google Analytics, and other products.
  • Cloud platform logging and auditing.
Search
2012-2013
  • Personal video search at google.com.
  • Complex task exploration.
Intel logo
Intel, Software Engineer
Perceptual Computing
2011-2012
  • Prototyped applications using a next-generation depth camera.
  • Advised 3rd party developers on product design.
  • Wrote UX guidelines for SDK users.
  • Promoted user-centric research and development practices across the entire org.
UBC logo
UBC, PhD
Body-centric interactions for wall displays
2006-2011
  • Invented new interaction techniques for users of wall-sized computing display with whole body gesture recognition capabilities.
  • Implemented research systems to test human performance and explore natural use.
  • Applied and invented new sensing systems using modified Wiimote sensor, Vicon cameras, and accelerometers.
  • Invented new gesture-based text input techniques.
  • Developed new models of human peroformance based on Fitts's law.
Idelix, Software Engineer
Startup application and SDK development
2001-2006
  • Invented new interaction techniques for users of wall-sized computing display with whole body gesture recognition capabilities.
  • Implemented research systems to test human performance and explore natural use.
  • Applied and invented new sensing systems using modified Wiimote sensor, Vicon cameras, and accelerometers.
  • Invented new gesture-based text input techniques.
  • Developed new models of human peroformance based on Fitts's law.
Patents
  • USPTO 9,519,408 Systems and methods for guided user actions
  • USPTO 9,456,244 Facilitation of concurrent consumption of media content by multiple users usign superimposed animation
  • USPTO 9,313,170 Identity protection and management for electronic communication
  • USPTO 9,197,848 Video conferencing transitions among a plurality of devices
  • USPTO 9,177,174 Systems and method for protecting sensitive data in communications
  • USPTO 9,122,557 User settings management using external sources
  • USPTO 9,106,908 Video communication with three dimensional perception
  • USPTO 8,139,089 Navigating digital images using detail-in-context lenses
  • USPTO 8,120,624 Detail-in-context lenses for digital image cropping, measurement and online maps
  • USPTO 8,106,927 Graphical user interfaces and occlusion prevention for fisheye lenses with line segment foci
  • USPTO 8,031,206 Method and system for generating pyramid fisheye lens detail-in-context presentations
  • USPTO 7,966,570 Graphical user interfaces for detail-in-context presentations
  • USPTO 7,773,101 Fisheye lens graphical user interfaces
  • USPTO 7,714,859 Occlusion reduction and magnification for multidimensional data presentations
  • USPTO 7,667,699 Fast rendering of pyramid lens distorted raster images
  • USPTO 7,495,678 Navigating digital images using detail-in-context lenses
  • USPTO 7,486,302 Fisheye lens graphical interfaces
  • USPTO 7,275,219 Fast and accurate rendering of pliable display technology distortions using pre-calculated texel coverages
  • USPTO 7,213,214 Graphical user interface with zoom for detail-in-context presentations
  • USPTO 7,197,719 Graphical user interface for detail-in-context presentations