What was for 50 years the world's largest single-aperture telescope (and a favorite villain hide-out) will soon be gone, due to age and damage by nature.
The Arecibo Observatory has been officially slated for deconstruction before it collapses on its own.
Wiki: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arecibo_Observatory
Richard Moss, the author of Secret History of Mac Gaming, has a new project.
Shareware Heroes: Independent Games at the Dawn of the Internet is a crowdfunded book that many might enjoy.
https://unbound.com/books/shareware-heroes/
According to Reuters, Apple will try to move some iPad and MacBook manufacturing capacity out of China to Vietnam.
“Apple wants to diversify its supply chain due to the ongoing trade disputes between the US and China”.
https://www.theverge.com/2020/11/26/21721353/apple-ipad-macbook-foxconn-manufacturing-vietnam-report
This may be the biggest $$$ off for a Black Friday Tech Sale. $50,000!!!
A 98-inch Samsung TV is going for half off It’s normal obscene $100K price. Would that really make a difference? If you have to ask the price, you can’t afford it.
https://www.theverge.com/tldr/2020/11/27/21723138/samsung-98-inch-tv-deal-sale-black-friday-8k
European Union is about to go after various Tech companies with their Digital Services and Digital Markets Acts.
While I agree some tech companies (including Apple) need to change policies, the EU has been just as authoritative in their decisions. And not nearly as smart.
https://www.webpronews.com/eu-poised-to-crack-down-on-tech-giants/
Happy Thanksgiving!!! And enjoy...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qsdVPN_qip4
What are you thankful for?
The better article don’t just give you a new tool to use, but also explain how it works, so you learn something.
John Sundell of Swift by Sundell has been digging into Combine, and we benefit from his explorations.
https://www.swiftbysundell.com/articles/extending-combine-with-convenience-apis/
Leandro Pérez uses analytics tools like Sitrep & XCLogParser to improve his Swift compile time.
The changes he talks about gave him a 40% improvement!
https://medium.com/flawless-app-stories/analyzing-and-improving-build-times-in-ios-5e2b77ef408e
Apple's recent Mac event ended with a visit from an old friend (they were missing Justin Long, I guess they could not afford him).
So I thought I would look back at the famous “Get A Mac” ad campaign (also called “I’m a Mac, I’m a PC”). Has it really been 14 years?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1rV-dbDMS18
Wiki https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Get_a_Mac
Facial identification for other animals (bear, cows, monkeys), is this something that was really a requirement?
It is adorable to see the animation of Bear face locating. I had not thought of this use.
https://www.cnn.com/2020/11/22/tech/face-recognition-bears-cows/index.html
The Internet Archive has come to the rescue of an old obsolete Flash archive with a new emulator.
Flash was abandoned for good reason (speed, security, proprietary), but this solution brings back some of the old playfulness of Flash.
Library link: https://archive.org/details/softwarelibrary_flash
This amused me, clear cases for Class Apple computers, so you can see history.
Bit expensive, but I could see putting my old //e & Mac SE inside one.
https://maceffects.com/products/maceffects-clear-case-for-macintosh-se-se-30
Quinn Nelson of Snazzy Labs talks about Modbook from Axiotron, the only 3rd party pad to run Mac software.
This is amazing hardware was a failure, but still was pretty amazing, How rare? I never heard of it!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2AoX-5KIh9Q
Modbook site: http://www.modbook.com
Ahmed Ayoub has a great head to head analysis of two major franchise mobile apps.
They don’t get much bigger than Star Wars: Galaxy of Heroes and Marvel Strike Force.
https://uxdesign.cc/game-ux-analyzing-the-experience-of-two-major-mobile-games-89d91f91a57d
This is not a tech posting, but it is an intellectual property case I find interesting, regarding a recent lawsuit regarding DragonLance.
Wizard Of the Coast shut down authors Weis & Hickman, who had the right to continue to create Dragon Lance books. How should this have been handled?
Amazon is releasing an upgraded Echo Frame to everyone who wants it.
This is not AR glasses, but wearable, voice-controlled mobile computing.
Side note: By most estimates, the visual AR portion of the Google Glass experiment was a failure. However, the voice-controlled computing aspect of it, for things like communication, reference and personal assistant, was much more popular with the users/testers. I think there is a niche for this. Why they don’t make it like a pin, ala Star Trek communicator, I do not know.
As people become more familiar with SwiftUI, small features are starting to have a big impact.
Antoine van der Lee of Swift Lee explains creating view based animation with SwiftUI.
https://www.avanderlee.com/swiftui/withanimation-completion-callback/
I agree with the points that Mikhail Medvedev makes. Agile & Scrum do not automatically cause magic.
Not every development effort fits nicely into set boxes. Aiming for two-week sprints is a nice goal, people force to the meaningless deadline is not.
https://towardsdatascience.com/scrum-without-magic-8cbb07eb4026
Apple announced reducing their cut from 30% to 15% for app developers who make less than $1 million.
Obviously, this is aimed at small developers, but I am not sure I understand the logic that large developers should pay more.
Eight360’s high-end, motion simulator replicates the inertial & gravity force you feel for most driving/flying experiences.
Too expensive for the home market ($150,000 per year), but perfect for military & industrial use. Maybe in the future…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1uzHazKkZ4o
Eight360 Website - https://www.eight360.com
Nuke provides a simple and efficient way to download and display images in your iOS or Mac app.
Here is a tutorial by Ehab Yosry Amer on working with Nuke using Swift Package Manager.
https://www.raywenderlich.com/11070743-nuke-tutorial-for-ios-getting-started
Nuke repository https://github.com/kean/Nuke
I have no idea who created this, but it is an Awesome resource for iOS Development.
“A curated list of awesome iOS ecosystem, including Objective-C and Swift Projects”
Associated Git Repository: http://github.com/vsouza/awesome-ios
If you are consider yourself a Software Engineer, you should really know these names.
And more importantly, you should know why they are significant for what they did.
Marvel artist JL Mast has posted numerous 360 VR cartoons to be view on desktop or by VR headset.
This is one of the first artists I have seen who has created drawing specifically design to be viewed in all directions.
https://kuula.co/profile/jlmast
Related page: http://mast360.com
A follow-up to the announcement of the Raspberry Pi 400 system, it is NOT selling for $70, everyone is selling it for $100. Also, you can’t buy one, since it is sold out everywhere I could try!
I was surprised Apple did not talk about it at this week's announcements, but AppleTV is available on PS4/5 & Xbox.
It is not often that Apple writes software for the game console market.
Tom Brant of PCMag provides an excellent tech review of what makes the M1 chip, also called Apple Silicon, so exciting.
Some of the details were explained at Apple’s announcement this week, but Tom explains even more details.
https://www.pcmag.com/news/what-is-the-apple-m1-chip
File this under unintended consequences, Monday stocks for several Video Game & Entertainment Stream companies dropped. The reason? The possibility of a COVID shot, that would allow people out of their homes, where they are now watching movies and playing tons of games. I would not have thought of that reaction to the good news.
https://www.fool.com/investing/2020/11/09/why-video-game-stocks-plunged-today/
Apple’s new M1 system on chip is not the first time they did this. Years ago, just before the Apple // line was retired, they gave us Mega II custom chip. It was essential an Apple //e system, only needing RAM & 65C02. The //e used an early version of it, but the advanced Gemini version was used on Apple // card for Mac LC product line. It allowed almost all of the immense Apple // software to run on the Mac LC.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_IIe_Card
Mega II chip: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mega_II
Zoom was not providing high standard, end-to-end encryption for conferences, as promised.
IMHO, this is one of the reasons that this type of conferencing/communication software really needs to be open-source, and verified.
One of the problems with SwiftUI for experienced Mac developers is that the sequence of events is just different from what we are used to.
Thankfully we have this article by Keegan Rush of the RayWenderlich team to break it down.
https://www.raywenderlich.com/11781349-understanding-data-flow-in-swiftui
An interesting interview with Jame Silva, an independent game developer.
James started as a one-man shop, and is now running his own studio of well-regarded cross-platform Metacritic-aggregated games.
https://medium.com/super-jump/a-conversation-with-james-silva-creator-of-salt-sanctuary-c88fc4d65337
Software company Dropbox has decided to become a “Virtual First” company, where remote working is the norm.
No personal offices or desks, just collaborative group conference rooms & working from home. Even after COVID, is this the future of tech office work?
https://www.cnn.com/2020/10/13/success/dropbox-virtual-first-future-of-work/index.html
Past Raspberry Pi’s have been marketed as DIY hobby boards, this one is being sold as a PC replacement.
The Raspberry Pi 400 is an all-in-one machine, contained within a keyboard, for $70.
https://www.webpronews.com/raspberry-pi-400-is-a-70-desktop-pc-in-a-keyboard
The Raspberry Pi 400 Video: https://youtu.be/ZSvHJ97d8n8
Due to COVID, the Minnesota Opera will be streaming Wagner’s Das Rheingold, it 2D, 3D & VR!
This is the first time I have heard of such a major performance done this way. They must feel there are enough VR headsets to justify doing this.
https://mnopera.org/season/fall-season/das-rheingold/
A reminder of the past, 14 years ago 17 year old Alan Becker gave us this wall breaking video “Animator vs. Animation”.
Since then, Alan has continued to post entertaining videos on his YouTube channel. Many in his “meta” style.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=npTC6b5-yvM
Alan’s channel with new material: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCbKWv2x9t6u8yZoB3KcPtnw
About Alan: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Becker
Ok, it does not have skin, so it looks creepy as hell, but look at the interaction with the human in the room.
Disney release a paper/video regarding work on automatronic robots that respond to people. They notice some entering, nod towards them, responds to gestures.
https://www.cnn.com/videos/business/2020/11/02/disney-lifelike-robot-no-skin-orig.cnn-business
Youtube video 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D8_VmWWRJgE
Youtube video 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SvjDrFqwNCs
Thanks to California Prop 22, Uber & Lyft can classify their workers are independent contractors.
Paul Hudson comes through with 8 SwiftUI Mistakes.
I really like his format of having an article, and a video to go with it.
https://www.hackingwithswift.com/articles/224/common-swiftui-mistakes-and-how-to-fix-them
Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qkcKTJhDyLs&feature=youtu.be
Finishing my dwell into ethical development, Tech ethicist Shannon Vallor provides a list of ethical review questions.
She provides tools for “ways of implementing ethical reflection, deliberation, and judgment into tech industry engineering and design workflows”.
https://www.scu.edu/ethics-in-technology-practice/ethical-toolkit/
Adam Rush gives us a tutorial on setting up Xcode Server for iOS Ci/CD.
Continuous Integration/Development (CI/CD) on the Mac has been the holy grail, often desired, rarely found. This is a needed guide!
https://www.raywenderlich.com/12258400-xcode-server-for-ios-getting-started
IBM publishes a document covering the Everyday Ethics for AI.
It focuses on Accountability, Value Alignment, Explainability, Fairness & User Data Rights.
https://www.ibm.com/watson/assets/duo/pdf/everydayethics.pdf
Leo Dion of BrightDigit has been programming and blogging about Swift since day 1.
His articles on all areas of Learning Swift are worth reading
https://learningswift.brightdigit.com
“The true power of Combine lies in how it enables us to construct increasingly complex data pipelines.”
An incredibly useful article from Swift by Sundell on Apple’s new declarative API.
https://swiftbysundell.com/articles/connecting-and-merging-combine-publishers-in-swift/
In 2017, Andrzej Marczewski was asked to write an article on the ethics of gamification for the ACM’s student publication XRDS.
Nvidia has released a $59 single-board computer, specifically for AI research and programming.
Compared to the DIY Raspberry Pi platform, this system has the GPU needed for AI.
Nvidia announcement: https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/autonomous-machines/embedded-systems/jetson-nano/education-projects/
In 2013, Andrzej Marczewski suggested what became “A Gamification Code of Ethics”.
The short statement of ethics is shown here, along with those who have promised to abide by it.
This is not an article on Gamification, but an article on ethical writing code.
Melinda Jacobs, and many others, wants people to realize that most Gamification is manipulation.
https://uxdesign.cc/are-we-really-enhancing-or-just-manipulating-ethics-of-design-gamification-c409afff58e9
“There are only two ways to influence human behavior: you can manipulate it or you can inspire it.” — Simon Sinek.
I am starting a week of postings on ethical software.
