Open AR Cloud is an open source organization to share and promote Augmented Reality development.
This video explains what they are striving for.
I think they are trying to organize small/medium developers to share ideas & data, so they can compete with larger powerhouses like Apple & Google.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y0rMCUCeOLs
Open AR Cloud website: https://www.openarcloud.org/
Other Youtube videos: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCI_a22gRQ28JjcjlmwwJ34A/videos
The organic look of Aurora interfaces & gradients is the latest trend in UI.
Michal Malewicz explains how the once popular forced minimalism has given way to fuzzier edges.
https://uxdesign.cc/aurora-ui-new-visual-trend-for-2021-c763a7daa7e2
An interesting article by Apple alumni Jean-Louis Gassée about why Apple has failures, but still succeeds.
Jean-Louis points out how Apple organization may be one of the difference compared to other tech giants.
https://mondaynote.com/apple-failure-modes-a5c9e1c9ffb0
Another free new gem from the folks at RayWenderlich: a lesson on Video with AVFoundation
“Learn how to import videos, create thumbnails from them, play live videos in SwiftUI, setup capture sessions to preview and capture still images, record movies files; and merge multiple video clips”.
https://www.raywenderlich.com/21460315-video-with-avfoundation
An excellent explanation of history & possible future of Touch Screens in the Apple ecosystem.
Apple Explains Youtube channel is worth exploring.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-2aA70MrJiw
Sandbox VR, out-of-home VR experience, appears to be moving into the market that killed the VOID VR facilities.
Sandbox VR also had financial issues, but plan to rebound, having announced new location.
Personal note: I attended two VR adventures at the VOID pre-COVID, but while I enjoyed them, I could not understand how they expected to make money, considering how few people they could process in an hour. I am sorry I will never see some of their other adventures.
https://www.roadtovr.com/sandbox-vr-reopening-las-vegas/
Augmented World Expo (AWE), the a AR/VR event, will be returning in November to Santa Clara, CA for in person conference.
After so many conference, in all industries, went virtual due to COVID, there was a question if some would stay that way. I find it interesting that a VR conference is one of the first to return step back from that.
https://www.roadtovr.com/awe-2021-conference-date-location/
Their website: https://www.awexr.com/
Should I start a feature called “Ridiculous Friday”, where my tech posting is something crazy? $310,000 for a Nintendo Cartridge would qualify!
Since it never been opened, how do they know the box is not counterfeited?
https://www.pcmag.com/news/auction-for-original-super-mario-bros-game-hits-310000
Before HFS, MS-DOS or DOS 3.3, there was CP/M!!!!
Control Program/Monitor from Digital Research was the earliest mass markets OS for microcomputers. It has a big legacy.
https://www.howtogeek.com/718124/what-was-cpm-and-why-did-it-lose-to-ms-dos/
A fascinating article by Noah Martin about what is going on under the hood when Swift starts.
The rebasing of pointers in metadata is one of the major factors in startup times, and it is everywhere!
https://medium.com/geekculture/why-swift-reference-types-are-bad-for-app-startup-time-90fbb25237fc
Ingenuity, the soon to be launched Mars helicopter, has a section of the original wing of the Wright Brother plane onboard.
The Perseverance team has put a number of Easter Eggs on the Mars Probe, this way is just historically cool.
Did Apple change the tech industry by NOT showing up for CES? This article says yes.
I always thought they stopped going so they had control over release dates for manufacturing reasons, but trying to minimize competition for headlines is a good reason too.
As mentioned by Bruno Rocha, the inline & inlijneable keywords is one of Swift's lesser-known attributes.
Bruno conclusion is that these are items you should rarely use, but I agree they are features of Swift all developers should understand.
https://betterprogramming.pub/understanding-inlinable-in-swift-6987a05d03cb
Here is a great webpage about the Apple //c from Apple2History organization.
In my closet, is an Apple //c with my name on it that I was given to me for being part of the Apple //c design team.
https://apple2history.org/history/ah08/
Here is an impressive Review List from Fadi Ossama that all iOS/Mac developers could use.
I disagree with a couple of these, but in general, this is list is something all Swift developers should strive for!
https://medium.com/swiftcairo/ios-code-review-checklist-482f17f5c7c6
His GitHub repository: https://github.com/FadiOssama/Swift-Code-Review-Checklist
Personal Note: I gave a talk the other day on one of Fadi’s rules: “Clarity is more important than brevity”. I agree 100%! Swift was designed to be an easy to read language, it was not designed to be a Terse one. Don’t be afraid to be verbose. Use many lines to display multiple clause Guard statements, split up multi-parameter calls into separate lines and use vertical white space to group lines of Swift. This is all so other members of your team can easily read and understand your code.
Dan Handsen of Legend Software tells the story where he once had to pay $5000 to put basic math into his software.
I agree 100% with him about the damage Patent Trolls have done to the industry, and the need for reform in the patent office.
https://entrepreneurshandbook.co/i-was-sued-over-a-patent-on-subtraction-and-lost-f90700437a7f
Tom Scott drives are road he has never been on, but he remembers it anyway, since it was in a game.
A cute video about actual location in Vancouver which the classic game “Need for Speed 2” was modeled from.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=juRkaqkDfCM
A fascinating story about when an accidental plague hit an online world.
Called the Corrupted Blood incident, online players reactions to the destructive force is worth studying.
http://www.todayifoundout.com/index.php/2018/08/time-plague-nearly-killed-everyone-world-warcraft/
Video of talk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sbqKeF_y8_k
Wiki entry on Corrupted Blood incident: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corrupted_Blood_incident
A Magsafe connector for your iPhone, why didn’t someone think of this before?
Interesting, though I question the value since I used a wireless charging station. It would have been great idea a few years back.
https://www.macrumors.com/2021/03/03/apple-magsafe-charging-port-iphone-patent/
Wow, blast from past with the Apple devices that few remember.
What has always impressed me as much as Apple successes, is their failures, because it doesn’t stop them from trying again.
https://www.macworld.com/article/2039653/five-apple-hardware-products-that-time-forgot.html#slide7
From RoadToVR, Facebook Reality Labs Research showed off some new VR/AR/XR Tech
Someone is going to get haptic hand input right soon, and it may be Facebook.
One of several videos demoed here: https://youtu.be/sG1y3WW-7N4
Why do we keep talking about old Retro Games? Because the Good ones still impact game design today.
Several of these Atari 2600 games are so good, that they been ported to ever platform since.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6kJ_79ih9rI
Side thought: Which games would you like to see a VR version?
A worthwhile article by Riccardo Cipolleschi reminding us of the numerous options to store user data from within your program.
User Defaults, Keychain, Files, SqlLite, Core Data, on my.
https://betterprogramming.pub/5-ways-to-store-user-data-in-your-ios-app-595d61c89667
Being experienced is does not mean being wise, especially for software engineers.
The industry is always Evolving, the trick is take your experience, and keep Evolving yourself!
https://betterprogramming.pub/the-3-mindsets-to-avoid-as-a-senior-software-developer-efc8fa17fc3
Stuck in a perpetual Zoom meetings? There is a software solution for this.
Ok, this made me laugh. And wonder why I didn’t think of it first.
https://www.theverge.com/2021/3/15/22331744/zoom-escaper-sabotage-meetings-fake-audio-problems
Video tutorial: https://youtu.be/r_LhwsMAaAc
A real world tutorial showing how to implement a bottom sheet in Swift 5 using container/child view controllers, UIPanGestureRecognizer, and constraint animations.
Thanks to Zafar Ivaev for this example project.
https://betterprogramming.pub/how-to-create-an-interactive-bottom-sheet-in-swift-5-adadaad79e72
Git Repository for the code: https://github.com/zafarivaev/BottomSheet
Is this the way of the future for remote, telepresence conferences?
“Microsoft hosted the entire Ignite keynote inside of Altspace, the social VR platform the company acquired back in 2017”
https://www.roadtovr.com/microsoft-ignite-2021-virtual-reality-keynote/
In 1972, students Ed Catmull & Fred Parke created the first 3D rendered movie, an animated version of Ed’s left hand.
This simple looking video was historic, and the direct predecessor of all CGI, especially those from Pixar.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T5seU-5U0ms
The hand was used in the SciFi movie Future World, which makes it the very first use of rendered CGI in a movie. The scene: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QfRAfsK5cvU
Here is a pretty fantastic video, created using a Drone instead of CGI to do 90 second flyby shot.
I started to say "traditional CGI", then realized how silly that was. You have to admit, CGI is a way of life now.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-03-12/hollywood-drone-video-minnesota-bowling-alley/13241718
Here is a comparison of Starscream SDK vs URLSession API for handling Websockets.
Finalized in 2011, Websockets “two-way communication with servers that does not rely on opening multiple HTTP connections”.
https://getstream.io/blog/swift-websockets-starscream-urlsession/
Dennis Hill provides us with tools to allow your iOS users to authenticate your app with their Amazon Account.
There is a bit of setup on the Amazon and Xcode side, but surprisingly little amount of iOS code. Thanks Dennis!
https://itnext.io/add-login-with-amazon-to-your-ios-swift-app-d1b07655d31a
In depth article from 2 years ago by the New York Magazine on history of Woman programmers, and resistance to them.
Both the past history of woman programmers, and the current issues with woman in tech.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/13/magazine/women-coding-computer-programming.html
Apple Swift Repository is a treasure chest full of tips and ideas, in this case, hints on how to Optimize your Apps.
Some are simple for major improvements, like setting protocols to be class only or using Let vs Var with Closures.
https://github.com/apple/swift/blob/main/docs/OptimizationTips.rst
Woman participation in Computer Tech has become worse, not better, over past 30 years.
At what point were woman discouraged from Computers? Perhaps when coding became popular or profitable?
https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2014/10/21/357629765/when-women-stopped-coding
Personal note: My computer programming class in HS in late 70s was pretty even male & female, but university classes were very dominated by men, with as I remember, only 1 woman aiming for a software programming degree. Perhaps the negative encouragement started not when, but where. That said, my recent Graduate CS classes at local University had more woman in SWE than men. I sincerely hope things are getting better.
In honor of Women’s History Month, here is a primer on some amazing female software pioneers.
Ada Lovelace, Hedy Lamarr & Mary Allen Wilkes, but I had not heard of Kateryna Yushchenko, until now.
https://medium.com/star-gazers/great-women-in-programming-ec0113c0f127
Thank you SwiftLee! I've been trying, and failing, to understand the Autoclosure keyword since its release in Swift 5.1.
Autoclosure converts a simple expression into a closure, so it can be invoked at a later time (rather than immediately).
https://www.avanderlee.com/swift/autoclosure/
I feel a disturbance in the Force, err, gaming industry.
In a $7.5 billion deal, Microsoft gains exclusive use of some of the biggest games around.
https://www.pcmag.com/news/microsoft-gets-eu-approval-to-acquire-zenimax
Can Balkaya brings us a round up of Swift 5.4 features.
I have mentioned some of these individually, but Can does great job of providing a good overview.
https://betterprogramming.pub/whats-new-in-swift-5-4-88949071d538
For eager new Game Developers, the IGDA has a large library of past videos on YouTube.
The Independent Game Developer Association is the “world’s largest nonprofit membership organization serving all individuals who create games”.
https://www.youtube.com/user/TheIGDA/videos
Their website: https://igda.org
Years ago, AOL Mail has similar feature that Twitter is considering, where you can unsend mail/posting, as long as no one had seen them.
This was a popular feature, and people were upset when Internet mail required stopped this ability.
https://www.cnn.com/2021/03/05/tech/twitter-undo-send-timer-feature/index.html
A bit of my hometown has disappeared with the closing of Fry’s Electronics.
This video does a good job explaining the history of this Silicon Valley based electronics superstore, and some opinions on why it finally failed (Not COVID).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=to-osQMHxpE
Ok, this amuses me. He put an Raspberry Pi inside an Apple //e case.
It actually makes sense, accept for being bit large, and he got the //e keyboard working USB.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CQOGnzGYnl4
ps. My project to put a Raspberry Pi inside a Mac512 case continues.
A story from awhile back about how one open-source change disrupted thousands of sites.
Modifying shared Open Source code needs to follow the motto of Doing No Harm, but you don’t always know the effect of small changes.
https://qz.com/646467/how-one-programmer-broke-the-internet-by-deleting-a-tiny-piece-of-code/
Another telling of same tail: https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2016/03/rage-quit-coder-unpublished-17-lines-of-javascript-and-broke-the-internet/
Thanks to Andy Pereira of RayWenderlich for showing us a new wireless tech from Apple.
Multipeer Connectivity can be part of a lot of interesting projects, Chat is only one use.
https://www.raywenderlich.com/12689804-getting-started-with-multipeer-connectivity
As part of Microsoft Mesh announcement, we finally see Pokemon in true AR.
Honestly my first reaction was “why has it taken them this long?”. This is a perfect fit.
https://www.theverge.com/2021/3/2/22309466/pokemon-go-hololens-prototype-microsoft-ignite-niantic
Video: https://youtu.be/ByT50Pjy8xs
Microsoft launched its new Microsoft Mesh mixed reality platform today.
This article does not mention it explicitly, but Mesh will be available on other VR headsets, including Quest 2.
Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jd2GK0qDtRg&feature=youtu.be
Eniela P. Vela of Swift Blondie list some of her favorite Swift Extensions.
A small code snippet can be immensely useful in the right spot, and everyone likes different ones.
https://medium.com/swift-blondie/5-swift-extensions-that-will-make-your-life-easier-41ca42d60946
A covid-safe version of “Van Gogh: The Immersive Experience” will be coming to DC this summer, but the tickets are selling this week.
This is huge immersive (360 projection rooms, VR experience) way to view the famous artist greatest work that is touring the world.
https://vangoghexpo.com/washington/
Details about ordering tickets: https://secretdc.com/van-gogh-multisensory-art-exhibit-dc/
