Stuart Corner:
TVNZ has started live streaming its free-to-air channels along with its Duke on-demand service via a revamped tvnz.co.nz web site, and has promised to make the service available on Apple TV and on Google’s Chromecast.
Finally Apple TV and Chromecast support.
Dynamic import expressions are a new feature in ECMAScript that allows you to asynchronously request a module at any arbitrary point in your program. These modules come back as Promises of the module itself, and can be await-ed in an async function, or can be given a callback with .then.
What this means in short that you can conditionally and lazily import other modules and libraries to make your application more efficient and resource-conscious.
A great new feature for ECMAscript now available in TypeScript.
User experiences and artificial intelligence are inextricably entwined in today’s world. They both inform and affect how the other works. Some people think AI will ultimately replace the need for human-driven UX.
In reality, it may only change the way humans approach UX. To keep pace with digital trends, UX professionals must learn how to use AI as a design and development tool.
Today, Sega began releasing classic Sega games under the banner Sega Forever.
The first titles released are Sonic the Hedgehog, which was already available on iOS, Comix Zone, Altered Beast, Kid Chameleon, and Phantasy Star II. The games, which are standalone downloads, are free and include ads that can be removed with a $1.99 In-App Purchase.
I was a Sega kid growing up (Nintendo was expensive in NZ and harder to get). This brings back a lot of gaming nostalgia, I remember playing Altered Beast in the arcade. Pity they aren’t all available on the Apple TV.
Unsplash, a photo sharing startup, has launched their own branded license and updated their terms to add new restrictions and remove CC0 from their platform. As a result of the changes, Unsplash images are no longer in the public domain. The permissions offered can be revoked at any time, and Unsplash now has the right to pursue infringement on behalf of their users.
Well that’s a shame, I’ve used Unsplash in the past purely because of its great content and it’s nearly unrestricted license.
Since ES6/ES2015 took roughly 6 years to get released, TC39, the technical committee that oversees and writes the specification for the JavaScript language, decided to adopt a yearly release cycle. This change is largely to allow for smaller and more iterative releases of the language specs.
Some interesting new features in JavaScript to look forward to using.
What bugged him (pardon the pun) was the unfairness of having state agencies pilloried, while firms such as Google and Facebook, which, in his opinion, conducted much more intensive surveillance than the NSA or GCHQ, got off scot free. His argument was that he and his colleagues were at least subject to some degree of democratic oversight, but the companies, whose business model is essentially “surveillance capitalism”, were entirely unregulated.
It’s scary that we so freely as a society have given away our privacy to the likes of Google & Facebook to corporate entities that literally make money off spying on and analysing us.
Just about any account you own on the internet is prone to being hacked — and one of the easiest ways to add an extra layer of security is to enable two-factor authentication. Also known as two-step verification or 2FA, the process gives web services a secondary access to the account owner (you!) in order to verify a login attempt. Typically, this involves phone number and / or an email address.
If you haven’t already set up 2 factor authentication on all your accounts I recommend you do so immediately.
Dealing with the fallout of a hacked account is too great a risk. Let alone the act of having to update all your accounts passwords especially if for instance your email account is hacked would not be a fun task.
I was lucky enough to attend the Microsoft Winter of Xamarin 2017 event in Auckland on Saturday the 17th of June. It was held in Beca House Auditorium, a very nice venue located in Pitt Street, Auckland.
The day was a great learning experience were throughout the day we made a cross platform app of iOS, Android and Windows UWP using Xamarin and Xamarin Forms.
Another highlight was a look at Visual Studio Mobile Center (currently in Preview), which bundles up a lot of the boring bits of app development like CI, cloud building and ad-hoc distribution into one easy to use web portal.
I came away from the event enthusiastic to learn more and build an app for the competition using Xamarin.
Google has hired veteran chip architect Manu Gulati, who worked at Apple for the past eight years, according to Variety.
Gulati is now a Lead SOC Architect at Google, where he began in May, according to his recently updated LinkedIn profile.
Gulati was “instrumental” to the company’s efforts to build custom chips for the iPad, iPhone, and Apple TV, according to the report.
Now this could get interesting. Will Google be a threat to Apple? Or more likely to the Android device makers Samsung, HTC etc.
