- 3D-Printing Pharmaceuticals (BoingBoing) — Prof Cronin added: “3D printers are becoming increasingly common and affordable. It’s entirely possible that, in the future, we could see chemical engineering technology which is prohibitively expensive today filter down to laboratories and small commercial enterprises. “Even more importantly, we could use 3D printers to revolutionise access to health care in the developing world, allowing diagnosis and treatment to happen in a much more efficient and economical way than is possible now.
- Bolt Action Tactical Pen (Uncrate) — silliness.
- Ken Robinson’s Sunday Sermon (Vimeo) — In our culture, not to know is to be at fault socially… People pretend to know lots of things they don’t know. Because the worst thing to do is appear to be uninformed about something, to not have an opinion… We should know the limits of our knowledge and understand what we don’t know, and be willing to explore things we don’t know without feeling embarrassed of not knowing about them. If you work with someone who hides ignorance or failure, you’re working with a timebomb and one of your highest priorities should be to change that mindset or replace the person. (via Maria Popova)
- Using Android Camera in HTML Apps (David Calhoun) — From your browser you can now upload pictures and videos from the camera as well as sounds from the microphone. The returned data should be available to manipulate via the File API (via Josh Clark)
ENTRIES TAGGED "android"
Developing cross-platform mobile apps with C#
Greg Shackles on using C# and .NET to build apps that work across mobile platforms.
Web developer and author Greg Shackles reveals the advantages of using C# over C++ for writing mobile apps. He also explains why Android and iOS developers should give C# a serious look.
Four short links: 24 April 2012
Craft Pharma, Silly Toy, Failure, and Android Image/Audio Capture
Four short links: 10 April 2012
Instagram's Architecture, New ssh, Android Economics, and Design Principles
- The Instagram Architecture (High Scalability) — great summary of the Instagram team’s post about the technology that runs Instagram. Lots of Python goodness in here.
- Mosh — ssh that lets you roam and stay connected. UTF-8 native.
- Android Economics — working back from Google’s declared valuation of Android royalties to figure out how much they have and how it’s growing. Error bars for Africa here, but can’t argue with the conclusion: Whereas Android generates $1.70/device/year and thus an Android device with a two year life generates about $3.5 to Google over its life, Apple obtained $576.3 for each iOS device it sold in 2011.
- UK Govt Digital Service’s Design Principles — if only everything in government followed Principle 1: Start with Needs (User Needs not Government Needs).
Commerce Weekly: Google Wallet vs Isis is coming soon
Preparing for the mobile wallet wars and in-app purchases continue to rise.
Mobile wallets are in their infancy, yet pundits are already handicapping future showdowns. Also, in-app purchases show increasing promise as mobile revenue streams. (Commerce Weekly is produced as part of a partnership between O'Reilly and PayPal.)
Four short links: 21 March 2012
Data Journalism, Fast Web Servers, Android App Inventor, and Daily Deal Dirt
- S0rce — gorgeous infographics. They purport to let you Think for Yourself which is bald-faced bullshit: the choice of which data to present, and the invisible collection and curation practices behind the data, is the choice of what story to tell and what it will say. That said, it’s wonderful to see the numbers (and they are attributed) behind the Republican Primary and Copyright and Piracy Legislation.
- Modern HTTP Servers are Fast — I remember when the best web engineering in the world would still fall over if a box got more than 10 hits/second. Yes, yes, I’m writing this on my grandpa box. Check out the hardware specs of the box these numbers are from.
- MIT App Inventor — web-based app designer. Does not appear to be open source. There is no long-term sustainability for this kind of development environment: when MIT decide “nah screw it, not going to run this any more” or “hmm, maybe we’ll charge for it”, you’re boned–you can download the “source” to your app in a zip file but AppInventor is the only dev environment which can consume it. I hope it’ll become the awesome and easy dev environment that Android needs, but I hope they prevent it from being a dead end.
- Daily Deals: Prediction, Social Diffusion, and Reputational Ramifications — we consider the effects of daily deals on the longer-term reputation of merchants, based on their Yelp reviews before and after they run a daily deal. Our analysis shows that while the number of reviews increases significantly due to daily deals, average rating scores from reviewers who mention daily deals are 10% lower than scores of their peers on average. (via Greg Linden)
Tertiary data: Big data's hidden layer
Thoughts on the hidden data that's generated about us, rather than by us.
Big data isn't limited to multi-terabyte datasets or data markets. It also includes the hidden data you carry with you all the time and the growing data on your movements, contacts and social interactions.
Commerce Weekly: PayPal's Here service takes on Square
PayPal launches a card reader, AmEx teams with Twitter, and the smartphone tipping point is mere months away.
PayPal introduces its own credit card reader, AmEx asks you to tweet it out, and Asymco visualizes the smartphone market. (Commerce Weekly is produced as part of a partnership between O'Reilly and PayPal.)
Developer Week in Review: The new iPad and the big meh
It's iPad evolution rather than revolution, increasing patent penalties for Android, and Raspberry Pi is served.
Apple unveils pretty much what it was expected to unveil, and decides to treat Android as a cash cow rather than an enemy. Meanwhile, the Raspberry Pi is finally out, so let the hacking begin.
Four short links: 22 February 2012
Hashbangs URLs Must Go, Cheap DNA Sequencing, Content Detection Fail, and Ubuntu on Android
- Hashbangs (Dan Webb) — why those terrible #! URLs are a bad idea. Looks like they’re going away with pushState coming to browsers. As Dan says, “URLs are forever”. Let’s get them right. I’m fascinated by how URLs are changing meaning and use over time.
- DNA Sequencing on a USB Stick — this has been going the rounds, but I think there’s a time coming when scientific data generation can be crowdsourced. I care about a particular type of fish, but it hasn’t been sequenced. Can I catch one, sequence it, upload the sequence, and get insight into the animal by automated detection of similar genes from other animals? Let those who care do the boring work, let scientists work on the analysis.
- The US Recording Industry is Stealing From Me (Bruce Simpson) — automated content detection at YouTube has created an industry of parasites who claim copyright infringement and then receive royalties from the ads shown on the allegedly infringing videos.
- Ubuntu on Android — carry a desktop in your pocket? Tempting. It’s for manufacturers, not something you install on existing handsets, which I’m sure will create tension with the open source world at Ubuntu’s heart. Then again, creating tension with the open source world at Ubuntu’s heart does seem to be Canonical’s core competency ….
Commerce Weekly: Facebook finds a mobile commerce partner
Facebook looks to make mobile pay, Google Wallet's security problems, and shopping on subway walls.
Bango will run Facebook's mCommerce platform, Google Wallet hacked, and PayPal pilots shopping walls. (Commerce Weekly is produced as part of a partnership between O'Reilly and PayPal.)
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