Skillz esports platform is now publicly traded

 Beginning today Skillz started trading. Skillz is the leading mobile platform for gamers. It combines mobile gaming with sports that enables everyone to share in the sports competition. The mobile gaming market is expected to grow by 2025 to $150 billion according to Skillz site (https://www.skillz.com/skillz-becomes-first-publicly-traded-mobile-esports-platform/)

If you are a game developer (iOS , Android, Cardova, Unity) you may be interested in the following information,

Developing mobile apps, check out Appery.io

It is a cloud based mobile app developer platform with full back-end support. You can build both hybrid as well as web apps with API support. The apps (iOS / Android) run in the browser using appery.io's visual App Builder.

Apps built using appery.io communicate with server / back-end that consists of:

Database
Server code
API Express- a tool exposing enterprise databases such as SQL Servers via REST APIs
Support sending push notifications.

Before installing on the device you can even test using the Appery.io Tester app.

This video shows platform features:



There is free trial you may want to sign up. Once signed in you will have a dashboard which has all of these:

    Apps
    Databases
    Server Code
    API Express
    Plugins
    Resources
    Account

Here are some example apps (covers most of the common ones you may be interested in) that you may want to peruse before working on your own.

    Weather API and Geo-location App.
    Ionic Components Example.
    Clickable List App.
    Create-Read-Update-Delete App.
    Todo App.
    Login-Registration App.
    Picture Upload App.
    Charts App.
    Email with SendGrid.
    SMS with Twilio.
    Email with Mailgun.
    OAuth Login with Google App.
    Stripe Payment App.
    Facebook App.
    PayPal App.
    Barcode Scanner with Database App.

Well, to test it out is free and it does not hurt. Why not test drive and see for yourself.

Is Google creating the new operating system FF00FF?

It looks like Google is developing a new open source operating system, FUCHSIA acccording to :
http://www.ibtimes.com/google-replacing-chrome-os-android-fuchsia-2401522?ft=95p2z. It is  not official yet.

This would replace Chrome OS in the near future and even the enormously popular Android OS. As for near future goal it will be used for Rasoberry Pi 3(http://www.trustedreviews.com/news/google-is-working-on-a-new-os-codenamed-fuchsia) In the near term it seems this will be used on some light weight devices before it goes on larger devices. It is supposed run on everything from smart phones to IoT devices using the DART (https://www.dartlang.org/) Programming language.

Well another language to learn.

Let's wait....

Pepper in Palo Alto

Another 6 days to go, Pepper the humanoid robot that can sense emotions will be in Palo Alto store b8ta between August 11 and 18.

  Pepper2.png
Robot developed by SoftBank and a robotics company Aldebaran Robotics  was unveiled in 2014 and it can read human emotions and respond to them accordingly. For all the sophisticated features, it sells cheap, about $1900+. Pepper still needs battery and needs a charge after every 12 hours of use. It uses programming languages like C++, Python and Android.

It is a hot sell in Japan after it started selling in 2015, but may not come to USA any time soon as the local demand is high.

Because of its ability to read and respond to emotions it appears to be ideal for customer facing situations and has even gone on cruise ships to assist passengers.

The images are from Aldebaran's site.

Pepper.png

Read more about Pepper here:

https://www.ald.softbankrobotics.com/en
http://www.techrepublic.com/article/robot-invasion-softbanks-pepper-lands-in-the-us/
http://www.zdnet.com/article/softbank-aldebaran-launch-pepper-an-emotional-robot/

This is it, if you are a game developer.

If you are a game developer, I suppose you may not even read this post. Unity is a multi-platform, 2D/3D game development engine and you can learn about it here (unity3d.com).

It is supported on most platforms and a leader in game development. With just one click you can deploy to:

• Mobile - iOS, Android, Windows and Tizen
• VR
• Desktop
• Web
• Console and 
• TV platforms.

Here are the platforms to which you can deploy the games.



Unity_01

If you are developing for the mobile area it has lots of built-in stuff:

• One-click deployment to Android, iOS, Windows Phone, and Tizen.
• Tons of optimizations thanks to features like occlusion culling, asset bundling, and build size stripping.
• World class monetization and retention services for mobile games.
• Dedicated, easy to use 3D and 2D tools and workflows.

Unity for VR and AR is already garnering from most vendors shown here:

Unity_02

You can develop very immersive and entertaining games for the desktop be it Windows, Mac or Linus/StreamOS

Unity_03

If you have game console such as XBOX, PS4, Wii and 3DS they are covered too:

Unity_04

I have a Samsung TV can I deploy? of course you can. Unity supports these Smart TVs as well:
Android TV
Samsung TV
Apple TV

 
Unity_05

Now what about Web?

Of course you can target the Web and it has already been used commercially.

Unity_06

Hay! What are you waiting for? Download.

Why fret?
Download the free stuff
Just to get your feet wet
Don't huff and huff!

Get the free stuff here:
http://unity3d.com/get-unity



If you like it and if you can work with it, go and get the professional.
If you are going to work with Microsoft's latest, Hololens, also get the Visual Studio 2015 Community. It is already integrated to work with Hololens and you can get your Unity projects into it.

Let us Game!

Source: Pictures and some language copied from Unity web site

New Microsoft Software-as-a-Service: PowerApps

 Mobile First, Cloud First --> Repeat this mantra three times, breathe deep each time

That is what Microsoft is doing by developing PowerApps. This is presently in limited preview (by invite only) being developed by a small team at Microsoft's Cloud and Enterprise Group. Microsoft believes that there is a huge bundle to be made.




PowerApps service can used for creating,sharing and managing mobile business apps on iOS, Android and Windows devices. It is really apps development for dummies kind of thing. Developer need not be a coder and it is best suited and used by those who have a business need but no programming skill. This app is supposed to provide a quick fix for app creation in these days of skilled developer scarcity without having to worry about security and other details.

 
Basically PowerApps,

• Turn data into apps

• Mobilize your systems - Sharepoint, SQL Server, Oracle databases, SAP and Custom business Systems

• If you have Microsoft Office Skills you can create apps

• Professional developers can use Azure App Service

• App sharing is as easy as an email

• Device neutral- smartphones and tablets from Apple, Android and Microsoft

Read more here:
https://powerapps.microsoft.com/en-us/
https://powerapps.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/introducing-microsoft-powerapps/
http://www.zdnet.com/article/microsoft-takes-wraps-off-powerapps-mobile-app-creation-service/

Details of installed project templates in Visual Studio 2015 Community

After installing Visual Studio 2015 launch the application to display the start page.

StartPage.png

Click on New Project to open the New Project window as shown.

NewProj_01

It is displaying Visual Basic separately from other languages and the reason for this might be that Visual Basic was used recently, or perhaps this is the default New Project page in VS 2015 Community.

The number and types of Visual Basic templates are as shown here:

NewProj_01_VB

Visual Basic templates are fewer than C# project templates because there are templates for Android and iOS in C#.

NewProj_01_C#

For Android there are application templates for Wearable and WebView.

NewProj_01_Android

For iOS as well, Apple Watch template project is available.

NewProj_01_iOS

However for iOS Mobile applications templates use Xamarin. Forms.

NewProj_01_iOSMobile

Both Type Script and JavaScript project templates requires Tools for Apache Cardova which you can get by choosing the option.

For Python templates you need to install Python tools for Visual Studio and install Tools for F# for F# templates.

In C++ you can install support for both Android as well as iOS. Of course for MFC and Extensibility project templates you can install the requires tools. However for Windows templates -Windows 8.1 and WindowsPhone 8.1 can be installed.

I am not sure how these are going to change after the debut of Windows 10, perhaps a new version or an update. For developing Windows Phone applications you may need to install a different version of Visual Studio.

Xamarin is going to play a key role in cross-platform development using Microsoft Visual Studio and perhaps you may want to read more about Xamarin and its resources here:

Android Apps with Visual Studio
http://hodentek.blogspot.com/2015/03/android-apps-using-visual-studio-part-1.html
C# Universal Coder
http://hodentek.blogspot.com/2014/01/master-c-and-become-universal-coder.html
Cross-Platform Apps
http://hodentek.blogspot.com/2014/07/cross-platform-app-development-part-1.html

Internet of Things, Arduino and Blynk

Blynk is a another platform with iOS and Android apps to control Arduino. Raspberry Pi and others.

It is a digital daskboard where you drag and drop widgets and get things going reapidly. It's like 5 minutes the advertiesment says (http://www.blynk.cc/).

Looks like it is transparent to the type of board or shield(hardware). Arduino or Raspberry gets linked to Internet over WiFi, Ethernet or the new chip ESP8266. You are set,ready and Go.

Blynk is for iOS (ver 8 or higher) and Android, sorry Windows Phone users. You need to install Blynk Library from this site:http://www.blynk.cc/getting-started/

All you need to do is to start Blynk and add widgets. Build

Here is a simple Blynk program from their site:
https://codebender.cc/example/BlynkSimpleEthernet/GettingStarted:PushData

 

This Google browser finder for the smart phone does not cut

I was wondering what type of browser I have on my Nokia Icon and I came across this Google site which autoomatically finds the browser on your phone.

When I tried it on my Windows Phone (Nokia Icon), I got a response which wa somewhat surprising.

This is not obviously correct.
After searching more I found this site which returned the correct answer.

 

Google's Project Fi takes off

This has been in the works for long and now it is ready. Are you paying for set bulk rate for data from the likes of AT&T and Verizon? Well it worked but not for those who want to pay for what they use. Project Fi does it for you what AT&T and Verizon do not. It will even reimburse for data not used.

Right now you ask to be invited to join the program but later it is for all who wants it. The free software model starting with Android was a huge success and as Android is a global market leader for smart phones it will be easy to get them on to Project Fi.

The seamless transition from cellular to Wi-Fi is a very attractive feature, a feature that all smart phone manufacturers should emulate.

Read more here and here.

Microsoft rolls out new Azure App Service

Microsoft ties up three of its offerings (Azure Web Sites, Azure Mobile Services and Azure BizTalk Services) into a new Azure App Service to provide a unified expereince ofor the developers.

This is achieved by the following 4 key components, the last one being the connectivity platform for systems both on-premises and the cloud:

• Web Apps
• Mobile Apps
• Logic Apps
• API apps

Web Apps (Azure web sites) provides support for .ENET, Java, PHP, Python and other languages through integration with Visual Studio OnLine, GitHub, Bitbucket etc.
Mobile Apps provides backend capabilities for not only native Windows but also for Android and IOs mobile platforms cvia Xamarin and Cordova.
Logic Apps can be created by developers for automation of process execution across various services akin to BizTalk services for enterprise integration.

Read more here and here and here.

Some interesting posts can be found here:
http://hodentekPlus.blogspot.com

Android apps using Visual Studio? - Part 3

Now that Xamarin is installed take a look at the WebView template. Created AndyWebView project using the WebView Template. There are a few others.

This is what you will be seeing in the Solution Explorer.

This is all like in all VS templates.

Here is the exploded view of the folders:

The Object Explorer shows more on the 'Mono.Android' items here:

 

 

 

Mind you, this is only a part of the listing.

This project does not build for the following reason:

Xamarin.Android for Visual Studio requires Business account or greater. Please log in with your Xamarin account to proceed.

Well, well my starter kit is no good. I am not ready to shell down
Business edition $83/month for Business Edition
and $158/month for Enterprise edition

That's a lot to just write in my blog posts.

I will stick to IntelXDK for now or plain vanilla Visual Studio 2015 Express if it makes a debut.
If you want to pursue developing for Android and iOS read more here regarding XAMARIN and MonoDevelop:

http://www.monodevelop.com/download/

Android apps using Visual Studio? - Part 1

Review this regarding cross-platform app development and Xamarin connection:
http://hodentek.blogspot.com/2014/07/cross-platform-app-development-part-1.html

Review regarding XAMARIN:
http://hodentek.blogspot.com/2014/01/master-c-and-become-universal-coder.html

Now in Visual Studio 2015 CTP6 you have the Android app under New Project in C#. Sorry, not available for VB. Not only you can work with Android but  also with iOS apps in Visual Studio 2015 CTP6. Review this following screen shot:

Andy01

Herein you can write Anroid apps in C# and share your code with iPhone, iPad and other .NET languages.

However, there are no built-in templates but there is a link in the previous window at the bottom which will take you to the templates (if any) on the Internet.

In your search, look for Samples and under samples C#. Filter the results for Android. You will see the following.

Andy02

If you place your cursor on the description of the app you will see there are a lot of XAMARIN related samples. Some are XAMARIN based and the others are based on Apache Cordoba Framework.

However, if you go this way you may have to deep search and you may not find a sample immediately that you could bring in and look at.

I tried with one of them and reached a point where I could not proceed as it needed many more items and allowed me to create only Windows based application.

If you start the other way, starting from scratch which creates a XAMARIN project, then you will have to buy into it (download XAMARIN, install etc.)  if you do not have Xamarin on your computer. Visual Studio seems to depend entirely on Xamarin to proceed forward.
We look at it both ways later.

 

Microsoft confirms purchase of Acompl, Email Client app for iPhone and Android

This fits into the larger plan of Microsoft to cover not only Windows Phone which is still trying to get up and run, but to stay in tune with the fast runners, Google and Apple. It will be Outlook for desktop but Acompl for the mobile and supports Microsoft's Exchange. Exchange is Ok but Microsoft will definitely integrate this somehow with Office 365.

This is going to make Outlook a lot richer and even without Acompl, Outlook is a damn good email client. Well $200 million may be a little pricey but for what it does the price is OK.

Read more here:

http://www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/Microsoft-acquires-iPhone-email-app-Acompli/ar-BBgcyP0?ocid=ansVerge11

http://www.theverge.com/2014/12/1/7298679/microsoft-acquires-acompli

How long will it take to recover $200 mil?

Easy to create a TabView app with Intel XDK

You learnt how to do a ListView app using Intel XDK here,
http://hodentek.blogspot.com/2014/09/creating-listview-type-of-cross.html

Now download the latest Intel XDK from here:

http://hodentekmobile.blogspot.com/2014/11/get-latest-intel-xdk-and-jump-start-app.html
(November 2014)
http://hodentek.blogspot.com/2014/09/new-intel-xdk-release-september-2014.html (September 2014)

Using the above you can now code a TabView app as shown here. Yes, it is cross-platform.
http://hodentekmobile.blogspot.com/2014/11/creating-cross-platform-apps-with-tab.html

These are on the emulators.

 

iPhone5

 

Nokia Icon

 

Free Visual studio Community 2013 - hard to believe!

This is hard to believe, but true - Free Visual studio Community 2013.

Full featured VS IDE for free, unbelievable. Probably the express editions will be history. Yes, leadership changes can bring in bonanza some times. Also, one way to stem the Android.

In Microsoft's own words,
"The power of the cloud, state-of-the-art tools, and agile development services provide you with the most comprehensive free developer offering ever!"

You can code for multiple platforms from one IDE, Windows, Android, and iOS. Of course you get a bunch of tools and what not.

 

Here are some promo shots from Microsoft.

 

Powerful

 

Versatile

 

Extensible

Probably you have a lots of questions and these are all answered here and you can download now.
http://www.visualstudio.com/products/visual-studio-community-vs

Download vs_community.exe at the above site.

Q&A of most interest from Microsoft site:

Q: Who can use Visual Studio Community?
A: Here’s how individual developers can use Visual Studio Community:

• Any individual developer can use Visual Studio Community to create their own free or paid apps.

Here’s how Visual Studio Community can be used in organizations:

• An unlimited number of users within an organization can use Visual Studio Community for the following scenarios: in a classroom learning environment, for academic research, or for contributing to open source projects.
• For all other usage scenarios: In non-enterprise organizations, up to 5 users can use Visual Studio Community. In enterprise organizations (meaning those with >250 PCs or > $1MM in annual revenue), no use is permitted beyond the open source, academic research, and classroom learning environment scenarios described above.

Q: How does Visual Studio Community 2013 compare to other Visual Studio editions?
A: Visual Studio Community 2013 includes all the great functionality of Visual Studio Professional 2013, designed and optimized for individual developers, students, open source contributors, and small teams.

Q: How do I create a Visual Studio extension?
A: Millions of developers use Visual Studio extensions every day. Check out http://integrate.visualstudio.com for more information on building on any of the Visual Studio development tools and services.

 

Whose business strategy is better Apple (USA) or Xiaomi (China)?

SmartPhone market is saturated in US. You have the maxi,the mini, 6", 5", etc.etc. Always new technology, new colors, new rounded features. New models pop-up less than a year apart. What's wrong with this? Nothing, for the customers, but for the manufacturer more stress, more pain.
It was interesting to read this paragraph of how in the hell a 4 year old company in China competes against the Apple giant.

Of course this in not my original but from this interesting source (Well they are Harvard aren't they, they should know better):

http://blogs.hbr.org/2014/10/xiaomi-not-apple-is-changing-the-smartphone-industry/

"To sell high-quality cell phones at so low a price, Xiaomi keeps each model on the market far longer than Apple does. On average, a new version of a phone is launched every 265 days in the industry – down from 345 days in 2009. But Xiaomi doesn’t renew its product for two years. Then, rather than charge high prices to cover the high cost of state-of-the-art components, Xiaomi prices the phone just a little higher than the total cost of all its components. As component costs drop over the two-year period by more than 90%, Xiaomi maintains its original price, and pockets the difference. So essentially its profit formula is the opposite of Apple’s, which collects its highest profits with the introduction of each model and needs to come up with new model after new model to keep those margins up."

The summary of which is (again from the same source),

"When you consider how much easier it might be to profit from plummeting component prices than from continual new feature development (which sooner or later will likely overshoot the needs of most cell phone customers in any event), the disruptive potential of the model becomes clear."

Microsoft to launch cross-platform SmartWatch in the near future

Within the next few week you will be seeing Microsoft Smartwatch in the Microsoft stores.
Two very important features that distinuguishes Microsoft SmartWatch from the others (Samsung Galaxy Gear, Moto360,etc) are,

Twice the battery life
Cross-platform

Being cross-platform it can sync with iOS and Android phones which is a big feature as the phones with other OSs have a larger market share and limiting to Windows Phone OS (<2.5% market share)will not be business-wise. Presently it may be Windows 8 based but i the future it will be probably Windows 10, the made-for OS across all device foot prints.

It also monitors wearer's heart rate passively in additions to other sensors. With its 'cloud-first, mobile-first' mantra this can integrate the wearers health information on the cloud and benefit health care. This health thing will have enterprise-wide significence as yet another benefit for enterprises to adopt Azure cloud.

More story here:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/parmyolson/2014/10/19/microsoft-wearable-smartwatch/
Some interesting additional info follow this link:
http://www.theverge.com/2013/7/15/4524286/microsoft-surface-watch-smartwatch-testing-rumors

http://www.zdnet.com/when-will-microsoft-finally-roll-out-its-smart-watch-2-0-7000030020/

Name of device: ??
Price                 : ???

Microsoft seems to have another wrist based device for health monitoring apart from the wristwatch as well as provide a hook for IoT. This may be the device discussed in an earlier post. These rumored stories may get cleared in the next few weeks with the debut of the Smart watch.
http://hodentek.blogspot.com/2014/08/microsofts-smartwatch-is-coming-soon.html

Azure RemoteApp Service - Things to know - Part 3

You can access corporate applications like the Office applications from anywhere using a variety of devices. In the last post you saw a Windows Client accessing WORD application on the 'hodenremote' service instance on Azure RemoteApp service.

Creating a Service:
Read here:
http://hodentek.blogspot.com/2014/07/creating-azure-remoteapp-service-now-in.html

Using the service:
Read here:
http://hodentek.blogspot.com/2014/07/using-azure-remoteapp-service-part-2.html

In this post you will learn a few more things about the 'other' clients as well as the terms for using the preview service.

You can have other clients on other platforms as well.
Get to this page to look at other clients:

Click on See all clients.

Get the App for iPad here:

 

Get the App for Android here:

 

All clients work with Azure RemoteApp the same way.

You get the scalability benefits as the service is coming down the cloud and you can centralize your assets in one location instead of being spread out. This is more secure.

Right now this service is in preview but when it goes into production there will be charges for using the service.

These are the terms for now for using this service per Microsoft.

•  Microsoft is offering the Azure RemoteApp free during preview.
• With your preview service, you are allowed to build two instances and 10 users for each instance.
• Your Azure RemoteApp preview service will be cancelled if it is unused for 7 consecutive days.
• You will be notified two business days prior to any action taken on your account.
• Please contact us if you would like to request a quota increase during preview. Quota increases are provided on a best effort basis and are subject to availability. 

Open Source mobile app development with PhoneGap

It is now possible to work with PhoneGap on Windows using PhoneGap Developer App available from the Windows Store. PhoneGap is a free, open source framework based on the Open Source Apache Cardova project that allows developing mobile apps using standardized Web APIs.You can create apps using HTML, CSS and Javascript. PhoneGap bundles up your code for the device of your choice.

You start here:
http://phonegap.com/

PhoneGap Developer app can be used to develop both Windows Phone 8 app as well as the soon to arrive Windows Phone 8.1 store app. With PhoneGap you have full access to the PhoneGap APIs and there is no need to install platform SDKs, registering devices etc.

Get the information guide relevant to your platform from here:
http://docs.phonegap.com/en/edge/guide_platforms_index.md.html
Watch video here for additional motivation: