“Smart” technology is quickly emerging in all areas of our lives. From smartphones to smart televisions, refrigerators, watches, and even dog collars, it seems like everything around us is being connected to the internet. This phenomenon is known as the Internet of Things (IoT).
It may seem strange to bring up textiles when discussing computer programming. However, my interest in the correlation between the two was piqued last week when my friend sent me a question currently circulating on the internet: Is it possible to knit DOOM? Thinking about this question led me to consider the immense influence that the textile industry has had on computer science and modern technology.
Creating a successful application isn’t just about ensuring that all of the components work; the layout and design of the application are also crucial. The design must be professional and engaging, and the layout should be easy for users to navigate. Design components, such as animations and navigation transitions, can also enhance the usability of the application.
When you think about the future of artificial intelligence (AI) technology, it’s likely that you don’t think of auto-completion. However, you probably should. In July 2020, OpenAI released a beta testing version of GPT-3, a new auto-completion program that could very likely define the next decade of AI programming.
Text editors are computer applications that edit plain text. Text editors are fundamental to our work and developers tend to have very strong opinions about which one is the best. In this blog post I’ll discuss some of the history of computing with respect to text editors, and the pros and cons of two of the text editors that developers have a love/hate relationship with – eMacs and Vim.
Recently, I have been working on a migration project for a client that has presented a number of interesting challenges. In this blog post, I will identify some of the challenges we have faced on this project and discuss the solutions we developed to combat them.
Elixir is a dynamic, functional language designed for building scalable and maintainable applications. It leverages the Erlang Virtual Machine, which is known for running low-latency, distributed, and fault-tolerant systems. In this post, I’ll talk a bit about Elixir’s history and current uses, and demonstrate some of its basic types and functions.
A year after unveiling CoreML, Apple introduced CreateML. CreateML allows developers to train machine learning models on their Mac. We will stick with our previous example and build a simple machine learning model that can recognize images of dogs. Head over to https://github.com/RichardBlanch/Dog-Classifier/tree/Starter and download or clone the project.
You’ve probably heard about blockchain mostly, if not exclusively, in the context of cryptocurrency (e.g., Bitcoin). But blockchain technology also has exciting applications in industries beyond finance. In this post, I’ll talk about two areas where blockchain is just beginning to be applied — food supply chain tracking, and international aid.
“WHAT THE HECK?! HOW CAN I UNLOCK MY PHONE WITH MY FACE?!”
Those were the words that came out of my mouth in October of 2017, as I pored over the user manual for my new iPhone X. It wasn’t all hyperbole, either — I really wanted to know, and I ended up dedicating quite a bit of time to learning about the science behind Apple’s new facial recognition technology. In the end, the answer to my question boiled down to two words — machine learning.