Tech Guides - Mobile

The hype and rise of progressive web apps are tremendous. A PWA is basically a web application that feels like a native application to the user. By making your app a PWA, not only do you acquire new users, but you can also retain them for longer. Here’s a quick rundown of all things good about a PWA. Reliable: Loads instantly even under poor network conditions. Lighting fast and app-like: Responds to the user’s actions with speed and with a smooth interaction. Engaging and responsive: Gives the feeling that it was made specifically for that device, but it should be able to work across all platforms. Protected and secure: Served over HTTPS to make sure the contents of the app are not messed with. If you’re not already developing your next app as a PWA, here are 5 reasons why you should do that asap. And if you’re confused about choosing the best framework for developing your PWA, here are the top 3 frameworks available to make your next app a PWA. Ionic Ionic is one of the most popular frameworks for building a progressive web app. Let’s look at a few reasons why you should choose Ionic as your PWA framework Free and open-source:  Ionic is open source, and licensed under MIT. Open-source means developers can manage the code structure easily, saving time, money and efforts. They also have a worldwide community forum to connect with other Ionic developers, ask questions, and help out others. Cross-platform and one-codebase: Ionic allows seamless building of apps across popular operating systems, such as Android, iOS and Windows. It has a one codebase feature. This means apps are deployed through Apache Cordova with a single code base, and the application adapts automatically to the device it is functioning in. Rich UI: Ionic is equipped with pre-built components that are used to customize design themes and elements. It is based on SASS UI, with rich features to create fast, robust, interactive, native-like applications. Powerful functionality: Ionic is supported by Angular. The component API of Angular helps developers create interactive hybrid and web apps. Ionic is equipped with Cordova Plugins for accessing various native features, like Camera, GPS, and so on. It also features a powerful CLI for building, testing and deploying apps across multiple platforms. Read our Hybrid Mobile Development with Ionic to build a complete, professional-quality, hybrid mobile application with Ionic. You can also checkout Hybrid Mobile apps: What you need to know, for a quick rundown of all that is to know about a Hybrid mobile app. Polymer Google’s Polymer App Toolbox is another contender for the development of PWAs. It is a collection of web components, tools, and templates for building Progressive Web Apps. Blends PWAs with Web components Polymer allows developers to architect a component-based web app using Polymer and Web Components. Web components can form encapsulated and reusable custom HTML elements. They are independent of the frameworks because they are made of pure HTML/CSS/JS, unlike framework-dependent UI components in React/Angular. The web components are provided through a light-weight Polymer Library for creating framework-independent, custom components. More features include: Responsive design using the app layout components. Modular routing using the <app-route> elements. Localization with <app-localize-behavior>. Turnkey support for local storage with app storage elements. Offline caching as a progressive enhancement, using service workers. Build tooling to support serving the app multiple ways: unbundled for delivery over HTTP/2 with server push, and bundled for delivery over HTTP/1. Each component whether used separately or together can be used to build a full-featured Progressive web app. Most importantly, each component is additive. For a simple app one only needs the app-layout. As it gets more complicated, developers can add routing, offline caching, and a high-performance server as required. Read our Getting Started with Polymer book to create responsive web apps using Polymer. Angular Angular, probably the most popular front-end web application platform, can also be used to make robust, reliable, and responsive PWAs. Before the release of version 5, supporting progressive web apps in Angular required a lot of expertise on the developers’ part.Version 5 comes equipped with a new version of the Angular Service Worker for built-in PWA support. Angular 6 (released a few days back) has two new CLI commands. Both these versions make it very simple to make web application downloadable and installable, just like a native mobile application. Service Worker Updates With Angular 5 the development of Service Workers is becoming significantly easier. By using Angular CLI developers can choose to add Service Worker functionality by default. The Angular Service Worker functionality is provided by the module @angular/service-worker. Service worker can power up an application by only providing some JSON configuration instead of writing the code manually. The key difference with other service worker generators (like Workbox, sw-precache) is the fact, that you do not re-generate the service worker file itself, you only update its control file. New CLI commands Angular 6, also introduces two new commands apart from the service worker updates. The first, ng update, is a CLI command for updating dependencies and code. The second command, ng add, supports turning applications into progressive web apps, which support offline web pages. Apart from these frameworks, React is also a good alternative. Backed by Facebook, it has a Create-React-App generator which is the official scaffolding tool to generate a Reactjs App. Get started with Scott Domes's Progressive Web Apps with React as your first step for building PWA applications. Yet another popular choice, would be Webpack. Webpack plugins can generate the service worker and manifest required for a PWA to be registered. It uses a Google project called Workbox which provides tools that help make offline support for web apps easier to set up. The bottom line is that the frameworks for building progressive web apps are growing and expanding at a rapid rate with regular updates every couple of months. Choosing a particular framework thus doesn’t make much difference to the app behavior. It only depends on the developer’s area of interest and expertise. Windows launches progressive web apps… that don't yet work on mobile How to Secure and Deploy an Android App How Android app developers can convert iPhone apps

As mobile application development is becoming the new trend in the business world, the competition to enter the mobile market has intensified. Business leaders are hunting for every possible way to reach the market at the earliest and outshine the competition. Albeit, without compromising on the quality and quantity of the opportunities in the market. One such method prevalent in the market is the adoption of Agile methodology. Agile mobile app development methodology The Agile methodology is an incremental and iterative mobile application development approach, where the complete app development process cycle is divided into multiple sub-modules, considered as mini-projects. Every submodule is assigned to an individual team and subjected to the complete development cycle, right from designing to development, testing, and delivery. Image Source: AppInventiv Benefits of Agile Mobile App Development Approach The technology, due to this iterative nature, is highly recommended in the market. Here are 9 reasons to choose Agile for your mobile app development project Faster Development In the case of the Agile model, the complete mobile app project is divided into smaller modules which are treated like independent sub-projects. These sub-projects are handled by different teams independently, with little-to-no dependencies on each other. Besides, everyone has a clear idea of what their contribution will be and the associated resources and deadline, which accelerates the development process. Every developer puts their best efforts into completing their part in the mobile app development project, an outcome of which is a more streamlined app development process with faster delivery. Reduced Risks With the changing market needs and trends, it is quite risky to launch your own application. Many times, it happens that the market data you have taken into consideration while developing your app gets outdated by the time you launch your app. The outcome is poor ROI and a shady future in the market. Agile, in this situation, is a tool that allows you to take calculated risks and improve your project’s market scope. In other words, the methodology enables a mobile app development company to make changes to any particular sprint without disturbing the code of the previous sprints. Thus, making their application more suitable for the market. Better Quality Agile, unlike the traditional app development models, does not test the app at the end of the development phase. Rather, it fosters testing of every single module at the primitive level. This reduces the risk of encountering a bug at the time of quality testing of the complete project. It also helps mobile app developers to inspect the app elements at every stage of the development process and make adjustments as per the requirement, eventually helping in delivering a higher quality of services. Seamless Project Management By transforming the complete app development project into multiple individual modules, the Agile methodology provides you with the facility to manage your project easily. You can easily assign the tasks to different teams and reduce the dependencies and discussions at the inter-team level. You can also keep a record of the activities performed on each mini project and in this way, determine if something is missing or not working as per the proposed plan. Besides, you can check the productivity of every individual and put your efforts into making/hiring more efficient experts. Enhanced Customer Experience The Agile mobile app development approach puts a strong emphasis on people and collaboration, which renders the development team with an opportunity to work closely with their clients and understand their vision. Besides, the projects are delivered to the clients in the form of multiple sprints, which brings transparency to the process. It also enables the team to determine if both parties are on the same page and if not, allow them to make the required changes before proceeding further. This lessens the chances of launching app that does not fulfill to the idea behind, and therefore, ensures enhanced customer experience. Lower Development Cost Since every step is well planned, executed, and delivered, you can easily calculate the cost of making an app and thus, justify your app budget. Besides, if at any stage of development, you feel the need to raise the app budget, you can easily do it with Agile methodology. In this way, you can avoid leaving the project incomplete due to lack of required resources and funds. Customization The agile mobile app development approach also provides developers with an opportunity to customize their development process. There’ are no rules to create an app in a particular way. Experts can look for different ways to develop and launch the mobile app, and integrate the cutting-edge technologies and tools into the process. In a nutshell, the Agile process enables developers to customize the development timeline as per their choice and deliver a user-centric solution. Higher ROI The Agile methodology lets the mobile app development companies enter the market with the most basic app (MVP) and update the app with each iteration. This makes it easier for the app owners to test their idea, gather required data and insights, build a brand presence, and thus, deliver the best features as per the customer needs and market trends. This aids the app owners and associated mobile app development company to take the right decision for gaining better ROI in the market. Earlier Market Reach By dividing the complete app project into submodules, the Agile mobile app development approach encourages the team to deliver every module with the stipulated deadline. Lagging behind the deadlines is not practically possible. The outcome of this is that the complete app project is designed and delivered on-time or even earlier to it, which means earlier market reach. The Agile methodology can do wonders for mobile app development. However, it is required that everyone is well aware of the end goal and contributes to this approach wisely. Only then can you enjoy all of the aforementioned benefits. With this, are you ready to go Agile? Are you ready to develop a mobile app with an Agile mobility strategy?. Author Bio Holding a Bachelor’s degree in Technology and 2 years of work experience in a mobile app development company, Bhupinder is focused on making technology digestible to all. Being someone who stays updated with the latest tech trends, she’s always armed to write and spread the knowledge. When not found writing, you will find her answering on Quora while sipping coffee.

Superior user experience is becoming increasingly important for businesses as it helps them to engage users and boost brand loyalty. Front-end website and app development platforms, namely Bootstrap vs Material Design empower developers to create websites with a robust structure and advanced functionality, thereby delivering outstanding business solutions and unbeatable user experience. Both Twitter’s Bootstrap vs Material Design are used by developers to create functional and high-quality websites and apps. If you are an aspiring front-end developer, here’s a direct comparison between the two, so you can choose the one that’s better suited for your upcoming project. BootStrap Bootstrap is an open-source, intuitive, and powerful framework used for responsive mobile-first solutions on the web. For several years, Bootstrap has helped developers create splendid mobile-ready front-end websites. In fact, Bootstrap is the most popular  CSS framework as it’s easy to learn and offers a consistent design by using re-usable components. Let’s dive deeper into the pros and cons of Bootstrap. Pros High speed of development If you have limited time for the website or app development, Bootstrap is an ideal choice. It offers ready-made blocks of code that can get you started within no time. So, you don’t have to start coding from scratch. Bootstrap also provides ready-made themes, templates, and other resources that can be downloaded and customized to suit your needs, allowing you to create a unique website as quickly as possible. Bootstrap is mobile first Since July 1, 2019, Google started using mobile-friendliness as a critical ranking factor for all websites. This is because users prefer using sites that are compatible with the screen size of the device they are using. In other words, they prefer accessing responsive sites. Bootstrap is an ideal choice for responsive sites as it has an excellent fluid grid system and responsive utility classes that make the task at hand easy and quick. Enjoys  a strong community support Bootstrap has a huge number of resources available on its official website and enjoys immense support from the developers’ community. Consequently, it helps all developers fix issues promptly. At present, Bootstrap is being developed and maintained on GitHub by Mark Otto, currently Principal Design & Brand Architect at GitHub, with nearly 19 thousand commits and 1087 contributors. The team regularly releases updates to fix any new issues and improve the effectiveness of the framework. For instance, currently, the Bootstrap team is working on releasing version 4.3 that will drop jQuery for regular JavaScript. This is primarily because jQuery adds 30KB to the webpage size and is tricky to configure with bundlers like Webpack. Similarly, Flexbox is a new feature added to the Bootstrap 4 framework. In fact, Bootstrap version 4 is rich with features, such as a Flexbox-based grid, responsive sizing and floats, auto margins, vertical centering, and new spacing utilities. Further, you will find plenty of websites offering Bootstrap tutorials, a wide collection of themes, templates, plugins, and user interface kit that can be used as per your taste and nature of the project. Cons All Bootstrap sites look the same The Twitter team introduced Bootstrap with the objective of helping developers use a standardized interface to create websites within a short time. However, one of the major drawbacks of this framework is that all websites created using this framework are highly recognizable as Bootstrap sites. Open Airbnb, Twitter, Apple Music, or Lyft. They all look the same with bold headlines, rounded sans-serif fonts, and lots of negative space. Bootstrap sites can be heavy Bootstrap is notorious for adding unnecessary bloat to websites as the files generated are huge in size. This leads to longer loading time and battery draining issues. Further, if you delete them manually, it defeats the purpose of using the framework. So, if you use this popular front-end UI library in your project, make sure you pay extra attention to page weight and page speed. May not be suitable for simple websites Bootstrap may not be the right front-end framework for all types of websites, especially the ones that don’t need a full-fledged framework. This is because, Bootstrap’s theme packages are incredibly heavy with battery-draining scripts. Also, Bootstrap has CSS weighing in at 126KB and 29KB of JavaScript that can increase the site’s loading time. In such cases, Bootstrap alternatives, namely Foundation, Skeleton, Pure, and Semantic UI adaptable and lightweight frameworks that can meet your developmental needs and improve your site’s user-friendliness. Material Design When compared to Bootstrap vs Material Design is hard to customize and learn. However, this design language was introduced by Google in 2014 with the objective of enhancing Android app’s design and user interface. The language is quite popular among developers as it offers a quick and effective way for web development. It includes responsive transitions and animations, lighting and shadows effects, and grid-based layouts. When developing a website or app using Material Design, designers should play to its strengths but be wary of its cons. Let’s see why. Pros Offers numerous components  Material Design offers numerous components that provide a base design, guidelines, and templates. Developers can work on this to create a suitable website or application for the business. The Material Design concept offers the necessary information on how to use each component. Moreover, Material Design Lite is quite popular for its customization. Many designers are creating customized components to take their projects to the next level. Is compatible across various browsers Both Bootstrap vs Material Design have a sound browser compatibility as they are compatible across most browsers. Material Design supports Angular Material and React Material User Interface. It also uses the SASS preprocessor. Doesn’t require JavaScript frameworks Bootstrap completely depends on JavaScript frameworks. However, Material Design doesn’t need any JavaScript frameworks or libraries to design websites or apps. In fact, the platform provides a material design framework that allows developers to create innovative components such as cards and badges. Cons The animations and vibrant colors can be distracting Material Design extensively uses animated transitions and vibrant colors and images that help bring the interface to life. However, these animations can adversely affect the human brain’s ability to gather information. It is affiliated to Google Since Material Design is a Google-promoted framework, Android is its prominent adopter. Consequently, developers looking to create apps on a platform-independent UX may find it tough to work with Material Design. However, when Google introduced the language, it had broad vision for Material Design that encompasses many platforms, including iOS. The tech giant has several Google Material Design components for iOS that can be used to render interesting effects using a flexible header, standard material colors, typography, and sliding tabs Carries performance overhead Material Design extensively uses animations that carry a lot of overhead. For instance, effects like drop shadow, color fill, and transform/translate transitions can be jerky and unpleasant for regular users. Wrapping up: Should you use Bootstrap vs Material Design for your next web or app development project? Bootstrap is great for responsive, simple, and professional websites. It enjoys immense support and documentation, making it easy for developers to work with it. So, if you are working on a project that needs to be completed within a short time, opt for Bootstrap. The framework is mainly focused on creating responsive, functional, and high-quality websites and apps that enhance the user experience. Notice how these websites have used Bootstrap to build responsive and mobile-first sites. (Source: cssreel) (Source: Awwwards) Material Design, on the other hand, is specific as a design language and great for building websites that focus on appearance, innovative designs, and beautiful animations. You can use Material Design for your portfolio sites, for instance. The framework is pretty detailed and straightforward to use and helps you create websites with striking effects. Check out how these websites and apps use the customized themes, popups, and buttons of Material Design. (Source:  Nimbus 9) (Source: Digital Trends) What do you think? Which framework works better for you? Bootstrap vs Material Design. Let us know in the comments section below. Author Bio Gaurav Belani is a Senior SEO and Content Marketing Analyst at The 20 Media, a Content Marketing agency that specializes in data-driven SEO. He has more than seven years of experience in Digital Marketing and along with that loves to read and write about AI, Machine Learning, Data Science and much more about the emerging technologies. In his spare time, he enjoys watching movies and listening to music. Connect with him on Twitter and Linkedin. Material-UI v4 releases with CSS specificity, Classes boilerplate, migration to Typescript and more Warp: Rust’s new web framework Learn how to Bootstrap a Spring application [Tutorial] Bootstrap 5 to replace jQuery with vanilla JavaScript How to use Bootstrap grid system for responsive website design?  

Running Android apps on Chrome is a complicated task, especially when you are not using a Chromebook. However, it should be noted that Chrome has an in-built tool (now) that allows users to test Android-based application in the browser, launched by Google in 2015, known as App Runtime for Chrome (ARC) Welder. What is ARC Welder? The ARC Welder tool allows Android applications to run on Google Chrome for Windows, OS X, Linux systems. ARC Welder is basically for app developers who want to test run their Android applications within Chrome OS and confront any runtime errors or bugs. The tool was launched as an experimental concept for developers previously but later was available for download for everyone. Main functions: ARC Welder offers an easy and streamlined method for application testing. At the first step, the user will be required to add the bundle into the existing application menu. Users are provided with the freedom to write to any file or a folder which can be opened via ARC software assistance. Any beginner developer or a user can choose to leave the settings page as they (settings) will be set to default if skipped or left unsaved. Here’s how to run ARC Welder tool for running android application: Download or upgrade to the latest version of Google Chrome browser. Download and run the ARC Welder application from the Google Chrome Store. Add a third-party APK file host. After downloading the APK app file in your laptop/PC, click Open. Select the mode “Phone” and ‘Tablet”--either of which you wish you run the application on. Lastly, click on the "Launch App" button. Points to remember for running ARC Welder on Chrome: ARC Welder tool only works with APK files, which means that in order to get your Android Applications successfully run on your laptop, you will be required to download APK files of the specific application you wish to install on your desktop. You can find APK files from the below mentioned APK databases: APKMirror AndroidAPKsFree AndroidCrew APKPure Points to remember before installing ARC Welder: Only one specific application can be loaded at one single time. On the basis of your application, you will be required to select the portrait/landscape mode manually. Tablet and Phone mode specifications are necessary as they have different outcomes. ARC Welder is based on Android 4.4. This means that users are required to test applications that support Android 4.4 or above. Note: Points 1 and 2 can be considered as limitations of ARC Welder. Pros: Cross-platform as it works on Windows, Linux, Mac and Chrome OS. Developed by Google which means the software will evolve quickly considering the upgrade pace of Android (also developed by Google). Allows application testing in Google Chrome web browser. Cons: Not all Google Play Services are supported by ARC Welder. ARC Welder only supports “ARM” APK format. Keyboard input is spotty. Takes 2-3 minutes to install as compared to other testing applications like BlueStacks (one-click install). No accelerometer simulation. Users are required to choose the “orientation” mode before getting into the detailed interface of ARC Welder. There are competitors of ARC Welder like BlueStacks which is often preferred by a majority of developers due to its one-click install feature. Although ARC Welder gives a much better performance, it still ranks at 7th (BlueStacks stands at 6th). Apart from shortcomings, ARC Welder continues to evolve and secure its faithful following of beginners to expert developers. In the next section, we’ll have a look at the few alternatives to ARC Welder. Few Alternatives: Genymotion - It is an easy to use android emulator for your computer. It works as a virtual machine and enables you to run mobile apps and games on your desktop and laptop efficiently. Andy - It is an operating system that works as an android emulator for your computer. It allows you to open up mobile apps and play mobile games in a version of the Android operating system on your Mac or Windows desktop. BlueStacks - It is a website that has been built to format mobile apps and make them compatible to the desktop computers. It also helps to open ip mobile gaming apps on computers and laptops. MEmu - It is the fastest android emulator that allows you to play mobile games on PC for free. It is known for its performance, and user experience. It supports most of the popular mobile apps and games, and various system configurations. Koplayer - It is a free, one of the best android emulator for PC that supports video recording, multiple accounts, and keyboard. Built on x86 architecture, it is more stable and faster than Bluestacks. Not to mention, it is very interesting to load android apps on chrome browser on your computer and laptop, no matter which operating system you are using. It could be very useful to run android apps on chrome browser when Google play store and Apple app store are prone to exploitation. Although right now we can run a few apps using ARC Welder, one at a time, surely the developers will add more functionality and take this to the next level. So, are you ready to use mobile apps play mobile games on your PC using ARC Welder? If you have any questions, leave in the comment box, we’ll respond back. Author Bio Hilary is a writer, content manager at Androidcrew.com. She loves to share the knowledge and insights she gained along the way with others.    

The augmented reality market is developing rapidly. Today, it has a total market value of almost $15 billion; according to Statista,  and this figure could rise to $210 billion by 2022. Augmented reality is having a huge impact on the games industry, but it’s being used by organizations in fields as diverse as publishing and retail.. For example, Layar is an app that turns static objects into live objects, while IKEA’s Catalog app lets you imagine how different types of furniture might fit into your room. But it’s not just about commerce: some apps have a distinctly educational bent, like Field Trip. Field Trip uses augmented reality to help users learn about the history that immediately surrounds them. The best augmented reality apps are always deceptively simple. But to build a really effective augmented reality application you need a diverse range of skills, that span both the domains of software and real-world physics. Let’s take a closer look at location-based augmented reality apps, including what they’re used for and how you can begin building them. How does location-based AR app work? Location-based augmented reality apps are sometimes called geo-based AR apps. Whatever you call them, one thing is important: they collate GPS mobile data and the digital compass to detect the location and position of the device. The application works like this: The AR app arranges queries to be dispatched to the sensor. Once the data has been acquired, the app can determine where it should add virtual information (such as images) should be added to the real world. Location-based augmented reality apps can be used both inside or outside. When inside and it isn’t possible to connect to GPS, the application will use beacons for location data. The best examples of existing location-based augmented reality apps While reading about location-based augmented reality apps can give you a good idea of how they work, to be really inspired, you need to try some out for yourself. Here’s a list of some of the best location-based augmented reality apps out there. Yelp Monocle Yelp Monocle helps you navigate an unknown city. Using GPS, it provides exactly the sort of information you’d expect from Yelp, but in a format that’s fully integrated with your surroundings. So, you can see restaurant reviews, shop opening hours as you move around your environment. Ingress Ingress is an augmented reality gaming app that immerses you in a (semi) virtual world. Your main mission is to find portals that the game ‘creates’ in your immediate environment and open them. Essentially, the game is a great way to explore the world around you and places a new augmented layer on a place that might otherwise be familiar. Vortex Planetarium Vortex Planetarium is an app for aspiring astronomers or anybody else with a passing interest in astronomy. The app detects the user’s location and then provides them with celestial data to better understand the night sky. Steps to create location-based AR app So, if you like the idea of a location-based augmented reality app, you’ll probably want to get started. As we’ve seen, these apps can be incredibly complex, but if you break the development process down, it should become much easier. 1. Determine what resources you need Depending on the complexity of your app, you need to determine what resources are needed - that could be anything from data to other frameworks and services will be required. For example, if you plan to create a game with 3D objects, you’ll need to use Unity to build in that level of functionality and realism. 2. Choose the right augmented reality tool There are a huge number of available augmented reality software development kits out there. However, rather than wade through every single one, here are some of the best to get started with. R SDKs, but we will list the most popular ones that can give you the widest range of possible features. AR Kit by Apple AR kit from Apple features just about everything you’d need to develop an augmented reality application, For example, it has a technology that allows combines both computer vision and camera data to track the user’s environment. AR Kit also is able to adjust the light level in the virtual model, to respond to the level of light in the real world. ARKit 2 recently brought users a number of cool new features. For example, it allows you to build interactivity into your application, and also allows you to build ‘memory’ into your app so it can ‘remember’ the location of augmented reality objects.ARCore by Google In Google’s ARCore you’ll find a mapping tool which is particularly useful for developing of location-based AR apps. ARCore can also track motion and detect vertical and horizontal surfaces. In the latest version of ARCore users can take two gadgets and work with one AR object from different viewing angles. 3. Geolocation data should be added Not all SDKs provide mapping feature. If it doesn’t, it’s essential to make sure you add in geolocation data. Without it, the app wouldn’t work! As we’ve already seen, GPS technology is typically used. It’s convenient and it can detect a user's location anywhere. It can, however, consume a lot of energy. Location services on iOS and Android will help to activate geolocation on the device. 3 augmented reality pitfalls to avoid Developing something as complex as a location-based augmented reality app is bound to lead to some challenges. So be prepared - watch for some of these pitfalls.. Ensure you have proper functionality. When users move with their camera and look for AR objects, these objects should remain static, regardless of the user’s movements. To do this, use SLAM - Simultaneous Localization and Mapping. This is a technique that allows software systems - like robots - ‘understand’ where they are situated in relation to their surroundings. Accuracy. A crucial factor for any AR app is accuracy. When developing your app, it’s essential to consider the user’s position to ensure that the app sends queries to sensors correctly. If it doesn’t the whole experience could seem plain weird for the user. Similarly, the distance between the device and the real world must be calculated correctly - again, if it isn’t your application simply will not work. Get started - build an awesome augmented reality app! Clearly, building a location-based augmented reality app isn’t easy. It requires skill and a commitment to keep going in the face of challenges. You certainly need a team of great developers around you if you’re going to deliver something that makes an impact. But, really, that’s what makes software development exciting, right? Author Bio Vitaly Kuprenko is a technical writer at Cleveroad. It's a web and mobile app development company in Ukraine. He enjoys telling about tech innovations and digital ways to boost businesses. Magic Leap unveils Mica, a human-like AI in augmented reality. Magic Leap teams with Andy Serkis’ Imaginarium Studios to enhance Augmented Reality “As Artists we should be constantly evolving our technical skills and thought processes to push the boundaries on what’s achievable,” Marco Matic Ryan, Augmented Reality Artist

Virtual Reality is evolving at a staggering rate. Some of the humankind’s most exciting tools and technologies are coming to the Virtual reality Space. One such technology which is taking over the VR world and making it more powerful is the VR haptics technology. VR Haptics technology offers an extra dimension to the VR world by letting users feel the virtual environment via the sense of touch, in addition to visual and aural perception. It makes you feel truly immersive in the artificial world. Imagine yourself in a desert seeing the sand and feeling it glide under your feet as you walk. It uses external devices like Gloves, Shoes, Joysticks, etc, via which users can receive feedback in the form of vibrations from these computer applications. This feedback provides physical sensations in the hand or other parts of the body. It also provides a realistic simulation of the movements and behaviors, similar to those realized in the real world. VR Haptics: a growing domain The VR haptics technology is growing beyond creating vibrations in game controllers. Now, in the near future, you might able to cuddle a dog and feel it licking your face in the VR world. This speaks volumes about the pace at which the haptic technology is growing. One famous example which discusses modern VR is the popular sci-fi novel “Ready Player One”. It illustrates the possibilities of haptic technology in the future. The novel explores the journey of a guy as he sets foot into a virtual reality simulator (OASIS). He uses a headset and a pair of gloves to maneuver around the virtual world. Apart from the gloves, a lot of future concept products are also covered in the novel which makes the illusion of immersion easier to picture, such as towers emitting smells in the VR world and Wind/Temperature generators that mimic real-life. Haptics came about just as head mounted displays (HMD) came to light in the 2010s. HMDs allowed people to see the virtual reality while haptic feedback gave people the opportunity to experience the virtual world and to act within it. Texture, temperature, pressure, taste, smell and other non-visual sensory inputs became real in VR. Apart from virtual reality games and apps, Haptics feedback is used widely in personal computers, mobile devices, robots, and more. But, in this article, we’ll stick to the use of haptic technology or haptic feedback in the VR space. Usually, most VR users use Touch Controllers for haptic feedback. But, recently, a lot of third-party companies are coming out with products such as gloves for systems like the Oculus Rift & HTC Vive. Here is a list of recent developments in the haptic technology for the VR world. Super affordable VR Haptic gloves by Plexus Most of the currently available options in the VR haptics field are somewhat pricey but earlier this month, Plexus announced their new product, a VR haptic and sensor glove. https://vimeo.com/276517370 Source: Plexus Key features Plexus VR haptics gloves offer a fully modular tracking solution which is capable of tracking up to 0.01 degrees of precision. These gloves are capable of individual finger tracking as well as tracking each joint on the finger, thereby, offering higher precision in the VR world. It is compatible with the HTC Vive, Oculus Rift as well as Windows Mixed Reality devices. The VR haptic gloves also come with additional adapter plates. The development kit version of the Plexus haptic gloves, priced at $249 per glove pair, can be pre-ordered on the official Plexus Website. The company will begin shipping in August 2018 but at the moment, shipping is only available to USA, Europe, Canada and Australia. Kaaya Tech’s full body tracking HoloSuit Kaaya came out with a motion capture (MoCap) suit called HoloSuit, last month, which offers motion capture as well as haptic feedback. HoloSuit is the world’s first affordable, wireless, easy to use, bi-directional, full body motion capture suit. User’s entire body movement data is captured by Holosuit and it uses haptic feedback to send information back to the user. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SEQsDR32gII&t=122s  Source: HoloSuit It can be used in various areas such as sports, healthcare, education, entertainment or industrial operations. Key Features The HoloSuit consists of 36 embedded sensors in the pro version and 26 embedded sensors in the less complex version. Embedded sensors carry out all the work of capturing body motion which is necessary for world-scale tracking. It also consists of 9 haptic feedback devices, and 6 embedded firing buttons ( buttons that govern specific tasks such as saving the game, pausing, etc ) which are dispersed across both arms, legs, and all the ten fingers. It delivers data wirelessly either through Wifi or Bluetooth LE to a VR setup by using Unity or a Wi-Fi SDK. The HoloSuit doesn’t come with an external camera tracking option. It supports all the major platforms such as Windows, macOS, iOS, and Android devices. A complete HoloSuit is quite expensive and starts at a regular price of $999. Jacket and Jersey are priced at $499, jersey or track pants for $399, and a pair of gloves are available for $799. HoloSuit Pro is priced at $1,599. Shipping for the full body VR haptic HoloSuit will start this November. Disney’s VR Haptic “Force Jacket” Disney came out with their VR haptic jacket, namely, “Force Jacket” back in April. It provides users with precisely directed force along with a high-frequency vibration which is felt against the user’s upper body in sync with the visual medium. The prototype is made out of a converted life jacket and is provided with 26 airbags. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5BOFHEow608   Source: DisneyResearchHub The Force Jacket is created by engineers at Disney Research, MIT and Carnegie Mellon University. Key Features The Haptic Jacket uses an air compressor and a vacuum pump. These air compartments in the jacket can be inflated to exert a force on the user’s body relative to force sensitive resistors. 26 air compartments are activated using microcontrollers for either pressure or vibrotactile feedback or both. Controllers are used to activating the solenoid valves which are connected to the vacuum. There are certain Jacket inflation parameters like speed, force, and duration which are specified using the haptic effects editor. The jacket makes use of the motion interface to sequentially inflate the compartments for simulating motion across the body. Each airbag within the haptic jacket can be influenced to mimic sensations such as being hit in the chest by a snowball, getting tapped on the shoulder, lime dripping on their back, getting punched in the side, and a snake coiling its body around the user. The jacket is mainly to be used in the entertainment and gaming industry and is not available for the consumer market. But, it seems to have great potential in the future for other applications as well. VR gloves by Haptx Haptx announced a pair of VR gloves back in November of last year. The gloves use micro-pneumatics technology for detailed haptics and force feedback (the ability to restrict your fingers’ movement to simulate holding objects) in the fingers. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2C2_kbjtjRU Source: HaptX Key Features It features technology that enables it to provide 100 points of tactile displacement feedback. It offers up to five pounds of resistance per finger. It also comes with sub-millimeter precision motion tracking The glove uses SDK of HaptX’s design, which is created by using Unreal Engine’s physics system. This tells the glove when and where it needs to apply haptic effects as well as when and how to engage the force feedback. No information on pricing or worldwide availability has been released by the company yet. But, it is rumored to launch the VR gloves for the consumer market sometime later this year. Apart from these products, there are other minor advancements that keep happening in the VR haptics space. For example, Heather Culbertson, Assistant Professor of USC's computer department, recently created a haptic armband which is capable of mimicking the sensation of a human touch. VR aims to provide you with an environment where you feel truly immersive and where you can feel the objects as in the real world. These products are bringing the VR world a step closer to achieve richer levels of immersive experiences. Gone are the days when haptic feedback was limited to just vibrating controllers and joysticks. As the technology advances, the whole new world of VR haptic devices is here to make your VR experience as seamlessly immersive as possible. In fact, some people even believe that without Haptics, VR is nothing but a picture and a sound. Game developers say Virtual Reality is here to stay CTA announces its first AR/VR Standard terminology Top 7 modern Virtual Reality hardware systems  

The primary target for businesses while working on mobile apps is the Android platform, thanks to the massive market share the mobile operating system holds. It’s popularity can be attributed to the fact that it is open source and is regular updated with new enhancements and features. Android devices generally tend to differ based on the mobile hardware features even when powered by the same version of the Android OS. This is why it is essential that when developing apps for Android, developers create mobile apps capable of targeting a diverse range of mobile devices running on different versions of Android OS. During the various stages of planning, developing and testing, developers need to focus comprehensively on the apps functionality, accessibility, usability, performance, and security so that users can be engaged despite their choice of device. Also, they also need to look for ways to make the apps deliver a more personalized user experience across the various devices an operating system. Furthermore, developers need to understand and find solutions to the common challenges involved in android app development. Common Challenges Android App Developers Face 1. Hardware Features The Android OS is unlike any other mobile operating system. For one thing, it is an open source system. Alphabet gives manufacturers the leeway to customize the operating system to their specific needs. Also, there are no regulations on the devices being released by the different manufacturers. As a result, you can find various Android devices with different hardware features running on the same Android version. Two smartphones running on Android latest ver, for example, may have different screen resolutions, camera, screen size, and other hardware structures. During android app development, developers need to account for all of this to ensure the application delivers a personalized experience to each user. 2. Lack of Uniform User Interface Design Rules Since Google is yet to release any standard UI (user interface) design rules or process for mobile app developers, most developers don’t follow any standard UI development rules or procedure. Because developers are creating custom UI interfaces in their preferred way, a lot of apps tend to function or look different across different devices. This diversity and incompatibility of the UI usually affects the user experience that the Android app directly delivers. Smart developers prefer to go for a responsive layout that’ll keep the UI consistent across different devices. Moreover, developers need to test the UI of the app extensively by combining emulators and real mobile devices. Designing a UI that makes the app deliver the same user experience across varying Android devices is one of the more daunting challenges developers face. 3. API Incompatibility A lot of developers make use of third-party APIs to enhance the functionality and interoperability of a mobile device. Unfortunately, not all third-party APIs available for Android app development are of high quality.. Some APIs were created for a particular Android version and will not work on devices running on a different version of the operating system. Developers usually have to come up with ways to make a single API work on all Android versions, a task they often find to be very challenging. 4. Security Flaws As previously mentioned, Android is an open source software, and because of that, manufacturers find it easy to customize Android to their desired specifications. However, this openness and the massive market size makes Android a frequent target for security attacks. There have been several instances where the security of millions of Android mobile devices have been affected by security flaws and bugs like mRST, Stagefright, FakeID, ‘Certifi-gate,’ TowelRoot and Installer Hijacking. Developers need to include robust security features in their applications and utilize the latest encryption mechanisms to keep user information secure and out of the hands of hackers. 5. Search Engine Visibility The latest data from Statista shows that Google Play Store contains a higher number of mobile apps. Additionally, a large number of Android users prefer free apps than paid apps which is why developers need to promote their mobile applications to increase their download numbers and employ application monetization options. The best way to promote the app to reach their target audience is to use comprehensive digital marketing strategies. Most developers make use of digital marketing professionals to promote their apps aggressively. 6. Patent Issues Google doesn’t implement any guidelines for the evaluation of the quality of new apps that are getting submitted to the Play Store. This lack of a quality assessment guideline causes a lot of patent-related issues for developers. Some developers, to avoid patent issues, have to modify and redesign their apps in the future. As per my personal experience, I have tried to cover general challenges faced by Android app developers. I’m sure keeping wary of these challenges would help developers to build successful apps in the most hassle free way. Author Bio Harnil Oza is the CEO of Hyperlink InfoSystem, one of the leading app development companies in New York, USA and India who deliver mobile solutions mainly on Android and iOS platform. He regularly contributes his knowledge on leading blogging sites. LEGO launches BrickHeadz Builder AR, a new and free Android app to bring bricks and toys to life How Android app developers can convert iPhone apps How to Secure and Deploy an Android App

A powerful backend solution is essential for building sophisticated mobile apps. In recent years, Firebase has emerged to prominence as a power-packed Backend-as-a-Solution (BaaS), thanks to its wide-ranging features and performance boosting elements. After being acquired in 2014 by Google, several of its features further got a performance boost. These features have made  Firebase quite a popular backend solution for app developers and other emerging IT sectors. Let us look at its 4 key benefits for cross-platform mobile app development. Unleashing the power of Google Analytics Google Analytics for Firebase is a completely free solution with unconstrained reporting on many aspects. The reporting feature allows you to evaluate client behavior, report on broken links, user interactions and all other aspects of user experience and user interface. The reporting helps developers make informed decisions while optimizing the UI and the app performance. The unmatched scale of reporting: Firebase analytics allows access to unlimited reports on as many as 500 different events. The developers can also create custom events for reporting as their need suits. Robust audience segmentation: The Firebase analytics also allows segmenting the app audience on different parameters and grounds. The integrated console allows segmenting the audience on the basis of device information, custom events, and user characteristics. Crash reporting to fix Bugs Firebase also helps to address performance issues of an app by fixing bugs right from its backend solution. It is also equipped with robust crash reporting feature. Its crash reporting helps to deliver intricate and detailed bug and crash reports to address all the coding errors in an app. The reporting feature is capable of grouping together the issues in different categories as per the characteristics of the problem. Here are some of the attributes of this reporting feature. Monitoring errors: It is capable of monitoring fatal errors for iOS apps and both fatal and non-fatal errors for Android apps. Generally, reports are initiated as per the impact caused by such errors on the user experience. Required data collection to fix errors: The reports also enlist all the details concerning the device in use, performance shortfalls and user scenarios concerning the erroneous events. According to the contributing factors and other similarities, the issues are grouped in different categories. Email alerts: It also allows sending email alerts as and when such issues or problems are detected. The configuration of error reporting: The error reporting can also be configured remotely to control who can access the reports and list of events that occurred before an event. It is free: Crash and bug reporting is free with Firebase. You don't need to pay a penny to access this feature. Synchronizing data with real-time database With Firebase you can sync the offline and online data through NoSQL database. This makes the application data available on both offline and online states of the app. This boosts collaboration on the application data in real time. Here are some of its benefits. Real-time: Unlike the so-called HTTP requests that work to update the data across interfaces, the Real-time Database of firebase syncs data with every change thus helping to reflect the change in real time across any device in use. Offline: As Firebase Real-time Database SDK helps save your data in local disk, you can always access the data offline. As and when connectivity is back, the changes are synced with the present state of the server. Access from multiple devices: The Firebase Real-time Database allows accessing application data from multiple devices and interfaces including mobile devices and web. Splitting and scaling your data: Thanks to Firebase Real-time Database, you can split your data across multiple databases within the same project and set rules for each database instances. Firebase is feature rich for futuristic app development In addition to the above, Firebase is fully empowered with a host of rich features required for building sophisticated and most feature-rich mobile apps. Let us have a look at some of the key features of Firebase that made it a reliable platform for cross-platform development. Hosting: The hosting feature of Firebase allows developers to update their contents in the Content Delivery Network (CDN) during production. Firebase offers full hosting support with a custom domain, Global CDN, and an automatically provided SSL Certificate. Authentication: Firebase backend service offers a powerful authentication feature. It comes equipped with simple SDKs and easy to use libraries to integrate authentication feature with any mobile app. Storage: Firebase storage feature is powered by Google Cloud Storage and allows users to easily download media files and visual contents. This feature is also helpful in making use of user-generated content. Cloud Messaging: With Cloud Messaging, a mobile app powered can easily send a message to users and indulge in real-time communication. Remote Configuration: This feature of Firebase allows developers to incorporate certain changes in the app remotely. Thanks to this, the changes are reflected in the existing version, and the user does not need to download the latest updated version. Test Lab: With Test lab, developers can easily test the app in all the devices listed in the Google data center. It can even do the testing without requiring any test code of the respective app. Notifications: This feature gives developers a console to manage and send user-focused custom notifications to the users. App Indexing: This feature allows developers to index the app in Google Search and achieve higher search ranks in app marketplaces like Play Store and App Store. Dynamic Links: Firebase also equips the app to create dynamic links or smart URLs to present the respective app across all digital platforms including social media, mobile app, web, email, and other channels. All the above-mentioned benefits and useful features that empower mobile app developers to create dynamic user experience helped Firebase achieve such unprecedented popularity among developers worldwide. No wonder, in a short time span it has become a very popular backend solution for so many successful cross-platform mobile apps. Some exemplary use cases of Firebases Here we have picked two use cases of Firebase, respectively for one relatively new and successful app and one leading app in its niche. Fabulous Fabulous is a unique app that trains users to dispose of bad habits and get used to good habits to ensure health and wellbeing. The app by customizing the onboarding process through Firebase managed to double the retention rate. The app could incorporate custom user experience for different groups of users as per their preference. Onefootball This leading mobile soccer app OneFootBall experienced more than 5% increase in user session time thanks to Firebase. The new backend solution powered by Firebase helped the game app engage the audience more efficiently than ever before. The custom contents created by this popular app can enjoy better traction with users thanks to higher engagement. Author Bio: Juned Ahmed works as an IT consultant at IndianAppDevelopers, a leading Mobile app development company which offers to hire app developers in India for mobile solutions. He has more than 10 years of experience in developing and implementing marketing strategies. How to integrate Firebase on Android/iOS applications natively. Build powerful progressive web apps with Firebase. How to integrate Firebase with NativeScript for cross-platform app development.

Developer advocates are people with a strong technical background, whose job is to help developers be successful with a platform or technology. They act as a bridge between the engineering team and the developer community. A developer advocate does not only fill in the gap between developers and the platform but also looks after the development of developers in terms of traction and progress on their projects. Developer advocacy, is broadly referred to as "developer relations". Those who practice developer advocacy have fallen into in this profession in one way or another. As the processes and theories in the world of programming have evolved over several years, so has the idea of developer advocacy. This is the result of developer advocates who work in the wild using their own initiatives. This article is an excerpt from the book Developer, Advocate! by Geertjan Wielenga. This book serves as a rallying cry to inspire and motivate tech enthusiasts and burgeoning developer advocates to take their first steps within the tech community. The question then arises, how does one become a developer advocate? Here are some experiences shared by some well-known developer advocates on how they started the journey that landed them to this role. Is developer advocacy taught in universities? Bruno Borges, Principal Product Manager at Microsoft says, for most developer advocates or developer relations personnel, it was something that just happened. Developer advocacy is not a discipline that is taught in universities; there's no training specifically for this. Most often, somebody will come to realize that what they already do is developer relations. This is a discipline that is a conjunction of several other roles: software engineering, product management, and marketing. I started as a software engineer and then I became a product manager. As a product manager, I was engaged with marketing divisions and sales divisions directly on a weekly basis. Maybe in some companies, sales, marketing, and product management are pillars that are not needed. I think it might vary. But in my opinion, those pillars are essential for doing a proper developer relations job. Trying to aim for those pillars is a great foundation. Just as in computer science when we go to college for four years, sometimes we don't use some of that background, but it gives us a good foundation. From outsourcing companies that just built business software for companies, I then went to vendor companies. That's where I landed as a person helping users to take full advantage of the software that they needed to build their own solutions. That process is, ideally, what I see happening to others. The journey of a regular tech enthusiast to a developer advocate Ivar Grimstad, a developer advocate at Eclipse foundation, speaks about his journey from being a regular tech enthusiast attending conferences to being there speaking at conferences as an advocate for his company. Ivar Grimstad says, I have attended many different conferences in my professional life and I always really enjoyed going to them. After some years of regularly attending conferences, I came to the point of thinking, "That guy isn't saying anything that I couldn't say. Why am I not up there?" I just wanted to try speaking, so I started submitting abstracts. I already gave talks at meetups locally, but I began feeling comfortable enough to approach conferences. I continued submitting abstracts until I got accepted. As it turned out, while I was becoming interested in speaking, my company was struggling to raise its profile. Nobody, even in Sweden, knew what we did. So, my company was super happy for any publicity it could get. I could provide it with that by just going out and talking about tech. It didn't have to be related to anything we did; I just had to be there with the company name on the slides. That was good enough in the eyes of my company. After a while, about 50% of my time became dedicated to activities such as speaking at conferences and contributing to open source projects. Tables turned from being an engineer to becoming a developer advocate Mark Heckler, a Spring developer and advocate at Pivotal, narrates his experience about how tables turned for him from University to Pivotal Principal Technologist & Developer Advocate. He says, initially, I was doing full-time engineering work and then presenting on the side. I was occasionally taking a few days here and there to travel to present at events and conferences. I think many people realized that I had this public-facing level of activities that I was doing. I was out there enough that they felt I was either doing this full-time or maybe should be. A good friend of mine reached out and said, "I know you're doing this anyway, so how would you like to make this your official role?" That sounded pretty great, so I interviewed, and I was offered a full-time gig doing, essentially, what I was already doing in my spare time. A hobby turned out to be a profession Matt Raible, a developer advocate at Okta has worked as an independent consultant for 20 years. He did advocacy as a side hobby. He talks about his experience as a consultant and walks through the progress and development. I started a blog in 2002 and wrote about Java a lot. This was before Stack Overflow, so I used Struts and Java EE. I posted my questions, which you would now post on Stack Overflow, on that blog with stack traces, and people would find them and help. It was a collaborative community. I've always done the speaking at conferences on the side. I started working for Stormpath two years ago, as a contractor part-time, and I was working at Computer Associates at the same time. I was doing Java in the morning at Stormpath and I was doing JavaScript in the afternoon at Computer Associates. I really liked the people I was working with at Stormpath and they tried to hire me full-time. I told them to make me an offer that I couldn't refuse, and they said, "We don't know what that is!" I wanted to be able to blog and speak at conferences, so I spent a month coming up with my dream job. Stormpath wanted me to be its Java lead. The problem was that I like Java, but it's not my favorite thing. I tend to do more UI work. The opportunity went away for a month and then I said, "There's a way to make this work! Can I do Java and JavaScript?" Stormpath agreed that instead of being more of a technical leader and owning the Java SDK, I could be one of its advocates. There were a few other people on board in the advocacy team. Six months later, Stormpath got bought out by Okta. As an independent consultant, I was used to switching jobs every six months, but I didn't expect that to happen once I went full-time. That's how I ended up at Okta! Developer advocacy can be done by calculating the highs and lows of the tech world Scott Davis, a Principal Engineer at Thoughtworks, was also a classroom instructor, teaching software classes to business professionals before becoming a developer advocate. As per him, tech really is a world of strengths and weaknesses. Advocacy, I think, is where you honestly say, "If we balance out the pluses and the minuses, I'm going to send you down the path where there are more strengths than weaknesses. But I also want to make sure that you are aware of the sharp, pointy edges that might nick you along the way." I spent eight years in the classroom as a software instructor and that has really informed my entire career. It's one thing to sit down and kind of understand how something works when you're cowboy coding on your own. It's another thing altogether when you're standing up in front of an audience of tens, or hundreds, or thousands of people. Discover how developer advocates are putting developer interests at the heart of the software industry in companies including Microsoft and Google with Developer, Advocate! by Geertjan Wielenga. This book is a collection of in-depth conversations with leading developer advocates that reveal the world of developer relations today. 6 reasons why employers should pay for their developers’ training and learning resources “Developers need to say no” – Elliot Alderson on the FaceApp controversy in a BONUS podcast episode [Podcast] GitHub has blocked an Iranian software developer’s account How do AWS developers manage Web apps? Are you looking at transitioning from being a developer to manager? Here are some leadership roles to consider

The essence of Augmented Reality is that your device recognizes objects in the real world and renders the computer graphics registered to the same 3D space, providing the illusion that the virtual objects are in the same physical space with you. Since augmented reality was first invented decades ago, the types of targets the software can recognize has progressed from very simple markers for images and natural feature tracking to full spatial map meshes. There are many AR development toolkits available; some of them are more capable than others of supporting a range of targets. The following is a survey of various Augmented Reality target types. We will go into more detail in later chapters, as we use different targets in different projects. Marker The most basic target is a simple marker with a wide border. The advantage of marker targets is they're readily recognized by the software with very little processing overhead and minimize the risk of the app not working, for example, due to inconsistent ambient lighting or other environmental conditions. The following is the Hiro marker used in example projects in ARToolkit: Coded Markers Taking simple markers to the next level, areas within the border can be reserved for 2D barcode patterns. This way, a single family of markers can be reused to pop up many different virtual objects by changing the encoded pattern. For example, a children's book may have an AR pop up on each page, using the same marker shape, but the bar code directs the app to show only the objects relevant to that page in the book. The following is a set of very simple coded markers from ARToolkit: Vuforia includes a powerful marker system called VuMark that makes it very easy to create branded markers, as illustrated in the following image. As you can see, while the marker styles vary for specific marketing purposes, they share common characteristics, including a reserved area within an outer border for the 2D code: Images The ability to recognize and track arbitrary images is a tremendous boost to AR applications as it avoids the requirement of creating and distributing custom markers paired with specific apps. Image tracking falls into the category of natural feature tracking (NFT). There are characteristics that make a good target image, including having a well-defined border (preferably eight percent of the image width), irregular asymmetrical patterns, and good contrast. When an image is incorporated in your AR app, it's first analyzed and a feature map (2D node mesh) is stored and used to match real-world image captures, say, in frames of video from your phone. Multi-targets It is worth noting that apps may be set up to see not just one marker in view but multiple markers. With multitargets, you can have virtual objects pop up for each marker in the scene simultaneously. Similarly, markers can be printed and folded or pasted on geometric objects, such as product labels or toys. The following is an example cereal box target: Text recognition If a marker can include a 2D bar code, then why not just read text? Some AR SDKs allow you to configure your app (train) to read text in specified fonts. Vuforia goes further with a word list library and the ability to add your own words. Simple shapes Your AR app can be configured to recognize basic shapes such as a cuboid or cylinder with specific relative dimensions. Its not just the shape but its measurements that may distinguish one target from another: Rubik's Cube versus a shoe box, for example. A cuboid may have width, height, and length. A cylinder may have a length and different top and bottom diameters (for example, a cone). In Vuforia's implementation of basic shapes, the texture patterns on the shaped object are not considered, just anything with a similar shape will match. But when you point your app to a real-world object with that shape, it should have enough textured surface for good edge detection; a solid white cube would not be easily recognized. Object recognition The ability to recognize and track complex 3D objects is similar but goes beyond 2D image recognition. While planar images are appropriate for flat surfaces, books or simple product packaging, you may need object recognition for toys or consumer products without their packaging. Vuforia, for example, offers Vuforia Object Scanner to create object data files that can be used in your app for targets. The following is an example of a toy car being scanned by Vuforia Object Scanner: Spatial maps Earlier, we introduced spatial maps and dynamic spatial location via SLAM. SDKs that support spatial maps may implement their own solutions and/or expose access to a device's own support. For example, the HoloLens SDK Unity package supports its native spatial maps, of course. Vuforia's spatial maps (called Smart Terrain) does not use depth sensing like HoloLens; rather, it uses visible light camera to construct the environment mesh using photogrammetry. Apple ARKit and Google ARCore also map your environment using the camera video fused with other sensor data. Geolocation A bit of an outlier, but worth mentioning, AR apps can also use just the device's GPS sensor to identify its location in the environment and use that information to annotate what is in view. I use the word annotate because GPS tracking is not as accurate as any of the techniques we have mentioned, so it wouldn't work for close-up views of objects. But it can work just fine, say, standing atop a mountain and holding your phone up to see the names of other peaks within the view or walking down a street to look up Yelp! reviews of restaurants within range. You can even use it for locating and capturing Pokémon. [box type="note" align="" class="" width=""]You read an excerpt from the book, Augmented Reality for Developers, by Jonathan Linowes, and Krystian Babilinski. To learn how to use these targets and to build a variety of AR apps, check the book now![/box]

Today, mobile app development has come a long way, it isn’t the same as it used to be. In earlier days, the development process included only simple decisions such as design, features and the cost of creating the app. But, this scenario has changed now. Nowadays, mobile application development starts with the selection of the right app development framework. There are lots of options to choose from like Flutter, AngularJS, Ionic, React Native, etc. In this post, we are going to compare two powerful mobile app development frameworks: Ionic and React Native, to figure out the best option for your app development needs. React Native - An introduction React native is developed by Facebook using JavaScript which is one of the most popular languages used by mobile developers. React Native allows creating high-end applications for specific operating systems. Developers can reuse the code from this framework and don’t need to build an application from scratch. This is a helpful tool to create applications for Android and iOS operating systems. Features and benefits of React Native As it is reusable across Android and iOS, it saves development time and cost. With virtual-DOM support, it allows viewing changes in real time. There is a huge community of React native developers. Code written by one developer can be read, studied, understood and extended easily by other developers. Once the code is developed,  it can be used on iOS and Android. Issues with React Native apps for Android or iOS can be resolved quickly. It’s consistently improving and with every new release app development becomes interesting and convenient. Ionic - An introduction Ionic is developed by Drifty using TypeScript. It’s an open-source platform for developing hybrid mobile applications using HTML5, JavaScript and CSS technologies. Apps built with the Ionic framework are mainly focused on the UI, appearance, and feel. As it utilizes a combination of Apache Cordova and Angular, Ionic for many developers, is the first choice for app development. It provides tools such as HTML5, CSS, SaaS, etc to develop top-notch hybrid mobile apps to be run on Windows, Android, and iOS. Features and benefits of Ionic Ionic is an open source framework used for developing hybrid mobile applications. It is built on top of AngularJS and Apache Cordova. Ionic Framework comes with a command line interface (CLI) that empowers developers to build and test apps on any platform. It offers all the functionalities that are available with native app development SDKs to allows to develop apps and customize them for the different OS then deploy through Cordova. Apps require one-time development with Ionic and can be deployed on Android, iOS and Windows platforms. Facility to build apps using HTML5, CSS, and JavaScript technologies. The apps developed with Ionic are majorly focused on UI to provide the better user experience. It offers a multitude of exciting elements to choose from for development. Ionic 4 is the newest release of Ionic so far. The release is a complete rebuild of the popular JavaScript framework for developing mobile and desktop apps. Although Ionic has, up until now, been using Angular components, this new version has instead been built using Web Components. This is significant, as it changes the whole ball game for the project. It means the Ionic Framework is now an app development framework that can be used alongside any front end frameworks, not just Angular. React Native Vs Ionic: A comparison The following table below shows the difference between these two on different bases. Basis for comparison React Native Ionic Ease of learning Due to a few pre-developed elements, learning takes time. With plenty of pre-developed and pre-designed elements, learning is easier and shorter. Code language JSX (A syntax extension to JavaScript used to optimize code before compilation into JS) TypeScript (A typed superset of JavaScript for compiling clean and simple JS code on any browser) Code reusability It allows using the same code to develop Windows, Android, and iOS mobile apps. Same code can be utilized for creating apps for iOS, Android, Windows as well as web and PWA. Performance It has excellent performance as it doesn’t use WebView. The performance is average because it uses WebView. Community support Strong Strong Ease of development React follows the approach, ‘learn once write anywhere’ Written only once, it can be executed on any platform Phone hardware accessibility To access phone hardware Apache Cordova is used. No third Party tool is required to access phone hardware. Code testing An emulator or real mobile is needed for testing. Apps can be tested on any web browser. Documentation Very basic documentation Quite simple, clear and consistent documentation Developer Facebook Drifty.co By now, you must have obtained knowledge about the basic differences between Ionic and React Native. Both these frameworks are different from each other and they provide distinguishing features. Let us now further investigate both frameworks based on some board parameters Performance Android apps developed with React Native usually have a better performance score than ones developed with Ionic. This is because Ionic uses web-view in mobile app development and this is not the case with React Native framework. Design Ionic comes with plenty of pre-developed elements that allows creating elegant apps with excellent UI. This is what makes Ionic beat React Native when it comes to design. React Native offers a few pre-developed elements as compared to Ionic. Cost Developing apps with Ionic is cheaper than developing with React Native. This is because, in Ionic, the same code can be utilized across different platforms. Final words So which technology you should use? Well, this is not easy to tell. There are several factors you can consider like cost, features, requirements, platforms, and team size when deciding the best app development framework. They both serve different purposes and choosing any of them may be easy. If you a low budget then Ionic can be your choice to build an appealing application with a good performance. On the other hand, React Native lets you build native-like apps but the cost of development may be much than Ionic. Depending on your requirements and preferences, you can decide to choose any of the frameworks. Author-Bio David Meyer is a senior web developer at CSSChopper, a front end, and custom web development company catering customers across the globe. David has a passion for web development and likes to share his knowledge through informative blogs and articles.

Since its early inception, virtual reality has offered an escape. Donning a headset can transport you to a brand new world, full of wonderment and excitement. Or it can let you explore a location too dangerous for human existence.  Or it can even just present the real world to you in a new manner. And now that we have moved past the era of bulky goggles and clumsy helmets, the hardware is making the aim of unfettered escapism a reality. In this article, we present a roundup of the modern VR hardware systems. Each product is presented giving an overview of the device, and its price as of February 2018. Use this information to compare systems and find the device which best suits your personal needs. There has been an explosion of VR hardware in the last three years. They range from cheaply made housings around a pair of lens to full headsets with embedded screens creating a 110-degree field of view. Each device offers distinct advantages and use cases. Many have even dropped significantly in price over the past 12 months making them more accessible to a wider audience of users. Following is a brief overview of each device, ranked in terms of price and complexity. Google Cardboard Cardboard VR is compatible with a wide range of contemporary smartphones. Google Cardboard's biggest advantage is its low cost, broad hardware support, and portability. As a bonus, it is wireless. Using the phone's gyroscopes, the VR applications can track the user in 360 degrees of rotation. While modern phones are very powerful, they are not as powerful as desktop PCs. But the user is untethered and the systems are lightweight: Cost: $5-20 (plus an iOS or Android smartphone) [box type="shadow" align="" class="" width=""]Check out this post to Build Virtual Reality Solar System in Unity for Google Cardboard[/box] Google Daydream Rather than plastic, the Daydream is built from a fabric-like material and is bundled with a Wii-like motion controller with a trackpad and buttons. It does have superior optics compared to a Cardboard but is not as nice as the higher end VR systems. Just as with the Gear VR, it works only with a very specific list of phones: Cost: $79 (plus a Google or Android Smartphone) Gear VR Gear VR is part of the Oculus ecosystem. While it still uses a smartphone (Samsung only), the Gear VR Head-Mounted Display (HMD) includes some of the same circuitry from the Oculus Rift PC solution. This results in far more responsive and superior tracking compared to Google Cardboard, although it still only tracks rotation: Cost: $99 (plus Samsung Android Smartphone) Oculus Rift The Oculus Rift is the platform that reignited the VR renaissance through its successful Kickstarter campaign. The Rift uses a PC and external cameras that allow not only rotational tracking but also positional tracking, allowing the user a full VR experience. The Samsung relationship allows Oculus to use Samsung screens in their HMDs. While the Oculus no longer demands that the user remain seated, it does want the user to move within a smaller 3 m x 3 m area. The Rift HMD is wired to the PC. The user can interact with the VR world with the included Xbox gamepad, mouse, and keyboard, a one-button clicker, or proprietary wireless controllers: Cost: $399 plus $800 for a VR-ready PC Vive The HTC Vive from Valve uses smartphone panels from HTC. The Vive has its own proprietary wireless controllers, of a different design than Oculus (but it can also work with gamepads, joysticks, mouse/keyboards). The most distinguishing characteristic is that the Vive encourages users to explore and walk within a 4 m x 4 m, or larger, cube: Cost: $599 plus an $800 VR-ready PC Sony PSVR While there are persistent rumors of an Xbox VR HMD, Sony is currently the only video game console with a VR HMD. It is easier to install and set up than a PC-based VR system, and while the library of titles is much smaller, the quality of the titles is higher overall on average. It is also the most affordable of the positional tracking VR options. But, it is also the only one that cannot be developed on by the average hobbyist developer: Cost: $400, plus Sony Playstation 4 console Microsoft's HoloLens Microsoft's HoloLens provides a unique AR experience in several ways. The user is not blocked off from the real world; they can still see the world around them (other people, desks, chairs, and so on) through the HMD's semitransparent optics. The HoloLens scans the user's environment and creates a 3D representation of that space. This allows the Holograms from the HoloLens to interact with objects in the room. Holographic characters can sit on couches in the room, fish can avoid table legs, screens can be placed on walls in the room, and so on. The system is completely wireless. It's the only commercially available positional tracking device that is wireless. The computer is built into HMD with the processing power that sits in between a smartphone and a VR-ready PC. The user can walk, untethered, in areas as large as 30 m x 30 m. While an Xbox controller and a proprietary single-button controller can be used, the main interaction with the HoloLens is through voice commands and two gestures from the user's hand (Select and Go back). The final difference is that the holograms only appear in a relatively narrow field of view. Because the user can still see other people, either sharing the same Holographic projections or not, the users can interact with each other in a more natural manner: Cost: Development Edition: $3000; Commercial Suite: $5000 Headset costs and comparison across various features The following chart is a sampling of VR headset prices, accurate as of February 1, 2018. VR/AR hardware is rapidly advancing and prices and specs are going to change annually, sometimes quarterly. As of now, the price of the Oculus has dropped by $200: Google Cardboard Gear VR Google Daydream Oculus Rift HTC Vive Sony PS VR HoloLens Complete cost for HMD, trackers, default controllers $5 $99 $79 $399 $599 $299 $3000 Total cost with CPU: phone, PC, PS4 $200 $650 $650 $1,400 $1,500 $600 $3000 Built-in headphones NO No No Yes No No Yes Platform Apple Android Samsung Galaxy Google Pixel PC PC Sony PS4 Proprietary PC Enhanced rotational tracking No Yes No Yes Yes Yes yes Positional tracking No No No Yes Yes Yes Yes Built-in touch panel No* Yes No No No No no Motion controls No No No Yes Yes Yes Yes Tracking system No No No Optical Lighthouse Optical Laser True 360 tracking No No No Yes Yes No Yes Room scale and size No No No Yes Yes Yes Yes Remote No No Yes Yes No No Yes Gamepad support No Yes No Yes 2m x 2m Yes 4m x 4m Yes 3m x 3m Yes 10mX10m Resolution per eye Varies 1440 x1280 1440 x1280 1200 x1080 1200 x1080 1080 x960 1268 X720 Field of view Varies 100 90 110 110 100 30 Refresh rate 60 Hz 60 Hz 60 Hz 90 Hz 90 Hz 90-120 Hz 60 Hz Wireless Yes Yes Yes No No No Yes Optics adjustment No Focus No IPD IPD IPD IPD Operating system iOS Android Android Oculus Android Daydream Win 10 Oculus Win 10 Steam Sony PS4 Win 10 Built-in Camera Yes Yes Yes* No Yes* No Yes AR/VR VR* VR* VR VR VR* VR AR Natural user Interface No No No No No Yes Choosing which HMD to support comes down to a wide range of issues: cost, access to hardware, use cases, image fidelity/processing power, and more. The previous chart is provided to help the user understand the strengths and weaknesses of each platform. There are many HMDs not included in this overview. Some are not commercially available at the time of this writing (Magic Leap, the Win 10 HMD licensed from Microsoft, the Starbreeze/IMAX HMD, and others) and some are not yet widely available or differentiated enough: Razer's Open Source HMD. You enjoyed an excerpt from the book, Virtual Reality Blueprints, written by Charles Palmer and John Williamson. In this book, you will learn how to create immersive 3D games and applications with Cardboard VR, Gear VR, OculusVR, and HTC Vive. The hype behind Magic Leap’s New Augmented Reality Headsets Create Your First Augmented Reality Experience Using the Programming Language You Already Know  

In this article, we will talk about the Android Model particularly the Linux Kernel layer, over which Android is built. We will also talk about Android's security features and offerings and how Linux plays a role to secure Android OS. This article is taken from the book Practical Mobile Forensics - Third Edition by Rohit Tamma et al. In this book, you will investigate, analyze, and report iOS, Android, and Windows devices. The Android architecture Android is open source and the code is released under the Apache license. Practically, this means anyone (especially device manufacturers) can access it, freely modify it, and use the software according to the requirements of any device. This is one of the primary reasons for its wide acceptance. Notable players that use Android include Samsung, HTC, Sony, and LG. As with any other platform, Android consists of a stack of layers running one above the other. To understand the Android ecosystem, it's essential to have a basic understanding of what these layers are and what they do. The following figure summarizes the various layers involved in the Android software stack: Android architecture Each of these layers performs several operations that support specific operating system functions. Each layer provides services to the layers lying on top of it. The Linux kernel layer Android OS is built on top of the Linux kernel, with some architectural changes made by Google. There are several reasons for choosing the Linux kernel. Most importantly, Linux is a portable platform that can be compiled easily on different hardware. The kernel acts as an abstraction layer between the software and hardware present on the device. Consider the case of a camera click. What happens when you take a photo using the camera button on your device? At some point, the hardware instruction (pressing a button) has to be converted to a software instruction (to take a picture and store it in the gallery). The kernel contains drivers to facilitate this process. When the user presses on the button, the instruction goes to the corresponding camera driver in the kernel, which sends the necessary commands to the camera hardware, similar to what occurs when a key is pressed on a keyboard. In simple words, the drivers in the kernel command control the underlying hardware. The Linux kernel is responsible for managing the core functionality of Android, such as process management, memory management, security, and networking. Linux is a proven platform when it comes to security and process management. Android has taken leverage of the existing Linux open source OS to build a solid foundation for its ecosystem. Each version of Android has a different version of the underlying Linux kernel. The Marshmallow Android version is known to use Linux kernel 3.18.10, whereas the Nougat version is known to use Linux kernel 4.4.1. Android security Android was designed with a specific focus on security. Android as a platform offers and enforces certain features that safeguard the user data present on the mobile through multi-layered security. There are certain safe defaults that will protect the user, and certain offerings that can be leveraged by the development community to build secure applications. The following are issues that are to be kept in mind while incorporating Android security controls: Protecting user-related data Safeguarding the system resources Making sure that one application cannot access the data of another application The next few sections will help us understand more about Android's security features and offerings. Secure kernel Linux has evolved as a trusted platform over the years, and Android has leveraged this fact using it as its kernel. The user-based permission model of Linux has, in fact, worked well for Android. As mentioned earlier, there is a lot of specific code built into the Linux kernel. With each Android version release, the kernel version has also changed. The following table shows Android versions and their corresponding kernel versions: Android version Linux kernel version 1 2.6.25 1.5 2.6.27 1.6 2.6.29 2.2 2.6.32 2.3 2.6.35 3.0 2.6.36 4.0 3.0.1 4.1 3.0.31 4.2 3.4.0 4.2 3.4.39 4.4 3.8 5.0 3.16.1 6.0 3.18.1 7.0 4.4.1 The permission model As shown in the following screenshot, any Android application must be granted permissions to access sensitive functionality, such as the internet, dialer, and so on, by the user. This provides an opportunity for the user to know in advance which functions on the device is being accessed by the application. Simply put, it requires the user's permission to perform any kind of malicious activity (stealing data, compromising the system, and so on). This model helps the user to prevent attacks, but if the user is unaware and gives away a lot of permissions, it leaves them in trouble (remember, when it comes to installing malware on any device, the weakest link is always the user). Until Android 6.0, users needed to grant the permissions during install time. Users had to either accept all the permissions or not install the application. But, starting from Android 6.0, users grant permissions to apps while the app is running. This new permission system also gives the user more control over the app's functionality by allowing the user to grant selective permissions. For example, a user can deny a particular app access to his location but provide access to the internet. The user can revoke the permissions at any time by going to the app's Settings screen. Application sandbox In Linux systems, each user is assigned a unique user ID (UID), and users are segregated so that one user cannot access the data of another user. However, all applications under a particular user are run with the same privileges. Similarly, in Android, each application runs as a unique user. In other words, a UID is assigned to each application and is run as a separate process. This concept ensures an application sandbox at the kernel level. The kernel manages the security restrictions between the applications by making use of existing Linux concepts, such as UID and GID. If an application attempts to do something malicious, say to read the data of another application, this is not permitted as the application does not have user privileges. Hence, the operating system protects an application from accessing the data of another application. Secure inter-process communication Android offers secure inter-process communication through which one's activity in an application can send messages to another activity in the same application or a different application. To achieve this, Android provides inter-process communication (IPC) mechanisms: intents, services, content providers, and so on. Application signing It is mandatory that all of the installed applications are digitally signed. Developers can place their applications in Google's Play Store only after signing the applications. The private key with which the application is signed is held by the developer. Using the same key, a developer can provide updates to their application, share data between the applications, and so on. Security-Enhanced Linux Security-Enhanced Linux (SELinux) is a security feature that was introduced in Android 4.3 and fully enforced in Android 5.0. Until this addition, Android security was based on Discretionary Access Control (DAC), which means applications can ask for permissions, and users can grant or deny those permissions. Thus, malware can create havoc on phones by gaining those permissions. But, SE Android uses Mandatory Access Control (MAC), which ensures that applications work in isolated environments. Hence, even if a user installs a malware app, the malware cannot access the OS and corrupt the device. SELinux is used to enforce MAC over all the processes, including the ones running with root privileges. SELinux operates on the principle of default denial: anything that is not explicitly allowed is denied. SELinux can operate in one of the two global modes: permissive mode, in which permission denials are logged but not enforced, and enforcing mode, in which denials are both logged and enforced. Full Disk Encryption With Android 6.0 Marshmallow, Google has mandated Full Disk Encryption (FDE) for most devices, provided that the hardware meets certain minimum standards. Encryption is the process of converting data into cipher text using a secret key. On Android devices, full disk encryption refers to the process of encrypting all user data using a secret key. This key is then encrypted by the lock screen PIN/pattern/password before being securely stored in a trusted location. Once a device is encrypted, all user-created data is automatically encrypted before writing it to disk, and all reads automatically decrypt data before returning it to the calling process. Full disk encryption in Android works only with an Embedded Multimedia Card (eMMC) and similar flash devices that present themselves to the kernel as block devices. Staring from Android 7.x, Google decided to shift the encryption feature from full-disk encryption to file-based encryption. In file-based encryption, different files are encrypted with different keys. By doing so, those files can be unlocked independently without requiring an entire partition to be decrypted at once. As a result of this, the system can now decrypt and use files needed to boot the system, and open notifications without having to wait until the user unlocks the phone. Trusted Execution Environment Trusted Execution Environment (TEE) is an isolated area (typically a separate microprocessor) intended to guarantee the security of data stored inside it, and also to execute code with integrity. The main processor on mobile devices is considered untrusted and cannot be used to store secret data (such as cryptographic keys). Hence, TEE is used specifically to perform such operations, and the software running on the main processor delegates any operations that require the use of secret data to the TEE processor. Thus we talked about the Linux Kernel layer, over which Android is built. We also talked about Android's security features and offerings and how Linux plays a role to secure Android OS. To learn more about methods for accessing the data stored on Android devices, read our book Practical Mobile Forensics - Third Edition. The kernel community attempting to make Linux more secure. Google open sources Filament – a physically based rendering engine for Android, Windows, Linux and macOS Google becomes a new platinum member of the Linux Foundation

According to Statista, the virtual reality software market is booming. It is projected to reach a value of around 24.5 billion U.S. dollars by 2020. Also, the estimated revenue of the virtual reality market in the year 2021 is3.56 billion U.S. dollars. This would be a huge increase from a very respectable 3.06 billion U.S. dollars back in 2016 This makes virtual reality a potentially lucrative opportunity if you’re a game developer. But it’s also one that’s a lot of fun, with plenty of creative opportunities, and which doesn’t require a load of money up front. Thanks to technological advancements in the VR space, it’s not easier than ever to build a VR game from scratch. But with so many virtual reality tools out there, it can be hard to know where to start. It leaves you stranded with plenty of options but no sense of direction. To help you out, we’ve consolidated a list of what we think are the top 7 tools to help you get started. 1.Unity 3d: the leading game engine at the cutting edge of the industry Developer: Unity Technologies Release date: 2005 Why choose Unity for virtual reality game development? In a nutshell:  it is the easiest way to get started with Virtual Reality development and doesn’t compromise on the quality of the developed game. Unity offers a huge 3D asset store, which is an online marketplace by Unity. In this asset store, you can easily find the 2D, 3D models, SDKs, templates, as well as different virtual reality tools that you can download and import directly to your game. One of the most popular tools that you can find in the Unity asset store is the VR toolkit. So for times, when you don’t want to spend time on building a character model from scratch, you can simply pick one from the asset store. This helps jump-start the game development process. Some of these assets are free, and for some, you have to pay one-time. Moreover, the documentation in Unity consists of vivid examples ( eg; Introduction to VR best practices), video tutorials, as well as live training sessions (eg; VR essentials pack demo). This is not only great news for the experienced game developer but the newbies too as unity makes it easy for you to quickly learn to build games, including the AAA quality virtual reality games. It also has an ever-growing community. So, for times when you get stuck somewhere during the game development process, a solid community will be there to offer you advice on resolving a wide range of issues. Languages Supported: Unity supports three development languages namely, c#, Boo, and UnityScript. Platforms supported: Unity supports all the platforms such as mobile, PC, web and console platforms. The free version supports Mac OS X, Android, iOS, Windows and among other mobile platforms. The paid version further supports  Nintendo Wii, Xbox 360 and PlayStation. The free version, however, is more than enough to dive right into the development process. Unity also supports all the major HMDs such as Oculus Rift, Steam VR/Vive, Playstation VR, Gear VR, Microsoft HoloLens, and Google’s Daydream View. Price: Unity has three versions, namely,  personal, plus and pro version. The personal version is completely free, Unity 3D plus is $35 per seat per month, and pro is $125 per seat per month. However, the personal version is more than enough to dive right into the development process. Learning curve: Unity 3d has a flat learning curve. It can be used with ease by both beginners and professionals alike. Learning resources: Unity Virtual Reality Projects - Second Edition                                   Unity Virtual Reality - Volume 1 [Video]                                   Unity Virtual Reality - Volume 2 [Video] 2. Unreal Engine 4: a free game engine with exceptional graphics and capabilities for virtual reality Developer: Epic Games Release Date: 1998 Why choose Unreal Engine for virtual reality gaming? Unreal Engine has powered games with some of the most exceptional graphics and features, so it naturally comes with features catered towards advanced Game development. For virtual reality, Unreal Engine comes with an advanced cinematics system, advanced lighting capabilities, a rendering pipeline offering 90 Hz stereo framerate or faster at high resolutions as well as tools scaling from simple to detailed scenes, environments and characters. Similar to Unity, Unreal Engine 4  also comes with an asset store, which is an online marketplace by Unreal offering animations, blueprints, code plugins, props, environments, as well as architectural visualization. Again, just like Unity’s asset store, some of the assets are paid, and some are free. Documentation provided by Unreal Engine is not as rich as the one offered by Unity and comes with basic guides and live training streams on Virtual reality development. Unreal Engine 4 also has a strong community to guide you through your game development journey. Languages supported: Unreal Engine 4 offers only C++ development language. Platforms supported: UE4 supports all the latest HMDs such as Oculus Rift, HTC Vive, Samsung Gear VR, Google VR, and Leap Motion among others. Unreal Engine 4 lets you deploy your VR game projects to Windows PC, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Mac OS X, iOS, Android, AR, VR, Linux, SteamOS, and HTML5. You can run the Unreal Editor on Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux. Moreover, Xbox One, PlayStation 4 and Nintendo Switch console tools and code are also available at no additional cost to registered developers for their respective platform(s). Price: The great thing about UE4 is that it is very cost-effective for all the game nerds out there, as it's free to use, with a 5% royalty on gross product revenue after the first $3,000 per game per calendar quarter from commercial products. Learning Curve: Unreal Engine 4 has a steep learning curve and is suited mostly for professionals. Learning resources: Exploring Unreal Engine 4 VR Editor and Essentials of VR [Video]                    Unreal Engine 4: The Complete Beginner's Course [Video]                      3. CryEngine: a game engine with a powerful range of assets for virtual reality games Developer: Crytek Release Date: 2002 Why choose CryEngine for virtual reality game development? Similar to Unity and Unreal Engine, CryEngine also offers an asset store, offering tools and assets across different domains such as 3D modeling, scripts, sounds, animations, etc. The documentation offered by CryEngine is not as rich as Unity, which makes it difficult to approach for the beginners. However, it does have an online forum which can guide the experienced developers during their virtual reality game development journey. CryEngine also includes CE# Framework, new Sandbox Editor, Improved Profiling, Reworked Low Overhead Renderer, DirectX 12 Support, Advanced Volumetric Cloud System, new particle system, FMOD Studio support, and Visual Studio 2015 Support, which all collectively can amp up the virtual reality game development process. Languages supported: It supports languages such as C++, Flash, ActionScript, and Lua. Platforms supported: CryEngine supports Windows, Linux, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Oculus Rift, OSVR, PSVR, and HTC Vive. Mobile support is currently under development. Price: CryEngine is free but takes five percent of the revenues generated by each game built with CryEngine - after the revenues have passed $5,000. Learning curve: CryEngine has a steep learning curve as for anything other than basic games, you need to have strong command on languages such as C++, Flash, ActionScript, and Lua. Learning resources: CryENGINE Game Programming with C++, C#, and Lua                                  CryENGINE SDK Game Programming Essentials [Video] 4. Blender: an accessible tool for building exceptional graphics and animations Developer: Blender Foundation Release Date: 1998 Why choose Blender for virtual reality? Blender, a modern 3D graphics software is not only great for 3D modeling but supports the entirety of the 3D pipeline such as rigging, animation, simulation, rendering, motion tracking, video editing, and game creation. It also comes with a built-in powerful path-tracer engine called Cycles that offers stunning ultra-realistic rendering, real-time viewport preview, PBR shaders & HDR lighting support as well as VR rendering support. It also has a solid community of developers and offers tutorials, workshops, and courses on character modeling, character animation, and blender fundamentals. Blender comes with add-ons for VR such as BlenderVR that supports CAVE/VideoWall, Head-Mounted Displays (HMD) and external rendering modality engines. It helps with the cross-platform development of virtual reality applications as well as porting of scenes from one VR platform configuration to another without any requirement to edit the actual scene. Platforms supported:  Blender supports Windows, Mac OS, and Linux Price: Blender is free to use. Learning Curve: Blender has a flat learning curve and can be used with ease by both beginners and professionals alike. Learning resources: Building a Character using Blender 3D [Video]                                     Blender 3D Basics                            5. Amazon Lumberyard: an accessible and fast tool for building virtual reality games Developer: Amazon Release Date: 2015 Why choose Amazon Lumberyard for virtual reality game development? Bases on CryEngine’s architecture, Amazon Lumberyard, is a powerful cross-platform game engine comprising of tools that help you create the highest-quality games, and connect your games to the vast storage of the AWS Cloud, and engage fans on Twitch. Lumberyard's professional tools such as its virtual reality system use Lumberyard’s Gems, self-contained packages of assets and features that can be added within your game. In fact, these gems act as templates for you to build your own gems and supports all the VR devices without requiring any engine code editing. Lumberyard is also integrated with Amazon GameLift, which is an AWS service meant for deploying, operating, and scaling dedicated game servers for session-based multiplayer games. Lumberyard also speeds up virtual reality development with the new VR Preview function. This full VR preview function is in the editor, which you can click to see in VR right away. This lets the game developers make VR-specific adjustments and level the designs right in the editor, which is quite convenient and saves a lot of time. Platforms supported: Lumberyard supports HMDs such as Oculus Rift, HTC Vive and Open Source Virtual Reality (OSVR). It offers support for  PC, Xbox One, PlayStation 4, iOS (iPhone 5S+ and iOS 7.0+), and Android (Nexus 5 and equivalents with support for OpenGL 3.0+). Lumberyard also offers support for dedicated servers on Windows and Linux. Price: Amazon Lumberyard is free, with no seat licenses, royalties, or subscriptions required. You only need to pay the standard AWS fees for the AWS services that you choose to use. Learning curve: Lumberyard has a flat learning curve and is easy to use for both novices as well as professionals. Learning resources: Learning AWS Lumberyard Game Development 6. AppGameKit -VR (AGK): an easy way to build games for beginners Developer: The Game Creators Release Date: 2017 Why choose AppGameKit-VR for virtual reality game development? AppGameKit-VR lets anyone quickly code and builds apps for multiple platforms with the help of AGKs BASIC scripting system. It adds easy to use VR commands to the core AppGameKit Script Language, which delivers immersive VR experiences. It also allows full development control for SteamVR supported head-mounted displays, touch devices, and Leap Motion hand tracking. AGK does the majority of the work for you, so it makes it super easy to code, compile and export the apps to each platform. You mainly need to focus on your game/app idea.  AGK-VR offers 60 VR commands ranging from diagnostic checks on the hardware and SteamVR, Initialising the HMD, creating standing or seated VR experiences, rendering a 3D scene to the HMD, etc. AGK also offers demos on how to how to get started with using these commands in your games. It also has an online forum where you can ask questions, learn and interact with other users. The details of the AGK script is also fully documented. Platforms supported: AGK VR offers support for Windows, Mac, Linux, iOS Android (inc Google, Amazon & Ouya), HTML5, Raspberry Pi (free from TGC website). Price: AGK is available for $29.9 Learning curve: AppGameKit VR has a flat learning curve, which is ideal for beginners and makes the VR game development quick for the experienced. 7. Oculus Medium 2.0: software designed with virtual reality in mind Developer: Oculus VR Release Date: 2016 Why choose Oculus Medium for building virtual reality games? Oculus Medium is a great tool that brings sculpting, modeling, painting and creating objects for the virtual reality world all together in a single package. It's a very handy tool to have during the character designing process. It lets you sculpt and create a variety of 3D objects to include within your VR game with the help of Oculus Touch controllers alongside the Oculus Rift. It comes with features such as grid snapping, increased layer limit, multiple lights, and 300 prefabricated stamps.  It is quite simple to use, and anyone, be it a newbie or an experienced game developer can use this tool. The rendering engine in Oculus Medium uses Vulkan, which results in smoother frame rates and better memory management when building higher resolution sculpts. Other than that, Oculus Medium offers tutorials for you to quickly get hang of different features in the tool. It also has an online forum where different VR artisans and developers discuss tips, information, and videos to share with others. Price: Oculus Medium 2.0 is available for $30 which is quite affordable for novices and professionals alike. Learning curve: Oculus Medium has a flat learning curve as its pretty approachable for novices as well as professionals.                                 Each of the tools mentioned above brings something unique in terms of their abilities and features. However, keep in mind that selecting a tool solely based on its technical features is not the best idea. Rather, figure out what works best for you, depending on your experience, and requirement. So which tools/tool are you planning to use for VR game development? Is there any tool we missed out? Let us know! Game developers say Virtual Reality is here to stay What’s new in VR Haptics? Top 7 modern Virtual Reality hardware system

Kotlin is fast moving towards becoming the universal programming language. What is a universal programming language? From a simplistic view, the expectation could be that one language is used for all types of programming. While that may be far-fetched in today's complex world, the expectation could be adjusted to one language becoming the dominant programming language. Most certainly, it is the single, most important language to master. [box type="shadow" align="" class="" width=""]This article is an excerpt from the book,  Kotlin Blueprints, written by Ashish Belagali, Hardik Trivedi, and Akshay Chordiya. With this book, you will learn how to design and prototype professional-grade applications using various features of Kotlin.[/box] Historically, different languages have used strategies appropriate for those times to become the universal programming languages: In the 1970s, C became the universal programming language. Prior to C, the programming languages of the world were divided between low-level and high-level languages, the former being the languages that were close to machine code and the latter being ones that were more concise and worked better for human understanding. The C programming language was developed as a single language that could work as a low-level and a high-level language. The Unix operating system was showcased as one that was built ground-up entirely on C, without needing another low-level language. In the 1990s, Java became the universal programming language with the Write Once Run Anywhere strategy. Prior to Java, developers needed to create different programs to run on different platforms (different operating systems running on different hardware needed different programs to run). However, with Java, programs could be written targeting a single platform, namely the Java Virtual Machine (JVM). The JVM is available on all the popular platforms and takes care of all platform-specific nuances. The Java language became the universal language by being the language in which to write programs for the JVM. Another two decades have passed, and the stage is all set to welcome the next universal language. Let's examine Kotlin's strategy to become that. Why can Kotlin be described as a better Java than any other language? How does Kotlin address areas beyond the Java world? What is Kotlin's winning strategy? What does this all mean for a smart developer? Why Kotlin vs Java? Why is being a better Java important for a language? For over a decade, Java has consistently been the world's most widely used programming language. Therefore, a language that gets crowned as being a better Java should automatically attract the attention of the world's single largest community of programmers: the Java programmers. The TIOBE index is widely referred to as a gauge of the popularity of programming languages. Updated to August 2017, the index graph is reproduced in the following illustration:   The interesting point is that while Java has been the #1 programming language in the world for the last 15 years or so, it has been in a steady state of decline for many years now. Many new languages have kept coming, and existing ones have kept improving, chipping steadily into Java's developer base; however, none of them have managed to take the #1 position from Java so far. Today, Kotlin is poised to become the most serious challenger for the better Java crown, and subsequently, to take the first place, for reasons that we will see shortly. Presently at 41st place, Kotlin is marching ahead at a fast pace. In May 2017, Google announced Kotlin to be the officially supported language for Android development in league with Java. This has turned out to be a major boost for Kotlin, and the rate of its adoption has accelerated ever since. Why not other languages? Many languages prior to Kotlin have tried to become a better Java. Let's see why they could never become one. Every language attracts the programmer community by giving them an ability to do something that was cumbersome before. Their adoption is directly driven by how much value the promise has for them and how much faith the community can put into that promise. All languages or frameworks that claimed to be a better Java and offered something worthwhile beyond what Java offers also took something back in turn. Here are a few examples: .NET framework has been the longtime rival of Java and has supported multiple languages from day one. Based on the lessons learned from Java, the .NET designers came up with better language constructs. However, the biggest hurdle for .NET was that it was a proprietary technology, and that created an impediment to its adoption. Also, .NET was more aggressive in adding newer language constructs. While the framework evolved quickly as a result of that, it broke its backward compatibility many times. Ruby (and Python) offered shortened code, enticing programming constructs, and greater expressiveness as opposed to the boring Java; however, they took away static typing support (which helps to make robust programs) and made the programs slower. Scala offered shortened code and advanced programming constructs, without sacrificing typing safety. However, Scala is complex and has a substantially high learning curve. It supports multiple coding styles. So, there is a danger that Scala code written by one developer may not be understood easily by another. These are risk factors for any project that includes a team of developers and when the application is expected to be supported over a long period, which is true about most applications anyway. Why Kotlin? Unlike other languages, Kotlin offers a lot of power over Java, while not taking anything away. Let's take a look at the following screenshot to see how: Kotlin is interoperable with Java. It is possible to write applications containing both Java and Kotlin code, calling one from the other. Calling Java code from Kotlin is simpler, as opposed to the other way around, but the former will be the case most of the times anyway, where new Kotlin code is added on top of legacy Java code. Kotlin is interoperable and can use all the Java libraries and legacy coding without having to do any code conversion. It is possible to inject Kotlin into a Java project without boiling the ocean. Concise yet expressive code While being interoperable, Kotlin code is far superior to Java code. Like Scala, Kotlin uses type inference to cut down on a lot of boilerplate code and makes it concise. (Type inference is a better feature than dynamic typing as it reduces the code without sacrificing the robustness of the end product). However, unlike Scala, Kotlin code is easy to read and understand, even for someone who may not know Kotlin. Kotlin's data class construct is the most prominent example of being concise as shown in the following: data class Employee (val id: Long, var name: String) Compared to its Java counterpart, the preceding line has packed into it the class definition, member variables, constructor, getter-setter methods, and also the utility methods, such as equals() and hashCode(). This will easily take 15-20 lines of Java code. The data classes construct is not an isolated example. There are many others where the syntax is concise and expressive. Consider the following as additional examples: Kotlin's default values to function parameters save the need to overload the functions Kotlin's extension functions can be used to add domain-specific functionality to existing classes, making it easy for someone from the domain to understand Enhanced robustness Statically typed languages have a built-in safety net because of the assurance that the compiler will catch any incorrect type cast. Both Java and Kotlin support static typing. With Java Generics introduced in Java 1.5, they both fare better over the Java releases prior to 1.5. However, Kotlin takes a big step further in addressing the Null pointer error. This Null pointer error causes a lot of checks in Java programs: String s = someOperation(); if (s != null) { ... } One can see that the null check is not needed if someOperation() never returns null. On the other hand, it is possible for a programmer to omit the null check while someOperation() returning null is a valid case. With Kotlin, the definition of someOperation() itself will return either String or String? and then there are implications on the subsequent code, so the developer just cannot go wrong. Refer the  following table: fun someOperation() : String // not nullable fun someOperation() : String? // nullable val s = someOperation() if (s != null) { // null check not needed – editor warning … } val s = someOperation() n = s.length() // error, null check imposed n = s?.length() ?: 0 // handling null condition One may point out that Java developers can use the @Nullable and @NotNull annotations or the Optional class; however, these were added quite late, most developers are not aware of them, and they can always get away with not using them, as the code does not break. Finally, they are not as elegant as putting a question mark. There is also a subtle point here. If a Kotlin developer is careless, he would write just the type name, which would automatically become a non-nullable declaration. If he wanted to make it nullable, he would have to  key in that extra question mark deliberately. Thus, you are on the side of caution, and that is as far as keeping the code robust is concerned. Another example of this robustness is found in the var/val declarations. Seasoned programmers know that most variables get a value assigned to them only once. In Kotlin, while declaring the variable, you choose val for such a variable. At the time of variable declaration, the programmer has to select between val and var, and so he puts some thought into it. On the other hand, in Java, you can get away with just declaring the type with its name, and you will rarely find any Java code that defines a variable with the final keyword, which is Java's way of declaring that the variable can be assigned a value only once. Basically, with the same maturity level of programmers, you expect a relatively more robust code in Kotlin as opposed to Java, and that's a big win from the business perspective. Excellent IDE support from day one Kotlin comes from JetBrains, who also develop a well-known Java integrated development environment (IDE): IntelliJ IDEA. JetBrains developers made sure that Kotlin has first-class support in IDEA. Not only that, they also developed a Kotlin plugin for Eclipse, which is the #1 most widely used Java IDE. Contrast this with the situation when Java appeared on the scene roughly two decades ago. There was no good IDE support. Programmers were asked to use simple text editors. Coding Java was hard, with no safety net provided by an IDE, until the Eclipse editor was open-sourced. In the case of Kotlin, the editor's suggestions being available from day one means that they can learn the language faster, make fewer mistakes, and write good quality compilable code with relative ease. Clearly, Kotlin does not want to waste any time in climbing up the ladder of popularity. Beyond being a better Java We saw that on the JVM platform, Kotlin is neat and quite superior. However, Kotlin has set its eyes beyond the JVM. Its strategy is to win based on its superior and modern feature set. Before we go ahead, let's list the top five appeals of Kotlin: Static typing (like in C or Java) means that there is built-in type safety. The compiler catches any incorrect type assignments. This makes programs robust. Kotlin is concise and expressive. Being concise implies that there is less to read and maintain. Being expressive implies better maintainability. Being a JVM language, the Kotlin programs can take advantage of the features built into the JVM, such as its cross-platform nature, memory management, high performance and sandbox security. Kotlin has inbuilt null-safety. Null references are famous as the billion-dollar mistake, as admitted by its inventor Tony Hoare and cost a great deal of unnecessary null-checks in programs. Kotlin eliminates those and makes the programs more robust. Kotlin is easy to learn, especially for Java developers. Its syntax is clean and therefore easy to understand, because of which, Kotlin programs are fun for developers to code and easy to understand, and enhancing for their peers. From a business angle, they are more robust and easy to maintain for businesses. Kotlin is in the winning camp The features of Kotlin have a good validation when one considers that other languages, which have similar features, are also growing in popularity: The Crystal language attracts Ruby programmers by adding static typing support. Similarly, TypeScript adds static typing support to JavaScript and has become the preferred language for some JavaScript frameworks. Scala and F# add functional programming support to traditional non-functional paradigms without sacrificing type safety and, hence, are more attractive. Kotlin uses functional programming, just enough to ease out the programming in a lot of cases, but not too much to make it complex. Like Kotlin, Swift, and Rust also have inbuilt null-safety. Kotlin and Swift are often compared, as their syntaxes resemble one another a lot. Server-side languages, which were getting designed after the emergence of the parallel computing phenomena, became one of the chief requirements for providing inbuilt constructs for easing the programmer's work. One can find this in both Kotlin (coroutines) and Rust. Go native strategy The Kotlin developers figured that the same strategy that is used on the JVM platform could be used on other platforms too. Consider the following illustration: On no platform does Kotlin disrupt the platform's existing technology: The JVM works with the Java bytecode and Kotlin gives an alternative to Java to generate the same bytecode (By no means is Kotlin the first alternative as there are already 200+ languages that work with JVM, but it is the most elegant one for all the reasons that we have seen previously). On modern browsers where JavaScript is the de facto standard, Kotlin can work by transpiling to JavaScript. Again, this means that Kotlin is friendly with existing browsers without making any special effort. On the Node.js platform where JavaScript is used on the server side, your Kotlin code transpiles into JavaScript, and hence there are no changes needed in the Node.js framework for Kotlin to run. In a similar way, Kotlin/Native plans to work with other technologies in a native way. Since the platform's technology is not disrupted, there are zero changes needed at the platform level to adopt Kotlin. Kotlin's compatibility with a given platform can be taken for granted from day one. This eliminates a big business risk. Kotlin's winning strategy Kotlin's winning strategy is the sum of the various factors that we have seen previously. It has a two-pronged strategy to win over the developers with the coolness of the language, and the ease of working with it, to win over business users with its business benefits. The following illustration shows us the different benefits of using Kotlin: The other benefits also include: The growing popularity of the language Endorsement from Google to make Kotlin an officially supported language in May 2017 Kotlin-specific development frameworks emerging Leading Java frameworks, such as Spring, offering Kotlin-specific improvements The growing number of applications being tried out with Kotlin The user groups spread across Kotlin developer hubs The growing number of technology companies using Kotlin With this in mind, the winning strategy for smart programmers is to master Kotlin and learn to work with Kotlin on various platforms. Being ahead of the curve as opposed to following the world after Kotlin is already big but it will be a quick path to being recognized as a leader. Further chapters of this book will help you in exactly this mission. Apart from going through this book, we strongly suggest you join the community. Join the Kotlin weekly mailing list at http://kotlinweekly.net. Join the nearest Kotlin user group at http://kotlinlang.org/community/user-groups.html. Kotlin's community on Slack is at https://kotlinlang.slack.com/. We saw how Kotlin is well positioned to take off as the universal programming language. It offers an opportunity for smart programmers to establish themselves at the forefront of this rising tide. This article was taken from the book Kotlin Blueprints. If you liked reading this piece, check out the  book to build comprehensive applications using Kotlin features.  Getting started with Kotlin programming Build your first Android app with Kotlin How to convert Java code into Kotlin