Apples’ – Free One Hour Coding Workshops

Apple will be hosting for the second consecutive year, a free one hour coding workshops at its retail stores around the world, as part of the Hour of Code movement enabling accessible programming to children and newbies interested in building a career out of coding.

It is revealed that on Thursday 11, December, Apple will be participating in Code.org’s annual Hour of Code, conducting a free hour long coding workshops at its 446 physical locations all over the United States and though the one hour would not probably make everyone the next great app or game developer, it is aimed in helping individuals with little to zero knowledge with regards to coding enabling them to grasp the basics which could serve as a foundation for their future training, irrespective of participants opting to enrol in formal programming courses or through self-education.

This movement is the brainchild of the non-profit organisation – Code.org, as part of an initiative, encouraging girls as well as ethnic minorities to fuse some interest on the subject. According to Apple’s senior vice president of Internet Software and Services, Eddy Cue, states, ` We are proud to be part of making computer science accessible to students of all ages across the world. Education is part of Apple’s DNA and we believe this is a great way to inspire kids to discover technology’.

Courage Youngsters in Coding Careers

The hour of coding is part of Code.org’s contribution to Computer Science Education Week with their focus in encouraging youngsters to develop in coding careers and as part of the week long activities, Apple has planned to host live events at its stores all over the world from December 8 – 12.

Theodore Gray, cofounder and chief creative officer of app maker, TouchPress, will be speaking in Apple’s North Michigan Avenue store, on how he got his start in computing and what inspired him to work on premium apps, like The Elements and Disney Animated while Mengting Gao and Fabian Lucas will be sharing their coding experiences with the video receipts app – The Kitchen Stories Recipe in Kurfurstendamm, Berlin.

Hideki Ogawa and Takako Horiuchi, down in Ginza, Tokyo would be talking about their start as makers on their success in Flask iOS app. Individuals interested could register through Apple’s site or visit their Apple local retail store for enquiries related to available slots.

Several Companies Holding Individual Hour of Code Programs

The workshop being a kid friendly form, children and teenagers considering taking up computer science as their career could get a head start on their careers if not already done. Several other technology companies, which include Google, Disney Interactive and Salesforce.com together with retailers like Best Buy and Target would be holding their own Hour of Code programs while Microsoft would also be involved in kid friendly Hour of Code workshops at the Woodfield Mall in Schaumberg, Illinois on Dec 8 at 4 pm and the Oakbrook Centre in Oak Brook, Illinois at 7 pm.Co-founder of Code.org, Hadi Partovi stated that the organisation is thrilled to be working with Apple for a second year hoping that the Hour of Code would continue to spark a creative fire which students could otherwise not discover.

Apple’s New iPad 2 Campaign

Apple has recently released a new iPad Air 2 campaign at the Sunday football showcasing various physical as well as software applications for the iPad Air 2. Featuring the title `Change’, the ad features a significant change in the marketing campaign of the company for its flagship tablet and is a departure from last year’s iPad Air which was focused on a single user.

Apple had previously promoted the iPad Air and iPad mini through its `Your Verse’, campaign and highlighted a single use case for the iPad in every ad of the campaign, in a particular field or discipline like mountaineering, sports training, marine biology, Bollywood choreography, music competition, travel writing and urban activism.

This new entry is not just the thinnest and lightest iPad created, but also the most powerful. From the studio to the classroom, the field to the garage, it helps individuals to identify new and improved ways to the various performances of their choice.

The original iPad when introduced four years ago set the standard for thinness and lightness and since then it has become even thinner and lighter which is due to its durable aluminium unibody. All Apple products are made from highly recyclable materials like aluminium and hence great efforts have been done to exclude harmful toxins from their components.

Colours Richer/Images Vivid & Sharper

The previous generation displays of iPads had used three separate components and iPad Air 2 has changed it all combining those three layers into only one which eliminates spaces between layers together with the internal reflectance due to those gaps.

The outcome is that the colours are richer, with great contrast while the images tend to get more vivid and sharper. The iPad Air 2 has a custom designed anti-reflective coating which reduces the glare by fifty six percent thus making it the least reflective tablet at present. Beside this, it is clearer and more readable in any kind of an environment such as office, classroom or even outdoors. Much attention is paid to the back of the iPad as it is done to the front with the anodized aluminium body of the iPad 2 which comes in three awesome metallic finishes which includes space gray, silver and gold.
Tagline `Change is in the Air’

Set to The Orwell’s - `Who Needs You’, this minute long ad which is similar to Apple’s `Dreams’ TV ad for iPhone 5s portrays a variety of instances across various settings wherein the iPad Air 2 is utilised in novel ways and the ad focuses on highlighting the device’s thinnest as well the lightness before summing with the tagline `Change is in the Air’.

Moreover the ad also promotes the webpage for the new campaign, apple.com/change and also features the iPad apps that are used in the ad which include Tayasui Sketches, AutoCAD 360, Post-it-Plus, iStopMotion for iPad, INSA’s GIF-ITI Viewer, OBD Fusion, Molecules by Theodore Gray and Animation Creator HD.

The TV ad of the new iPad Air 2 comes a couple of weeks after the release of the three TV ads for its Flagship smartphone, the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus featuring the voices of Justin Timberlake and Jimmy  Fallon.

 

Mozilla’s New Version of Firefox for iOS

Mozilla is finally launching a version of Firefox and is trying browser foothold on iOS which is the operating system that powers Apple’s iPhones and iPads. According to Twitter accounts from many at the meeting, Vice President, Johnathan Nightingale of Firefox at Mozilla informed the Mozilla community members at the non-profit organizations’ Mozlandia event in Portland, about the idea.

 Lukas Blakk, Mozilla Release Manager stated that they need to be where their users were and hence they are going to get Firefox on iOS, probably relating an account of Nightingale’s speech in a tweet that TechCrunch spotted. Mozilla’s Manager of data science, Matthew Ruttley had added his comments in his tweet stating that `Firefox for iOS! Let’s do it’, while other community members of Mozilla chimed in with their accounts with regards to the news at the event quoting Nightingale as well as Mozilla President Li Gong.

This could be a move in changing the strategic direction for Mozilla one among many as the non-profit organization attempts of new system to retain its influence in the face of challenges comprising of the mounting popularity of Google’s Chrome browser with Firefox’s light presence in the smartphone as well as tablet market wherein users tend to spend more and more of their computing activities.

Mozilla’s Mission

Mozilla’s mission, a decade ago was to overtake the dominance of Microsoft’s Internet Explorer and the top priority now is to bring an openness to the present to what the organisation envisages as the `jails’ of iOS and Android. Junior, a browser for iOS was showed by Mozilla in 2012 but the outcome of it did not bear much result and then in 2013, Mozilla decided that it would not build Firefox for iOS due to objections to the limits that Apple had placed on third party browsers.

The presence on smartphones as well as tablets is vital for Mozilla’s effort in remaining relevant in the present computing world and Firefox seems to be a significant presence on the Web and in charting standards which make the Web a viable competitor to Android, iOS, Windows and OS X though its share is dropping. As per figures from analytics firm StatCounter, Firefox has dropped to 11.6 percent of usage as a share of desktop and mobile browsing while on tablets and smartphones, its share of usage in November was around 0.5 percent.

Improvement for Third Party Browser Developers

Mozilla has diversified out to mobile with versions of Firefox for Google’s Android OS together with its own Firefox OS for lower end smartphones though Firefox for iOS is different which is due to the fact that Apple does not allow other browser engine on its mobile OS on the contrary third party browsers like Google’s Chrome together with Opera’s Coast, utilise Apple supplied engine.

As for Mozilla it is important since it undercuts the organization’s mission to use Firefox to encourage the use of open Web technologies rather than technologies locked to a single company’s computing platform. However, Apple has made improvement in conditions for third party browser developers wherein the browser engine supplies faster running of Web based JavaScript programs which mean that the third party browsers can be a better match to Safari’s own performance on iOS.

Apple’s Changes in Policies on Notification Centre Widgets

Apple seems to have ordered another developer to make changes in its nebulous policies on Notification Centre widgets, informing Drafts developer Agile Tortoise that the app’s widget is not permitted to be used in creating drafts or opening the Drafts app.

Developer Greg Pierce in his tweet stated that he has been asked to re-submit Draft without functionality for opening the app or creating a new one, which essentially removes all the features of the Notification Centre Widget. Earlier the indecisiveness of the company for widgets led to an app known as `Launcher being pulled from sale’, with a similar fate met by the popular pCalc widget till Apple changed it. The widget on focus today was created by Pierce which is part of the popular note taking app `Draft’, enabling users to create new entries in the app.

This is done by pressing a button in the widget that opens the app’s composer. The introduction of Drafts 4 in October is an update to the existing Draft app presently and helps users to post a variety of social networks as well as perform various actions with notes such as the creating of emails, messages, calendar event and much more.

Drafts Faced Confusing Restrictions and Rules

The Draft app widget like other several apps having Notification Centre app permits users to open the app directly creating new draft or draft from the clipboard. In fact it has very little function in the Notification Centre besides opening up the Drafts app which earlier was like an acceptable use of the Notification Centre.

Pierce states that he was told that the present view in the Notification Centre is `for information presentation only’, which could be a point of view in ruling out the almost all Notification Center apps and he draws the attention that there are many similar apps which offer the same widget function as Drafts, like the Evernote which enables users to launch the Evernote app together with new notes besides other content within the Notification Center.

Draft is one of the numbers of apps,which has come across confusing restrictions and rules that were delivered by the review team of Apple’s app. Apple had told pCalc developers in October that calculator functions were not allowed in the Notification Center before a change in decision a few weeks ago, informing Neato to remove the note taking functions from its Notification Center widget.

Apple’s App Extensive Guidelines

The Extension Guidelines of Apple’s App recommends that the Notification Widgets should have a `simple streamlined UI’ with `limited number of interactive items’, though the vague language could lead the developers in spending time and effort in the creation of a variety of useful functions which are eventually not permitted since Apple seems to refine how it needs the Notification Center to be used.

It is not known why Drafts has been removed out by Apple’s app review team since it offer similar functions as other widgets. However if the Draft widget is singled out, there is a possibility that several other similar widgets would be in danger of getting into violation of the Notification Center widget rules.

Apple’s Patent – Fall Protection System

Apple was recently awarded a patent which covered the futuristic iPhone protection system that can detect when a phone is dropped, calculate an estimated point of impact and move its centre of gravity to avoid striking sensitive components.

The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office officially granted the patent for `protective mechanism for an electronic device’, that seems to protect expensive computer hardware from dropping accidentally which has become a familiar problem with the latest slim iPhone designs.

Apple’s latest invention not only estimates where a device may make an impact but also actively shifts the unit’s centre of gravity in order to protect the sensitive components such as glass screens as well as the camera and save them from being damaged.

Apples’ system relies on sensors as mentioned in the patent text to physically monitor device activity and positioning with accepted embodiment leverage on-board accelerometers, gyroscopes and GPS that are incorporated already in the new iPhone and iPad models though more advanced designs would be needed for ultrasonic sensors besides other things.

Generated by Positioning of Sensors

The data that is fed in is generated by the positioning of sensors to a central processing unit enabling quick and accurate device positioning determination as it applies to a state of free-fall and when such a situation is detected, the sensors and processor function together measuring the speed of the decent, the time to impact, together with orientation and other metrics.

The processor could then conduct an analysis of the fall by taking the gathered data into consideration against embedded information stored in the device memory. On completion of the calculation, the system then activates a protective mechanism designed to re-position the device in mid-air in order to provide the least damage to the fragile component.

The main example utilises a motor accompanied with eccentric mass which enables to impart a force on a falling phone’s rotational axis thus causing it to land on a preferred site like on its side or back.

Vibrator motor – Adequate to change Angular Momentum

The vibration motor of an iPhone is adequate to change the angular momentum of an iPhone spinning in a free-fall and based on the rate of the spin, angular velocity, time to impact together with other factors, the vibration motor could be powered at higher rotational speed than the normal, thereby effectively managing the momentum and eventually landing angle.

The recent iPhone 6 and 6 Plus of Apple incorporated bespoke linear oscillating motors which do not use eccentrically connected rotational mass while previous model did which means that the patent can easily be worked in to an upcoming variant.

Other exotic embodiments comprises of internal mechanisms which latch on or jettison headphone cables in a free-fall incident while some others involve motors capable of extending and retracting foils in the air or aerodynamic surfaces in controlling landings.

Moving ahead into unconventional are miniaturized gas canister which exert thrust forces in slowing down a fall and moving the weights along an internal track through linear motors. The official patent credit has been granted to Nicholas V King and Fletcher Rothkopf as its inventors.