More no-code and low-code development toolsThe debates over mobile web, native code, and hybrid mobile apps may never end, but one thing everyone can agree on is that we can’t build mobile apps fast enough. Low-code development platforms take a visual, drag-and-drop approach to building apps, allowing developers to deliver applications faster at lower costs. So-called no-code tools even promise to put app building within reach of nondevelopers.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
In the 2016 Google Founder’s Letter, CEO Sundar Pichai cited Google’s long-term investment in machine learning and AI. “It’s what allows you to use your voice to search for information,” he explained, “to translate the web from one language to another, to filter the spam from your inbox, to search for ‘hugs’ in your photos and actually pull up pictures of people hugging ... to solve many of the problems we encounter in daily life. It’s what has allowed us to build products that get better over time, making them increasingly useful and helpful.”Beyond that, the translation API is straightforward. Supply the source and target language codes, as many source strings as you wish, your API key, and optionally specify the output format. Options include HTML or plain text, pretty printing (using indentations and line breaks), and supplying a callback function.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)
Microsoft calls SQL Server 2016 the “biggest leap forward” in the 27-year evolution of the SQL Server database. As we’ll see, despite the excess of hype, the SQL Server 2016 database offers enterprises a number of attractive new capabilities, including built-in R analytics, querying of external Hadoop and Azure data stores, and neat management and data security features.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)
Microsoft calls SQL Server 2016 the “biggest leap forward” in the 27-year evolution of the SQL Server database. As we’ll see, despite the excess of hype, the SQL Server 2016 database offers enterprises a number of attractive new capabilities, including built-in R analytics, querying of external Hadoop and Azure data stores, and neat management and data security features.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)
Many businesses either have implemented or claim to be implementing microservice architectures, for better or for worse. Microservice architectures give you strong module boundaries, independent deployment and independent scaling of lightweight pieces, isolation of concerns, and the opportunity to use whatever technology is appropriate for each small service. On the other hand, distributed systems inherently have higher latency and more opportunities for failure than monolithic systems, as well as higher operational complexity, so the application has to be “big enough” to justify the overhead of being distributed.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)
Is there really such a thing as a “citizen developer” of mobile apps? Or is it a myth?To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)
What we call machine learning can take many forms. The purest form offers the analyst a set of data exploration tools, a choice of ML models, robust solution algorithms, and a way to use the solutions for predictions. The Amazon, Microsoft, Databricks, Google, and IBM clouds all offer prediction APIs that give the analyst various amounts of control. HPE Haven OnDemand offers a limited prediction API for binary classification problems.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)
Developers longing to build more intelligent, more proactive, more personalized apps seem to gain more options with every passing day. With Haven OnDemand, Hewlett-Packard Enterprise (HPE) has joined the applied machine learning fray, competing directly with IBM Watson Services, Microsoft Cortana Analytics Suite, and several Google ML-based APIs.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)
Android apps for app buildersWhen it comes to tablet apps, iPad vs. Android comparisons spark spirited debate. In the area of apps for developers, the Android tablet apps are more often free and less polished. On the other hand, there are plenty of Android tablet apps that will help developers in one way or another. While Android takes a lot of flack for “fragmentation,” in many ways it is now less fragmented than iOS from the viewpoint of a developer. It’s straightforward to create a single Android app that will work properly on a large range of devices, measured in operating system level, CPU power, available memory, and device size. On iOS, developers often find themselves writing separate iPhone and iPad apps in order to optimize both.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
No-code and low-code mobile dev toolsWhile the great debate rages on between the various mobile development camps -- the pure HTML5/JavaScript/CSS3 mobile Web faction, the native code purists, and the hybrid mobile app fans -- businesses still have to create and maintain mobile applications for their employees, business partners, and customers. The one conclusion that everyone seems to reach, eventually, is that there is no single panacea in this space. Each approach and toolset has its advantages and drawbacks.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Over the last six months, I’ve been examining and testing a variety of mobile app builders and mobile back ends. In some cases, the app builders and back ends were part of a single product. In other cases, the app builders or back ends stood on their own.In this roundup, I’ll summarize seven products that are at least partially a mobile app builder. Some have IDEs that run locally on your computer; others give you a Web IDE that lives in the cloud. Some are aimed at enterprise development, others at individual developers or even students.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
In the last year I've reviewed six MBaaS (mobile back end as a service) platforms: FeedHenry, Kinvey, Parse, AnyPresence, Appcelerator, and Appery.io. I also briefly examined the MBaaS platforms associated with Pivotal CF and IBM Bluemix in my reviews of those PaaS (platform as a service) offerings. All of these MBaaS platforms run on some kind of public cloud, and some can be installed on-premise or in hybrid cloud configurations.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Martin Heller