Chrome 70 was released in mid-October 2018 and added several new features including native support for the Web Authentication API, better security features and what we have been waiting for, Desktop Progressive Web App (PWA) support.
If you are not familiar with what PWAs are they are web applications that leverage modern capabilities and best practices to deliver an app-like user experience without losing the advantages offered by the web. In short they are Superhero websites.
Imagine telling your non-techy family member that he or she needs to go to a website to get their next app. No Play Store. No App Store. Just a URL.
This makes them desired by both business and consumers. Businesses can now offer more native application functionality and experiences, like rich offline support that engages users. Consumers benefit because properly built progressive web applications offer a superior user experience.
But last week’s announcements at Google Chrome Dev Summit 2018 look to bridge the final gaps in PWA development and pave the way for a future where web apps are just as capable as their app store cousins. Let’s take a look at a few things Google announced that are making this a reality.
Why this matters –
The move to the open web as an app delivery platform is pretty substantial. The way Google is approaching this is pretty amazing, developing tools that all browsers can agree on is paramount to web apps being the go-to delivery method of the future. In a scenario where Google only makes new toys for Chrome, we end up with a fragmented mess that no one wants to develop for.
With pretty stellar interoperability shaping up, all these new abilities we’re about to look at will eventually work across all major browsers. Google isn’t baking in new features just for Chrome: they are helping to push web development forward for everyone, and that is important.
The minute all browsers support the same functions and abilities, the web becomes the largest, widest, and most scalable platform for development.
One app can be written for them all because they can all leverage the open web.
Web apps will make this a reality across the board and pave a way for a future where it doesn’t matter what device, operating system, browser or app store you use: one app can be written for them all because they can all leverage the open web.
Desktop progressive web apps can be ‘installed’ on the user’s device much like native apps. They’re fast. Feel integrated because they launched in the same way as other apps, and run in an app window, without an address bar or tabs. They’re reliable because service workers can cache all of the assets they need to run. And they create an engaging experience for users.
Here are the main additions that will serve to move PWA development forward:
Web Share Target – This one is fairly simple to grasp. Just like your native apps have native sharing functionality, PWAs will now be able to do this exact same thing across mobile and desktop. So, just imagine the way you’d expect to share from an app on your phone and know that you’ll be able to do the same right from a PWA soon.
Wake Lock – This feature will give apps the ability to keep the screen awake if needed. There aren’t a ton of use-cases that immediately spring to mind, but there are apps that need to keep your device from falling asleep and ruining your experience. PWAs will soon have this ability as well.
WebHID – Right now, the lack of WebHID hinders apps like Square Cash or Paypal from really feeling native since they can’t use your biometric security features. If forced to use the PWA for Paypal, for instance, you currently wouldn’t be able to log in with your fingerprint. WebHID will change this and make for a future where we may finally be able to log in to most web services with a touch of a finger or a scan of our face or retinas.
Writable File API – With obvious user permissions, Writable File API will allow web apps to finally be able to fully access local files on devices. This is a massive step that will allow for all sorts of creative software to be written for the web and interact in a fully native way across the board with things like auto-save. This one is a big deal.
PWA Support For Windows and Mac – Currently, MacOS has no real PWA support. With a target of Chrome 72 (we’re on 70 now), we’ll see full PWA support for MacOS moving forward. Windows has support for this already, but being able to deploy a single desktop app via the web to both Windows and Mac is a big step in the right direction.
Starbucks have already adapted the newest platform around the corner. Grab your favorite coffee and view the stores nearby with Starbucks PWA. A fully loaded app with all the information you need.
( Image : Starbucks Desktop PWA with online order and menu. )
Twitter has really been setting great baselines for the Twitter PWA on mobile, the installed desktop version is a great compliment to their implementat
( Image : Twitter Desktop PWA )
Conclusion –
So the key takeaway is : with the bevy of new tools and abilities coming in the near future, it wouldn’t be surprising to see web giants starting to finally return full focus to their web interfaces and shift focus away from their native apps. As larger properties do this, smaller ones will also follow suit. As the web finally gets to realize its full potential as an app delivery service, the way we use, download, and leverage apps on the web is set to change forever. Considering a development house for your next project? Contact us or drop us a line on [email protected] at Parangat Technologies to discuss your options!
Blockchain creates a network through which money is exchanged at the speed at which information moves. The change is the introduction of blockchain, or distributed ledger, technology, which could have broad impacts across banking and trading for both individuals and institutions. Blockchain’s revolution in the Banking Industry could allow for cheaper share trading and quicker settlement providing confidence to various participants in times of stress. Blockchain allows participants in a network to agree that each transaction has taken place and to keep a data of all transactions instead of leaving the record-keeping at one central place.
The industry is also working on increasing the volume of transactions per second that the technology can handle, which is not yet high enough for public equity markets.
Blockchain’s Revolution in Banking
Organizing processes
Blockchain puts all relevant parties into a common digitized infrastructure, allowing faster and more efficient execution of transactions and contracts. For example, a standard mortgage application today involves creating a paper trail between the borrower, loan officer, underwriter and lender, among others. Blockchain may connect all actors, updating ledgers immediately, automatically and transparently.
Removal of intermediaries
Payment transactions traditionally rely on a central processing authority or middleman, which often requires time for settlement. Blockchain offers a transparent and immediate way for two parties to pay each other without depending on central infrastructure such as SWIFT or other payment schemes, so funds are received instantaneously.
Initiate transactions in real time
Sending funds across international lines through telegraphic transfer or money orders involves a wide set of processes including anti-fraud checks, foreign exchange and clearing of funds. For international commerce hubs to developing regions that may be underserved by brick-and-mortar banks, blockchain promises to create a cross-border network through which money is exchanged at the speed in which information moves today.
Minimize fraud
All data stored in blockchain is decentralized .This is because information is not located in one single place, all parties with access to the blockchain have complete transparency, so any wrongful fraudulent activity or breach in data would be immediately noticeable and traceable.
Efficient verification
Customer information verification and recording costs financial institutions enormous amount every year. Blockchain allows banks to access all customer information and share with other stakeholder organizations like loan disbursing companies, car rentals, insurance companies, establishing a high efficiency in compliance process.
Establish efficient record maintenance system
Blockchain allows for the recording, storing and transferring of data across a common platform. A blockchain can be used for business documents such as contracts, land registry transfers of value, mortgage records, and medical records. That means in the future all companies and organizations may be able to validate records seamlessly without you having to lift a finger.
Blockchain-based banking apps are a sound investment
A blockchain-based banking app is a great business opportunity in all regards. It offers enhanced security, speed, monetary benefits, and complete control over financial transactions and data that is sensitive in nature. Investing in such an app reaps returns almost instantly and propels you ahead of competition while inspiring confidence from customers and prospects.
In case, you are looking to understand blockchain implications in detail in the banking sector, drop us an email on [email protected] or schedule a free consultation with our team of blockchain experts who can guide you through the blockchain implementation in a specific use case.
Toxic commenting and trolls are especially rampant on news sites, requiring moderators to be constantly vigilant and ready to neutralize threats to civil discourse. This is why the New York Times employs 14 full-time moderators to manually review the 11,000 comments that come in each day. Despite the efforts of this dedicated team, commenting is only available on 10% of Times articles due to the moderation load. In February 2017, Jigsaw and Google launched the free Perspective API, “a new tool for web publishers to identify toxic comments that can undermine a civil exchange of ideas.” The project perspective helps to develop a platform to cater the needs of best moderate comment forums and host better discussions with readers and journalists online.
Project Perspective:
Project Perspective offers a score from zero to 100 on how similar new comments are to others previously identified as toxic, defined as how likely a comment is to make someone leave a conversation. Publishers can use Perspective in a number of ways, from offering readers instant feedback on the toxicity of their comments to giving readers the power to filter conversations based on the level of toxicity they’d like to see.
In September 2016, The New York Times partnered on this project to help the Jigsaw team build the machine learning models that will improve conversations on the web and open sourced 10 years of moderated comment archives.
What makes this project a great deal?
New Modernisation system The new modernization system includes an optimized user interface and predictive models that will help moderator’s group similar comments to make faster decisions, allowing more comments to be posted across the platform while maintaining a respectful and substantive conversation.
Impact of Harassment on User Retention The current observational data of the impact that personal attacks and aggressive tone have on editor retention is a serious issue. The project develops a tool for automated detection of toxic comments using machine learning models. These models allow us to analyse the dynamics and impact of comment-level harassment in talk page discussions at scale. They may also be used to build tools to visualize and possibly intervene in the problem.
Reshaping of the platform A reshaping of comments platform can foster thought-provoking, high-quality debate among its readers. Generally, it is difficult to foster intelligent conversations in serious matters. A specialized forum where readers can have a quality debate on topics related to global and economic issues can help in achieving great ideas for different situations.
End of online abuse Internet trolls from round the world discuss the views they have expressed online that many find objectionable and in language that offends. Do they behave the same offline?
So, how do we control the situation to have better conversations on the web?
This new technology provides a secure platform for diverse communities to have diverse discussions and allow readers’ voices to be an integral part of nearly every piece of reporting. It also free up moderators to engage in deeper interactions with readers.
Thus, a provider of unique foundation for the creation of machine learning modules that can assess fresh comments in real-time and open source the models and the software, allowing other online publishers to learn as well as utilize the platform and increase the level of discourse across the Internet can provide a safe online community to discuss the most important issues.
Wrapping it Up:
In case, you are looking to understand the project perspective implications in your business sector in more detail, drop us an email on [email protected] or schedule a free consultation with our team of experts who can guide you through the implementation of perspective API in a specific use case.
When we are developing something, we want it to be an ultimate product full of features capable of satisfying our customers. Mobile apps development often falls short of such as being with limited options and scope, that’s where developers want to integrate the web functionality into their mobile apps. React Native Applications a one such widely used popular way to make use of the functionality of web apps within the mobile framework.
There is the major advantage of shared code across all platforms which let app development complete in a shorter time. There are many popular react native applications’ examples, some of which are also react native open source apps.
Below is a list that we have compiled of many suchreact native apps in the app store that make the most of its functionality and are hugely famous amongst its user base.
Instagram
Walmart
Facebook
Facebook Ads
Bloomberg
Soundcloud Pulse
Delivery.com
Wix
Townske
Gyroscope
Instagram
The popular photo-sharing social network implemented react native functionality with the simple Push Notification view, which was quite easy due to the lack of infrastructure needs.
Also, due to this almost 90% coding was shared between iOS and Android apps making the app delivery a lot faster. True, they got a lot of hassles in the starting but once ahead of the road, it was quite smooth.
Walmart
Walmart is known for its risk-taking stance and innovative mindset, it was one of the few who introduced Node.js into their stack. A few years later, they also made use of react-native functionality within apps.
With the help of react native, not only they had to utilize fewer resources and consume even less time, they were able to improve the performance of their app on both iOS and Android platform. Both their apps on Android and iOS platform share about 96% of their coding.
Due to striving ahead of their competition, Walmart has to make use of such new technologies which allow them to improve customer experience and deliver more. A further added advantage of this is the extra smooth animations within the app.
Facebook
Is Facebook written in React Native? Is Instagram React Native? The answer to both is yes, and it was only a couple years after Facebook acquired Instagram that this happened. So, you can credit Mark Zuckerberg for it.
Initially, it was developed by an engineer at Facebook to support iOS apps, but recently it has started supported Android operating system as well. Facebook made use of it to bring its web app features such as quick iterations into the mobile app and also to have a single team handle the app development completely.
The reason Facebook made React Native open-source was to further promote the idea of shared code and to enable development of support from other OS such as Windows within the developer community.
Huge usage improvements were noticed within the app after implementing react native functionality. Event dashboard startup became twice as fast and due to changes at the framework level, any updates automatically benefit from it.
Facebook Ads
Many little of you know that Facebook ad was the very first android app to be developed under react native framework. The framework was perfect for it to handle differences across the globe in various parameters involved such as time zones, ad formats, currencies etc.
They benefited largely from it, getting a clean interface with brilliant user experience and very fast transitions. For those advertisers and those who are running ads, Facebook recommends doing so via app only for these reasons.
Bloomberg
Engineers at Bloomberg developed a whole new application while making use of the innovative technology of react native. They had to go with it as they needed to smooth the transition of the entire organization within the mobile app.
The result was a smooth interactive experience with in-app with easy to access personalized content, media as well as live feeds featured upon it.
Another advantage that they got was the automated code refreshing of react native which accelerated release of new product features. As unlike other technologies, it reloads your app instantly for any small changes whatsoever instead of recompiling the whole code once upon a time.
SoundCloud Pulse
SoundCloud pulse stumbled upon a barrier of troubles when they started to develop their native apps. Efficient, able iOS developers were nowhere near enough feasible to get ahold of. And, they wanted to release both Android and iOS apps almost at the same time.
That’s when an independent Android developers team hired by them began to create React Native based prototype apps and run user tests on them. They found the experience very positive and encouraging.
They had it easy as compared to developing a typical native application and moreover didn’t required regular support and inputs from specialized mobile developers which made the whole process very easy on the budget.
Delivery.com
Delivery is essentially an e-commerce web-based site which allows you to order from nearby restaurants, grocery stores and other service providers from the comfort of your home. It has a daily traffic of about 1 million users and more than 10 thousand businesses registered upon it.
With the shift in paradigm from web users to majority preferring mobile experience, it needed an app that can provide its users with all the necessary features such as map integration, while making of use as less memory as possible and faster processing.
With the help of react native, they were able to link it with a native module, thus further being able to connect the map within it to more necessary features such as zoom, rotate, compass etc.
Wix
Wix is an online drag and drop module-based web development platform. It also provides web hosting services as well. In it, users can build their own websites as well as web applications in HTML/CSS and/or their mobile version and need not know any coding to do that all.
They have a lot of easy navigation options available including react native navigation which is most feasible due to it being highly configurable and available customization options with regularly maintained and updated codebase.
WIth React Native, they were able to overcome the inefficiency, less productivity and slower feature deployment rate of traditional native app development. You can check all the other details on their project on Github.
Townske
They are your friendly trip guide, connecting you with the locals wherever you go and providing a carefully selected and reviewed list of places to explore and experience.
They needed an app with faster loading times such as compared to the others, this wasn’t feasible with native app functionality due to heavy usage of this app. On the other hand, react native is solely UI based which resulted in a highly responsive and fluid interactive environment within the app. All this was possible mainly due to asynchronous JS interactions with the native module while using react native functionality.
Gyroscope
It’s the ultimate health productivity app. Not just your walking steps or heart rate, you can track and measure your everyday activities like sleep monitoring and time spent on computer etc.
With the help of react native functionality, it was able to integrate dozens of minimal features making all the above possible.
Wrapping it up:
Thus, as you can see, react native is becoming an increasingly popular choice with app developers and owners alike to create an android app. If you would also like to learn how to develop a mobile app using react native then read here.
The main motive of having an app or a website for any business is to reach out to maximum clients and customer and provide them easy access to the business. Whether it be a web app or a mobile app, the sole purpose is to increase the number of interacting users and to have a business growth beyond leaps and bounds.
The actual question for any business is no longer if they should have a Progressive Web App or Native Mobile App but how. Any business that wants to appeal to the enormously wide mobile-based customers has three choices:
Build a responsive website
Develop a native app or
Create a progressive web app (PWA)
At present scenario, when every when has a life full of hustles and bustles. No one likes to turn on a computer or use a mobile browser to visit a website and go through it. That is what makes the Native Mobile App a very satisfactory and useful option. The native mobile app provides the finest user experience but they have certain limitations and barriers. That is exactly why in 2015, Google announced a revolutionary approach to app development – the tag name was Progressive App Development.
What is a PROGRESSIVE WEB APP?
In its purest sense, a PWA is a mobile app which is delivered through the web. It functions quite similar to a native app, because of the use of an app shell that provides app-style gestures and navigations. The significant difference considering progressive web apps vs native mobile app is that there is no need to download the progressive web apps from any app store. It runs, self-contained, right in any of the web browsers. By using service workers, a progressive web app is capable of loading instantly, even in the remote areas of low connectivity. With the help of pre-caching and dynamic storage technologies, the app stays up to date at all times, displaying the most recent version upon launching.
The most exciting thing about progressive web apps is that that they are not just businesses without apps drooling over this latest technology as a means to have their spark into the world of the potential client-facing apps; PWAs are also hotly anticipated and quite widely appreciated by brands with existing native app experiences. These progressive web apps are an entirely new geek and a unique opportunity to engage and grow a brand’s customer experience.
Progressive Web App VS Responsive Web App
Progressive Web Apps (PWAs) are basically web applications that load just like regular web pages or like any other normal websites but can offer the user enhanced functionalities such as working offline, ability to have push notifications. Also, PWAs have device hardware access traditionally available only to native mobile applications.
Responsive web app or design (RWD) is a modified approach to the traditional web design that makes web pages render well on a variety of devices irrespective of their window or screen sizes. Recent works in the field of responsive web app also consider the viewer proximity as part of the viewing context as an extension for RWD. In this approach, the use of media queries allows the page to use variant CSS style rules based on characteristics and specifications of the device the site is being displayed on, most commonly the width and scrolling choices of the browser.
The Benefits of Progressive Web Apps
PWAs are not just a worthwhile endeavour because they are some new tech thing. These web-based apps hold a huge potential. The perks of progressive web apps are:
1- Progressive and responsive design are highly adaptive to different browser choices and fits any screen, whether it’s a smartphone, tablet or desktop
2- Progressive Web App is accessible and shareable through a URL link removing the constraint of downloading them.
3- Fast loading and do not require users to update the web app to see the latest content or features.
4- Rich with similar characteristics, navigation and functionality of native apps.
5- Easier to develop and launch in the market, which ultimately helps reduce costs.
The features of Progressive Web Apps (PWAs) is explained in this image:
Progressive Web Apps Examples:
The above-mentioned features of PWAs make it a more desirable and cost-efficient option. Due to which it is being chosen by many business and organizations these days. The top examples include as big firms as Flipkart and Housing.com. These images show a screenshot of how the interface of PWAs looks:
One more such app is Pokedex(A mini-encyclopedia of Pokémon species, types, evolutions, and moves.)
Progressive Web Apps Are “The Future”:
While introduced back in 2015, PWAs have gained a huge popularity this year. Google, Apple and Microsoft — the three giants in terms of native app distribution — are all driving the transition to PWAs. Because of their inherent flexibility, PWAs are the best way to stay ahead in the mobile industry.
From Twitter to Starbucks to Flipkart, crossing the diversity of the needs and aspects of business, PWAs are proving that any business can flourish with this technology. More specifically, Tinder saw load times cut in half compared to its native app after using this. This led to longer session times, more messages sent and more swiping on the app. And with a PWA, users could access Tinder from either mobile or desktop devices, easing the accessibility of the app and in turn expanding the targetable market.
Conclusion
Dozens of major and well-established brands are moving from native apps to PWAs, and anyone can easily tell why. Both mobile sites and native apps have their own pros and cons, and PWAs are significantly proving to be the best of both worlds for businesses. Bigger and better things await as this technology continues to prosper and have new researches in the same field. The mobile app market feels set for the progressive web apps to break out in 2018 and grow the way that users interact with brands and use their apps.
Our Portfolio showcases MassageNow and Healthy Bazar – that deliver fast and streamlined experiences to mobile users.They are another e-tailers, who made the conscious decision to forego the native app and keep the mobile shopping experience in a PWA format.
‘GO’ programming language or often referred to as ‘GOLANG’, is a programming language created by Google. Around 2009, Robert Griesemer, Rob Pike and Ken Thompson announced the language and started developing it. The Golang originated as an experiment by Griesemer, Pike, and Thompson in an attempt to design a programming language that would overcome the common criticisms of other languages while retaining their positive features. The logo of Golang appears as in the image. GO is a statically typed compiled language following the tradition of C, with the better features of Java and other languages. The examples of this feature include memory safety, garbage collection (as in Java), structural typing, concurrency and a lot more.
The language was officially announced in 2009, and its first version was released in 2012. The language geeks and those who are always seeking for new opportunities to learn to programme in different languages. Google opened a whole new dimension for such techies, by making the Golang an open source programming language. Anyone can freely contribute to the GO language by creating new codes, proposals, fixing the existing bugs, making it smarter, faster and easier. It won’t be wrong to describe it as a baby growing in front of you. Learning, developing, and evolving with every next step and being a better version of its own self.
The best that can be said about GO is, in words of Robert Griesemer “Go wouldn’t be possible without the rest of the Go team and certainly not without the open source community.” He described the evolution of GO in his own words in GopherCon 2015. For all those who want to learn advanced computer programming can move to GO as it is a boom and is the new coming technology giant. Nothing turns on a developer or programmer the way a new programming language does, right?
So here is all about the Golang one might need to know or need to learn Go language from scratch. For those who are a good language learner, can directly begin with trying codes in the open source and join the community of millions of learners that are using GO as of today using either of the GO language compilers. There are three known compilers of Golang, viz., Google’s GO Toolchain, GCCGO, and the GopherJS. And for all those aspiring to learn GO language can visit the Udemy website with all available lectures and organized content.
To learn Go language, one must keep in mind, “The simpler the code, the easier is debugging and maintaining.” Just because it allows the coder to make simpler, faster and parallel codes to run with ease, one must not end up making every line of code or module run in a parallel thread. Concurrent processes are hard to maintain and difficult to debug which may make you wonder whether your shared objects are really synchronized or not and many such issues may surface. Though Goroutines solves most of these problems, yet complexity and logic are something that one needs to code on his own. Keeping that in mind, one must try to keep his code simple and efficient.
Daisuke Maki, a GO/Perl/C programmer, and an author has put forward a simple seven stages flow to learn the go language which can motivate and guide any language learner so as for how to approach learning Go. In his article, he defines seven stages of how to walk the path of enlightenment to the language Go. These stages not only provide a clear guidance on how to approach learning the language GO but also clear the simple myths that the language fundamentals give.
The GO language fundamentals include:
GO language is concise, simple and safe.
Its compilation time is very fast.
It provides environment based adaptive patterns quite similar to dynamic language.
It supports embedded and the interface type.
It doesn’t require any external dependencies for statically linked native binaries.
Considering these features, all the questions that might arise or the confusion that can surface. All such queries are answered in brief in this article (Link). However, for basics, one can say that Go is a language with all the positive and beneficial features of the mother language C, the robustness of Java and dynamicity of Ruby and Python. For better help to learn go language, you can visit the following links given on the official site for Golang:
For basic and to begin with Golang Site
For frequent queries: FAQ’s
For docs on web applications: Docs
More such link and content can be browsed on the Golang site and any Golang language learner can use this to go through all the content. One must have a clear understanding of the basics and how to structure the code properly.
The GO language was not brought just to implement robustness or such features, but it came as a result of frustration from the existing languages and features these languages could offer. One had to learn programming in multiple languages to fulfil any project demanding robustness, complexity and efficiency. Any programmer had to choose either safety or ease of coding and efficiency. And the choice of human’s was but obvious. That’s why Google came up with GO to remove all the anomalies and provide an overall solution to such issues. Go tries to resolve these issues by attempting to provide a combination of ease of dynamic language and efficiency and safety of a statically typed language.
The main issues Google faced in making such a language were an expressive yet light weighted system, rigid dependency and concurrency with garbage collection for memory usage and so on. The article GO at Google provides an understanding and complete overview of the motivation and background behind the Go language.
However, as any other language GO also has its limitations. The major criticism that Golang faces are:
Lack of compile-time generics.
No static checks for metaprogramming.
No generic algorithm in the standard library.
Lack of exceptions making some error handling difficult.
Garbage Collection overhead limits use in systems programming.
Dave Astels at Engine Yard wrote: “Go is extremely easy to dive into. There are a minimal number of fundamental language concepts and the syntax is clean and designed to be clear and unambiguous. Go is still experimental and still a little rough around the edges.”
Though Go programming language has come a long way since the time of its first version release, the Golang has a long way to develop through offering a lot of opportunities to dwell in. As the statement goes for the programmers “Learn each day and implement in each minute”.
