Our AiBlock \u0026 ObvsAI Platform reads \u0026 understands different EHRs, Healthcare Documents, and automates complete back-office healthcare processes with 99

Obvious Technology

Earlier in my career, about 10–15 years ago, digital experiences (at that time, just webpages) had what was known as the “eight-second rule,” meaning an eight-second load-time max per webpage. At the time, eight seconds was about as fast as you could get. But today, the aspirational load time is more like one sub-second. Anything that takes longer is going to drive users elsewhere. Immediacy is the new normal. Part of the reason for this shift is obvious: Technology is more advanced, and we now have the ability to reach more consumers on more devices than we previously could. But the other part of this equation may be less readily-apparent. Consumer expectations have evolved. Immediacy isn’t a nice to have. It is a must-have. So, retailers, publishers, and brands must now provide content in real time. This shift has largely been driven by social media. Today’s internet users are accustomed to opening their Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram feeds and seeing fresh, personalized content updated moment-to-moment. In light of this, decisioning engines now need to decide what to show a customer or reader in less than one second. is no longer on its way — it’s a fact of the digital age. To keep up, online publishers must assess readers’ preferences moment-to-moment and provide the most relevant content available. And they need to try to keep users on their own sites, rather than driving users off to third-party sites. Real-time marketing Here’s what online publishers need to know: Machine learning helps ensure that your content adapts to reader preferences in the blink of an eye. The other day I took my son to see the Marvel movie . In the movie, a space alien arrives on Earth and can only survive by combining with a human host. The alien unites with a human and creates this amazing fusion: The human is only powerful with the alien’s power and the alien can only survive on Earth with the human. Venom Similarly, savvy tech leaders are partnering with machine learning technology to enhance customer experiences across a range of platforms. Real-time marketing is a departure from the status quo approach to personalization, which involves making suggestions based on a users’ and/or on privacy-intrusive profiling. declared preferences For example, when you sign up for a media site, you’ll likely be asked what topics you’re interested in. (This might be politics, business, or pop culture, for example.) But often, what people actually click on ends up being vastly different from their stated preferences. This means that publishers need to be aware of the disconnect and suggest content accordingly. This is the user’s which are perfect for a machine learning system to detect and make content decisions based upon. observed preferences, Readers’ preferences change moment-to-moment. This is unlike an online store where the user is typically going to buy something and may look at a related product. In the case of online media, the reader will be a target for a wide range of content. Picking up on various signals that the user gives off in the moment to determine their interests is critical, while also leveraging external factors such as stock trends, weather, news events, or trending articles can also help generate relevant recommendations. The future of online publishing is all about understanding what readers want in the moment. If you don’t have a super-responsive site that can pick up on trends, you should consider implementing technology that picks up on readers’ individual preferences in real time. Otherwise, you’ll lose them. Send readers to native content on your site — but do it in real time. If you’re able to capture a reader’s interest and suggest trending articles at the bottom or side of the page, that’s a solid start. But any recommendation service that’s sending readers to a different site has several flaws. First, while the publisher might perhaps make some ad revenue, they will be losing that user for at least a moment — maybe that day, or even forever. From a customer service standpoint, it’s always preferable to drive users to more content on your site as opposed to someone else’s. On a recent trip to New York, I met with a major news media company who confided that they’d been losing website viewers since they can’t effectively respond to real-time trends across their entire site. Here’s what happened: They got a scoop on a story and published it on their main site. As expected, the main site was getting a lot of clicks and was driving traffic from search engines to their site to find the article. But they still had a problem with getting that hot content recommended at all locations across their site to aid in . recirculation Their existing system could not react in time to put the scoop on the other pages of their site. And you can’t capitalize on a trend if you’re not making sure it’s not just prevalent on your homepage but everywhere on your site. To do this, you need to have a way to make sure your site is fully dynamic and responsive. If you aren’t, you’re missing out on a major business opportunity. If nothing else, make sure your company values align with the content you’re linking to. When you drive traffic to another site you have no control over the quality of that content. It could be good content, or it could be horrible. Either way, that experience will reflect on the brand of the referring site. And if that content doesn’t align with your core values, you’re losing brand affinity. And that will hurt you in the long-term. When you leverage a real-time marketing solution on your site, you can showcase your brand’s ideals and values by aligning your brand with certain causes valued by your customer base. Nike is a great example. This fall, Nike designed a campaign around , the NFL player famous for refusing to kneel during the national anthem at games. Despite a major boycott, the campaign earned Nike dollars in additional revenue. Colin Kaepernick $6 million When you know what your readers are seeing, it’s easiest to deliver content you can vouch for. Anything else is a risk for your brand. In the real-time age, publisher sites need to keep up with the customer expectation that the content is going to be just as relevant and immediate as what they are accustomed to on their social media feeds. Pretty soon, readers won’t settle for less. This piece was originally published on DCN .

The Facebook Effect: What Real-Time Marketing Means For Online Publishers In The Digital Age

Disclosure : I work at Value Coders , a company that creates Chatbot Solutions. If you’re one among the people of Generation X (born sometime between the 1960s- 1980s), you might be one among those complaining about the rapid expansion of technology, and how its complexities sometimes don’t make sense. For millennials, the present world is an interesting place to be. New tech just keeps popping out of somewhere time and time again. Their short attention spans are satiated by the presence of myriad gadgets to try, a huge set of social media apps to socialize and an adaptive capability to catch up with nuances of new & emerging tech. But not all of us are tech nerds, and most of them include our parents, older relatives, and neighbors. For many, adapting to such a rapid pace of technology is a tiresome chore. It is hard to make them understand that the world isn’t the same as before. The simpler technologies of old, such as the steam engines, early automobiles, and cordless dumb phones made a lot of things easier for us. But should we have stopped here? We couldn’t have done so, because technology cannot stop, at least not until our ambitions do. And we don’t want that to happen, right? So long as we dream high, we need technology: for it makes things easier for us, gratifies our needs only for us to become hungrier and technologize another something that once used to be simpler. Related Read: How Blockchain & AI Integration is Changing Business Landscape? So it is obvious that technology wouldn’t stop until we do. But couldn’t we at least make it simpler? Turns out, we can! And Chatbots are perhaps the closest to a solution. The argument for making technology user-friendly The argument for making chatbot technology usable to everyone stems from a dire need of reducing inequality across the world. More than half of the world doesn’t have access to the Internet. We can be highly optimistic that such a problem can be solved in the coming years ahead, especially considering the plans to create worldwide internet connectivity through satellite technology by companies such as and Tesla. Amazon But while the inequality with regard to accessibility of services may be solved by vision and intellect, the same cannot be said about the inequality with regard to familiarity with technology. It’s easier for millennials to adapt to new ways of doing stuff using technology. The same cannot be said for a part of generation X. The entire world can be connected to the internet using satellites. But having accessibility to services doesn’t imply its effective usability. The difficulty quotient goes further high when we talk about new technologies. Some of you may know what the terms IoT and Blockchain mean, but the same cannot be said for millions who have no idea about the significance of such advancements. With time, we’ll be seeing even more groups of people having no idea about the tech they see around the world. It’s relatively easier to bring tech to the masses than to make them literate about its purpose, significance, and functionality. Must Read: Eleven Trending AI Chatbot Platforms How Chatbot development can make Technology user-friendly There was a time when these devices were a symbol of the belief “simple, yet sophisticated”. The addictive smartphones of the present, though are more like “complicated, yet addictive” Chatbots, in essence, are programs that imitate human conversations and act as a medium between businesses and their customers. While its best use cases are associated with the domain of customer experience, it’s not hard to see how well they can go beyond that frame. Take, for example, the mobile app. It’s an app that delivers you the latest news on a wide variety of topics, but all of it in a conversational manner. You can use the app to consume useful information by interacting it almost the same way you’d interact with a person on a messaging app. Quartz Brief Google is flexing its AI muscles to bring multiple new use cases with its . Duplex for helping users schedule appointments automatically, playing games, accessing a large set of services from playing music to finding lyrics to a song! The evolution of chatbots is making all such things possible. Google Assistant Chatbots function with the help of Neural Language Processing (NLP) by parsing input from the user in the form of text or voice, then processing it through algorithms to determine the output to a users query. Checkout Blog: Top Chatbot Development Companies For SME's and Startups Globally The end result is quite effective. Using chatbot technology, a user can solve their queries by simply asking through text or voice instead of fiddling around a huge set of web pages, links, contacts while trying to find viable solutions to their problems. Chatbot technology make stuff simple, that is how they make technology user-friendly. What if the billions of websites on the web could be simplified with an accessible chatbot interface? What if we had chatbot-based apps for using products and services instead of complicated UI’s loaded with myriad pages? Leveraging chatbot development on a large scale can open up all these possibilities. But it isn’t so simple as it seems to be. In addition to NLP, chatbot technology also require the support of other emerging technologies such as Machine Learning and Deep learning. Developing such AI-based algorithms for chatbot development requires data, a lot of it. Does this require data from users? Of course, it does. So what about Privacy? There are two approaches to this question. One is the Google approach, wherein all your data is collected on the cloud, and you can delete it at your will. This method isn’t considered the best because you virtually have no control over how your data is used on the cloud, and whom it gets sent to in real-time. The other approach is implemented by companies such as Apple, wherein most of the data is stored locally to be used by algorithms and software for providing AI-assisted functionalities from the likes of Siri. It’s comparatively safer than Google’s approach, but not the perfect one. So chatbot development isn’t perfect? Right. To quote the late Steve Jobs, “It takes a lot of hard work to make something simple, to truly understand the underlying challenges and come up with elegant solutions.” I loved Steve Jobs’ approach to design. A headline from Apple’s first marketing brochure is still embedded in my mind when I think about it, and it read as the following: Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication Apple was known for its simple, yet premium and sophisticated design philosophy on its devices. But what made apple truly stand out from its competitors prior to the demise of Steve jobs was its approach to UI design. As the saying went, “It just works”. And it should “Just work”. We’re not supposed to be transforming every individual into tech geeks. Everyone doesn’t need to have an interest in chatbot technology to leverage the benefits of it. How Chatbot technology can benefit businesses in 2020? Chatbot development is making the technology more accessible and thus providing many benefits to businesses at the same time. Some of these benefits are given below:- -> It gives improved customer service. -> It is present on all messaging platforms. -> It provides proactive customer interaction. -> It monitors consumer data in real time and gain insights. -> It gives better lead generation -> It is a cost saving technology. End Note: Chatbot technology is a great approach to implementing a simple design philosophy and building technology that is usable for everyone. Technology shouldn’t be about building complex devices performing complex tasks in complicated ways. It should be about complex devices performing complex tasks in “Simple” ways! Because ultimately, technology and all human progress is meant to make our lives easier. : I work at , a company that creates Chatbot Solutions Disclosure Value Coders

How Chatbot Development Can Make Technology More Accessible?

Qoan-e-Gaohari-39 Renowned computer hacker and social engineer Bachhuda asked Badshah Namdar Gaohar, “Tell me O Guru, what is the best operating system and programming language for a hacker.” Badshah Gaohar smiled and gave him a URL to the ‘Best of 90s rock.’ Bachhuda was enlightened. Becoming an artist does not merely mean learning something, acquiring professional techniques and methods. Indeed, as someone has said, in order to write well you have to forget the grammar.  -Andrei Tarkovsky This installment is about one of the most controversial questions always asked in the tech world but often safely ignored by geeks and veterans who chuckle warmly to avoid such fruitless arguments. Isn’t it a surprise that people never ask questions like: What’s the best language for being a poet? (Assume there’s no language politics.) What’s the best pen and paper for writing a masterpiece poem? I believe hacking is a branch of the . To be precise, a branch of Philosophy. The process of being a hacker, aka binary wizard, is not different from being a poet or a guitarist. I’ve never heard poets or guitarists arguing about which pen, paper, guitar or gear is best for their creation. Art of Thinking I think Operating Systems and Programming Languages solely depend on a user’s expected results, the problems s/he wants to solve, needs, philosophy, passion and superstitions. Here, the term superstition stands for excessively credulous belief in and reverence for a community, outlook, logo or brand. The whole concept of the avant-garde in art is meaningless. I can see what it means when applied to sport, for instance. But to apply it to art would be to accept the idea of progress in art; and though progress has an obvious place in technology — more perfect machines, capable of carrying out their functions better and more accurately — how can anyone be more advanced in art? How could Thomas Mann be said to be better than Shakespeare?    - Andrei Tarkovsky I am not a CS major. From my personal and professional experience, an operating system is a piece of software that gives a user I/O interface to a machine, provides tools to control it, maintains/automates hardware-software abstractions and accomplishes tasks as per the command(s) given by a user. And a programming or scripting language is a pseudo-human language to communicate with a system or instruct it to accomplish and automate tasks. From this point of view, arguing on which guitar and pedal is best for creating a heart-touching composition like ‘Coming back to Life’ is totally meaningless, isn’t it? The maturity of man—that means, to have reacquired the seriousness that one had as a child at play. – Friedrich Nietzsche During my office hours, hobbyist music recording and post-production sessions, the OS, programming language, and tools I use are not important. Moreover, the audience need not know how often I use cheap or faulty guitars and trivial daily life props to compose a piece of music. At home, I use for bare minimum editing on a box. Audacity Debian When working from home, I use the same box equipped with and , and , and community edition with sprinkles of scripts. There is also a virtual environment with that I sometimes use to create web application vulnerability PoC reports. Selenium Python Postman JavaScript OWASP ZAP Burp Suite Bash Kali Linux I push all of my code to and no longer need to worry about my official laptop, which runs on a distribution. GitHub Windows I use to automate tasks like controlling local and remote login in LAN nodes and configuring them, writing routines for scanning LAN for unwanted WiFi intrusion by keeping a log at certain intervals of time, and above all, automating utility tasks for daily needs. Bash is my first choice for developing web application automation suites, simple network and attack tools, and web scrappers that I can run both on and boxes smoothly with minimum or no tweaks at all. Python *nix *NT That's all about my point of view to OSs, programming languages and their scopes. Masterpieces like those of and were not created by a magical language or typewriter. Rather, the poets themselves wrote timeless poems with universal accessibility. Jibanananda Das WB Yeats Similarly, no magical programming language or operating system exists as of today that can fly a system with a command or “hack” Google with . It is the geeky thinker who uses an operating system along with programming and scripting languages to solve problems and automate tedious and monotonous tasks. $ fly root@kali# hack google --verbose Unfortunately, cyber criminals also use these same programming languages and operating systems to commit crimes. Even the "sophisticated NSA things" are written in the same programming languages and use the same operating systems; only the brains behind them differ.

What is the Best Operating System and Programming Language for a Hacker?

With Bitcoin hitting $1 trillion in market value and cryptocurrencies’ potential to disrupt the global financial system, it is not news that crypto is everywhere nowadays. Digital coins are increasingly held as investments, and early investors in Bitcoin have made fortunes. Some consider cryptocurrencies and crypto payments a democratizing force that puts up a fight against central banks, Wall Street, and governments. There are bitcoin ATMs, digital art piece auctions, crypto-only dealership platforms for cars, and much more. Nevertheless, knowledge about blockchain, cryptocurrencies, and how it all works isn’t mainstream yet. It is, however, obvious that the blockchain, cryptocurrencies, and crypto payments are changing and challenging the world we live in. Shifting toward decentralized banking is the talk of the town. Already, crypto has been adopted as legal tender in El Salvador. Some governments are embracing cryptocurrencies. Central banks worldwide, including the U.S. Federal Reserve, are considering introducing their own digital currencies. There is talk of Bitcoin becoming a medium of exchange in Afghanistan. The New York Stock Exchange even offers an exchange-traded fund tied to the cryptocurrency. So, it is safe to assume that cryptocurrencies and related services, such as crypto payments are already changing the world as we know it. The main attraction of any crypto payment is that blockchain is a truly innovative technology that enables transactions only using digital identities, which means you no longer need a national central bank or a trusted intermediary such as a commercial bank or credit card provider. All transaction information and digital account balances are recorded on public digital ledgers, visible to anyone with internet access, maintained by multiple computers across the network. In other words, blockchain means secure, transparent, and tamper-proof transactions. Crypto payments have a lot of advantages for ordinary users. All parties are equal, and the fees are substantially lower in comparison to the traditional payments systems, especially when it comes to large sums. Crypto payments were initially conceived as a democratic and open type of payment, providing an alternative for centralized financial systems. This is not a simple process, but global leaders are showing an increasing interest in crypto, though continuing to be cautious. Tech giants, such as Amazon, Google, Microsoft, and PayPal, are also joining the game. Amazon is planning to accept bitcoin for payments; Google Pay users can now make payments using cryptocurrencies; Microsoft also accepts digital coins; PayPal clients from the U.S. can use cryptocurrencies for their payments; Mastercard announced its plans to support some of the cryptocurrencies in its network. So, there’s progress in this regard, and it is undoubtedly obvious that blockchain technology is the driver of significant change around the world. However, there might be some confusion in understanding how the volatile crypto market with hundreds of cryptocurrencies for sale on the exchange work. Indeed, blockchain isn’t perfect and has its flaws, but the technology is maturing, offering new cryptocurrencies that could be the game-changer in the low-cost digital payments world, making them widely accessible. It will give many low-income families with no credit card or bank account access to digital payments. Moreover, new possibilities offered by crypto payments internationally could make money transfers cheaper, quicker, and easier to track. Everybody will profit from these changes, including consumers, businesses, as well as exporters and importers. Why Cryptocurrency Payments Are The Future According to some forecasts, the scope of trans-border cryptocurrency payments will increase by 25 times within the next three years, reaching $4.4 trillion in 2024. Many will feel that cryptocurrencies are the catalyst for the newest payment revolution. However, before cryptocurrencies are adopted for payments worldwide, there is some troubleshooting and overall tuning up to be done. Also, a clear path for its realization should be laid out. This is where payment apps and portals come in, and the future of money and payment is heading. Last year, digital and mobile wallets accounted for about 45 percent of global e-commerce payment transactions. Some payment apps, such as Circle or Square, already offer their users the chance to buy and sell cryptocurrency, making digital tokens very similar to virtual cash. However, it is too early to use cryptocurrency on a mass scale for such purposes. There’s still a lot of work to be done in this direction. These apps should make cryptocurrency transactions clear and understandable for everyone, thus helping the adoption of cryptocurrencies into the mainstream market. Some banks have already started to incorporate elements of blockchain distributed networks to revamp their services, hoping to attract new customers and promote the use of cryptocurrencies as a currency. However, it will likely take a long time for people and banks to accept cryptocurrency as a day-to-day payment means. To turn cryptocurrency into a mainstream payment method, people should be able to use it in their everyday activities. To begin with, a transition from crypto to traditional money will be required. Retailers and business owners will not be willing to accept the transfer cost themselves or accept the currency fluctuation risk. Thus, payment companies will play a crucial role in facilitating this transition. Exchanging Payments Multifunctionality is the keyword when it comes to cryptocurrency wallets and exchanges. Cryptocurrency-based payment solutions should be versatile, offering various additional services such as investment management tools or safe storage. Just being a great cryptocurrency exchange or isn’t enough. Companies will have to offer an entire ecosystem that people will use in their everyday lives. cryptocurrency payment system The Crypto Future Isn’t So Bright. Or is it? However, there are some concerns. As cryptocurrencies face bans in more than 50 countries and critics say the new technology is wildly unregulated and empowers criminal groups, terrorist organizations, and rogue states, questions arise. Do cryptocurrencies have a future? The answer is complicated. Cryptocurrencies will hardly topple the dollar or other major central bank-issued currencies, but their technology will change how we conduct payments, banking, and other financial transactions. These changes will bring many benefits. But it is governments that will play a key role in making crypto payments widely available and accessible for consumers to see the benefits.

Will Crypto Payments Make The World A Better Place?

Cloud application development is a necessity in a modern enterprise world. You can hardly find a company that has never used a cloud-based application or any of the SaaS products. Cloud applications are now dominating the market over desktop software for various reasons. The main advantage is they can be accessed at any time from anywhere with any device that has a web browser. Besides, when a company develops a cloud application, it automatically means that all users are working with the same version of the app. This greatly reduces the time and resources required for new features introduction, security updates, and synchronization. We will look at the advantages of cloud application development later in the article. Now we’ll define the concept. A cloud application is software that is running on the remote server and accessed by the users via a web browser or local client, that serves as a user-interface for rendering the content that is processed in the cloud. Thus, a user’s device is used only to input the data, which is consequently sent to the server where it is processed and sent back to the user. Naturally, all the data is stored in the same cloud environment and can be accessed by all users that have permission. Let’s name some reasons to use web-based solutions: In contrast to desktop applications, cloud apps are much easier to use as they don’t require any specific knowledge and skills from the users Quick implementation. Due to the great integration with various devices, you can access a cloud app anytime and from anywhere as long as you have a stable internet connection Availability. The thing is, in the case of cloud solutions, developers have to debug and update a single version in one environment that is shared for all users at the same time unlike, for example, desktop apps Relatively easy maintenance. Cloud solutions can provision their capacity in times of growing traffic trends, and lower it when the traffic descends. The use of cloud applications prevents enterprises from paying for highly capable servers even in off-peak times. Cloud services like AWS and Azure have PaaS solution for automated resources distribution so app owner won’t pay for the resources that are not used Scalability and flexibility. STATE OF CLOUD APP DEVELOPMENT The IT market is constantly changing so it’s important to keep track of the most popular technologies. StackOverflow survey provides detailed information about the . Among them, there are Java, Node.js, ASP.NET, and others used for back-end development. Another part of the survey gives us statistics about the used for front-end development. most used scripting and markup languages most popular JavaScript frameworks As it was already mentioned, companies choose cloud application development to reduce costs, save time, and achieve high efficiency and high performance. Many IT industry giants launched their own PaaS (Platform as a Service) products to provide ISVs and enterprises with reliable and secure cloud hosting. The choice is wide and can address the needs of at any scale. Moreover, all of them have their own advantages and killer features. The choice of the cloud services provider is as much important as a choice of a backend or frontend technology. Besides obvious things like the cost, it impacts how easily it will be for your DevOps to work with, how scalable the app will be, etc. cloud application development For example, historically, Azure better works with ASP.NET backend while AWS better works with Java EE and has better microservices support, such as Docker, which is essential for high-load Java web apps. Here is the list of the most popular PaaS providers: - Amazon Web Services (AWS) - Oracle Cloud - IBM Cloud - Google Cloud Platform - Heroku This list may not seem very big as here are only the world-known giants. Listing less popular companies using the cloud would take an eternity. There are almost no companies left who haven’t preferred cloud services yet. As for the technology stack, little has changed. JavaScript is holding the top position among web technologies, while Python, Java, and PHP are the leaders among the back-end programming languages. What about the innovations, such language as Dart, is becoming more and more popular. It is now in the list of the most used languages while in 2019 only 1% of programmers employed it, and in 2018, it wasn’t mentioned in any StackOverflow statistics at all. At the same time, Swift, Kotlin, Objective-C that were used before for native development, are losing their popularity due to the same survey. TYPES OF CLOUD APPLICATIONS While speaking about cloud application development, it is necessary to discuss three main software delivery models: - Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) - Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) - Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) SaaS solutions are for the end-users. It means that once a SaaS product is built and set up, it is completely ready for customers to use. They receive a ready-made product accessible from any device as long as the Internet connection is stable. and are excellent for collaborative work. Examples: Google Docs, Google Drive. PaaS applications are mostly development environments based on various execution environments, OS, and databases. They require the application code to be deployed by the developers, and the vendor performs all the other processes. PaaS enables fast development of scalable applications with easy private or public deployment. PaaS products include Heroku, Force.com, MS Azure, AWS, etc. In the case of IaaS, what’s required from the customer is the middleware and support, while the vendor is responsible for data storage, virtualization, networking, and servers. A significant weakness of this option is that the customer is restricted to the provider’s tools for cloud application development. IaaS is employed by Google Compute Engine, Amazon EC2, and others. CLOUD APP DEVELOPMENT PROCESS SDLC stands for Software Development Life Cycle, and it is an indispensable part of the development process no matter what kind of software you create and what platform you develop for. Once a gets a task, the SDLC process begins. It implies a set of stages. Waterfall, Iterative, Agile are SDLC methodologies. Each of them affects the way the operations are performed but regardless of the model, the sequence of stages mostly stays the same. dedicated development team To sum up, SaaS is for the end-users, PaaS is for the developers, and IaaS is most often used by system administrators. Cloud application development lifecycle includes: . At this point, development costs are estimated, and the schedule is set. In case some organizational problems appear, they are settled with the customers at once. Requirement Analysis . This phase is based on the designers’ work. UI/UX specialists examine future program’s functionality in order to build an interface that will cover all features. After the work is done, they present it as mockups or wireframes. Design . This is the longest stage where almost all of the coding is done. Programmers have to put received design layouts into the working application. IT specialists usually divide all work into small stages and perform tasks due to the beforehand set priority. Development . This stage covers the Software Testing Life Cycle (STLC). As well as SDLC, it includes a set of phases that QA specialists perform to deliver the final product. Here application codes are sent to the QA engineers who use specific methods to test and debug the program to make it work in a proper way. Testing . Here a ready-made program is delivered to the end-user and set up in a user’s environment. The deployment includes release, installation, activation, and version tracking. Deployment . This phase comes only after the software is sold. It aims at fixing all problems that pop up after the application release. Maintenance CLOUD DEVELOPMENT TECHNOLOGIES Back-end Technologies From year to year, the technology stack for backend development doesn’t change that much so let’s see what languages and tools take the leading positions. .NET is a hybrid framework developed by Microsoft. It gives programmers the opportunity to work with different languages, libraries, and tools for building scalable web, mobile, and desktop applications. Among the languages .NET supports, there are C#, Visual Basic, and F#. It also has its own package manager – NuGet, which contains more than 90000 packages. allows working with those cloud servers that already exist as well as creating and deploying your own. Thus, it is a powerful tool for cloud application development. .NET .NET development Java is a mature versatile multipurpose programming language created back in 1995. During these years, Java has earned the trust of IT specialists all over the world. Object-oriented class-based language can be implemented in the cloud, mobile, desktop, and . It has tons of advantages such as well-defined specifications, expected behavior, which results in reduced development time, a huge number of tools and libraries, the fact that Java apps can be run on any device regardless of its underlying architecture, and many others. Java is suitable for enterprise-level projects that require difficult computations and data processing. However, despite all the advantages, Java developers are rather expensive, and employing this language for the startup is considered unseemly. Java web application development PHP is designed for creating software in a great variety of domains. Because its code is processed on the web server with a specific interpreter, it makes PHP an excellent choice for . It is most commonly employed for mid-sized projects or startups. It has a 5 million supportive community of developers, which will help you solve appearing problems on the stage of learning or later. By the way, quite clear documentation eases the learning process. The popularity of PHP results in a great number of potential specialists to hire, and for a relatively affordable price. As database integration is one of the key aspects of backend development, it makes PHP one of the best options as it connects to a wide range of databases such as MySQL, PostgreSQL, Redis, MongoDB, and others. In addition, hosting services for PHP are quite cheap because the components that a PHP app uses (MySQL database, HTTP server, etc.) are free. PHP custom software development Node.js is an open-source runtime environment that executes JavaScript codes. Its specificity is in unifying the whole around a single language – JavaScript instead of using numerous technologies for back- and front-end. Filling the gap between server and client-side saves such important resources as time and money. Node.js allows building highly scalable applications with great performance. It is especially great for creating high-traffic enterprise apps including demanding games or chats. It has a wide range of frameworks that eases the work. One more thing that makes Node.js extremely popular among aspiring developers is that it is quite easy to learn, especially considering a large supportive community. Node.js software development process Ruby on Rails is an application framework used for backend development. It targets simple development. It is relatively easy to master due to the English-like syntax and understandable documentation. This simplicity results in minimized development time. High readability leads to easier updates and maintenance, which, in turn, makes RoR development extremely cost-effective. In addition, Ruby on Rails has many testing frameworks cut out exactly for it, which makes testing faster and easier. RoR Front-end technologies One of the most popular JavaScript frameworks is Angular. It was released in 2016 but its quality has already been recognized in the IT community. It is built on the basis of TypeScript by the same team that created AngularJS in 2010. In contrast to its predecessor, Angular has easier component-based architecture as well as JavaScript, its system is more modular, and it enables asynchronous compilations. However, this technology is not often chosen by aspiring specialists as the learning curve might be a little complicated in spite of good documentation and a supportive community. The fact that Google uses Angular itself in such solutions as Google Cloud Platform, or AdWords, proves its quality. Angular React.js, simply called React, is an open-source framework, especially popular for cloud application development. It is a JavaScript library that is initially designed for building single-page solutions. It was created by Facebook in 2013 and was at once employed in the Facebook newsfeed and Instagram. React aims at being simple, still fast, and highly scalable. Its specificity is reusable UI components, which save a lot of time and energy for rebuilding the whole application if something goes wrong. As for time saving, it also provides server-side rendering without updating the page. In addition, React has a smooth learning curve unlike some other JS frameworks, which makes it easy to learn for those who have тever worked with JavaScript. React Vue.js is one more open-source JavaScript framework created in 2014 by Evan You. It is a solid option for cloud app development, single-page solutions, or website building. The fact that its component library is based on HTML/CSS/JS makes Vue.js extremely easy to master as every web and cloud developer has definitely worked with these three core technologies. The documentation of high quality also eases the process of learning. It is also highly flexible. This provides the possibility to build SPAs (single page applications) as well as some individual interactive components that can be easily integrated with the help of some other technology. Vue.js IN CONCLUSION Choosing cloud development is reasonable, as it will result in fast, scalable, and secure applications with high performance. The fact that it’ll help save time and costs is also a key factor while deciding on an application type. The approach to development has changed for the better and became easier due to the innovative tools, technologies, and versatile SDLC methodologies. After you’ve decided on the technology stack, product features, team composition, and SDLC model, the cloud application development process begins.

Cloud Application Development: Trends and Technologies

In today’s world, it is impossible not to acknowledge the impact of technology on development and organizational growth. The use of technology is practically indispensable; it is present in every sector and industry, in small, medium, or large enterprises. What drives the technology innovation the most is the convenience behind it. Innovation means not only profitability but also about productivity and responsibility. While the most obvious benefit of technology is increased productivity, there are other benefits such as reduce costs and help growth. Historically, the invention of the computer and the internet have impacted the way the organizations operate, e.g., from paper documents and telephone communication to digitized documents and video calls. Then the emergence of cloud computing has helped startups and enterprises to focus on their core values instead of dealing with system architecture. As the internet infrastructure and hardware capability mature, artificial intelligence started to boom and took center stage in several organizations’ business models. Google builds its entire business surrounding its data, while Facebook relies heavily on AI models to provide a better user experience. “AI” is a broad term, but when we speak of AI nowadays, we meant machine learning, deep learning, and neural networks. When someone says AI can do this and that, the term “AI” usually refers to the algorithm or model trained by machine learning, deep learning, or neural network using big data. To keep things simple, the term “AI” is used in place of machine learning, deep learning, and neural networks. Without , many problems that were unsolvable before can now be solved through data and AI. Most people don’t realize that artificial intelligence is actually embedded in our daily lives. , ranging from smart devices that are equipped with voice assistants; Snapchat Baby Face Filter that went viral (and boosted their stock price by ); to the everyday applications that have already reached our homes, like chatbots and image recognition. AI is leading the development of today’s technology. going into too much detail AI exists on a wide spectrum 205% year to date Blockchain is foreseen as the next wave of technology evolution. Blockchain is deemed to improve efficiency, track sources, fight counterfeits, and reduce costs. Out of those, improve efficiency and reduce costs align with the benefits of adopting AI, which makes the integration of AI and blockchain logical.  Enabling AI on the blockchain offers us a more robust solution. Here are the four possible ways to integrate AI with blockchain: AI + Blockchain Opportunity 1: Automation The most significant usage of AI is automation to improve efficiency and reduce errors. AI is exceptional at repetitive tasks, and they rarely make mistakes. Using AI to automate workflows ensures that the process to be automatically, consistently, and with less oversight. AI can replace human inputs while helping to manage the contributions humans still make, improving every aspect of the process. Automation also allows humans to save their valuable time and focus on higher-level tasks. For example, for lawyers, the opportunity cost for them is exceptionally high. Instead of going through all the files and judgments to find proofs, their times are better used on other legal works. Blockchain smart contract technology is designed to cut out the middlemen to provide a more streamlined and automated process. With AI + blockchain, human resources could be effectively redeployed to important tasks and leave the low-level functions to the machine. AI + Blockchain Opportunity 2: Do Things That Humans Couldn’t Do AI may not be smart enough to make judgments like a human can, but it excels at remembering stuff and extracting meaningful insights from big data. When humans make decisions, we can only consider three to five factors at a time, whereas AI can analyze thousands of elements. Taking Facebook as an example, it is hard for us to know why users spend more time on a particular page but not another page, then provide ads to users based on that data. Humans simply can't judge the way AI can simultaneously. Therefore, automation may improve productivity and reduce costs, but insights help organizations to have competitive edges and stay in the game. The second AI + blockchain opportunity lies on crawling and extracting data stored on the blockchain and turn them into actionable insights. It will be interesting to see what kind of insights to be discovered through the blockchain data. AI + Blockchain Opportunity 3: Make Our Lives Easier Pretty much every application nowadays use some forms of AI, and we become more reliant on them. We rely on Uber to provide a real-time estimate for fare cost and arrival time. We use Google search engine to find answers and rarely go past the second page. We rely on Netflix's recommendation to determine what to watch next. All of these examples include tailored AI models to serve their specific purposes. There are many more use cases that we aren't exposed to, such as optimizing computer processing speed to reduce energy consumption and cost. Providing a blockchain solution without involving any AI is like using a spear to kill a lion; it is an outdated practice! The third AI + blockchain opportunity is to utilize tailored AI models within dApps (decentralized applications) and make our lives better. AI + Blockchain Opportunity 4: Popularize AI We are at the stage that is still using AI in a straightforward way. Even the most sophisticated AI product can only do a limited amount of tasks. Currently, only a small number of technology companies have access to data, computing power, and talents necessary to train AI algorithms. Businesses leverage these resources to create artificial intelligence products and monetize through them. Therefore, the fourth AI + blockchain opportunity is how to make AI much easier to use, more reliable, and more intuitive than it is today. Blockchain's transparent and decentralized nature makes it a perfect platform to popularize AI to more people. Many believe the future of AI and humanity will come out better if a greater element of decentralized and widely participatory control is introduced into the picture. Promoting AI means that everyone and every organization can share their AI solutions. , whom I worked for, is a project that provides the necessary technologies and tools to develop smart contracts with AI algorithms. It aims to put the tools for developing AI smart contracts into everyone's hands. Cortex is another blockchain project dedicating to AI democratization. It aims to create a democratically governed network where users can access AI algorithms through SDK and API. SingularityNet It is foreseen that the practical implementations of AI and blockchain to be fairly frictionless. The integration of AI + blockchain will bring structural changes to our homes, workplaces, and every industry. These next generations of technology could improve productivity and reduce costs, provide insights, help promote AI, and create an AI dApp that is suitable for today's needs.

Why AI + Blockchain Make Sense?

A few days ago, one of my favorite artists, , passed away. He is considered one of the fathers of kinetic art, which plays with the viewer’s perspective to provide the illusion of movement. He had a scientific, almost mathematical, approach to art and did a lot of research on the physics and the physiology of color perception. Carlos Cruz-Diez His works are characterized by being able to produce colors in our brains that are not there. His mathematical approach also reflects in the way he created his works. For instance, he embraced modern technologies like personal computing to produce his works. Although his approach to art is very mathematical, his works have souls. You don’t see his works; you live them. And that has to do with the psychology behind his works. Gain the benefits of trust without the drawbacks of trusting The technology behind blockchain is binary. A combination of network, cryptography, computing power and consensus algorithms to create a decentralized, immutable ledger that can be leveraged for smart contracts. A mathematical approach for creating something that is not mathematical at all, a distributed system of trust. A system that is capable of securely managing, storing, and transferring any asset without the need for intermediaries. And it is this distributed system of trust that has the potential to change the world. With blockchain technology, we can gain the benefits of trust without the drawbacks of trusting. It will impact every system which requires authorities and intermediaries to function. And ultimately, it will transform the way we function and collaborate as a society. Business networks Take a look around you. Just about everything you see is part of a business network. The space you are in. The door you used to enter it. That cup on your desk and the coffee it contains. The screen on which you are reading this article etc. Now take a look outside and see the gigantic maze of business networks in front of you. The buildings, the streets, the cars that are passing by, and the planes that are flying overhead. Even the sun is part of a business network. Now think of the rules and legislation within and around these business networks. Think of the people, the systems, the authorities, and intermediaries that collaborate and form these business networks. Think of the way these business networks are interconnected. And it is these business networks that are the foundation of our global society. Our trust systems are currently based on the theory of tragedy of the commons Our business networks are built around trust. Trust between people, systems, authorities, and intermediaries. The way trust is established within our business networks currently relies on a centralized view of ownership. And this has quite some drawbacks. To illustrate this, let’s take a look at the following use case of cross-border payments. I have added a simplified illustration of the processes and business networks that are involved. As you can see, even the simplified illustration is quite complicated. There are a lot of people, systems, processes, authorities, and intermediaries involved. The complexity of this system is one of the reasons why cross-border payments are so costly and take such a long time to settle. The goal of the system is to minimize risk by creating trust. Trust between banks, networks, countries, account holders, etc. A system of trust that requires authorities and intermediaries to function. Blockchain Blockchain technology has the ability to change the psychology behind this trust system completely. And because a picture is worth a thousand words, I have added an illustration on how this can be achieved below. Blockchain technology can create trust and collaboration between entities that do not trust each other. Instead of centralizing ownership, ownership can be distributed between entities involved. And this decentralization can result in a new and secure way of collaborating, as illustrated above. Because of the nature of blockchain technology, it can create a trust-network. A trust network that, by use of consensus algorithms, can protect itself from malicious actors within the system. And instead of defining the rules of collaboration on paper, blockchain technology makes it possible to establish these rules in code through the use of smart contracts. Furthermore, data is accessible and shared through an immutable distributed ledger, meaning that the entities involved have access to a single source of truth. And because it is an append-only data structure, it will create a transparent audit trail. Next, blockchain technology is open source technology, and it brings trust through transparency for every entity involved in this system. Blockchain is to trust as the internet is to information Some of the business benefits of using blockchain technology are obvious: cheaper and faster cross-border payments by removing authorities and intermediaries. A system like this could make near-instant settlement of payments possible. Furthermore, it brings security, transparency, and regulation to the system. As a result, there is less room for human error and malicious actors. As a result, the system will achieve a better way of creating trust between all entities involved. A less obvious benefit is a competitive advantage. The blockchain-based business network is a walled garden. And that will make it very difficult for banks outside the system to compete. This is just one use case that illustrates the power of blockchain technology. There are millions more. Blockchain technology is a game-changer that has just started to show it’s capabilities. One of the pivotal moments in our history is the start of the machine age. It has shaped our current global society and has created the western power block. In my view, blockchain technology will bring another significant change — the beginning of the age of trust. The reason is that blockchain is to trust as the internet to information. This is why Gartner says that blockchain technology will deliver 3.1 trillion dollars in value by 2030. That is with a capital T. It is clear that blockchain technology has enormous potential. But despite the innovations and billions of dollars of investment, the adoption of blockchain technology is very slow. We are still at the beginning of the pioneering phase. As a result, the majority of the use cases are still at the idea stage. And only a handful of use cases that are in development are currently able to deliver any value. One of the reasons is that blockchain technology is rarely the simplest way to solve a problem to which it can be applied. This is a psychological barrier that needs to be overcome for blockchain technology to become adopted. Private vs Public New technology is always surrounded by ignorance, misconception, and lack of knowledge. I used so-called private or permissioned blockchain technology for the use case mentioned above for a reason. Currently, it is a challenge to connect to the real world to the blockchain world. For the majority of use cases, public blockchain technology has a lot of problems that need to be solved. Some of these problems can be solved by using private blockchain technology. To make this clear, I will briefly explain the differences between public and private blockchain technology. There is no way to censor anyone, ever, on a permissionless blockchain network Public blockchain technology allows anyone to interact with the blockchain network. There are no barriers to entry, and it is an open ecosystem. An open ecosystem requires very robust algorithms to secure the system and reach a consensus between the entities involved. This gives public blockchain technology a unique feature. On a permissionless blockchain network, it is impossible to censor anyone ever. It is the basis of cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin. But the robustness of these algorithms has a side effect. The Scalability Trilemma. Meaning that there is always a trade-off between the three essential properties that define public blockchain technology: decentralization, scalability, and security. This leads to scalability issues which reflects in the number of transactions per second a permissionless blockchain network can handle. For instance, Bitcoin can handle about 5 transactions per second and Ethereum 15 transactions per second. Permissioned blockchain technology can have clearly defined governance structures Private or Permissioned blockchain technology requires a type of permission to interact with the blockchain network. There are barriers to entry; It is a closed ecosystem. Because this permission handles a large part of the security of the system, private blockchain technology does not require very robust algorithms to secure the network and reach consensus between the entities involved. With private blockchain technology, governance structures can be clearly defined. Furthermore, it allows for levels of authorization within the blockchain network. There is control over who has access and who can interact with what data on the blockchain network. And because there is no need for very robust algorithms, a private blockchain network can be way more scalable. This reflects in the number of transactions it can handle. Hyperledger Fabric, a framework to create private blockchain networks, can create blockchain networks that are capable of handling 3000 transactions per second. Adoption and the future As you can see, private blockchain technology has some features that can make it a perfect fit for a lot of use cases within our business networks. An overlooked aspect of private blockchain technology is that it leads to is the creation of digital consortia. Although this is also true for public blockchain technology, it is the foundation on which private blockchain technology is built. And it is this aspect that adds power and resilience to our business networks. The Libra project clearly shows the power of a digital consortium. This project, even if it might not succeed in reaching its goals, is the validation of private blockchain technology. But despite the advantages, our business networks remain hesitant in adopting blockchain technology. I have illustrated the main reasons below. Blockchain technology is very complicated. It requires specific knowledge to be implemented successfully. Because of the lack of knowledge, it is challenging to develop a robust blockchain-based business strategy. Furthermore, the complexity of the technology makes it challenging to create a connection between real-world systems and blockchain-based systems. Moreover, a lot of real-world systems are legacy systems. And these will need to be changed or upgraded to cope with the new requirements of blockchain technology, which involves risks and costs. And with added complexity comes the added risk in terms of security. Because blockchain technology is a relatively new technology, regulation and legislation surrounding this technology are not defined, lacks clarity, or are falling behind. This primarily concerns public blockchain technology based on cryptocurrencies. Because of the fluctuation of the value cryptocurrencies, there is a problem concerning the predictability of costs. And this unpredictability results in risk. Besides that fact that regulation and legislation have an impact on the value, there is also a risk of so-called red flag legislation. And this can result in the outright ban of cryptocurrencies and the blockchain technologies involved. Another problem is the combination of privacy laws and distributed immutable ledgers. The right to be forgotten is hard to achieve with blockchain technology. Trust is used as verification. But verification isn’t the same as trust Probably the biggest problem is psychology. Much has been written about blockchain technology of how it displaces, reshapes, or eliminates trust. Within the blockchain industry, there is currently a very narrow definition of trust, summarized by catchphrases like “ and “ .” code is law" in math we trust Trust is used as verification. But verification isn’t the same as trust. Trust is a combination of morals, reputation, security, and institution. And with institution, I mean the governance that induces people to behave according to the group norm and to impose sanctions on those who do not. Because of the immaturity of the industry, it struggles to achieve real trust. And that is hindering adoption as our business networks are built on trust. The current psychology of our business networks is also a challenge. Business networks will not give you the recipe for their secret sauce, but they would be happy to sell you a jar. This philosophy leads to black boxes that lack transparency. Because blockchain technology requires a certain amount of transparency, this philosophy needs to change. And that is something that is difficult to achieve and is one of the reasons why currently, our business networks exaggerate the obstacles of security, scalability, and complexity. These reasons combined lead to the current slow adoption of blockchain technology. There are unknown unknowns when we look at the future of blockchain technology. But it is clear that the technology and the industry around it will become more mature. Our current views on blockchain technology will change — both within and outside the industry. Public and private blockchain networks will start to interconnect, and bridges between the two will be built. Computing, stake, and voting based algorithms will be used to create the right incentives for the abundance of use cases we have. And blockchain-based networks will start to connect with real-world systems. There will be a spectrum of networks, technologies, and types of decentralization. But of course, this will be a process. For a lot of business networks, the adoption of blockchain technology will require a new way of working. This to lower the risks and costs of failure. This will require a startup mentality and the philosophy to fail as soon as possible. A process that starts with things like design thinking to include participants and stakeholders in blockchain-based projects. A way of working that requires milestones and an agile mindset. Because standards will start to emerge, projects will become less centered on technology and more centered on creating business value. This will be the case for both public and private blockchain technology. Some cryptocurrencies will evolve to become global reserve currencies. We will have stable currencies that act as blockchain platforms that can run smart contracts. Something that will flatten our business networks. And it will be fascinating to see how the psychology of our business networks will change. For private blockchain technology, I see a big future for Platform as a Service Solutions. In a lot of use cases, it does not make a lot of sense to develop a custom protocol and to manage the infrastructure that is required. Platform as a Service Solutions will provide a lot of business benefits in terms of cost savings and time to market. They will be able to integrate with existing systems, and they will become able to interconnect with other blockchain platforms. It will become easy to integrate public and private blockchain platforms. And because there is less risk involved, these Platform as a Service Solutions will help in speeding up the adoption of blockchain technology by our business networks. And this adoption will be driven by a change in psychology. It will lead to a complete change in how our business networks will operate and function. And that will change the world as we know it.

In Math We Trust. Do You? Or Should You?

Community.HackerNoon.com : Tech professionals talking shop Hey Hackers—We’ve made some changes to make it easier to access the variety of The homepage now displays all categories, the three latest threads in each category, and a quote to frame what the reader could be getting into. : threads in our community forum. Check it out Quotes to Frame : Community Categories “People believe the only alternative to randomness is intelligent design.” — Richard Dawkins Random “It has become appallingly obvious that our technology has exceeded our humanity.” — Albert Einstein "You’re never going to kill storytelling, because it’s built in the human plan. We come with it.” — Margaret Atwood “We are what we see. We are products of our surroundings.” — Amber Valletta “That’s the thing about people who think they hate computers. What they really hate is lousy programmers.” ― Larry Niven “One thing that’s missing, but that will soon be developed, it’s a reliable e-cash. A method where buying on the Internet you can transfer funds from A to B, without A knowing B or B knowing A.” ― Milton Friedman "The shortest answer is doing the thing.” — Ernest Hemingway “When I was in China on the All-American Ping Pong team, I just loved playing ping-pong with my Flexolite ping pong paddle.” — Forrest Gump “I believe in innovation and that the way you get innovation is you fund research and you learn the basic facts.” — Bill Gates “No one is dumb who is curious. The people who don’t ask questions remain clueless throughout their lives.” ― Neil deGrasse Tyson “On its worst day, podcasts are better than our best films. Because they’re more imaginative, and there’s no artifice, and it’s far more real.” ― Kevin Smith "Together we can change the world, just one random act of kindness at a time." ― Ron Hall Technology Stories Product Software Crypto General Code Pong Sponsors Hacker Noon AMA Podcast Uncategorized Back to the Internet!

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