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<strong>PostPoint</strong> and the <strong>company</strong>&#x27;s insurance business, One Direct, was to become part of the new <strong>company</strong>, with access to the Post Office network. In April 2007 a press launch was held for the new bank, which is to be known as Postbank (legally Postbank Ireland Limited, to distinguish from other similarly ...

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<strong>PostPoint</strong> is a business unit owned by An Post and is a retailer based network, founded in 2000, following the success of An Post in winning a contract to provide electronic top-ups to Eircell (now Vodafone Ireland) through their agent network as well as at post office counters.

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OpenCog: A Poem

This post's point is simple yet we will contrast precise and respond in an exceptionally authoritative manner for students and beginners. We should make one thing quite certain thing that you should know prior to perusing this article. It is for learners or students since they are in a difficult place. They need to sort out which one is best for them and which one they can begin with. What issues to expect and what issues not to anticipate. I do have an inclination in this article and you are completely permitted to differ with my inclination😅. General Talk As a matter of first importance, requirements in the React side there is not a lot of essential stuff On the off chance that you know JavaScript (not the nuts and bolts of JavaScript) but some skill with it. Particularly things like what are and the and how it functions, object destruction. This is simple fundamental normal thing . You should understand them well. There is no more important thing. arrow functions spread operator Presently when we proceed onward to the universe of Angular you're going to see that a great many people compose their whole precise code in Typescript now. Typescript is the same old thing and you don't have to be alarmed. If you know your JavaScript well, you can be competent in Typescript inside seven days. Typescript assists us with writing more blunder free code. It really spills out a great deal of syntactic sugar to a great extent, yet don't get frightened. Typescript is just about as simple as moving from A to B, it's ridiculously basic however certainly it gives a touch of mental pressure. So on the React side there is no prerequisite (Just JS) and on the Angular side you have to learn Typescript 😅. Now the most common thing you'll see is the and vice versa. Well this is a strong statement I have got to know in some months of coding. But truly both the communities are so and . Let me remind you that React is just a and Angular is a . React side hates the Angular community supportive interactive small library huge framework The concepts in React are tiny. The core central idea of React can be learned inside like 15 days or perhaps 20 days. That is because it is simply a library. There are a ton of things which are absent in React. We utilize to accomplish those things. For instance, routing however if you want to learn React as an I figure a reasonable coder can learn it inside 15 days or 20 days. We are not reliant in  Angular as much on the outsiders for instance . outsider modules essential idea, routing Everything is implicit and concocted in Angular that implies that you're going to take some time to get familiar with every one of the ideas of Angular. It's not actually you will comprehend Angular inside 15 or 20 days it's most likely going to require two months in some cases significantly more. conceivable Angular being huge library, requires some investment. React being bit a more modest one so it takes less time Easy vs Tough There the following self-evident thing you should realize is one is simpler to learn and one is difficult to adapt.  I would say React is a lot simpler to learn for students. Angular is tricky. It's not actually that extreme, it simply needs somewhat more time to at long last comprehend the Angular. I have moreover seen that once people begin to cherish Angular and attempt to get a vibe with it they would truly prefer it. 😍. In the React its albeit extremely simple to adapt and you have the opportunity to learn third party things like Routing and how the Redux is works. Redux is used in the two of them, yet I would still say that React is considerably more beginner-friendly to begin. Note: Let me make my point, there are a ton of cases in possibilities where Angular is too enormous for a project if you need to develop a more modest application. If you simply need to have it like a portfolio project I wouldn't bring Angular into that. So React being a more modest library, I can compose particular code in it unquestionably, I would like to bring React for that use case. However, this doesn't mean I am saying,  " " no that is not the reality, React is as yet being utilized in a ton of a business to business applications. React is used for the more modest projects, in the event that I have a major scale banking project I would love to use Angular in that Why React? If you're a learner who has completed HTML, CSS and Basics of JavaScript and want to taste something else, I would say . In 2021, the definition of front-end developer is being limited to just HTML, CSS and JavaScript. You are expected to have a knowledge of at least one framework that is React, Vue or Angular or something like that. start with React not So as I said " " for a very reason. At the point when you begin with React you are presented with a portion of the new ideas which were not there in the front-end development particularly and and your code doesn't truly revive over and over, these are 
the ideas which you learn all the more without any problem in React. Start with React tough treatment of API, dealing with the states writing the advanced code React is I'm not saying that in light of the fact that it's more modest begin with that. I am saying it because you get acquainted with so many of the that you are exposed to such a large amount of code. One library does the routing in another does similar directing thing in so you get exposure to writing different styles when coding. You can figure out how to peruse the documentation through a variety of segments and this is useful for you as a developer. more modest. outsider libraries D manner T way React for startups? React is one of the for every one of these new startups and individuals who are attempting to fabricate another product. However you will likewise see that individuals who particularly adore Angular. All the more so because risks are high that a great deal of you who are working are presently being told that you need to move in Angular. Rather than wait for, it's better that you get a of Angular in advance so you can rapidly of the technologies speedily. top choices do MVP effectively in corporate new taste move in both ✍Wrapping Up All I'm saying that if you are a learner and hustler in life, ,  and finish it inside a little while months or three months. Perhaps after say a year a you attempt Angular too. It isn't so terrible as it gets its support from all the YouTube channels. It will definitely take time to adapt but it's worth it. start with React Resources you gotta check out for free learning resources: 200+ Free resources for Front-end Development in 2021

React vs Angular: Final Thoughts

In this article, I’ll show you how to create with Python3.7 + Serverless lambda Assets Monitor My name is Uria Franko and I’m a free-lancer developer Here is the plan Setup Serverless framework Get AWS credentials Write backend of the with python3.7 Assets Monitor Deploy backend to Lambda Schedule running Before we start In order to go through this tutorial, make sure you have: Installed Python 3.7 Installed Node.js v6.5.0 or later AWS account with admin rights (You can create one for free ) right here Step 1: Serverless framework Let’s start from the beginning. In order to easily write and deploy our lambda we will use this awesome framework called . It’s written on NodeJS so we need npm to install it. Let’s go: Serverless npm -g serverless install After this, let’s create a new project from template: serverless create --template aws-python3 --path my-assets-monitor It will create a new folder with two files: my-assets-monitor — a template for your Python code handler.py — configuration file serverless.yml Step 2: AWS Credentials This is the best part of this process, because once you’ve got credentials, you’ll never deal with AWS again. It’s super easy: Log in to your AWS Console, go to and click on “Add User” blue button. My Security Credentials > User Specify username (something like “serverless-admin”) and choose only “Programmatic access” checkbox. On the second page, choose “Attach existing policies directly” and look for “Administrator Access”. Once you created the user, copy your “Access key ID” and “Secret access key”. This is what you actually need to continue. (Tip: save them where you can find them ;) ) Congrats. You’ve got your keys. Open your terminal in and execute: serverless config credentials --provider aws --key xxxxxxxxxxxxxx --secret xxxxxxxxxxxxxx Step 3: Write Assets Monitor Code I’m not going to teach you how to write in Python, so just copy this code and paste to your `handler.py` file: json os sys concurrent.futures ThreadPoolExecutor urllib.parse urlparse

here = os.path.dirname(os.path.realpath(__file__))
sys.path.append(os.path.join(here, )) requests bs4 BeautifulSoup mailer Mailer

mailer = Mailer(os.environ[ ], os.environ[ ], os.environ[ ],)
internal_urls = set()
external_urls = set() ThreadPoolExecutor(workers) ex:
        res = ex.map(func, args) list(res) parsed = urlparse(url) bool(parsed.netloc) bool(parsed.scheme) mailer
    resp = requests.get(url) resp.status_code > :
        mailer.assets.append(url) :
        response = requests.get(url, timeout= )
        response.raise_for_status()
        soup = BeautifulSoup(response.content, ) requests.exceptions.ConnectTimeout err:
        errors = [ ]
        mailer.send_errors(errors) requests.exceptions.ConnectionError err:
        errors = [err]
        mailer.send_errors(errors) requests.exceptions.HTTPError err:
        errors = [ ]
        mailer.send_errors(errors) soup urls = set()
    url_parsed = urlparse(url)
    domain_name = url_parsed.netloc
    soup = request_url(url) soup : a_tag soup.findAll([ , , , ]):
        source = a_tag.name == a_tag.name == :
            source = href = a_tag.attrs.get(source) href == href href: parsed_href = urlparse(href) parsed_href.netloc == : href[ ] == :
                href = url_parsed.scheme + + domain_name + href :
                href = url_parsed.scheme + + domain_name + + href is_valid(href): href internal_urls: domain_name href: href external_urls:
                external_urls.add(href) urls.add(href)
        internal_urls.add(href) urls crawled_links = get_all_website_links(os.environ[ ]) crawled_links :
        response = { : , : } response
    multi_threading(check_status, crawled_links, )
    mailer.send_mail()
    response = { : ,
    } response import import import from import from import "./vendored" import from import from import 'TARGET_URL' 'SOURCE_EMAIL' 'DESTINATION_URL' : def multi_threading (func, args, workers) with as return : def is_valid (url) return and : def check_status (url) global if 399 : def request_url (url) try 5 "html.parser" except as 'Connection timed out to your target' return False except as return False except as f'Your target raised <strong> </strong> status code' {response.status_code} return False return : def get_all_website_links (url) if is False return False for in "a" "link" "img" "script" 'src' if "a" or "link" 'href' if "" or is None or '#' in continue if "" if 0 "/" "://" else "://" "/" if not continue if in continue if not in if not in continue return : def main (event, context) 'TARGET_URL' if is False "statusCode" 500 "body" "Error raised trying to get the target" return 20 "statusCode" 200 return Now create new file in the same directory and call it mailer.py, now copy this code and paste it in: boto3 os aws_access_key_id = os.environ[ ]
        aws_secret_access_key = os.environ[ ]
        self.client = boto3.client( , aws_access_key_id = aws_access_key_id,
                                   aws_secret_access_key = aws_secret_access_key,
                                   region_name = )

        self.target_email = source_email target_email :
            self.target_email = target_email
        self.base_url = base_url
        self.source_email = source_email
        self.assets = [] subject = body = link self.assets:
            body += self.send(subject, body) subject = body = err errors:
            body += self.send(subject, body) self.client.send_email(
            Source = self.source_email,
            Destination = { : [
                    self.target_email,
                ],
            },
            Message = { : { : subject, : }, : { : { : body, : }
                }
            },
            ReplyToAddresses = [
                self.source_email,
            ],
        ) import import : class Mailer : def __init__ (self, base_url, source_email, target_email = None) 'AWS_KEY' 'AWS_SECRET' 'ses' 'us-east-1' if is not None : def send_mail (self) "Assets Monitor Asset Failure" f"""
        <h2>There's a problem with one of your assets!</h2>
        <h4>Base URL: <a href= > </a></h4>
        """ {self.base_url} {self.base_url} for in f'<a href=" "><p> </p></a><br>' {link} {link} : def send_errors (self, errors) "Assets Monitor Website Failure" f"""
        <h3>There's a problem with your monitored website:</h3>
        <h4> </h4>
        """ {self.base_url} for in f"<p> </p><br>" {err} : def send (self, subject, body) 'ToAddresses' 'Subject' 'Data' 'Charset' 'UTF-8' 'Body' 'Html' 'Data' 'Charset' 'UTF-8' If you are lazy enough, just fork or clone it from my GitHub . repo Also, you will need to create requirements.txt file and write: requests
bs4 and execute this command to install it locally: pip install -r requirements -t vendored .txt Step 4: Deploy to AWS Lambda Pretty much like on Heroku, all you need is one configuration file “serverless.yml”. Go ahead and edit yours to make it look like this: service: my-asset-monitor

provider:
  name: aws
  runtime: python3 stage: dev
  region: us-east environment:
    AWS_KEY: AWS_SECRET: TARGET_URL: SOURCE_EMAIL: DESTINATION_EMAIL: functions:
  post:
    handler: handler.main
    events:
      - schedule:
          name: asset-checker-schedule
          description: rate: rate( minutes) .7 -1 "" "" "" "" "" 'Schedule asset checking every 30 minutes' 30 Notice that you need to change AWS_KEY -> Your AWS key that we created AWS_SECRET -> Your AWS key that we created TARGET_URL -> The website that you want to monitor (Ex: 'https://google.com') SOURCE_EMAIL -> Your verified email that you can get/verify here DESTINATION_URL -> The email that the notifications will be sent to You can also change the rate(30 minutes) to what ever you want... you can find the rates syntax here And the magic happens once you execute this in your terminal: serverless deploy It will pack all your files into .zip archive and upload to AWS, then it will create AWS CloudEvent to schedule and run the monitor automatically The serverless backend of your monitor is now live and running. Now if any asset or link in your website will be broken (Not found/ Server error / etc) you will get an email that's looks like that: Also if there's any error accessing your target you will get an email like that: Keep in mind At the beginning it will cost you nothing, because The AWS Lambda free usage tier includes 400,000 GB-seconds of compute time per month. But if you have any other lambda function or you multiply the monitors it can get to a point where they charge you... Our current usage is 60/30 * 60 * 24 * 30 = 86,400 calls each calls is between 1-5 seconds depends on the assets amount and a usage of 256MB So 86,400 * 3 (Average)  / 4 (GB-sec / 256MB = 3.9xxx) = 66,355 seconds of usage per month Serverless approach is very convenient in some cases because it allows you to build very scalable solution. It also change your thinking paradigm about managing and paying for servers. Serverless framework gives you very simple tool to deploy your function with no needing to know AWS or any other cloud provider. AWS gives you nice free tier period for services so you can build your MVPs totally for free, go live and start paying only if you reach a certain amount of users.

Assets Monitor as a Function

I have been working on , and it’s been a great learning experience. One of the trickiest things I have had to deal with in GraphQL is handling complex user permissions. It used to be a hassle until a friend pulled my attention to Hasura. a GraphQL workshop is an engine that connects to your databases & microservices and instantly gives you a production-ready GraphQL API. Hasura open source Permission in Its Simplest Form Assuming you have the following model… And you are asked to ensure a few things: Only a logged-in user can create a post Only admin users can delete post(s) These are doable — you will need to ensure that your GraphQL resolvers handle the logic. Here is what this function that can be called from your resolver could look like: { isAuthenticated = isAuthenticated() (!isAuthenticated) { } Post.create(post)
} ( ) function createPost post const await if // return 401 return await To ensure only admin users can delete posts, you would have to check if the role or grants or permissions of the user has an admin value: { isAuthenticated = isAuthenticated() isAdmin = isAdmin(loggedInUserId) (!isAuthenticated && !isAdmin) { } Post.delete(postId)
} { userRoles = getUserRoles(userId); userRoles.includes( )
} ( ) function deletePost postId, loggedInUserId const await const await if // return 401 return await ( ) function isAdmin userId const await return 'admin' Let’s say you shipped this example to production, and your forum or blog or even hacker news clone is live — congratulations. You come back tomorrow to realize that users are updating other users' posts — bummer. This one is not so difficult to achieve too. You will need to check the id of the logged-in user and compare it with the foreign key user_id on the post that needs to be. If they match, the user can edit, if it don’t then a 401 should be returned: { (post.user_id !== loggedInUserId) { } Post.update(post)
} ( ) function updatePost post, loggedInUserId if // return 401 return We just saw an everyday CRUD permission strategy -- these kind of authorizations are not very difficult to achieve. Where things get tricky, though, is when you start introducing unique business logic. When Permissions Gets Tricky A few weeks later, you want to encourage engagement in whatever social/collaboration project you are working on. A great way to do this is to add a like, vote, or clap feature. Adding a voting feature is not just adding one more table with the correct relationships. There are standard rules for voting that you want to account for: Only logged in users can vote Post creators CANNOT vote on the posts they created A voter can only vote once on a given post Here is what this logic might look like: { isAuthenticated = isAuthenticated() (!isAuthenticated) { } (post.user_id === loggedInUserId) { } votes = Vote.all({ : { : post.id, : loggedInUserId
    }
  }) (votes.length > ) { } Vote.create({ : post.id, : loggedInUserId
  })
} ( ) function vote post, loggedInUserId // 1. Must be logged in const await if // return 401 // 2. Disallow votes for post creators if // return 401 // 3. Disallow multiple votes per voter const await where post_id user_id if 0 // return 401 // Finally, vote return await post_id user_id See how this is getting longer as our user requirements keep compounding. There are more opportunities for bugs to slide in. To make things worse, if we keep getting requirements like this, it becomes one hell of a pain to maintain. Imagine we decide to do what Medium does and add a clapping feature. Note that clapping is different from voting because users are allowed to clap more than once but not clap forever: { claps = Clap.all({ : { : post.id, : loggedInUserId
    }
  }) (claps.length > ) { } Clap.create({ : post.id, : loggedInUserId
  })
} ( ) function clap post, loggedInUserId // 1. Must be logged in // 2. Disallow claps for post creators // 3. Disallow more than 20 claps per clapper const await where post_id user_id if 20 // return 401 // Finally, clap (again) return await post_id user_id You can boast of a working app, but tell me how you feel about managing these few years down the line when more feature requests keep coming in. All-in-one with Hasura First thing, first — delete all these resolvers. Hasura is what I like to call Backend as a Service. It handles data management, relationships, schemas, authorization/permissions, and allows you to focus on custom business logic through its extensibility features. What this means for you as a developer is that you will spend more time building user experiences on the web and less time on handling repetitive tasks like CRUD, roles, etc. To see Hasura in action and use it for complex permissions, there are few things you need to setup. I won’t go through them in this article because I won’t be doing the official docs justice: or run Hasura . Deploy locally with Docker we have in the model diagram above. Create the tables to each other using foreign keys as shown the diagram Relate the tables Here is what a User → Post relationship should look like: Using Hasura for Permission Before we see what Permissions in Hasura look like, you need to remember one thing — HTTP is stateless. So for every query or mutation you send to a Hasura backend, you need to ensure that a session variable or JWT is available. You can set up an auth server or use something like Auth0. Either option you decide to go with, there is to guide you. We are not going to set up authentication just so we can get our hands on a session variable or JWT. We can mock these and use them for testing the API you have set up. a good doc on both It’s also good to know that Hasura permissions allow you to define access on both rows and columns. For example: User A should only edit user A’s post (row rule) User A cannot change the create-on date (column rule) So far, here are all the permission rules we had from the beginning of this article: Only a logged-in user can create a post Only admin users can delete post(s) Only logged in users can vote Post creators CANNOT vote on the posts they created A voter can only vote once on a given post 1. Only a logged-in user can create a post This one is dead-simple — we need to tell Hasura that before it tries to write/create a post, it should check for a session variable that has the user id to ensure that a user is authenticated. Authentication is useless if all your data is open to the public. So the first thing you should do before creating authentication and rules is to make your . Hasura API private Reload your localhost, and you should be asked to provide the secret you used in making Hasura private: To create permission, click on the Data menu in the navbar, then chose the table from the left that you want to add permissions to. Since we want to make sure only logged in users can create posts, we should be choosing the post table. Click on the Permissions tab and follow the screenshot below to create insert permission: We don’t need a custom check on the user for now. All we care about is whether a user is logged in before we can allow an insert. We don’t care which user it is. We have just defined row permissions, but we also need to set what columns the user can insert values in. We don’t want users editing the or the foreign key, . id user_id Save the permissions and create a user from the GraphQL menu. We need this user’s Id to create posts. Set the header to which is the only permission we have so far except for the admin. Notice that once you set this value, the operations you can run will be limited down to just mutation: x-hasura-role user insert_post 2. Only admin users can delete post(s) Deleting is as simple as just updating to : x-hasura-role admin 3. Only logged in users can vote The permission is just like what we had for creating posts: Inserting vote will now be available as an operation as long as the is set to : x-hasura-role user 4. Post creators CANNOT vote on the posts they created This permission will look slightly different. We have to update the userrole we created in the previous step, which allows any user to vote. We need to update it to use a custom check that ensures that the user_id column on the post table is not equal to the header value. is the authenticated . X-Hasura-User-Id X-Hasura-User-Id user For post table properties to be available in a vote permissions rule, you need to make sure that the relationship does NOT only stop at just . You also need to add an as well. adding Foreign keys object relationship Save the permissions and try to vote as the user that created the post: mutation MyMutation {
  insert {
    affected_rows
  }
} _vote( : { : 1, : 1}) objects post_id user_id You will get a permission error, but when you try as a different logged-in user, you will be able to vote: (Remember to add a user with a user id value of 2) 5. A voter can only vote once on a given post To make sure we don’t allow users to vote more than once on a particular post, we need to be able to count how many votes they have so far on that given post. We have two options: Use to write custom validation logic. With this custom logic, you can query and count. Event Triggers Use a Postgres View that aggregates rows based on the count of votes. You can then add a manual relationship to this view and use it to create permissions. I usually go with option 2 because the less code I have to write, the less chances I have to introduce bugs to my project. Start with creating a View. Go to the menu and click on . Paste the following SQL to create a View: Data SQL . (vote.id) ,
    vote.user_id,
    vote.post_id vote vote.user_id, vote.post_id; CREATE OR REPLACE VIEW "public" "vote_count" AS SELECT count AS count FROM GROUP BY Here is a screenshot to guide you: You should see that this adds a new Table (View) on the list of tables, called : vote_count To ensure it works, run the following GraphQL query twice: mutation MyMutation {
  insert {
    affected_rows
  }
} _vote( : { : 2, : 1}) objects user_id post_id Just like it appears here: Now you tale a look at the table you should see we have 2 votes tied to the same user and the same post: vote But where it gets interesting is when you take a look at the View: vote_count Now let’s add a relationship on the table to point to the view. Since Views are technically not Tables, we have to use a manual relationship on Hasura. A manual relationship tells Hasura to treat these entities as related even though they are not both tables. vote vote_count To create a manual relationship, head to the table, choose the relationship tab, and click . Next, fill out the form with the following value: vote configure With this view setup, you can use it to determine whether it’s ok for someone to vote by ensuring they haven’t voted yet. Since we already have the first permission rule that checks if the post does not belong to the user, we have to use an operator to add multiple rules. This operator is , which behaves like and operators in programming languages. _and The operator, as seen in box 1 is an array. Every item in this array has to resolve to true before permission can be granted. This makes sense because we want the following to be true before a user can vote: _and The user trying to vote did not create the post (implemented) Users can only vote once The second rule is what we will implement in the field highlighted in box 2. Before we do that, we need to discuss the possible cases: A user can vote if the count field in the view is less than 1. A user can vote if the user was never in the view. This might seem like we are saying the same thing, but we aren’t. If you are familiar with JavaScript, it’s like a variable having a value of vs . Case 1 is value 0; case 2 is value undefined. If you only account for 1, you would have an unhandled edge case, which will lead to a bug. We need to make sure that if any of these cases occur, the user should be able to vote. 0 undefined This is a classic or operator use-case in programming languages. We can use this operator in Hasura as well: Here is a complete breakdown of what is happening here: An and operator checks: That the voter is not the owner of the post That the operator resolves to true or The or operator checks either of these and if any is true would resolve to true: The user’s vote count is less than 1 (so 0) Or that the row is empty (_not) With this setup, clear the vote table and try voting as a different user from the one that created the post using the GraphQL query window. Notice the voting goes through the first time. Now try it again, and you will get a permission error. You just implemented some powerful permission strategies in GraphQL without a single line of code. I am not surprised; it’s 2020! This is just a tip of the iceberg on what you can do with permissions using Hasura. You can take a look at on what is possible. You can also explore scenario. the docs this Github-scale permissions Previously published at https://dev.to/codebeast/handling-complex-user-permissions-in-graphql-538p

How To Handle Complex User Permissions in GraphQL

Building a 21st century star chart using a Raspberry Pi and Amazon Dash Buttons The world is full of tech evangelists who think that is our route to salvation. Faced with any problem, they think all you need to do is rub a bit of tech on and pow, the problem disappears. I am not one of those people, but I like to think I’m on the way to helping my son behave better at school, and it’s all thanks to a Raspberry Pi, a couple of and some I wrote at work. technology Amazon dash buttons software My son’s school has a behaviour and reward system of points. Achievement points are rewarded for good work, and behaviour points are issued when they misbehave. This is all logged on a terrible proprietary system built by Capita. Since he started school last year, I decided to build a screen scraper to monitor this system. It would then email me and my wife if there had been any issues that day, and log the points in my own install of , a system I helped build at work for tracking and visualising metrics. I then could visualise the points on a dashboard, saving me the pain of having to log into the hateful school system every day (You can see ). Bothan the code on Github here This worked reasonably well, and churned away in the background for the whole my son’s first year of school (and probably saved me a whole bunch of time). When my son reached Year One however, I realised that we were going to need something else. In his first few weeks of school, he’d racked up 29 behaviour points, not for any sort of major naughtiness, just low level cheekiness and messing around, y’know, the sort of stuff that five year olds do. Whether or not I agreed with what the school was doing, I knew I needed to help him get better at school. My wife and I therefore decided we were going to set up our own behaviour and achievement points system at home — if he has a bad day at school, he gets a behaviour point (unlike the FIVE points the school give him for ever misdemeanour), if he has a good day, he gets two reward points (my son responds MUCH better to the carrot than the stick). We’d also give him points for his general behaviour at home. If he gets a certain amount of reward points by the end of November (his birthday), he can have a big birthday party with all his friends. The problem then became, how can we log these points in a way that’s engaging for him? We’d tried star charts before, and they were fine for a few weeks, but then the novelty wore off, the charts got tatty and he ended up disengaging from the whole process. Luckily, Amazon dash buttons have just been released in the UK, and I was itching for an excuse to do something with them. I ordered two buttons, together with a Raspberry Pi 3, and set to work. Whenever I set out on a project of this nature, I always reach for the language I feel comfortable with, and that’s Ruby. After installing a modern version of Ruby on my Pi, I installed , and followed the instructions to set it up. However, no matter what I did, I couldn’t get it to work. After some furious googling, I found that the firmware in Dash buttons had changed, and the protocol had switched from ARP to UDP. I also found a that was much better supported, and came with great documentation, so decided to use that instead. the Dashed gem Node Library After installing Node and the node-dash-button library, as well as libpcap (which is required to sniff network traffic) on my Pi ( ), the next thing I needed to do was to set up my Dash buttons. I opened the Amazon app, and in settings, there’s a link to set up your dash buttons. This gets your buttons connected to the web via your WiFi network, and allows you to choose what product you want to order every time the button is pressed. instructions here I skipped that last step, and followed the instructions to sniff my network to get the MAC addresses of my buttons, by running `node_modules/node-dash-button/bin/findbutton` on my Pi. I pressed each button in turn and got the MAC addresses of the buttons without any trouble at all. Then came my favourite part, writing code. The first thing I did was to catch each button press and log to the console, to check everything was working: var dash_button = require('node-dash-button');var bad_button = '' // The MAC address for the good button goes herevar good_button = '' // The MAC address for the bad button goes here var dash = dash_button([bad_button, good_button], null, null, 'all'); dash.on("detected", function (dash_id){if (dash_id === bad_button){console.log("Naughty!")} else if (dash_id === good_button){console.log("Good!");}}); I saved this (as index.js), and ran the code from the command line via `sudo node index.js` (you need sudo, as libpcap requires administrator priviliges), and to my astonishment, it worked! I did have a problem that every time I pressed the button I got a nagging push notification on my phone from the Amazon app, telling me to finish setting up my button, but luckily you can turn this off in the Amazon app settings. The next step was to log these button presses somewhere. I mentioned earlier about . I was already logging the school’s points in there, so it made sense to store the points from home there too. Bothan Bothan started out as a simple API for the Open Data Institute to log financial and other metrics, we then built on visualisation components (so you can see the data as a graph, pie chart, simple number or target graph), and finally a dashboard building tool. Anyone can deploy their own version of Bothan, and metrics are added via a simple REST API. It was this REST API that I needed to leverage to log the points, so, armed with the library, I set to work and wrote a method to get the current score for a behaviour or merit point, add one, and then push the latest data to Bothan: request var bothan_url = '' // The URL of your Bothan installvar bothan_username = '' // The URL of your Bothan installvar bothan_password = '' // The URL of your Bothan install var postPoint = function(metric) {var bothanURL = bothan_urlvar metricURL = bothanURL + '/metrics/' + metric + '.json'var date = new Date() request(metricURL, function(error, response, body) {json = JSON.parse(body)value = (json == null) ? 0 : json.value request.post(metricURL, {  
  auth: {  
    user: bothan\_username,  
    pass: bothan\_password  
  },  
  json: {  
    time: date.toISOString(),  
    value: value + 1  
  }  
}) })} (I realise it’s a faff to get the latest metric and add one (as well as an extra HTTP request), so one of the improvements I’d like to make to Bothan is to add an /append API method to just add one to a given metric) With this method, it was just a case of calling the method with the metric name to log either a behaviour or merit point to Bothan, like so: dash.on("detected", function (dash_id) {if (dash_id === bad_button){console.log("Naughty!")postPoint('home-behaviour-points')} else if (dash_id === good_button){console.log("Good!");postPoint('home-acheivement-points')}}); I then added a package.json file with the dependencies, together with a script definition, so the code could be run vianpm start, and then looked at how I could automatically run this on my Pi on boot. I’ve done this before in other projects (like Vending Machine art piece, which me and a colleague rengineered after the original laptop powering it broke down), and used init.d scripts, but this seemed like overkill. This time, I just added the following command to /etc/rc.local to make the script chug away happily in the background: Ellie Harrison’s cd /home/pi/quantified-boy && npm start & (The final & is important here, as it forks the process, otherwise the Pi would just run this script and never boot properly) I rebooted, tested and it worked. The final piece of the puzzle was displaying the metrics, so I could see at a glance how my son was doing, and crucially, so he could get instant feedback after he pressed the button. I used Bothan’s dashboarding feature to (linking to a demo one here), and added the following to the~/.config/lxsession/LXDE-pi/autostart file to open the dashboard URL in Chromium in kiosk mode, and stop the Pi from going to sleep, so I could see the dashboard at any time: build a dashboard @xset s off@xset -dpms@xset s noblank@chromium-browser --kiosk --incognito http://demo.bothan.io/dashboards/bothan I then rebooted the Pi, and after the boot completed I saw my dashboard. Finally, I invested £27 in a , and set the whole lot up in the kitchen: 5 inch screen from Amazon A week or so has passed, and my son loves engaging with the button (I say ‘button’, because he never wants to press the behaviour point button for some reason). He loves the instant gratification of seeing his points go up, and it’s a great way of getting him to engage beyond the normal star chart. The final code is available , and you can install your own free instance of Bothan via . You can use this code to measure anything. The only limit, as they say, is your imaaaaaaaagination! on Github here bothan.io

Quantified Boy

This article presents two tools with AV1 support and some techical details behind that format and its support in ffmpeg. I’m happy to announce that my two WebM converters, (command-line) and (graphical) now support encoding to the new AV1 video format, starting with versions 0.12.0 and 0.5.0 accordingly. Both of them work on all three major platforms (Windows, macOS, Linux) and cover typical usecases of encoding videos on demand. webm.py boram AV1 In case you still haven’t heard about it, AV1 is a royalty-free modern video coding format which aims to provide better quality than alternative, patent encumbered H.265 (HEVC). It was made by a collaboration of large IT companies such as Google, Mozilla and Netflix called and first stable release was made in March of this year. AOMedia You can read about technologies used in AV1 in , some test comparisions with competitive solutions are available . this paper here The compression efficiency and planned hardware support of AV1 looks fantastic, it should be really beneficial to add to any modern converter. So I went ahead and implement support in my tools right away, even while it’s still a bleeding edge technology. Tools The first tool, webm.py is written in Python and provides simple wrapper around ffmpeg with useful defaults. For example you don’t have to deal with running commands twice for 2-pass encoding or calculating bitrate by hand if you want to reach specific target file size. webm.py will do that for you. Another nice thing about webm.py is that it works in both Python 2 and 3 (Python 2 is often the only Python installed on computer even today), doesn’t have any dependencies except ffmpeg executable in and contained in single source file. So it’s easy to just drop that file on any machine you want and start using right away. PATH However, if you have pip available, by running pip install webm you will have latest stable version installed along with handy command. (Make sure to check option in Python for Windows installer.) webm Add to PATH webm.py provides command-line interface so it’s mostly useful for batch encodes or usage on server. However it also has interactive mode for cut and crop using scriptable mpv player. To encode AV1 video simply run webm -i in.mkv -av1 webm.py It will use 2-pass mode with default quality. To see all available options run webm --help Note that you need ffmpeg from git compiled with AV1 support in your to make it work. Additionally few patches are required (more on that later), so I recommend you to grab ffmpeg binaries from on Windows and macOS (they are located in subdirectory of unpacked archive) and build from sources on Linux. PATH boram releases resources/app The second tool, boram provides user-friendly graphical interface for encoding and supports basic editing options such as scale, crop, deinterlacing and so on. It wraps ffmpeg as well and written in JavaScript using Electron framework. In case if you’re interested, take a look at component for Electron which allows boram to open any video format, not limited to the ones supported in Chrome. mpv.js Download latest release for your platform , unpack and run. Interface and controls should be self-explanatory, just make sure to select AV1 codec at codecs tab. here boram Player support WebM formats are traditionally targeting the Web platform, so what browsers can play it? According to website, AV1 is supported in latest Firefox Nightly behind a flag, and in Chrome 69+ out of the box. Unfortunately not in Edge and Safari yet. Not much, but good enough to play with it in the wild. caniuse media.av1.enabled Among desktop players at least VLC and support videos in AV1 format. mpv builds for Windows FFmpeg patches As said earlier, converters wrap ffmpeg executable, because it’s such a powerful framework for video processing and encoding. However, support for AV1 in ffmpeg right now is a bit lacking, due to novelty of that format. So I had to write few patches for it. The first one is to leverage encoding parallelism. The reference encoder of AV1 is called and thing to note is that it’s substantially based on libvpx code, the reference encoder for VP8 and VP9 formats. libvpx currently provides two mechanisms of multithread encoding for VP9: and . libaom -tile-columns -row-mt basically divides your video into independent coding units — tiles — and process them on different cores simultaneously to utilize multicore CPU. -tile-columns tile-columns schematic ffmpeg doesn’t support for AV1 yet but the patch is trivial: -tile-columns diff --git a/libavcodec/libaomenc.c b/libavcodec/libaomenc.cindex 9431179886..55cb7ff72e 100644--- a/libavcodec/libaomenc.c+++ b/libavcodec/libaomenc.c@@ -68,6 +68,8 @@ typedef struct AOMEncoderContext {int static_thresh;int drop_threshold;int noise_sensitivity;+    int tile_columns;+    int tile_rows;} AOMContext; static const char *const ctlidstr[] = {@@ -75,6 +77,8 @@ static const char *const ctlidstr[] = {[AOME_SET_CQ_LEVEL]         = "AOME_SET_CQ_LEVEL",[AOME_SET_ENABLEAUTOALTREF] = "AOME_SET_ENABLEAUTOALTREF",[AOME_SET_STATIC_THRESHOLD] = "AOME_SET_STATIC_THRESHOLD",+    [AV1E_SET_TILE_COLUMNS]     = "AV1E_SET_TILE_COLUMNS",+    [AV1E_SET_TILE_ROWS]        = "AV1E_SET_TILE_ROWS",[AV1E_SET_COLOR_RANGE]      = "AV1E_SET_COLOR_RANGE",[AV1E_SET_COLOR_PRIMARIES]  = "AV1E_SET_COLOR_PRIMARIES",[AV1E_SET_MATRIX_COEFFICIENTS] = "AV1E_SET_MATRIX_COEFFICIENTS",@@ -449,6 +453,11 @@ static av_cold int aom_init(AVCodecContext *avctx,if (ctx->crf >= 0)codecctl_int(avctx, AOME_SET_CQ_LEVEL,          ctx->crf); +    if (ctx->tile_columns >= 0)+        codecctl_int(avctx, AV1E_SET_TILE_COLUMNS, ctx->tile_columns);+    if (ctx->tile_rows >= 0)+        codecctl_int(avctx, AV1E_SET_TILE_ROWS, ctx->tile_rows);+codecctl_int(avctx, AV1E_SET_COLOR_PRIMARIES, avctx->color_primaries);codecctl_int(avctx, AV1E_SET_MATRIX_COEFFICIENTS, avctx->colorspace);codecctl_int(avctx, AV1E_SET_TRANSFER_CHARACTERISTICS, avctx->color_trc);@@ -746,6 +755,8 @@ static const AVOption options[] = {{ "static-thresh",    "A change threshold on blocks below which they will be skipped by the encoder", OFFSET(static_thresh), AV_OPT_TYPE_INT, { .i64 = 0 }, 0, INT_MAX, VE },{ "drop-threshold",   "Frame drop threshold", offsetof(AOMContext, drop_threshold), AV_OPT_TYPE_INT, {.i64 = 0 }, INT_MIN, INT_MAX, VE },{ "noise-sensitivity", "Noise sensitivity", OFFSET(noise_sensitivity), AV_OPT_TYPE_INT, {.i64 = 0 }, 0, 4, VE},+    { "tile-columns", "Number of tile columns to use, log2", OFFSET(tile_columns), AV_OPT_TYPE_INT, {.i64 = -1}, -1, 6, VE},+    { "tile-rows", "Number of tile rows to use, log2", OFFSET(tile_rows), AV_OPT_TYPE_INT, {.i64 = -1}, -1, 6, VE},{ NULL }}; This also adds option which can be used to parallelize even more thanks to configurable prediction dependency between tile rows in AV1. Recent to libaom enables that feature. -tile-rows patch In libvpx VP9 we have option to enable using a block row based threading approach. It was to libaom few days ago as well, but currenly does nothing interesting, basically aliases the . -row-mt multi-threading within a single column tile added -tile-columns Second patch is required to enable AV1 support in WebM files. It’s also very simple: diff --git a/libavformat/matroskaenc.c b/libavformat/matroskaenc.cindex 09a62e1922..76cb124221 100644--- a/libavformat/matroskaenc.c+++ b/libavformat/matroskaenc.c@@ -1296,11 +1296,12 @@ static int mkv_write_track(AVFormatContext *s, MatroskaMuxContext *mkv, if (mkv->mode == MODE\_WEBM && !(par->codec\_id == AV\_CODEC\_ID\_VP8 ||  
                                 par->codec\_id == AV\_CODEC\_ID\_VP9 || +                                    par->codec_id == AV_CODEC_ID_AV1 ||par->codec_id == AV_CODEC_ID_OPUS ||par->codec_id == AV_CODEC_ID_VORBIS ||par->codec_id == AV_CODEC_ID_WEBVTT)) {av_log(s, AV_LOG_ERROR,-               "Only VP8 or VP9 video and Vorbis or Opus audio and WebVTT subtitles are supported for WebM.\n");+               "Only VP8 or VP9 or AV1 video and Vorbis or Opus audio and WebVTT subtitles are supported for WebM.\n");return AVERROR(EINVAL);} Support for AV1 in WebM is a bit postponted because libaom’s WebM muxer isn’t updated to the latest spec yet, see for details. But FFmpeg already does the right thing so there should be nothing wrong with WebM videos it produces. this bug You can also use to store your AV1 video in (pass option to ffmpeg for that). It already works in latest Chrome and Firefox Nightly. Matroska container (almost the same as WebM but this more features, can be enabled with ) on other hand only works in Chrome and won’t work Firefox due to limitations of its demuxer. MP4 container -f mp4 -f matroska I send both patches to ffmpeg-devel mailing list but they haven’t been accepted yet. However Windows and macOS releases of boram include ffmpeg binaries with that patches already applied so everything will work out of the box. If you would like to build ffmpeg by yourself see the next section. FFmpeg build I compile custom builds of ffmpeg for my tools because it gives me control over that encoders and features are included. It also helps to greatly reduce the download size of releases. On Windows I use awesome script which supports compilation of ffmpeg and a lot of other tools from sources. Just follow the instructions in readme and installation wizard. media-autobuild_suite To apply patches mentioned above add the following code to file right after line: build/media-suite_compile.sh if do_vcs ["https://git.ffmpeg.org/ffmpeg.git](https://git.ffmpeg.org/ffmpeg.git)"; then do_patch " " amdo_patch " " am https://gist.github.com/Kagami/8d42f7b9d6c3d7e87a6da40b0fee10dc/raw/5f6cc9391e2796d2b2056cb15f90394cd8c7bcee/0001-lavc-libaomenc-Add-tile-columns-tile-rows.patch https://gist.github.com/Kagami/8d42f7b9d6c3d7e87a6da40b0fee10dc/raw/5f6cc9391e2796d2b2056cb15f90394cd8c7bcee/0002-lavf-matroska-Allow-AV1-in-WebM.patch On macOS does pretty much all the work, just put and to directory and run Homebrew libaom.rb ffmpeg.rb /usr/local/Homebrew/Library/Taps/homebrew/homebrew-core/Formula brew install ffmpeg --HEAD --with-libvpx --with-libaom --with-opus --with-libvorbis --with-libass On Linux follow any up to date instruction for your distribution you will find such as . Make sure to run this one wget git am 0001-lavc-libaomenc-Add-tile-columns-tile-rows.patchwget git am 0002-lavf-matroska-Allow-AV1-in-WebM.patch https://gist.github.com/Kagami/8d42f7b9d6c3d7e87a6da40b0fee10dc/raw/5f6cc9391e2796d2b2056cb15f90394cd8c7bcee/0001-lavc-libaomenc-Add-tile-columns-tile-rows.patch https://gist.github.com/Kagami/8d42f7b9d6c3d7e87a6da40b0fee10dc/raw/5f6cc9391e2796d2b2056cb15f90394cd8c7bcee/0002-lavf-matroska-Allow-AV1-in-WebM.patch inside the directory with ffmpeg sources to apply patches. rav1e There is alternative encoder for AV1 exists, called and written in Rust. It’s in early experimental stage and yet so can’t be embedded into ffmpeg. rav1e doesn’t provide C API Why can’t we use rav1e from the command-line though? Why do we need ffmpeg? (Same goes for aomenc CLI utility, a part of libaom.) That’s entirely because ffmpeg is so powerful so you can pass it any video file as input, encode video, audio, subtitles to any combination of formats and containers, filter (scale, deinterlace, change framerate, etc) them in between and do all this with a single line of shell. On the other hand, rav1e and aomenc accept a very limited number of formats (such as raw uncompressed video in container) with no audio or filtering possible at all. Your typical input video would have H.264 video in a MP4 container so in order to pass it to rav1e you need to decompress to separate file or decode on the fly and pass via stdin, which is awkward and messy process. That’s why encoding via ffmpeg is a preferred way. YUV4MPEG2 Also, right now rav1e is focused on speed so most useful for testing purposes. Things are evolving quickly though, so let’s hope we will have great alternative encoder for AV1 in near future. Future ideas While you can already produce fully functional AV1 encodes, there are several things which are going to be improved and worth to keep an eye on. One of them is that aomenc command provides much more encoder options than ffmpeg’s interface for libaom. This can potentially provides better compression of resulting files or faster encodes. Hopefully ffmpeg will eventually catch up and implement at least most important of them. Secondly, right now libaom is very slow so either encodes are very time-consuming or compromise the compression effeciency. For example webm.py and boram both use speed parameter while being the default. libaom should eventually become much faster, the same thing happened with libvpx VP9 encoder which was terribly slow back in 2013. In worst case we still have rav1e as a plan B. -cpu-used 4 -cpu-used 1 Thirdly, there are in libaom’s build config, not enabled by default. It might be interesting to try them, to achieve better compression. few interesting options

Encoding AV1

How to run image detection in ARKit and animate changes of the virtual content heading and position based on it In this tutorial, I will show you how to use image recognition in ARKit, place virtual content on top of a recognized image and work with scale. Also, you will learn how to animate changes of the heading and position based on the image’s transform smoothly. Apple’s ARKit 1.5 release brought a lot of exciting features to the iOS augmented reality ecosystem. While vertical planes detection, higher resolution, and autofocus all seem like deepening already existing functionality, API provides us with a tool to use a detected real-world image as an anchor for a virtual content or a trigger for some actions. image recognition In many cases, AR content should be aligned with the real-world image or object in order to look natural and fine looking to the user. One of the best practice is placing virtual content on top of the static images. images are preferable not only because you can prepare the user’s environment by adding more light, removing obstacles, etc. but also because they don’t move. AR poster can be perhaps the most common use case. In fact, Apple used poster as an example in their doc. Static Recognizing Images in an AR AR Poster by post.print However, sometimes it is required that real-world anchor’s position is , so virtual content needs to follow the position changes. dynamic Imagine a tabletop game where virtual characters are glued to the cards with their images. game Lightseekers Because a user can move the recognized image, AR avatar should follow real-world object’s position changes. Implementing such functionality can be tricky and is not provided by ARKit out of the box. You can use that was added in ARKit 2.0, but in this case, you will lose the possibility to track planes. So how can we add the support for dynamic image tracking and with plane detection? image tracking Let’s build an app that can handle it. Requirements We will build an image recognition application, which means that we need a device with iOS version 11.3 or higher. Other requirements are basic for any ARKit app. To start, you will need the following: device ARKit compatible iOS 11.3 xCode 9.3 Once you have those, you are ready to go. Project setup Download the . It is based on the xCode’s Augmented Reality App template. The project contains pdf of the anchor image that we are going to detect on the scene and an plane model that we are going to place on top of the detected image. starter project AN-225 “Mriya” I had also added plane’s image to a special container inside of folder — AR Resource Group. Asset.xcasset Creation of AR Resource group in Asset.xcasset folder AR Reference Image settings window Each AR asset image needs to have the physical size set as accurately as possible because ARKit relies on this information to determine how far the image is from the camera. Finally, when we have it all set up, we can start the coding. Coding time In code, we will need to achieve the following goals: Enable image recognition of the image that we added. Place a model on top of the recognized image. Animate the model movement to match image change of coordinates. Image recognition To get image recognition working, we need to load and add AR reference images as detection images to . ARSessionConfiguration Modify function as following: viewWillAppear() Apple handles image recognition from this moment, so we don’t need to worry about it. Now the system will try to find images loaded from the folder. After it finds any, it will add or update a corresponding that represents the detected image’s position and orientation. Pretty useful, huh? AR Resources ARImageAnchor The next step is to place an object on top of the freshly found anchor. Model placement and transformation After the image is found and the anchor is added to the scene, we can load and place the model on top of it. Model placement logic can be implemented in function which gets called whenever is found for the first time. renderer(_ renderer: SCNSceneRenderer, didAdd node: SCNNode, for anchor: ARAnchor) ARAnchor Let’s break down what will be done down in the next code snippet: Load the model from the resource file. Calculate the model’s physical size. Calculate the difference between model and image sizes Transform the model to match the heading and scale of the real world image. Place the model on the scene with appearance animation. We will use to get the image’s coordinates and heading. imageAnchor.transform To make the virtual object appear the same size as the detected image, we will need the ratio of the difference between the real image’s and the model’s sizes. Difference ratio is then used in the node’s transform to properly scale the virtual object. For its calculation, we will get the image’s physical size from the and the model’s size from the property. imageAnchor.referenceImage boundingBox Now run the app and test the code that has been added so far. However, you might notice that the position of the model is not getting updated when the image is moved around. Right now it hovers over the point where the image was first detected. Great!🎉 Animating position The easiest way to make a plane follow the detected image position is by adding a plane node as a child to an image node. However, because the image node’s transform is not updated smoothly, it will result in on-screen teleportation whenever the image changes its position or orientation To animate the motion, we need to have a path for an object to follow.The ARKit provides only freshly detected image’s position. Therefore, if we want an object to move and not to teleport, we have to calculate the path between the current position of an object and the current position of an image anchor. To solve this problem, we can use . It will allow us to acquire missing coordinates just by having the object’s start position, final object position, and average moving speed. linear interpolation Because the animation is done on a per-frame basis and we only got initial/final values, we will also need to calculate what portion of path object had passed already. To do it, let’s store animation start time and animation duration. Later we can use these values (duration and start time) together with a frame timestamp to understand what animation part we are at and properly interpolate through the start and finish matrices values. Let’s create a struct that will hold all the needed data. We will also need an instance of it to work with, so create an property in the . animationInfo ViewController.swift Because we are working with vector(position) and quaternion(rotation) data types, math operations with them can take some extra time. Here is where comes to rescue. This module of the framework allows computations on small vectors and matrices to be done efficiently, and thus to increase execution speed dramatically. has its position and rotation properties represented in a data format comparable with simd — those are and ; simd also provides functions for interpolation that we will be using later. simd Accelerate SCNNode simdPosition simdOrientation Now when the data container is prepared, we can implement the animation.For movement animation, we will use the interpolation between the initial and the final states to recalculate and set new transformation for the model each frame. Initial and final states are stored in property that we just added. animationInfo In short, we will need to do the following: Unwrap the , create new if it’s animationInfo nil Track if image current position or orientation changed, update if needed animationInfo Calculate what portion of time passed since animation was started Transform the model based on the initial/final values and passed time All the animation logic will be placed in func. This function is a part of delegate and gets called each time updates the frame. renderer(_ renderer: SCNSceneRenderer, updateAtTime time: TimeInterval) sceneView sceneView What should be done is clear, let’s implement it in code. To achieve smoother movement, apply the curve function to the interpolation parameter: t = sin(t * .pi * 0.5) This results in ease out animation curve. Check “Beyond Lerp” part of for more hints about timing functions for lerp animations. this article That’s it, we had just built an image recognition app in no time! Epilogue In this tutorial, we built an image recognition app that can position, scale, and move content correctly together with real world image. We made computations more efficient by using simd API with SCNNode. This has a lot of real-world applications, from various posters and tabletop games to AR-enabled fashion app that would place fancy 3D animations on top of a brand logo. I hope you had fun building the app, if you have any questions or suggestions, please write it in the comments below. You can download the final project from the . GitHub

ARKit Tutorial: Image recognition and virtual content transform

Reliability and decentralization are among the most important advantages of cryptocurrencies and crypto assets. Such freedom of action provides an opportunity to reduce the cost of using crypto by increasing the speed of transfers. However, when can freedom turn into arbitrariness? The case of the FTX exchange and cost traders and investors millions of dollars, highlighting the significant weakness of the regulatory framework in the industry. its sudden bankruptcy Although experts and participants have long pointed out these imperfections, regulatory institutions have continued to delay decisions. Solutions should appear soon, as most of the world's attention is focused on the problem. However, certain questions remain relevant. How do we implement effective regulation of the crypto industry without harming its development? Increase in the Level of Transparency in Asset Use Transparency of financial reporting has long been an essential part of the modern business industry. The concept of "transparency" refers to the publication of quarterly and annual reports, including financial results with in-depth descriptions. At the same time, annual financial statements are being audited by independent companies. Auditors provide a conclusion on the correctness of the specified data and the quality of internal control over the company's financial reporting process. This approach significantly increases the level of trust in published data on the part of shareholders and investors. In addition, the process of review of reporting by government regulators is greatly facilitated through standardization. Are these methods appropriate for the crypto industry? Undoubtedly, the practice of publishing financial statements will significantly increase the level of transparency for cryptocurrency exchanges and platforms. How exactly can this process be implemented? The individuals can rely on the experience of stock exchanges working as public companies with shares placed on their platforms. The public status of stock exchanges implies publishing financial statements with auditors' conclusions in accordance with current legislation. Thus, such exchanges as and provide the highest level of transparency by choosing public status. NYSE NASDAQ An in-depth analysis shows that cryptocurrency exchanges lag behind stock exchanges regarding transparency. The case of the recent bankruptcy of FTX reveals significant gaps in financial reporting. It is necessary to say that FTX has had a mind-boggling in cash at the moment of bankruptcy. For example, neither FTX nor Alameda Research, affiliated with , had departments. Such gaps cause potentially fraudulent actions, bankruptcies, and financial losses for investors. $1.4 billion Sam Bankman-Fried financial reporting Strengthening Control Over the Largest Participants The choice of public status by stock exchanges was entirely voluntary. Certain crypto exchanges operate as private companies with one or more owners, even now. In addition, these platforms are registered in offshore zones, complicating their regulation process. The relatively young status of the industry, the desire to avoid additional costs, and the preservation of full control over management decisions led to the emergence of this situation. At the current stage of the industry's development, publicity has not yet been generally accepted by contradicting the norms of transparency. It requires a more advanced level of control. Public status involves the placement of shares on the stock exchange and an increase in the number of holders. The owners perceive their ability to influence the company's management as a potential threat. Furthermore, the preparation of public financial statements, as well as their audit, requires additional costs, providing mostly intangible benefits. The ability to recognize these advantages remains underestimated by owners of crypto exchanges. Many small platforms cannot afford getting public statuses with all related obligations. Despite the above caveats, the crypto industry needs regulation. The negative case of FTX and its owner showed the painful consequences of insufficient regulation. In addition to significant losses of investors’ funds, the bankruptcy of one of the industry leaders significantly undermined confidence in crypto exchanges, cryptocurrencies, and crypto assets. Such well-known corporations as . became victims of FTX’s bankruptcy as the exchange’s creditors. Mistrust has long-term problems, especially for industries and companies in the development stage. Goldman Sachs Group Inc., JPMorgan Chase & Co. andWells Fargo & Co It is important to emphasize that the crypto industry is not unique regarding major crises. One can recall the bankruptcy of the company and the termination of Arthur Andersen whih was among the top five auditing companies in 2001. Likewise, the bankruptcy of one of the largest US banks, , in 2008 catalyzed the global economic crisis. Both bankruptcies led to the introduction of new regulatory instruments, namely the Sarbanes-Oxley Act in 2002 and the Dodd-Frank Act in 2010, respectively. Enron Lehman Brothers Therefore, it is reasonable to expect that the bankruptcy of FTX will lead to increased regulatory control. The has had irreversible consequences for the industry in 2023. The recent bankruptcy of is one more confirmation of the need for urgent changes. “crypto winter” Celsius Implementation of Requirements for Crypto Exchanges Even at this stage, it is not clear what the regulatory framework for crypto exchanges will look like. Individual approaches to the issue in different countries complicate the process of control at the global level. The company's registration in the Bahamas, with its limited regulatory control and ability to oversee financial services companies, was one of the reasons for FTX's bankruptcy. This situation made it possible for the owner of FTX to conduct risky operations with signs of fraud. Strengthening regulatory requirements for crypto exchanges is set to become a real solution to the problem. The first step should imply the creation of a registry of licenses recognized in all countries of the world, allowing transactions with cryptocurrencies. Thus, crypto exchanges can obtain licenses like the Malta VFA Class 4 License. Such a license confirms the sufficient level of security of the exchange for its clients. At the same time, it is necessary to limit the possibility of using exchange clients' funds in high-risk transactions. Control of such a restriction can take place in the form of periodic inspections of the stock exchanges for the use of funds. These steps will help restore and increase the level of trust in crypto exchanges and prevent large-scale bankruptcies, as happened in the case of FTX.

The Case for Immediate Crypto Industry Regulation: Why Postponing Is Not an Option

The State of The Market — February 14, 2019 : $3,611.84 (-0.52%) : $121.70 (-0.93%) : $0.302635 (-0.38%) BTC ETH XRP The market is in negative today, as Bitcoin is testing its support at $3,600. It is not a strong support yet, and if bears have it their way, Bitcoin could once again crash to $3,400 over the weekend when the volumes are low. The total market cap lost $1 Billion in the last 24 hours, and all of the top 10 cryptocurrencies have posted small losses. The market is following Bitcoin’s price movement right now and Bitcoin dominance remains unchanged. In other news, . The function adds a new attack vector to the platform and allows a smart contract to be created at an address that can be determined beforehand by different parties. The new function is designed to allow interaction with a smart contract that does not yet exist on the blockchain and it would be included in EIP-1014. Also, . Hyundai Pay has developed a blockchain platform and a cryptocurrency wallet. The partnership is to promote the growth of fintech startups and jobs in Busan. Hyundai Pay will relocate its headquarters to Busan and build the needed infrastructure. Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has suggested that a new smart contract function called “Create2” be integrated into the upcoming Constantinople upgrade Busan, South Korea’s second-most populated city after Seoul has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with blockchain company Hyundai Pay According to Intel, the blockchain suite is designed for businesses desiring to launch their own blockchain fast and effectively. The platform will allow users to develop blockchain-based applications and it uses Xeon processors along with other Intel hardware. Intel says the suite includes all the necessary components to launch a hyperledger-driven blockchain and Intel says that the package is “enterprise-ready”. ( ) 1) Market materials from Intel show that the company has launched a commercial blockchain package based on Hyperledger’s ecosystem. Read More XBT launched the world’s first Bitcoin tracker, Bitcoin Tracker One in 2015 and subsequently launched Bitcoin exchange-traded note (ETN). XBT said it needs more knowledge about hard forks and different communities before listing coins. XBT’s CEO Laurent Kssis said, “If we get it wrong, these assets will drop and if they’re part of the basket we can’t go back because it’s in the final term-sheet.” XBT wants the crypto market to settle and give further clarity before revisiting its plans. For now, it has been shelved without a launch date. ( ) 2) Sweden’s XBT Provider has canceled the launch of its cryptocurrency basket due to volatility. Read More The company is hoping to improve trust, transparency, patient safety, and patient improvement in clinical trials using blockchain. Currently, clinical trial processes and records are often erroneous or incomplete. Boehringer will test the integrity of blockchain in this sector with IBM. Early last year, Pfizer, Amgen and Sanofi were considering blockchain for developing and testing new drugs and another pharma firm Merck filed a patent to use blockchain in manufacturing medicines. Also, the Indian government plans on using blockchain to prevent counterfeit drugs. ( ) 3) German pharmaceutical multinational Boehringer Ingelheim has announced that it is set to trial IBM Blockchain in clinical trials. Read More Subscribe to the Berminal Brief Newsletter Download Berminal App for Free The Berminal Website Berminal Official Telegram Berminal Twitter

Intel Launches A Commercial Blockchain Suite, And XBT Postpones The Launch Of Its Crypto Basket

The State of the Market: Yesterday the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) released a statement announcing the postponement of the VanEck Solid-X Bitcoin ETF decision as they “required more input” on how the product will address concerns of manipulation, liquidity and other issues. The SEC made their announcement six days early and it appears that the postponement was already priced in as the cryptocurrency market unexpectedly rallied after the announcement. In other news, XRP continues to lead the market forward and yesterday the altcoin surpassed Ethereum in market capitalization. Currently the cryptocurrency market capitalization stands at $226 billion. The gains recorded across the entire crypto markets have shocked many who expected the prices to tumble following the recent announcement from SEC. The markets have already gained over $15 Billion to hit $217.7 Billion. The American financial watchdog has announced that it would not be making a ruling on the previously filed CBOE sponsored Bitcoin ETF on the previously scheduled date. The crypto enthusiasts have reportedly switched their attention to the upcoming launch of Bakkt. The platform aims at pushing for mainstream adoption of cryptocurrencies. The firm is already working to address the regulatory concerns. ( ) Read More. Ripple and XRP have been making headlines recently, thanks to the developments the firm has undertaken. These developments have seen XRP price skyrocket to new levels. The major development is the upcoming launch of xRapid, an innovative platform which aims at enabling banks to make remittances. Data shows that the global remittances industry has hit $600 billion. The firm’s global payments network, RippleNet, has already been adopted in over 40 countries, recording inflows of over $2 billion. ( ) Read More. The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) reportedly announced yesterday that it had begun its proceedings to decide whether to disapprove or approve a proposed bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF). The SEC published an “order instituting proceedings to determine whether to approve or disapprove a proposed rule change” filed by Cboe BZX Exchange, Inc. If approved, Cboe would have the green light to list a bitcoin ETF pitched earlier this year by money management firm VanEck and crypto startup SolidX. Moreover, as part of the process, SEC wants more input from the public, according to the agency, more than 1,400 comments have already been submitted. ( ) Read More. Subscribe to the Berminal Brief Newsletter Download Berminal for Free The Berminal Website Berminal Official Telegram Berminal Twitter

The Cryptocurrency Market Shrugs at the SEC Bitcoin ETF Postponement as XRP Leads the Market with a…

Do I have an issue with the iPad or is it the other way around? It’s been a few years since Steve Jobs talked about the post PC era. But my 2011-circa iMac is still chugging along as I type. However apps have been learning to do more things, and demanding more processing power to do those things, and my old Mac is having difficulty keeping up with them. The thing is I like my iMac. Its classic minimalist design looks, enhanced by the wireless trackpad and keypad, is every bit as contemporary as the day I got it. And I still get a thrill out of just turning it on, and seeing the world through its 21 inch screen. It’s not too small like an iPad, nor too big like a TV, but just the right size for relaxed reading, writing and watching videos. Unfortunately, it’s also a bit like one of those well preserved 70 year olds, whose age shows when asked to sprint. For instance, opening the latest versions of even an Apple app like Pages can involve a wait of close to one minute. If the Mac happens to be turned off when I need it suddenly, like say to answer a Skype conference call, it could mean a wait of five minutes for the people on the other end of the call, which can be interminable in today’s world of instant gratification. So I’ve been thinking of retiring the old guy lately, and replacing it with the latest iMac. That would come with goodies like fusion drive for quick starts, and the latest bluetooth for easy handover of docs I’m working on to my other Apple devices, and more. But all this comes at a hefty price. My problem is my iPad 3 is also having age-related issues. It’s slowed down to such a significant extent that I had to reset it, erase all apps, and reload with just a few basic apps. So the question I have been asking myself is instead of buying two devices, why not instead replace both with the latest iPad that is due any time now. On mulling this over, I realised that would means compromises on many fronts, and I’m not sure it’s worth it. Take the screen size. I can still have the same size by mirroring it, but it’s not the same. An app working on the iPad screen is optimised for it, and it may appear in low resolution on the Mac making for a poor user experience. Desktop versions of apps also tend to have more features. To illustrate, I’m currently working on Medium in my Mac’s browser, and it certainly is more flexible and has several more features than my iPad’s Medium app. Precision is another issue. I’m not a designer but I do touch up images once in a while. That kind of precise work is a lot easier on my Mac than with my finger on the iPad. My brother recently got the iPad Pro with the iPencil, but it has some way to go before it gets on the same level as the Mac. Though I’m willing to concede that may be because I’m not too familiar with the iPencil. Then there’s connectivity. I can stick a USB into the Mac and transfer almost anything. Or connect to my backup disks, and access old files. It’s possible on an iPad too, but it involves jumping through a lot of hoops. Finding stuff on the Mac is also much easier via the finder, while I have never been able to quite figure out how and where the iPad files away stuff. That way, Android and Windows tablets are far easier to use, but going outside the Apple ecosystem has its own issues. Even health wise, I think the Mac is better than the iPad, especially for long hours of use. My Mac’s screen is set at eye level, two feet or more from my face, which makes it less of a strain on my eyes and my back. I also suspect the distance reduces the effect of the light emitted by the screen on my eyes. The iPad does have its positives. The touchscreen, for one. I’m not too sure how useful that is on a desktop. We have a Windows touchscreen laptop whose vertical screen means your hand dangling is in the air while using the touchscreen, which is tiring. There’s the iPad’s portability, but that comes with the negative of having to remember to charge it. There are also a lot more apps for iPads, but again most of the apps on my Mac, do a bit more. All said and done, I think I will hang on to my old iPad for another year, but get myself a new iMac sometime this year. This should effectively postpone the post PC era for another five years for me. By then, the iPad should have got around its drawbacks, and be ready to take me into that fabled post PC era. On the other hand, maybe it’s the iPad who has an issue with me instead of the other way around. Jobs did give an analogy of people preferring trucks in the agrarian era, and switching to cars as the world went urban. Maybe I’m just a digital dinosaur pottering along the information highway in my old jalopy, and feeling a bit bewildered by the post-PC Ferraris zooming by.

Postponing the post PC era by five years

Paramount/Skydance: The Birth of a New Hollywood Mogul?

Teaching High School Students Software Engineering: Project Implementation

Supreme Court Justice Barrett's Opinion on Trump v United States

Blockchain Lawyer Irina Heaver recently tweeted that the Central Bank of UAE has banned crypto payments in the country. Although there os no clear regulation for payments for goods and services in cryptocurrencies in the UAE, dollar-pegged stablecoins are actively used there. In this article, I’ve tried to discover the present and future of stablecoin regulation in the UAE and worldwide. What happened in the UAE? On the 3rd of June, the Central Bank of UAE held a meeting where they discussed, among other things, a new rulebook dedicated to stablecoins. The meeting agenda was dedicated to UAE's Financial Infrastructure Transformation (FIT) program, including the future issuance of CBDCs and the development of the Emirates' digital economy.  A short overview of the meeting was published here. In the beginning crypto community took this event quite positively—like the UAE will officially allow crypto payments in local stablecoins backed by AED. However, it looks like the situation is different and payments in other stablecoin (like USDT, USDC) for goods and services will be banned. In the published Rulebook on “Payment Token Services Regulation”by UAE’s CB is stated that “No Merchant or other Person in the UAE selling goods or services… may accept a Virtual Asset towards payment for that sale unless that Virtual Asset is a Dirham Payment Token issued by a Licensed Payment Token Issuer being used as a Means of Payment”. At the same time, the Central Bank's ruling should be perceived in the context of the UAE's already existing legislation. Another local crypto regulator in UAE - VARA, has published a rulebook dedicated to virtual assets issuance in October 2023. In the document VARA has presented a new legal concept of “Fiat-Referenced Virtual Assets (“FRVAs”). Based on the rulebook VARA (and not CB UAE) is the regulator for all FRVAs except stablecoins backed by AED. What does this mean for Crypto in the UAE? By the way, these two facts only mean that there is a legal gap between the positions of the two UAE regulators in the field of crypto payments.  Indeed, the Central Bank of UAE is supposed to be the country's supreme regulator and VARA only has power only in Dubai. However, as long as the regulators do not clarify, we should not panic. Last but not least, the Central Bank doesn't regulate settlements inside the Dubai International Financial Center (DIFC). However, the free zones have a significant impact on international trade and settlements between legal entities in Dubai.  Based on this, there is a fairly high probability that at least for free zones there will be an option to carry provide payments in stablecoins pegged to foreign currencies. Great Numbers Need compliance: a short overview of stablecoin regulations. I already had provided an overview of global stablecoin regulation updates and it was published on Hackernoon. In short, more strict regulations on stablecoins are becoming an international standard. FATF, Financial Stability Board, IMF, and other organizations repeat this over and over again in their documents. Naturally, large jurisdictions like Dubai need to match this. The licensing framework for stablecoin issuers already exists in Japan, Singapore, the EU, and two popular offshores - Bermuda and the Bahamas. The United Kingdom and Hong Kong are planning to adopt the same rules. Draft legislation in the form of the Payments Stablecoin Act also exists in the USA since last summer. However, it’s not implemented yet. Perhaps the adoption of this law is postponed during the pre-election period. In general, the regulatory approach in most jurisdictions is similar - it establishes rules for stablecoins’ payments in terms of AML and compliance. In particular, stablecoin issuers must be licensed and provide complete information about their operations. Requirements for reserves are also specified. There is also a trend to limit payments in foreign stablecoins. At least European exchanges have already announced restrictions on settlements in USDT since Tether has no plans to obtain a license in the EU. However, the USDC issuer Circle still remains available for European customers, and it plans to continue its activities in the eurozone under MICA. The volume of crypto payments in the world is growing at a rapid pace.  Already, in 2022, annual settlements in USDT exceeded $18.2 trillion, while VISA had $7.7 trillion, and Mastercard had $14.1 trillion. Based on the image below, Visa and Mastercard account for 26% of the world's card payments market together. In addition, data shows that the volume of SWIFT transactions for 2022 amounted to much more—$150 trillion. In general, we can give a rough estimate - that Tether (the largest stablecoin) has become one of the important and large international payment systems. That's why regulators' attention, from the AML point of view, is growing toward stablecoins. In addition, central banks are worried that dollar-denominated stablecoins may displace local currencies. Conclusion By the way, more and more countries are formally banning crypto payments - for example, according to my information, they are banned in Georgia and Thailand. So far, too little time has passed since the publication of CB UAE's rulebook. And it is not very clear how it will be implemented in practice. In addition, CB UAE allows the purchase of virtual assets using foreign stablecoins. So, even if crypto payments are formally banned in Dubai, merchants can provide settlements through brokers and exchanges licensed in the country. It’s possible for payment providers to provide auto-convert functionality for foreign stablecoins. This may include the ability to pay using a crypto balance or top up a crypto card with a dollar-pegged stablecoin and then pay with this balance for goods and services. If you are interested in getting more crypto regulation insights, you can watch the global crypto regulation rating here and get updates on my Telegram channel. Blockchain Lawyer Irina Heaver recently tweeted that the Central Bank of UAE has banned crypto payments in the country. Although there os no clear regulation for payments for goods and services in cryptocurrencies in the UAE, dollar-pegged stablecoins are actively used there. In this article, I’ve tried to discover the present and future of stablecoin regulation in the UAE and worldwide. tweeted What happened in the UAE? What happened in the UAE? On the 3rd of June, the Central Bank of UAE held a meeting where they discussed, among other things, a new rulebook dedicated to stablecoins. The meeting agenda was dedicated to UAE's Financial Infrastructure Transformation (FIT) program, including the future issuance of CBDCs and the development of the Emirates' digital economy.  A short overview of the meeting was published here . here In the beginning crypto community took this event quite positively—like the UAE will officially allow crypto payments in local stablecoins backed by AED. However, it looks like the situation is different and payments in other stablecoin (like USDT, USDC) for goods and services will be banned. In the published Rulebook on “Payment Token Services Regulation”by UAE’s CB is stated that “No Merchant or other Person in the UAE selling goods or services… may accept a Virtual Asset towards payment for that sale unless that Virtual Asset is a Dirham Payment Token issued by a Licensed Payment Token Issuer being used as a Means of Payment”. Rulebook At the same time, the Central Bank's ruling should be perceived in the context of the UAE's already existing legislation. Another local crypto regulator in UAE - VARA, has published a rulebook dedicated to virtual assets issuance in October 2023. In the document VARA has presented a new legal concept of “Fiat-Referenced Virtual Assets (“FRVAs”). Based on the rulebook VARA (and not CB UAE) is the regulator for all FRVAs except stablecoins backed by AED. rulebook What does this mean for Crypto in the UAE? What does this mean for Crypto in the UAE? By the way, these two facts only mean that there is a legal gap between the positions of the two UAE regulators in the field of crypto payments.  Indeed, the Central Bank of UAE is supposed to be the country's supreme regulator and VARA only has power only in Dubai. However, as long as the regulators do not clarify, we should not panic. Last but not least, the Central Bank doesn't regulate settlements inside the Dubai International Financial Center (DIFC). However, the free zones have a significant impact on international trade and settlements between legal entities in Dubai.  Based on this, there is a fairly high probability that at least for free zones there will be an option to carry provide payments in stablecoins pegged to foreign currencies. Great Numbers Need compliance: a short overview of stablecoin regulations. Great Numbers Need compliance: a short overview of stablecoin regulations. I already had provided an overview of global stablecoin regulation updates and it was published on Hackernoon . In short, more strict regulations on stablecoins are becoming an international standard. FATF, Financial Stability Board, IMF, and other organizations Hackernoon repeat this over and over again in their documents. Naturally, large jurisdictions like Dubai need to match this. The licensing framework for stablecoin issuers already exists in Japan, Singapore, the EU, and two popular offshores - Bermuda and the Bahamas. The United Kingdom and Hong Kong are planning to adopt the same rules. Draft legislation in the form of the Payments Stablecoin Act also exists in the USA since last summer. However, it’s not implemented yet. Perhaps the adoption of this law is postponed during the pre-election period. Payments Stablecoin Act Payments Stablecoin Act In general, the regulatory approach in most jurisdictions is similar - it establishes rules for stablecoins’ payments in terms of AML and compliance. In particular, stablecoin issuers must be licensed and provide complete information about their operations. Requirements for reserves are also specified. There is also a trend to limit payments in foreign stablecoins. At least European exchanges have already announced restrictions on settlements in USDT since Tether has no plans to obtain a license in the EU. However, the USDC issuer Circle still remains available for European customers, and it plans to continue its activities in the eurozone under MICA. The volume of crypto payments in the world is growing at a rapid pace.  Already, in 2022, annual settlements in USDT exceeded $18.2 trillion, while VISA had $7.7 trillion, and Mastercard had $14.1 trillion. Based on the image below, Visa and Mastercard account for 26% of the world's card payments market together. In addition, data shows that the volume of SWIFT transactions for 2022 amounted to much more—$150 trillion. In general, we can give a rough estimate - that Tether (the largest stablecoin) has become one of the important and large international payment systems. That's why regulators' attention, from the AML point of view, is growing toward stablecoins. In addition, central banks are worried that dollar-denominated stablecoins may displace local currencies. Conclusion Conclusion By the way, more and more countries are formally banning crypto payments - for example, according to my information, they are banned in Georgia and Thailand. So far, too little time has passed since the publication of CB UAE's rulebook. And it is not very clear how it will be implemented in practice. In addition, CB UAE allows the purchase of virtual assets using foreign stablecoins. So, even if crypto payments are formally banned in Dubai, merchants can provide settlements through brokers and exchanges licensed in the country. It’s possible for payment providers to provide auto-convert functionality for foreign stablecoins. This may include the ability to pay using a crypto balance or top up a crypto card with a dollar-pegged stablecoin and then pay with this balance for goods and services. If you are interested in getting more crypto regulation insights, you can watch the global crypto regulation rating here and get updates on my Telegram channel . here Telegram channel

Does The UAE Ban Crypto Payments?

React is a popular JavaScript library for building user interfaces. It’s known for its efficiency and focus on creating reusable UI components. One of the key features in React is the introduction of hooks which are function that hooks into the React state. One of those hooks is the useTransition hook. This hook allows the state change to happen without blocking the interface which results in a smooth experience. Understanding useTransition hook Let’s look at the following example to understand the useTransition hook better: import {useState} from "react"

const App = () => {
  const [post, setPost] = useState(undefined)

  const fetchData = async () => {
    await fetch("https://jsonplaceholder.org/posts/1")
      .then((result) => result.json())
      .then((result) => setPost(result))
  }

  return(
    <div>
      {post !== undefined && (
      <div className="post-card">
        <h2>{post?.title}</h2>
        <image src={post?.image} />
        <p>{post?.content}</p>
      </div>
      )}
      <button onClick={fetchData}>
        Get post
      </button>
    </div>
  )
}

export default App; When the user clicks the button, the UI may freeze during the fetch task depending on the internet speed or the complexity of the task executed inside the fetchData function. This can result in a poor user experience. Additionally, there's a risk of users spamming the button, potentially causing abuse of your application. These issues can easily be fixed using the useTransition hook. We can update the previous code to something like this: import {useState, useTransition} from "react"
import {ImSpinner2} from "react-icons/im"

const App = () => {
  const [pending, startTransition] = useTransition()
  const [post, setPost] = useState({})

  const fetchData = () => {
    startTransition( async () => {
      await fetch("https://jsonplaceholder.org/posts/1")
        .then((result) => result.json())
        .then((result) => setPost(result))
    })
  }

  return(
    <div>
      {post !== undefined && (
      <div className="post-card">
        <h2>{post.title}</h2>
        <image src={post.image} />
        <p>{post.content}</p>
      </div>
      )}
      <button
        disabled={pending} 
        onClick={fetchData}>
        {pending ? <ImSpinner2 className="animate-spin" /> : "Get post" }
      </button>
    </div>
  )
}

export default App; The invoked useTransition hook returns two values:  pending, which is true if the task is being executed, and a startTransition function, which contains the task that may be interrupted by more urgent tasks. In the example above, we wrap the fetch request inside an asynchronous arrow function within the startTransition function. We then modify the button to include a disabled attribute linked to pending, and change the label to show a spinner when the task is pending and "Get Post" when the task is not pending. This results in a smooth user experience, better performance, and protects your application from user misbehavior. Conclusion The useTransition hook is a game-changer for building high-performing React applications with smooth user experience. It ensures that the UI remains responsive during potentially slow operations and prevents UI freeze which enhances the overall user experience. React is a popular JavaScript library for building user interfaces. It’s known for its efficiency and focus on creating reusable UI components. One of the key features in React is the introduction of hooks which are function that hooks into the React state. One of those hooks is the useTransition hook. This hook allows the state change to happen without blocking the interface which results in a smooth experience. React useTransition Understanding useTransition hook Let’s look at the following example to understand the useTransition hook better: useTransition import {useState} from "react"

const App = () => {
  const [post, setPost] = useState(undefined)

  const fetchData = async () => {
    await fetch("https://jsonplaceholder.org/posts/1")
      .then((result) => result.json())
      .then((result) => setPost(result))
  }

  return(
    <div>
      {post !== undefined && (
      <div className="post-card">
        <h2>{post?.title}</h2>
        <image src={post?.image} />
        <p>{post?.content}</p>
      </div>
      )}
      <button onClick={fetchData}>
        Get post
      </button>
    </div>
  )
}

export default App; import {useState} from "react"

const App = () => {
  const [post, setPost] = useState(undefined)

  const fetchData = async () => {
    await fetch("https://jsonplaceholder.org/posts/1")
      .then((result) => result.json())
      .then((result) => setPost(result))
  }

  return(
    <div>
      {post !== undefined && (
      <div className="post-card">
        <h2>{post?.title}</h2>
        <image src={post?.image} />
        <p>{post?.content}</p>
      </div>
      )}
      <button onClick={fetchData}>
        Get post
      </button>
    </div>
  )
}

export default App; When the user clicks the button, the UI may freeze during the fetch task depending on the internet speed or the complexity of the task executed inside the fetchData function. This can result in a poor user experience. Additionally, there's a risk of users spamming the button, potentially causing abuse of your application. These issues can easily be fixed using the useTransition hook. useTransition We can update the previous code to something like this: We can update the previous code to something like this: import {useState, useTransition} from "react"
import {ImSpinner2} from "react-icons/im"

const App = () => {
  const [pending, startTransition] = useTransition()
  const [post, setPost] = useState({})

  const fetchData = () => {
    startTransition( async () => {
      await fetch("https://jsonplaceholder.org/posts/1")
        .then((result) => result.json())
        .then((result) => setPost(result))
    })
  }

  return(
    <div>
      {post !== undefined && (
      <div className="post-card">
        <h2>{post.title}</h2>
        <image src={post.image} />
        <p>{post.content}</p>
      </div>
      )}
      <button
        disabled={pending} 
        onClick={fetchData}>
        {pending ? <ImSpinner2 className="animate-spin" /> : "Get post" }
      </button>
    </div>
  )
}

export default App; import {useState, useTransition} from "react"
import {ImSpinner2} from "react-icons/im"

const App = () => {
  const [pending, startTransition] = useTransition()
  const [post, setPost] = useState({})

  const fetchData = () => {
    startTransition( async () => {
      await fetch("https://jsonplaceholder.org/posts/1")
        .then((result) => result.json())
        .then((result) => setPost(result))
    })
  }

  return(
    <div>
      {post !== undefined && (
      <div className="post-card">
        <h2>{post.title}</h2>
        <image src={post.image} />
        <p>{post.content}</p>
      </div>
      )}
      <button
        disabled={pending} 
        onClick={fetchData}>
        {pending ? <ImSpinner2 className="animate-spin" /> : "Get post" }
      </button>
    </div>
  )
}

export default App; The invoked useTransition hook returns two values: pending , which is true if the task is being executed, and a startTransition function, which contains the task that may be interrupted by more urgent tasks. pending startTransition In the example above, we wrap the fetch request inside an asynchronous arrow function within the startTransition function. startTransition We then modify the button to include a disabled attribute linked to pending , and change the label to show a spinner when the task is pending and "Get Post" when the task is not pending. disabled pending This results in a smooth user experience, better performance, and protects your application from user misbehavior. Conclusion The useTransition hook is a game-changer for building high-performing React applications with smooth user experience. It ensures that the UI remains responsive during potentially slow operations and prevents UI freeze which enhances the overall user experience. useTransition

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