The lines between digital, mobile, technology and apps are blurring in today’s world. We at Robosoft are keen followers of developments in this arena. Here’s a quick summary of what’s buzzing:
WWDC 2016
Apple held WWDC, its annual developer conference last week. The opening event was packed with a lot of announcements centred around watchOS, macOS, tvOS and iOS 10. Each of the four operating systems are platforms in their own right now, which developers can advantage of. What’s more, the integration between these platforms and their interaction with multiple devices – from watches to phones to iOT was brought to life. Siri, for example is now baked into phones, watches, tablets, laptops, and TVs. Apple has opened up many of their apps and services to allow us developers to hook in. These include extensions to Siri, Messages App, Maps, HomeKit and Keyboard suggestions. There is a lot for developers to cheer about and take advantage of in the coming months. The 2016 WWDC was in a way an assurance that Apple is busy at finding new opportunities for developers to showcase their creativity, talent and make a business out of it.
AI and privacy
In the next wave of computing, artificial intelligence (AI) is expected to play a big role. For AI to succeed it was believed that access to user data is a must. At the WWDC, Apple talked about a method called “differential privacy,” a method to anonymise user data when it needs to analyse in the cloud combined with its own data to train the algorithms. In other words much of the machine learning will be on the user’s own device.
Microsoft, LinkedIn and Wand
The news of two big acquisitions from Microsoft created a lot of buzz in the mobile world last week. Microsoft will acquire LinkedIn in a transaction valued at $26.2 billion and they also bought Wand Labs, a startup that develops messaging apps. The former is seen as a move to strengthen Microsoft’s equity in the professional workspace while the latter is a strategy to build “conversation as a platform”.
