Karen’s Weekly Technology Hits Review
From financial decisions to time travel and finding love, then crops, and magic spectacles.
We have a mixed bag of life and technology wonders for you this week!
Dr. Preeti Singh uses an excellent story to explain how a person might feel about making a financial decision. I think she captures the emotion perfectly.
Every organization has different kinds of work assigned to people. Does a data-driven organization have to understand different situations such as what happened? Why did it happen? What is likely to happen and what should be done about it?
I couldn’t resist another piece by Aldric Chen. His experience with technology and his storytelling talent both make for a great read.
My first day at work was a string of shocks. I was at the Office of Human Resources to collect my lanyard and employee identification card. That was the first table upon entry. Then, I moved to the next table to collect my laptop. Then, I moved to the next table to be briefed on the client location. The exit was after that last table.
Vinicius Monteiro’s article caught my attention with his subtitle. His story takes us back to the early days of coding when the use of the Internet was very different compared to today! I enjoyed the way he wove his personal story into the technology.
Imagine this: the analysts are located in another state. They do all the design beforehand — I mean, ALL of it: Classes, methods and its arguments, variable names, the business logic — everything is beautifully represented with UML diagrams (Unified Modeling Language: do you remember?). The design is sent to the coders located in another place with less tax and cheaper cost of living, which translates to smaller salaries. A lot of them are interns and programming for the first time — after all, it’s just about interpreting the diagrams and writing the program.
Douglas Pilarski is new to Technology Hits but not to writing! He’s helped me to look at the use of chemicals in a different light. As long as a pesticide doesn’t kill off vital pollinators they might be considered acceptable in my book.
The organic boom is still going. Organics are labor-intensive and expensive. The proper use of pesticides and herbicides lets farmers grow more and use less land.
Some novel uses for augmented reality glasses are imagined by AJ Krow. The idea of bringing sci-fi into the living room intrigues me. I also wouldn’t mind having pages of words read to me as long as it doesn’t sound like a Dalek is reading them.
Apple has yet to release or announce any sort of smart or augmented reality glasses, yet many rumors have been circling about its potential release. When Apple announced AR Kit, a software development kit for developers to create augmented reality applications for iPhone and iPad, many video game and furniture apps took the opportunity to use AR Kit as a means of bringing virtual items to real life. Furniture apps project their products into the user’s living room, and video games like Pokémon Go became immensely popular.
Thanks for reading.
If you’d like to see all previous reviews you can find them in this one handy (pun intentional) list.
