The Future of AI: Ethical Considerations for Responsible Development and Deployment

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Artificial Intelligence (AI) is reshaping the world at breakneck speed. While its potential to solve complex problems and automate tedious tasks is undeniable. The ethical implications can’t be ignored. Opaque algorithms and privacy concerns are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the challenging questions that loom over AI.

As leaders, we must learn to answer these questions and be aware of the ethical challenges that face this innovation. We must collaborate across fields and sectors, ensuring transparency, accountability, and fairness in AI development and deployment.

Today we will tackle issues like data misuse, job displacement, and AI ethics frameworks. Let’s not just drive AI forward, let’s steer it toward a more equitable and ethical future together.

Data Misuse

Data is the fuel that drives AI’s engine. Data is shaping AI’s decisions and influencing its outcomes. If you’re fueling it with premium you’ll be great! But contaminated fuel corrupts your engine, causing it to lack power and performance – eventually leading to engine failure. Data Misuse poses a critical challenge to ethical AI for this reason.

Imagine a corrupted AI, trained by biased datasets perpetuating discrimination. Or AI fueled by stolen personal information, infringing on people’s privacy. The consequences can be extremely harmful to AI and to our users.

So how can we, as leaders, become champions of ethical data practices? One way is fostering Data Transparency. Demystify your data collection and usage for your users. Ensure you communicate what data is collected, how it’s used, and exactly who has access to it. Also, incorporate clear opt-in/opt-out options that give users control over their data. This builds trust and reassures your users.

Data transparency is just one way of becoming a champion of ethical data use. Leaders can always prioritise data security, promote ethical data culture, and address data bias. With transparency establishing a foundation of trust, let’s now explore the potential impact of AI on the workforce, specifically, the concern of job displacement.

Job Displacement

The automation of time-consuming tasks powered by AI shows significant gains in efficiency and productivity. The real neat thing about AI is that it never needs a break to complete these tasks. It’s always there, ready to work. However this progress comes with a trade off. Job displacement. As AI takes over repetitive and routine tasks, some jobs become obsolete, leading to unemployment for many employees and economic disruption. This change doesn’t just hurt the real people behind the job titles and their families, but could hurt the world as a whole.

This raises a massive ethical dilema. Business leaders must grapple with the responsibility of ensuring the security of their workers who may be impacted by automation. Reskilling and upskilling initiatives are key in minimising the negative impacts of AI automation being integrated into your workforce.

Reskilling and upskilling initiatives, such as training programs in data science or cybersecurity, equip individuals with the in-demand skills needed to remain competitive and adapt to new opportunities. The World Economic Forum estimates that by 2025, half of all employees will need reskilling due to automation, highlighting the urgency of investing in these initiatives. By providing individuals with the tools to navigate the changing landscape, we can ensure a smoother transition into the AI-driven future of work.

AI Ethics Frameworks

In light of the ethical challenges associated with AI, numerous bodies and organisations have adopted AI ethics frameworks. These are sets of rules and standards meant to direct the proper creation, application, and usage of AI.

The OECD’s AI Principles provide a comprehensive framework for responsible AI development and deployment. These principles emphasise human-centred values. They also advocate for fairness, transparency, accountability, robustness, safety, and societal benefit, guiding the creation of AI systems that are unbiased, understandable, answerable, reliable, secure, and ultimately, contribute positively to society.

These frameworks offer valuable guidance for organisations working with AI, but they remain dynamic and evolving. The field of AI ethics is constantly exploring new challenges and potential solutions, requiring continuous dialogue and adaptation.

By actively engaging with AI ethics frameworks and incorporating their principles into our practices, business leaders can contribute to a future where AI serves as a force for good, benefitting both employees and society as a whole.

Responsibly shaping AI’s future is our collective responsibility. Let’s build a world where this innovation serves as a force for good, driving progress towards a more ethical and equitable society.

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Tech Terms Glossary: Essential Concepts for Visionary Leaders

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In the ever-evolving realm of software development, visionary leaders like Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, and Mark Zuckerberg have always been ahead of the curve, embracing pivotal terms and concepts that drive progress. Whether you’re a CEO, Founder, HR Executive, or Entrepreneur seeking to deepen your understanding, this digestible guide is for you. Our curated list covers the top 20 foundational concepts and advanced innovations in software development.

This blog exemplifies how we at NetEngine (your local face-to-face development house) seek to bring your digital vision to life. With a team comprised of front and back-end developers, a UI/UX designer, and a solutions architect, let’s plug into the future of tech leadership and innovation together.

Foundational Terms:

Minimum Viable Product (MVP)

Essence: Launching with the bare essentials to test and refine based on real user feedback.
Illustration: Launching a social networking app with just profile creation and messaging to gauge engagement and iterate rapidly.

Iterative Development

Essence: Evolving through rapid cycles of creation, feedback, and improvement.
Illustration: Developing a software in short sprints, allowing for frequent reassessment and adaptation to user needs and market dynamics.

Design Thinking (UI/UX)

Essence: Crafting solutions with a deep focus on user needs and experiences.
Illustration: Designing an e-commerce site where ease of navigation and aesthetic appeal lead to an engaging and seamless shopping experience.

API Integration

Essence: Seamlessly connecting different software components and services.
Illustration: Embedding a third-party payment system into an app to provide secure and diverse payment options.

Cloud Innovation

Essence: Leveraging cloud technologies for scalability and agility.
Illustration: Utilizing cloud platforms for deploying applications that automatically scale during peak traffic times.

Data-Driven Decision Making

Essence: Using insights from data analytics to guide strategic decisions.
Illustration: Analysing user interaction data to enhance feature sets or remove bottlenecks in an application.

Flexible Project Management

Essence: Adapting project plans in response to new insights and changes.
Illustration: Shifting priorities in a project based on user feedback or emerging tech trends without derailing timelines.

Engaging User Onboarding

Essence: Intuitively guiding users to effectively utilise new products.
Illustration: Interactive walkthroughs in a mobile app that educate users about key features through engagement rather than instruction.

Innovative Growth Strategies

Essence: Utilising creative and often unconventional methods to fuel rapid growth.
Illustration: Implementing a gamified referral system that rewards users for bringing in new users, creating a viral growth effect.

Minimum Lovable Product (MLP)

Essence: Building products that resonate emotionally with users.
Illustration: Incorporating unique, delightful features that turn first-time users into passionate advocates.

Advanced Terms:

Microservices Architecture

Essence: Developing applications as a suite of small, independent services.
Illustration: A video streaming service where components like user profiles, content catalog, and recommendations are independently scalable and maintainable.

DevOps Culture

Essence: Unifying software development and operations to enhance agility and reliability.
Illustration: Continuous integration and deployment pipelines that ensure rapid, reliable software releases.

Continuous Innovation (CI/CD)

Essence: Maintaining a steady flow of updates and improvements through automation.
Illustration: Automated testing and deployment workflows that enable frequent and hassle-free updates to applications.

Artificial Intelligence & Machine Learning

Essence: Embedding intelligent algorithms to enhance user experiences and efficiency.
Illustration: A customer service chatbot that learns from interactions to provide more accurate and helpful responses over time.

Big Data Insights

Essence: Harnessing vast datasets to uncover trends and inform strategies.
Illustration: Analyzing large-scale user data to predict market trends and inform product development directions.

Blockchain for Trust

Essence: Enhancing security and transparency with decentralised record-keeping.
Illustration: A decentralised app (dApp) for secure, transparent voting in organisational decisions.

Precision Targeting

Essence: Crafting personalised experiences for distinct user segments.
Illustration: Tailoring app interfaces and content based on user preferences and behaviors, enhancing relevance and engagement.

Achieving Product-Market Fit

Essence: Fine-tuning offerings to meet the exact needs of the target market.
Illustration: Iteratively refining a health app to align perfectly with the lifestyle and goals of fitness enthusiasts.

Leveraging Network Effects

Essence: Maximising value as the user base expands.
Illustration: A messaging app that becomes more indispensable to its users as more of their contacts join.

Bonus Insight:

Scrum Methodology

Essence: Agile framework for managing complex projects, emphasising flexibility and team collaboration.

Illustration: Using sprint cycles for a development team to tackle high-priority features first, ensuring rapid delivery and frequent reassessment.

Embracing these concepts will not only deepen your understanding of the technological landscape but also position you as a leader capable of driving meaningful innovation. Stay ahead of the curve, and lead your teams to new heights of success in the ever-changing world of technology. Stay tuned for more insights from NetEngine as we continue to empower Tech Leaders with the knowledge to thrive in the world of work-tech.

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3 Things to look for in your development partner in 2024

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Introduction:

Embarking on the journey to build a digital project in 2024 is an exciting venture, but you need to know what to look for in a developer. First things first, if you haven’t already, read our blog on ‘what you should consider before you start developing’. In that blog post, we explain the importance of market research, understanding your unique selling proposition, and what different developers can do.

Now that you have the groundwork you can get into the really fun stuff, finding a developer to bring your project to life. In this blog we’ll go over three things you should look for in your development partner – if they don’t have all three of these, keep looking!

Research: Tailoring solutions to your vision

Before diving into the development process, take a moment to find a partner that truly understands your unique needs. Whether you’re a startup with innovative ideas or an established corporate entity with a vision for growth, the emphasis is on finding a collaborator that aligns with your goals. Assess the fit between your vision and their capabilities, setting the foundation for a successful partnership that revolves around your aspirations.

If you’re looking for a local development partner you can meet face-to-face, NetEngine is a fantastic choice. We’re an Australian based team who value transparency and clarity on every project, and there’s no better way to achieve that, than being able to chat in person at our office. The NetEngine team love visiting clients Australia wide. Communication is critical to your project’s success and nothing beats being able to meet in person to discuss fixes, new ideas, or changes.

Team Members: Know the skills you’ll have access to

When looking for a development partner, make sure you ask them who you will access to. Your development team should consist of the following members, a Project Manager, who will spearhead your project and be your liaison throughout your development journey. Front end and back end developers, or a full stack developer with skills in both areas. This way you know the look and feel of your project has a dedicated team member on the front end, while the back end has someone who takes care of the site’s structure, system, date and logic. Full stack developers are skilled in both areas so if your choice of developer has them, then that’s a plus as well. You need to know if there is a UI/UX designer available as well. The UI/UX designer creates the user interface for your project, they understand user needs, and can help keep your interface in line with your brand needs.

Here at NetEngine the team comprises all of the above. With over 16 years of experience in work tech development. They are a highly skilled and experienced team that know how to listen to your goals and gain a deep understanding of your project. When you work with NetEngine you know you’re in capable hands, and have access to a team of specialists who can help bring your digital vision to life. You can watch our client case studies to get an idea of what working with NetEngine is like.

Competitive Pricing: How much does it all cost?

It’s important to understand your budget, and communicate this with your prospective developers to ensure your budget and their estate aligns. It’s crucial that you can have transparent conversations with your developer about what you can achieve with the budget you have available.

Here at NetEngine, we pride ourselves on providing cost effective development solutions. Our processes ensure we are clear with our clients about what the team can produce while staying within your budget, and our agile methodology approach to development allows us to be extremely flexible with what we prioritise working on, further helping us keep developing within budget.

Reach out to NetEngine today if you want to learn more about how we can help bring your digital vision to life.

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What is AI and how is it changing technology?

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Recently, the NetEngine team has been working on developing AI for one of our work tech clients, Scout Talent. The goal was to support Scout Talent’s business needs as a talent acquisition platform in a phased process – with the first phase being using AI to automate content generation.

Leading this project is frontend developer, Phil Cantrel, who shares his thoughts below on AI: what it is, what about it sparked his interest, and how it is transforming technology.

What is AI and how is it changing technology?

AI (Artificial Intelligence) is a rapidly developing field that encompasses a range of technologies that allow machines to learn and act without explicit programming. These fields include machine learning, natural language processing and computer vision. Instead of programmers needing a deep understanding of a problem and its underlying patterns, they can now ‘train’ neural networks, which are based loosely on the structure of the human brain.

The training process typically involves feeding large amounts of relevant data to the neural network, with modifications being made to its parameters via techniques such as supervised, unsupervised and reinforcement learning to optimise its output.

This new way of approaching computing has allowed for massive improvements in technologies that process and generate written content, contextualise and understand images and video, transcribe and synthesise human speech, write computer code and even generate original artwork.

According to the Harvard Business Review (Davenport and Ronanki, 2018, p. 110), AI can be categorised into three broad types, each of which supports one of these business needs: automating business processes, gaining insight through data analysis, and engaging with customers and employees. NetEngine’s initial phase of work with Scout Talent falls into process automation, allowing for automated content generation (such as job descriptions) as part of their end-to-end talent acquisition process.

What drove my interest in AI?

I’ve always had an interest in computing and the possibilities of disruptive fields in tech. As such, I’ve made a habit of keeping up to date with new ideas and development in the space.

My interest specifically in the field of AI was sparked in 2010 with Google’s driverless car endeavours, which used computer vision to enable the cars to navigate in real world spaces. After that, it was the development of AI systems that could beat human players in games like Go and DOTA2, along with more recent advancements in text and image generation, that prompted me to explore how I could use the technology in my work at NetEngine.

I got support from my team leaders to pursue research into AI, which culminated in my using the learnings from my personal development time to integrate GPT-3 into one of Scout Talent’s existing products to demonstrate its ability to automate content generation.

Who’s making big moves in AI?

Google, Amazon, Facebook, IBM, Microsoft, Tesla and Apple have all made significant investments in AI research and development to improve their products and services. For example, Google has been implementing AI over several years to provide better search results, create their Google Assistant, improve the accuracy of their language translation services, organise and tag images in Google Photos, and develop driverless cars (Waymo) – just to name a few.

There has been a recent emergence of new competitors in the field, the biggest of which is OpenAI, a company built with the sole purpose of developing useful AI models. Their DALLE-2 model has allowed users to generate original images and artwork based on text prompts while their GPT-3 language model has been used to create the very popular ChatGPT website which allows users to ask an AI chatbot to perform a variety of tasks, from answering questions to creating blog posts and much more with impressive results.

Microsoft are now considering a $10 billion investment in OpenAI, which is in addition to their current strong partnership. At present, Microsoft provides its Azure cloud infrastructure for the training and deployment of OpenAI’s models and has exclusive licence to some of OpenAI’s technology.

How can I get in on the action?

As researching, training and developing AI models requires significant capital investment, as well as experts in the machine learning field, smaller companies and startups are often unable to make their own proprietary AI models.

Many of these smaller companies have instead turned to established AI providers such as OpenAI and Google, leveraging their existing pre-trained AI models and cloud infrastructure, available via easy-to-use APIs, to develop new products and integrate AI technology into their software and services. Jasper, a recent AI startup with a $1.5B valuation, specialises in generating blogs, landing pages, video scripts, social media posts, images and more. It primarily uses OpenAI’s GPT-3 and DALL-E 2 products as its underlying technology to provide its services.

There are also alternative ‘open-source’ AI models such as BLOOM (a language model similar to GPT-3) and Stable Diffusion (a text-to-image model) which can be freely downloaded and deployed, removing the necessity to lock into a specific AI vendor and their pricing model.

The future that AI represents is vast and many of its potential applications are yet to be implemented and monetised. As AI evolves and improves, we will see more companies and startups capitalising on the opportunities it presents. Artificial Intelligence is on a path to significantly transform the way we live and work, making it important for companies to stay informed and ready to adapt in order to stay competitive.

 

Interested in implementing AI to fulfil your work tech business needs? Get in touch with us here.

About the Author

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Building the Scout Talent App

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We recently created an app for our client, Scout Talent, a talent acquisition platform provider that works to connect people to grow companies, careers, and communities. This app, called the Scout Talent App, is a mobile version of :Recruit, their premier software module. 

:Recruit is a robust candidate management and applicant tracking system that enables organisations to manage their entire talent acquisition process. Through Scout Talent :Recruit, users can post jobs, track applications, review candidates, schedule interviews and store candidate data, all in one centralised place.

Building the Scout Talent App was a significant project led by Dan Tomasic, NetEngine Frontend Team Lead. Read on to learn more about his experience working on the app.

What was the brief for this project?

Dan T: The brief was for the App to be a mobile version of :Recruit that would allow hiring managers to access candidate applications and utilise other functions of the system on the go. Having a more accessible version of :Recruit would allow clients to reduce their time to hire and drive their talent acquisition process no matter where they are.

Our priorities were to make it easy to use, in order to facilitate a simple process for hiring managers to access, review and process candidate applications. We also had to consider app functionalities such as receiving notifications, to allow hiring managers–who are already so busy during the day–to view updates quickly and maximise their productivity.

The scope of the project was for the App to have the same complex functionality of the :Recruit module and work smoothly across both Android and Apple operating systems. 

What work did you do on this project?

DT: To start this project, we ran some workshops involving key stakeholders from NetEngine and Scout Talent; these included web developers, the CEO of Scout Talent, and :Recruit specialists who interacted with the software day in and day out. In these workshops, we discussed what we wanted the Scout Talent App to achieve, as well as what key functionalities it should have and what it should look like.

From these workshops, we split the work across our team of about 5-6 web developers working on the project. Usually, for a client project, we would do the work in sprints, but for this project, we did it in milestones – for example, we marked the project with major milestones such as full login flow created or video viewing functionality enabled.

We built the App in React Native, a coding framework that allowed us to simultaneously develop the App for both Android and Apple. Using this framework made the development process more efficient and allowed us to test and create fixes across both versions more easily.

In terms of UX/UI, the brief was for the Scout Talent App design to be consistent with :Recruit. The desktop :Recruit module is currently undergoing UX/UI updates, so the App was designed with that in mind, meaning the look and feel of it aligns with the new UX/UI of :Recruit. Essentially, the idea was that the transition from the desktop module to the App should be seamless for the user.

What were some challenges you encountered and how did you overcome them?

DT: The biggest challenge in creating this App was to make sure it ran quickly and was simple to use for hiring managers. The way we overcame both these challenges was to ensure we performed lots of tests, and put in a lot of consideration for the UX/UI.

We did a test at the end of each major milestone (which usually marked the completion of a major feature) using dummy data; these tests were done with internal stakeholders at Scout Talent, mainly people who used :Recruit frequently and are familiar with how it should work.

These tests checked that the new features of each milestone worked correctly, and that the App as a whole worked smoothly. As is typical with app development, challenges arose from these tests; for example, we had to ensure that the App supported specific older versions of Android. To make sure the App worked across so many versions of operating systems, we had to take our time, checking that we didn’t break the versions that did work by fixing the ones that didn’t. 

In terms of UX/UI, the only real challenge was time. Our UX/UI designer had lots of great ideas, but we had to consider what was viable within the project timelines. We had to consolidate all these ideas down to what was necessary for the App before it went to market, in order for us to get it done within the timeline.

What was your favourite part of working on this project?

DT: The best thing about this project was that it was quite a unique one to work on. Building the App completely from scratch with close input from the Scout Talent team was something I hadn’t done before. Being able to drive the project from an idea to what it is now, a fully-fledged App, was a lot of fun. 

Our team really enjoyed having influence over the look and feel of the App, and feeling ownership over the project. Overall, it was satisfying to see a final product that fulfilled the requirements set out in the brief.

What was the outcome?

DT: The outcome was that we created what the brief set out: the Scout Talent App available today is a mobile version of :Recruit that allows hiring managers to have oversight of their talent acquisition process no matter where they are. 

Between the start of the project and its completion, our initial ideas and designs definitely changed. App development is always an agile process. Similar to other projects, we found along the way that certain workflows didn’t quite make sense to the plan anymore, so we had to pivot to keep the App in line with our objectives.

Along the way, we also came up with extra functionalities and features that would enhance the user experience and achieve Scout Talent’s goal for the App to help connect people to grow companies, careers and communities. One example is that we included animations in the cards that appear when users are swiping through applicants; it’s a small addition, but one that enhances the interactivity and experience for the user.

All in all, the Scout Talent App we rolled out aligned closely with the initial project brief and scope – it was functional for both Android and Apple devices, and included all the key features of :Recruit, as well as additional mobile features, like push notifications.

Want to create your own app?

If reading about the Scout Talent App has inspired an app idea for your organisation, or if you have a digital vision you’d like to bring to life, get in touch with us here.

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Digital Experience vs Digital Service

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Imagine this: you’re heading to the beach to spend a day with your friends. You’ll be spending time swimming, throwing a ball, and enjoying a few drinks. Before you get to do that, though, you need to scour the area nearby to find somewhere to park your car and feed the parking meter. But you’re not going to the beach to park your car and feed the meter, are you? Believe it or not, this example highlights the difference between digital service and digital experience. 

Many organisations mistakenly bundle together all online customer interactions under the “experience” banner, when in reality, there should be a clear split. Digital service refers to all aspects of your digital process that are forgettable and expected. They should be simple, fast, and functional (like parking your car and feeding the meter). Digital experience refers to the memorable parts of your digital process that exist to build customer loyalty and should be enjoyable for your users (like the fun beach activities). Both digital service and digital experience work in harmony to create what is known as Customer Experience, or CX. 

The importance of CX

CX is the term for all contact a customer has with your brand, from the first touch and browsing your offerings, to making their first purchase, to post-purchase communications. It’s a long journey, and when you put it all together, managing this journey is no small feat.

As organisations start to see CX as a high priority, the term ‘experience’ has become a blanket term to describe every function of the business, no matter how miniscule. Organisations often use the term ‘experience’ to measure how a user feels when they interact with their brand. The problem with this is that not every step of a user’s journey is supposed to make them feel something. Some parts of the journey (the services) are purely functional, and exist to take them from point A to point B. 

Examples of digital service

It’s often tricky to make necessary processes fun or exciting, but in recent years, many organisations have tried to transform how they deliver their digital service. While part of this transformation comes from understanding the difference between digital service and digital experience, a larger transformation depends on splitting digital services into informational and transactional. 

  • Informational: What is the point of your digital service? Is it to provide an end user with information about your product or offering, such as a landing page on your website? How about a service that directs them to the correct page or connects them with immediate help, such as a chat bot? If so, this service is probably informational.
  • Transactional: Does the service you offer help a user complete a payment or transfer, like a secure payment portal? What about a streamlined service that lets a client book directly into a team member’s diary by clicking ‘Make an Appointment’? In that case, the service is transactional. 

Regardless of how your digital service is categorised, it can often compliment your organisation’s overall CX. People don’t often remember when a digital service works well, but they do remember when it works badly. Making your digital service function as quickly, easily and seamlessly as possible creates a better customer experience overall. And customers who enjoy using your mobile or web app are inclined to use it more often. 

Ultimately, adopting a holistic approach to CX is a smart move to drive business objectives. It creates a positive brand impression and increases the chance of repeat business when you audit your web or mobile app’s digital experience and digital service with the overall CX in mind. Seamless, enjoyable digital experiences keep customers coming back for more.

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Removing a S3 bucket where versioning was enabled

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We recently wanted to remove an Amazon S3 bucket where 1,000,000+ files were stored. This bucket also had versioning enabled which means the actual number of files was way bigger. To give us an idea, we dump the file paths to delete: the associated output text was 500MB big.

This task which seems simple at first proved to be quite complicated to handle, mostly because of Amazon own limitations that it would be nice to see addressed.

The first thing we had to do is obviously to disable versioning in the Amazon Web Services console:

Without this, not only the bucket would not be emptied but some delete markers would be added to the bucket which would make our life even harder.

The first assumption a user has when wanting to delete a S3 bucket is that clicking on Delete Bucket works. But Amazon does not allow to delete a non empty bucket.

Emptying the bucket through the Amazon Console does not work either when the bucket contains more than 10,000 files. And this is where the troubles begin: simply listing the files to delete ends up crashing the most popular S3 tools like s3cmd.

We found some really interesting scripts which are designed to delete both delete markers and all file versions on a S3 bucket. These scripts were indeed deleting the files on our S3 bucket but kept on running after four days in a row.
The main reason for this is that a query is made for each file deletion. We needed to perform some bulk delete instead.

Amazon CLI provides the capacity to delete up to 1000 files using a single HTTP request via the delete-objects command.

We engineered a ruby script which relies on this command to delete our files faster:

Pre-requisites:

To use this script you need to:

  • Export your Amazon credentials: export AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID=... and export AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY=...
  • Have the Amazon CLI installed.
  • Have a Ruby interpreter installed.
  • Download the above file and make it executable: chmod +x FILE

Usage:

Simply execute the script like any other programs with the bucket name you would like to empty as the argument.
E.g: Providing the Ruby script was called S3_bucket_cleaner.rb:

./S3_bucket_cleaner.rb BUCKET_NAME

Figures and conclusion:

The above script was able to remove all the files of our S3 bucket in less than 20 min which was good! It would be great if Amazon let people emptying / removing a S3 bucket regardless how full this one is. In the meantime, we are happy to share this script with you today in case you run into a similar scenario.

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NetEngine’s tech and app favourites

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This month we started a weekly newsletter to share articles we’ve liked, apps that are making our lives easier and new developments in tech. The following is what we’ve loved in June. If you’d like to sign up to the newsletter you can do so here

 

Zoom.us

zoom us

“If you have got an invite from me over the past few weeks you might notice I am now using [Zoom.us] (http://zoom.us/) for video and phone meetings. I have found that this service works far more reliably than GoToMeeting, Skype, Google Hangouts or JoinMe and I am super excited by how fast and easy it is to have meetings. There is a great free plan and I would highly recommend this service to anyone who needs to host meetings with people in multiple locations.”

– Matt

 

Kraken.io/web-interface

kraken io

“Many of our products already optimise the images you upload. But, if you’re creating some media rich content without a tool designed specifically for the web, you should consider [this image optimiser] (https://kraken.io/web-interface) and your images will be loaded more quickly without affecting their quality. A quick user experience is a good user experience.”

– Erik

 

Random Hacks of Kindness

Rhok

“This weekend we are heading to QUT’s beautiful Garden’s Point for the Winter 2016 Random Hacks of Kindness, otherwise know as RHoK. RHoK is the largest and longest running social hackathon in Australia. We’ve been doing this stuff since 2011, and have one of the most vibrant, engaged technology and social change communities in the country. We work on projects that make a real difference. In the last 4 years we’ve helped over 40 charities and community groups, using technology to solve their problems and teaching many of them the principles of lean and agile development. Further details can be found here.”

– Bruce

 

Testmysite

testmysite

“This week we’ve been testing performance on mobile using this amazing tool created by Google. In addition to your scores you also receive recommendations for improving performance across all devices. I love it because it helps us to avoid spending time trying to figure out what’s wrong in our websites/webapps.”

– Lucas

 

Don’t build a mobile app

dont build a mobile app

“Everybody has an idea for an app but should you invest in it? link highlights some lessons learned by Jean-Baptiste Coger, Chief Product Officer of Paris-based Birdly. A reminder to make sure your target problem is one that your market wants to solve on a mobile.”

– Erik

 

Let’s Encrypt

lets encrypt

“Recently, when the SSL certificates of clients are coming up for expiry (particularly the expensive wildcard SSL certificates) we are using [LetsEncrypt] (https://letsencrypt.org/). This new service allows us to get you unlimited free SSL certificates, it only takes a few hours to setup and will mean you never have to worry about SSL certificates expiring again!”

– Matt

 

Tiempos Font Family

Tiempos

“Stumbled upon the Tiempos font family and I think it deserves a shout out to anyone who may be interested in using it in their marketing campaign. This font family speaks for itself in terms of personality and boldness. It is important to know that choosing the right font matters. Check out the fonts [here] (http://vllg.com/klim/tiempos-headline), and if you’re interested in using it, please get in touch.”

– Felix

 

Shoeboxed

Shoeboxed

“We are just days away from the end of the financial year and I was shocked to find out not everyone is aware of Shoeboxed. Able to be used for both businesses and individuals, Shoeboxed takes all your old receipts and invoices, scans them and stores them within your account. Not only does this mean I’m not longer sorting through months of receipts to find that half of them have faded beyond recognition I’m also able to search by vendor, payment date and payment type.”

– Madeleine

 

OneTab

One tab

“If you’re like me and end up with hundreds of Chrome/FireFox tabs open, then OneTab can help. It is an extension that converts all your tabs into a list. When I need to access a tab again, I can either restore them individually or all at once.”

– Matt

 

Wunderlist

Wunderlist

“I love a good list, but what I love more is crossing stuff off that list like a boss. I use Wunderlist list to keep track of all the little tasks I need to do in my week for work and home. It works well on both desktop and mobile, and (unlike every other to-do list app I’ve tried) it actually syncs fast.”

– Ash

 

Change Detection

Change detection

“It surprises me how often I want to know if a web page has changed – an event being listed, a price being changed, an article being added etc. Change Detection lets you easily monitor web pages for changes. It will look at the web page everyday and alert you of any changes since the last time it checked.”

– Matt

 

TheStocks

The Stocks

“TheStocks collects all the best royalty-free stock photo repositories in one place. Unsplash seems to be everyone’s go-to, Super Famous is my current favourite and notable mention goes to New Old Stock, which offers images with freshly expired copyrights.”

– John

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Technical terminology for the not so technical

It’s 2019 and “Hehe, I’m just technology impaired” is no longer acceptable. Computers, software and technology generally is ever-prevalent and getting up to speed is absolutely achievable. If you’re a product manager, project lead, salesperson or any other tech-adjacent person and you want to get up to speed on some tech lingo, strap in!

API stands for Application Programmable Interface, easy right? Yet another fantastic example of how hearing the full length of tech initialism doesn’t make it any more digestible. An API is essentially a standardised way of communicating to an application. When two programs want to talk to each other they send or receive messages from one another, an API is used to outline, what kind of questions can be asked, how to ask them, and what kind of answer to expect.

api

GitHub is not the place where all the unpleasant people hang out, instead of a ‘source control’ system. Essentially, once the devs are ready to share, or store their work, they give it to GitHub and GitHub looks after it. Git is a method of controlling software so that the person or people who work on it can track changes, work collaboratively, add their changes, and have others review their work before it’s added to the main version. Look out for another tech lingo breakdown covering off some git specific terms like Pull Request (PR), branches, forks, blame (does what it says on the tin), commits, and the dreaded ‘MERGE TO MASTER’.

Databases come in a few different flavours, but the best way to think of them is a series of spreadsheets sitting on the back of an application. When you use your Facebook Messenger app, the little application goes to it’s People’s friend’s spreadsheet, finds the Daniel row, and gives it the list of all (2 of) my friends. Then it goes and finds the conversation spreadsheets, looks for the ‘Daniel talking to his Mum’ row and gives back the list of all their words to each other.

Machine Learning is definitely ‘the new black’, cropping up in everything from agriculture tech to making the perfect coffee. The phrase is probably common enough, that you’ve got a sense that Machine Learning is when a program learns to do a task on its own, often the idea is that it does it better than a human. What you might need to know is how it works; to bastardise a phenomenal quickly growing industry: to do machine learning, a system is taught (programmed) how to do (or observe) an activity.

The system is then taught to measure the outcome of the activity in an objective way to define not only if something happened, but to what degree. Next the system is then taught how to alter the activity in some way. Then the feedback loop begins, the system tries, changes, measures, and tries again. At this point an algorithm is applied, often these are standardised or well-established algorithms, other times they’re handwritten.

The algorithm is what tells the system how to implement the feedback loop, what to change, to what degree and then how to use the resulting measure, to change and intelligently respond the next time. Over time, this iteration starts to refine better and better methods (this process is known as ‘training’), until it identifies the best combination of changes to make for the activity, and you end up with a perfect coffee, or Deep Dream’s horrific deformed Shibu Inu.

machine-learning-dreams

If you want to see what Google Deep Dream Generator trying to learn looks like while it’s thinking about our team, here’s a quick picture:

machine-learning-dreams machine-learning-dreams

 

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