Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better. – Maya Angelou

Mr. Walker's Classroom Blog

  • http://learnsomethingnew.co/  “The best apps and websites to learn something new every day.”

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  • I found this article describing a portion of one side of the argument, app or not, which may well suggest an answer the question of where to spend out time in CS here.  Read the full article and the comments on Medium.  The author is not without an unbiased view point, consider what this might mean in relationship to our last review of the NYTimes 7 Minute Workout PWA, or click the author’s examples

    I recently wrote an article called “Native Apps are Doomed.” I was surprised at how many people were defending native apps. In all honesty, the user experience story for native apps has never been impressive. The numbers paint a bleak picture for native app success rates that teams need to be aware of when they make important decisions about how to build a new app.

    Native apps face two gigantic hurdles trying to compete with Progressive Web Apps (PWAs):

    • Instead of writing 3 different apps, one for Android, one for iOS, and one for the web, PWA app makers only need to build one app that works for all 3.
    • App install friction is suffocating native apps.

    App store friction is a major obstacle. It takes about 6 clicks to install a native app, and with each click, you lose about 20% of your users. Deciding to install an app is a lot harder than deciding to use a web app. You have to click install, wait for the app to download, worry about how much space it will take, and worry about the scary permissions it will require. Native apps lose a lot of their potential users before they even click install.

    With a progressive web app, you visit a URL and immediately get to try the app. If you continue to use it, you get prompted to install it to your home screen with one click. From that point on, it behaves like a native app. It can work offline, take photos, use WebGL for 3D games, access the GPU for hardware accelerated processing, record audio, etc… The web platform has grown up. It’s time to take it seriously. See “10 Must See Web Apps & Games”for examples of what the web can do.

    ……

  • via [The Verge] The system can even send an email warning

    Nature Materials

    Forget bomb-sniffing dogs, we can now use spinach to detect explosives. Scientists have implanted the leafy greens with tiny tubes that let them sense when an explosive is nearby and even alert someone by email.

    This is all part of the field of “plant nanobionics,” which is about embedding plants with tiny nanomaterials that basically give them superpowers. In today’s study, published in the journal Nature Materials, MIT researchers put sensors into the part of the spinach leaf where photosynthesis happens. These sensors can detect a chemical that is often in landmines and other explosives: nitroaromatic compounds.

    For this process to actually work, the spinach plant has to absorb the chemicals through its roots. That happens if the nitroaromatic compounds are in the groundwater. From the roots, the chemicals travel to the leaves in about 10 minutes, where they activate the plant’s sensors.

    These sensors emit a fluorescent signal that can be seen from an infrared camera nearby. This camera is hooked to a tiny computer, so it can send an email alerting someone about this change.

    This same technique can be used with almost any living plant, researchers say. The same team has also programmed spinach to pick up the chemical dopamine. In the future, researchers could “teach” plants and trees to warn us if there are any pollutants nearby. It could be much more convenient than installing complicated manual sensors, especially because plants are everywhere around us — including in your backyard or lining up your city streets.