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Smart Devices & Tech

Tutorials

MA Introducing the Swift Programming Language
Daniel Steinberg, Dim Sum Thinking, Inc.
Mon, 04/13/2015 - 8:30am

If you are an experienced developer who is interested in the new Swift programming language, this hands-on workshop is for you. Daniel Steinberg introduces standalone Swift functions that are not part of a class or other Swift type. Then, he shows how to give or hide external names for parameters. Daniel shares examples of four fundamental Swift entities: String, Int, Dictionary, and Arrays. You’ll practice creating mutable and immutable arrays and explore different ways of iterating through them, changing values along the way. Learn to save the application’s state, and much more.

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MB Android Development Introduction: A Hands-On Workshop
Ken Kousen, Kousen IT, Inc.
Mon, 04/13/2015 - 8:30am

Learn Android development from the ground up. We'll start with the SDK and the Android Studio IDE, and build, test, and deploy applications on both emulators and physical devices. The basics of Android development will be discussed and implemented, from activities to resources to asynchronous communications.

Examples will be provides to show how to use the new Gradle build system for Android. We'll also use the embedded SQLite database to store data, and access a RESTful web service and parse the resulting JSON data to update the user interface.

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TG Designing Apps for Android Devices
Luke Wallace, Bottle Rocket
Tue, 04/14/2015 - 1:00pm

With the many versions of Android available today on hundreds, even thousands, of device types, just how do you build something that will look good on Android devices you’ve never seen? Is it possible to build an app that will look good on the newest devices and not look strange on your grandma’s phone from 2012? Luke Wallace clears a path through the jungle of Android-based hardware and takes on the fragmentation beast. See how his company, Bottle Rocket, one of the top mobile development companies, handles this challenge day-in-and day-out—without compromising the experience.

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Concurrent Sessions

W3 Embed Yourself in Our Wearable Future
Noble Ackerson, Byte an Atom Research
Wed, 04/15/2015 - 10:00am

It could be on your wrist or your ankle. It may be embedded in your jacket, your shoe, your vest, or your hat. It may eventually be under your skin. It may help you walk or talk; find your way; or communicate with a friend, with your doctor, or your coach. It monitors your heart rate, the moisture on your skin, every breath you take, and every move you make. And it’s connected. And networked. Wearable devices are here to stay and are projected to be a $30 billion market by 2018.

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W6 Wearing UX—When Our Clothes Become the Interface
Jason Snook, CapTech Consulting
Wed, 04/15/2015 - 11:00am

With the interest in wearable technology exploding, UX practitioners and development teams need to focus on creating experiences that intuitively fit the rhythm and ecosystem of a user’s daily life. Unfortunately, much like what happened early on with mobile design, wearable UX designers seem to have unlearned many of the best practices and heuristics they employ on, for example, desktop design.

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W9 Using Apps to Help Users Experience Wearables and IoT Devices
Chris Beauchamp, Crittercism
Wed, 04/15/2015 - 1:00pm

Wearables and other Internet of Things (IoT) devices are optimized for gathering data about a user and their environment. According to Cisco, this emerging industry will produce and deliver over 20 billion devices worldwide by 2020. Join Chris Beauchamp to learn about how to leverage mobile apps to develop a compelling user experience with one or several connected wearable or IoT devices. He’ll discuss the options for transmitting data from and to devices and how to ensure these connections are happening in real time once the app is live.

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T1 Today and Tomorrow: Mobile's Impact on Development and Testing
James Montemagno, Xamarin
Thu, 04/16/2015 - 11:00am

There are more than 1.4 billion smartphones in the world—one for every 4.5 people on earth. Over the next decade wearables and the Internet of Things (IoT) will make those numbers look puny. In fact, mobile is transforming how people and things connect and dramatically changing software development, as we know it. With more than 189 million apps downloaded daily from app stores and new IoT devices being released daily to the public, developers and testers are already behind the curve.

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T3 The Software Developers Guide to Prototyping Wearable Devices
Lance Gleason, Polyglot Programming Inc.
Thu, 04/16/2015 - 11:00am

Prototyping wearable devices used to be something that required specialized skills in electrical engineering, embedded development, and mechanical engineering. Today, thanks to the maker revolution, we can combine our deep knowledge of programming with basic electronics, soldering skills, and access to a 3D printer to create useful devices. In this session, we’ll take a quick tour of some of the options and then do a deep dive into creating a wearable prototype using off the shelf boards.

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T6 Wearables and Contactless Technology—for Payment Processing and Much More
David Meyer, FIS Mobile
Thu, 04/16/2015 - 1:00pm

The emergence of wearable devices like Google Glass, Apple Watch, and many others—combined with contactless technology such as near field communications—are being combined in new applications for payment processing, banking, and much more. Adopting wearables for contactless transactions will require technology shifts by both merchants and consumers. Using Google Glass as the wearable example, David Meyer demonstrates how users can see their account balance inside Google Glass to make purchase decisions, transmit the purchase authorizations, and transfer funds between their bank accounts.

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T9 The Internet of Things and You
Jim McKeeth, Embarcadero Technologies
Thu, 04/16/2015 - 2:00pm

What is the Internet of Things (IoT)? What are the technologies that make it happen? Where do we see it today? Where will we see it tomorrow? What capabilities will it provide, and what do we need to know to take part in it? Jim McKeeth considers where IoT is taking us and discusses the hurdles we face today and in the future. With a focus on applications, Jim offers examples of IoT technology from the perspective of developers. Join Jim to learn about cross-platform development, cloud synchronization, app-to-app communication, Bluetooth, WiFi, security concerns, privacy issues, and more.

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Keynotes

K4 Thought: The Future of Mobile and Embedded Application Input
Jim McKeeth, Embarcadero Technologies
Thu, 04/16/2015 - 9:45am

Control of complex machines by human thought has been a mainstay of science fiction writing and films for years. In the movie Firefox, Clint Eastwood steals a highly advanced Russian fighter jet that is controlled by the pilot’s thoughts. But real devices are now appearing that purport to use our brainwaves as input. Is this technology a reality today? If not, how far away is it? What sort of thought input is possible and where could it be used?

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