Industry News - Week of May 22, 2017

Edward Correia - May 22, 2017

Google Lens premieres as a voice-controlled digital assistant, and will extend its focus into Google Photos and other apps. Android also gets more intelligent about battery usage, malware protection.

Microsoft Build 2017: New Apps for AI, Azure

Redmond introduced the "planet-scale" Azure Cosmos DB, Azure-based MySQL and PostgreSQL managed services and improvements to its own Azure SQL.

IoT Gets GPS Awareness, Not Hardware

Through a partnership with IoT platform builder Particle, Google has revealed the Google Maps Geolocation API, which can pinpoint a device's location using cell-tower and Wi-Fi information.

What Comes After QR Codes, NFC

Using sound as a carrier for data isn't new. But Rodney Williams, CEO of startup Lisnr thinks that his company's new "Smart Tone" protocol can radically change device-to-device communications.

Google Adopts Kotlin One of its Own

Java and C++ no longer share a duopoly as the "first-class" languages for writing apps for Android. Google last week announced that Kotlin will be included with Android Studio 3.0.

.NET Standard 2.0 Code Base Runs on Android, iOS

At last week's Build 2017, Microsoft showed how apps made for Windows also could run on Android and iOS from a single shared code base. Redmond also unveiled a cross-platform version of XAML UI elements.

Xamarin Live Player Debugs Android, iOS Apps

Build 2017 also saw the launch of Xamarin Live Player, which Microsoft says can perform debugging without the need for SDKs or emulators.

NVIDIA's Plan to Train 100K Developers

Graphics-card maker NVIDIA says it will train 100,000 developers in its Deep Learning Institute this year, a 10x increase from its 2016 goal.