Itchin’ for Some Friendly Competition
Like many other workplaces, our offices have been closed for quarantine, and our team has moved entirely to working remotely. We at Mission Data have been craving a bit of that sense of community that has been lacking as of late. We’ve taken steps in that direction by repurposing some of our Slack channels to encourage some extra activity, sharing, fun & games. However, some of us in our #homecooks Slack channel wanted to get a bit more hands-on and find an outlet for some pent up creativity; throw in a dash of mystery and a pinch of competition, and…
There’s been no shortage of people attempting to help others during the COVID-19 pandemic. In our first article in this series, we discuss a lot of the positive ways folks are helping one another get through these hard times (check it out here). Mission Data is first and foremost a tech company, so it’s interesting to us to see all sorts of ways people are leveraging technology to help solve problems resulting from this crisis. We want to share some of those remarkable stories with you.
WHO Chatbot
With so many articles sprouting daily regarding COVID-19 it can be overwhelming and difficult…
If you’re like a lot of folks trying to pass their time in quarantine, you’ve completed your to-do list five times over and binged all your favorite shows and movies. So what’s left to do? These options should spark a few ideas, and the best part is they won’t break the bank!
There’s so much negativity surrounding the Coronavirus pandemic. And rightly so, there are people suffering severe symptoms, and in some cases, dying at the hands of the virus. While we’re doing our part to mitigate the spread, I think it’s warranted to step back and look at the advantages of this morose situation. Take a stroll along with me while we attempt to stop and smell the auspicious roses.
👋 This is the first of many articles we’ll be publishing over the next few weeks pertaining to COVID-19 and its impact on the tech industry and the world-at-large. …
Summary
Our goal going into this project was to accurately determine the gender of a person based on an image of their face. Leveraging an existing database from the IMDB-WiKi Project we achieved a 91.09% accuracy in our training phase, and then 91.17% in our testing phase, which seemed promising. However, at closer inspection, we learned that females were much more likely to be misread in all age ranges but one, and the dataset we used didn’t provide ethnicity which meant we couldn’t test the accuracy of our predictions against different ethnic groups. …
With the explosion of the Internet of Things in recent years, it is no surprise that Google would want to get developers involved using the Android OS. The resulting product is Android Things (first released in May 2018), a version of the Android OS specifically designed for IoT devices. Based on the same operating system as Android phones, Android Things simplifies the development process and makes creating IoT programs the same procedure as a phone or watch app, but the available libraries are different depending on the IoT hardware.
A second technology that has been evolving over the last several…
We’re in Austin for SXSW Interactive and we’re learning a ton. While Days 1 and 2 were smooth sailing, we’re starting to feel the effects of the rollercoaster that is SXSW. Hop on and buckle up.
Stu: Well this was an odd day. Let’s just say we might’ve stayed out to when the change to DST might make an impact on waking up at a reasonable hour. The good news is that the sessions didn’t start until 11 am. I think in lieu of the usual best versus not best approach, we keep this one to name one thing you…
Roundtable updates from tech’s biggest festival
We’re learning lots about the latest tech trends and discoveries in Austin for SXSW Interactive 2018. Read our daily conversations and keep up — who says you need a badge?
Stu: Today was the first full day and the team is a little tired. Sitting there and getting spoken to for hours on end is like…well…school. It can be pretty rough. Instead of every session, let’s share the best and maybe the worst.
Going clockwise (even though you can’t see us), I’m going to start with Todd. What was your favorite?
We’re in Austin for SXSW Interactive 2018, and we have a lot to discuss. Let’s get to it.
Stu (Stu Gavurin, CEO): Welcome back to SXSW, Todd and Carson. It seems like a fairly quiet first day. How’s it feel to you guys? What did you do and see?
Todd (Todd Budnikas, Creative Director): It was nice to ease back into things by starting at an 11am session that was pretty low key. It was an interesting discussion about trends and how they are predicted by those who do such things at large companies. …
The ways we interact with our devices are constantly changing. Be prepared in 2018.
As tech evolves, so do user interests and expectations. As voice interfaces, facial recognition, and augmented reality become mainstream, user experience and user interface design continues to be a crucial factor in digital product development, affecting all aspects of user satisfaction.
What is on the horizon for UX/UI in digital product design in 2018? How can companies increase delight, minimize friction, and meet growing needs? Read on for our roundup of industry trends.
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We build smart digital products that transform the way companies do business.
