65th Monthly Technical Session
Monthly Technical Session (MTS) is HENNGE’s mini-conference. As the name implies, MTS is held monthly and its talks are (mostly) about technology.
The 65th MTS was held on December 20th, 2019.
“About DMARC” by Yagmur
Domain-based Message Authentication Reporting & Conformance (DMARC) is an email authentication, policy, and reporting protocol. It helps protecting email senders and recipients from spam, spoofing, and phishing.
DMARC builds on Sender Policy Framework (SPF) and DomainKeys Identified Mail (DKIM) protocols. SPF verifies whether an email message was sent by an authorized sender. DKIM verifies that the contents of an email message haven’t been tampered with. Not only does DMARC require that email messages are protected by both SPF and DKIM, it also requires the domains used by SPF or DKIM to align with the domain found in the “From” address.
By specifying DMARC policies, it is possible to determine how to handle email messages that do not pass DMARC validation. Report-only mode accepts such email messages, quarantine mode quarantines them (e.g. sends them to the spam folder), and reject mode makes it so that such email messages do not reach the end user.
“A Gentle Introduction to Cross-Platform App Development” by Kelvin
Kelvin explained that there are several merits that can be gained from developing cross-platform apps: code reuse, single codebase, unified UI and logic, and (possibly) smaller number of developers. There are several frameworks we can use in developing cross-platform apps. Kelvin shared his thoughts about some of these frameworks.
PhoneGap and Cordova is essentially a responsive website running on a local server with additional privileges. Using these frameworks enables web developers to develop cross-platform mobile apps. Unfortunately, apps developed using these frameworks tend to not look so good.
Most of the time, Xamarin is used by development teams that specializes in .NET framework. Xamarin offers platform-specific UI implementations, but this feature diminishes the code reuse benefit somewhat.
React Native is one of the most prominent cross-platform app development framework these days. Similar to PhoneGap and Cordova, this framework is well-suited for web developers, especially ones experienced in using React. React Native doesn’t exactly map 1-to-1 to React however, and its UI output relies on its bridge concept.
Flutter works like a cross-platform game engine (e.g. Unity, Unreal Engine) in that it draws its own pixels. It makes use of the Dart programming language, which according to Kelvin is a plus. However, it is indeed still very young. It is also backed by Google, which implies there are precedents for Flutter to be rather short-lived :(
Finally, Kelvin mentioned some caveats to the aforementioned benefits of cross-platform development. Depending on the framework, there may not be much code to be reused (e.g. Xamarin) and there may be a need for more developers (e.g. specialists in cross-platform framework languages).
“Flutter” by Yazeed
The original iPhone was released in 2007. The first commercial Android device was launched the following year. Today, there are much more devices, screen sizes, and OS versions that mobile app developers have to work with. Cross-platform app development frameworks such as Flutter mean to ease this pain.
The UI of Flutter apps is made of widgets. Yazeed likened them to Lego blocks of mobile applications. He also demonstrated how they work by coding a simple web application live. During the live coding session, Yazeed showcased features of both the Flutter framework and the Dart programming language.
“re:Invent 2019” by Bumi, Doi, and Michelle
Bumi, Doi, Michelle and other HENNGE members had gone to and returned from Las Vegas to attend re:Invent 2019, a learning conference hosted by Amazon Web Services (AWS). The event featured keynote announcements, training and certification opportunities, more than 2,500 technical sessions, and a partner expo, among other things.
Michelle had been particularly interested in technical sessions that covered machine learning (ML) and artificial intelligence (AI). AWS offers many solutions for various ML and AI needs, on both the AI service level and ML infrastructure level. Michelle learned how to develop an Alexa skill that reminds her of her birthday, got to know more about ML and AI components of Amplify, and composed some music on the DeepComposer workshop.
Bumi talked about DeepComposer in more detail. Like DeepLens and DeepRacer before it, DeepComposer is yet another effort by AWS in putting ML in the hands of every developer. Each of these services teaches us different lessons about ML. In the case of DeepComposer, the lesson is about using generative adversarial network (GAN) to compose music. The way it works seems simple enough: input melody, then choose genre or make a new model to generate music. We can then publish the music to SoundCloud or edit them in our preferred digital audio workstations (DAW). Behind the scenes, DeepComposer makes use of other AWS services such as Amazon SageMaker and AWS Lambda.
Finally, Doi-san shared his experience of having a meeting with one of AWS’ product teams during re:Invent. Contrary to his expectations, this meeting is not about giving suggestions to these product teams. What ended up happening was more akin to a consultation, in that the product teams gave Doi-san some advice on solving his problems.
“What Web Summit 2019 Has Taught Us” by Jazz and Kameyama
Jazz, Kameyama-san, and several other HENNGE members had had the chance to attend Web Summit 2019. This annual technology conference gathers the founders and CEOs of technology companies, fast-growing startups, policymakers even heads of state to discuss the global tech industry. There were more than 70,000 attendees this year from more than 160 countries. Web Summit 2019 offered 23 tracks, in which more than 1,200 speakers covered topics such as autonomous vehicles, financial technology, and AI and robotics.
Jazz and Kameyama-san had learned a lot from this event. From a company that recently successfully rebranded themselves, Mailchimp, they learned how they communicate their identity through the touchpoints with their customers. Every touch points you have with your customers are part of your brand, e.g. logo, color, website, SNS, font, etc. These touchpoints need to be designed in a way that effectively communicates the emotions you want your customers to feel.
The day of the 65th MTS was also the last day of our Global Internship Program (GIP) intern, Yazeed. We held a small event for him and gave him some souvenirs. In turn, he shared his impressions of working with us.
Thank you very much, Yazeed!
As usual, we had a party afterwards :)
