December 2023 Summaries

The streaming industry is increasingly adopting advertising-supported business models as a way to increase revenue and attract more viewers. However, striking the right balance between ad quantity and viewer experience is crucial for success. To help streaming platforms optimize their ad delivery, Mux has introduced new advertising metrics that track how many ads are shown to viewers, where they are displayed, and the frequency of ad errors. These insights can help companies make informed decisions about their advertising strategies and ensure a high-quality viewing experience for users.

Mux has released its video player for iOS and Android in beta, following the successful launch of its web-based version. The company intentionally delayed building a player until it developed analytics (Mux Data) and video hosting/delivery services (Mux Video). The new mobile SDKs are designed to be straightforward and easy to implement, with no additional learning required for developers familiar with native mobile players like AVPlayer or ExoPlayer. Currently, the Mux Player automatically configures basic Mux Data features without requiring extra steps from users. In the future, Mux plans to add more functionality to address common mobile playback issues and improve user experience while balancing complexity and cost.

The text discusses the use of Rust for writing CPU-intensive tasks in client SDKs across different platforms, including iOS, Android, and web applications. It highlights how Rust can be used to write code once and compile it for multiple platforms, offering better performance than Java/Kotlin or Swift/Objective-C. The author shares their experience of building a prime number-counting app using Rust for all three platforms, addressing the challenges faced in configuring Gradle and Xcode, creating bindings between Rust and target languages, passing complex data structures, and invoking platform-specific callbacks. The text also provides code examples and insights into the tools used, such as Corrosion Plugin for CMake, swift-bridge plugin for Cargo, wasm-bindgen, and wasm-pack. Overall, it emphasizes that Rust's cross-platform capabilities can be leveraged to improve performance in various applications like video games, photo editors, virtual and augmented reality, and facial recognition.