July 2018 Summaries

In an era where communication has evolved from lengthy letters to instantaneous chats, the concept of "information decay" highlights how the rapid delivery and consumption of data have diminished individual data value, elevating the importance of time as a critical business asset. This shift presents both opportunities and challenges for businesses, empowering them to innovate quickly and make informed decisions based on real-time data, while also facing the insatiable demand from users for immediate and relevant information. Successful businesses have recognized the crucial role of time management in their strategies, leveraging it to engage customers effectively and make timely, impactful decisions, suggesting that mastering time is key to maintaining a competitive edge.

Sunburns, caused by high-energy UVB rays, can result in gene mutations and significantly increase the risk of melanoma after just a few occurrences. To mitigate this risk, using sunscreen or shade is recommended, but applying sunscreen can be cumbersome and unreliable. The author explored an alternative approach while fishing, using real-time UV index tracking to manage sun exposure. This led to the development of a UV Index Monitor, which uses PubNub's Pub/Sub service to facilitate real-time data transmission and retrieval. The monitor comprises a UV sensor, an RGB LED indicator, a Project EON-powered dashboard, and a React Native app for iOS and Android with mobile push notifications. The process involves setting up an Arduino with PubNub, creating an indicator for visual feedback, and establishing a dashboard and app that display UV index information and notify users when UV levels are high.

In the final installment of a four-part series on building an Android messaging app with PubNub, this tutorial explores advanced techniques for managing multiple channel subscriptions using PubNub's Stream Controller, focusing on Multiplexing, Wildcard Subscriptions, and Channel Groups. The guide details how to implement a "latest message from channels" tab that dynamically displays messages from various channels and offers insights into the core concepts of subscriptions and message callbacks. Multiplexing allows a single device connection to support multiple channel subscriptions efficiently, while Channel Groups provide a way to manage numerous channels by assigning them a collective alias. The tutorial further explains how to create subscription callbacks, use adapters to link dynamic data with the Android UI, and ensure UI updates occur on the UI thread. Additionally, the document covers advanced features such as Wildcard Subscribe, which allows for hierarchical channel subscriptions, and the management of Channel Groups, including adding, removing, and deleting channels, ultimately resulting in a fully functioning Android messaging application powered by PubNub.

HQ Trivia, a popular live game show app, revolutionized the quiz/trivia market by enabling players to compete in real-time against millions of others for monetary prizes. Building a similar app presents technical challenges such as scaling for massive user volumes, synchronizing question displays, collecting real-time responses, and managing answer tallies instantaneously. This tutorial demonstrates how to create a basic HQ demo app using PubNub, a real-time data stream network that simplifies these tasks. The app features two interfaces: an Admin Interface, where questions are published and results are managed, and a Player Interface, where users engage with the quiz. The guide details the setup and implementation of both interfaces, including PubNub's setup, security measures using Access Manager, and user interface design. Additionally, it outlines how the app handles question publishing, answer collection, result calculation, and data display to ensure a seamless gaming experience for users.

PubNub offers a Publish-Subscribe API that enables the rapid transmission of small messages between internet-connected devices, with messages typically delivered in under 0.25 seconds. This network is supported by multiple global points of presence, ensuring low latency and continued operation even if data centers fail. PubNub provides over 70 SDKs for various programming languages and devices, making it suitable for real-time, event-driven applications like chat messaging, live updates, IoT signaling, and more. Developers can enhance these capabilities through PubNub Functions, which allow the execution of custom code to augment, transform, or filter messages during transmission, enabling use cases such as real-time language translation, data analytics, and secure API calls. Functions are further categorized into four event handlers—Before Publish or Fire, After Publish or Fire, After Presence, and On Request—each serving unique purposes like mutating message contents, triggering alerts, or acting as a REST API. The Functions feature includes tools for securely storing API keys, managing application state, and integrating with third-party APIs, supported by a library of over 80 open-source Function event handlers available through the PubNub BLOCKS Catalog.

Developers are increasingly focusing on creating user experiences that retain users by integrating real-time interactions and innovative technologies like voice, augmented reality (AR), and virtual reality (VR), moving beyond traditional screen-based interfaces. This evolution is exemplified by the development of a project called Smart-Intercom, an Alexa skill designed to transform the typical house intercom experience. It leverages real-time communication by allowing users to interact via voice devices, using tools like PubNub to execute complex logic and provide instant responses. The project highlights the challenges of designing voice applications with limited interfaces and presents solutions such as using Storyline for intuitive interaction design and React Native for companion app development. By making API requests to perform tasks remotely, the project demonstrates how developers can create seamless, integrated user experiences that extend beyond conventional applications, with potential future integrations into IoT devices. All the necessary code is available on GitHub to enable further exploration and customization.

This tutorial provides a step-by-step guide to creating an IoT Twitter bot using Functions and the PubNub SDK, which allows for automated interactions with Twitter via its API. The tutorial explains the concept of a Twitter bot and its applications, such as tweeting real-time data from IoT devices, and highlights the benefits of using Twitter for globalizing IoT data. A practical example is given using a Raspberry Pi and a temperature/humidity sensor, demonstrating how to configure the sensor, enable SSH for remote access, and install necessary libraries. The tutorial details integrating PubNub to publish sensor data to a Twitter account, including setting up a GitHub repository for code management and utilizing SSH to transfer and run the code on the Raspberry Pi, effectively showcasing the ease and usefulness of combining IoT devices with social media platforms like Twitter.

The newSpoken SDK enables users to capture and transmit their voice commands to control remote devices and apps through the PubNub Network, which translates speech into text using a method called spoken.listen(). This technology offers enhanced convenience, particularly for driving and visually impaired users, by allowing voice control over applications and devices, such as IoT gadgets. The SDK boasts a high level of accuracy, surpassing typical human auditory capabilities, and provides developers with the tools to build voice-powered applications, including features like meeting note-taking, document writing, and chatbot interactions. By employing the provided code for both microphone-equipped devices and remote devices, users can swiftly create voice-controlled applications, making the integration of voice commands into technology both accessible and efficient.