The AppsLab

For a couple of months, I’ve been using as my main phone the Nextbit Robin. A $299 Android phone that started as a campaign in Kickstarter, and it got 3,611 backers including Jake (@jkuramot). I previously had my Nexus 5, but over the time, Bluetooth stopped working and that was a good excuse to try this phone.… Read More

Numbers are a property of the universe. Once Earthians figured that out, there was no stopping them. They went as far as the Moon. We use numbers in business and life. We measure, we look for oddities, we plan. We think of ourselves as rational. I, for one, like to look at the thermometer before deciding… Read More

Just like last year, a few members (@jkuramot, @noelportugal, @YuhuaXie, Tony and myself) of @theappslab attended Kscope16 to run a Scavenger Hunt, speak and enjoy one of the premier events for Oracle developers. It was held in Chicago this time around, and here are my impressions. Since our Scavenger Hunt was quite a success the previous year, we were asked to run it again to spice up… Read More

Twilio Signal Conference ended with an after-party called the $Bash night.  Twilio set up booths with geeky games like programming, program debugging, computer building etc..  They also had a foosball table for 16 people.  I think it is one of the nicest parties for geeks I attended so far.  It was a fun night with… Read More

Lets dive to the Twilio sessions. The sessions are generally divided in the following 4 tracks: Learn See the latest progress in software and cloud communications, talk shop with Twilio engineers who developed them, and get in to the details on how to use the software. Inspire Hear from industry experts shaping the future of… Read More

This year I attended the Twilio Signal Conference.  Same as its first year, it was held in Pier 27, San Francisco.  It was a 2-day action-packed conference with a keynote session in the morning and sessions after till 6 pm. The developer experience provided by the conference is superb comparing to a lot of other developer… Read More

Another year, another amazing at the Maker Faire. I’ve attended my fair share of Maker Faires these years, so the pyrotechnic sculptures, 3D printing masterpieces, and handmade artisan marketplaces were of no particular surprise. But somehow, every time I come around to the San Mateo fairgrounds, the Faire can’t help but be so aggressively fresh, crazy,… Read More

Many hands make light (emitting diodes) work. Oracle Applications User Experience (OAUX) gets down to designing fashion technology (#fashtech) solutions in a fun maker event with a serious research and learning intent. OAUX Senior Director and resident part-time fashion blogger, Ultan “Gucci Translated” O’Broin (@ultan), reports from the Redwood City runway. Fashion and Technology: What’s… Read More

Generally, I’m not in favor of consolidating important stuff onto my phone, e.g. credit cards, etc. because if I lose my phone, I’ll lose all that stuff too. However, I’ve been waiting to try out a digital hotel key, i.e. using my phone to unlock my hotel room. Only a few hotels and hotel chains have… Read More

Editor’s Note: In February while we were in Australia, I had the pleasure to meet Stuart Coggins (@ozcoggs) and Scott Newman (@lamdadsn). They told me about a sweet Anki Overdrive cars plus Oracle Cloud Services hack Stuart and some colleagues did for Pausefest 2016 in Melbourne. Last week, Stuart sent over a more detailed video of the… Read More

Hi there, remember me? Wow, April was a busy month for us, and looking ahead, it’s getting busy again. Busy is good, and also good, is the emergence of new voices here at the ‘Lab. They’ve done a great job holding down the fort. Since my last post in late March, you’ve heard from Raymond… Read More

Last week several of my colleagues and myself had the privilege of attending the Samsung Developers Conference (SDC) in San Francisco.  It was the 5th time Samsung organized a developers conference in San Francisco but only the first time I attended, although some in our party were present previous times so I had some idea of what to… Read More

VR was the big thing at the Samsung Developer Conference, and one of the points that got driven across, both in the keynotes and in other talks throughout the day, was that VR is a fundamentally new medium—something we haven’t seen since the motion picture. Injong Rhee, the executive VP of R&D for Software and… Read More

Last week, we were back in Las Vegas again for Oracle Modern Customer Experience Conference!  Instead of talking to customers and partners, we had the honor of chatting with UNLV Lee graduate students (@lbsunlv) and getting their feedback on how we envision the future of work, customers experience, marketing and data security. We started off with… Read More