MIT APP INVENTOR

When one thinks of Android application development, the thoughts that struck the mind are installing JDK, SDKs and Eclipse and so on. We can hardly think of developing our own app (without any use of template) of course, without the knowledge of JAVA unless we come across the MIT App Inventor. Yes, developing Android applications without even knowing any bit of JAVA

App Inventor for Android or commonly known as the MIT App Inventor is an open-source web application originally provided by Google, and now under maintenance of Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). It was released publicly on December 15, 2010 and the team was led by Hal Abelson and Mark Friedman.

At a point where the traditional way of developing the apps through Eclipse or the Android Studio more recently may seem to be a hardcore techno- geek's job, developing the app on MIT AI seems nothing but just a game. There is no code involved physically; we just need to keep on connecting blocks similar to jigsaw puzzle and you are done with your app.

Once after visiting the website, we need to just login through our Gmail email address and get started. No installations, no downloads! Technically the procedure can be divided into two sections viz., designer and blocks.

Designer is the empty space where you can drag and drop the requirements of your app such as buttons, text fields, etc and invisible components such as sensors, clock, etc. On the blocks
screen, there are various blocks of every component selected. Apply the logic of your app and connect the blocks same as just in the jigsaw puzzle.

Here is small example of app which on clicking the button changes its colour to red.

Firstly, the button was dragged from the left side of the screen on the canvas. Then by switching onto the blocks screen, the logic was implemented as represented in the figure below.

Fig. 1: Designer Screen

Fig. 2: Blocks screen

While developing Android applications, testing is required after making the app or at times while developing to see whether we are going on a right path.  AI simplifies this work too. There are three
methods available for testing: downloading AI Emulator, connecting your smart phone (details of which are readily available on the website) and the most interesting and unique is their MIT AI Companion app.

One can choose this option in connect menu.

Fig. 3: MIT AI2 Companion App

 It generates a QR code which is to be scanned through the companion app and the output of your code gets displayed on the screen of your smart phone.

Fig. 4: QR Code connection

The tutorials, videos, source files available on their website make the use of App Inventor even easier and simple. MIT keeps on integrating with different organizations to conduct workshops and competitions using MIT App Inventor even at the schooling level. Various App summits, Monthly Best App competition, etc makes the learning competitive.

The MIT App Inventor facilitates easy learning and interesting app development for everyone ranging from novice beginners to the experts too. So, build your own app using this simple technology. Happy App-Making! J

Jayesh Ahuja

Web of Things

“How do you distinguish a WoT thing from a mere IoT thing?
Try talking client-side JavaScript to it, if it just stares at you like you used some kind of an unknown language then this isn’t a WoT thing…”

The Internet of Things (IoT) is an extension to the current Internet that enables connections and communication among physical objects and devices (see the September 2013 Computing Now theme for more on IoT and its role in ubiquitous sensing). Estimates suggest that there will be 50 billion devices and people connected and leveraging the vision and technology behind IoT by 2020. A related term that's currently somewhat in vogue is Internet of Everything (IoE), which recognizes the key role of people, or citizen sensing (such as through online social media), to complement the physical sensing implied by IoT.

The term Web of Things (WoT) goes beyond the focus on the Internet as the mode of exchanging data, instead bringing in all resources and interactions involving devices, data, and people on the Web. Correspondingly, it brings into focus a wide variety of challenges and opportunities while paving a way to a variety of exciting applications for individuals to industries.

WoT: Supercharging IoT and IoE

Sensors and devices collect data with a wide variety of types (such as temperature, light, sound, and video) and that are inherently diverse (data quality and validity can vary with different devices through time; data is often location- and time-dependent, and so on). WoT resources can be ubiquitous and are often constrained in terms of power, memory, processing, access, availability, attention, and communication capabilities. The resources' heterogeneity, ubiquity, and dynamic nature, coupled with the wide range of data, make discovering, accessing, processing, integrating, and interpreting the data on the Web a challenging task.

A rich cyber component of WoT includes Web-resident data, knowledge (in Wikipedia or Linked Open Data, for example), information exchanged over social media (such as sites in which patients share health-related information), and user-submitted physical world observations and measurements. Integrating physical, cyber, and social resources enables the development of physical-cyber-social (PCS) applications and services that can incorporate situation- and context-awareness into the decision-making mechanisms, and can create smart data out of big data by harnessing volume, variety, velocity and veracity to create actionable information. Examples of such applications range from personalized health, fitness, and well-being to energy and an increasingly wide variety of business and industrial activities.

Anand Bhagwani