This Week I Learned - Week #153

This Week I Learned -

* You can integrate your web, mobile, or API apps with your V1 or V2 virtual networks.

* HockeyApp provides mobile app distribution, crash reporting, and in-app user feedback so you can build the world’s best mobile apps.

* Azure DNS is an Azure Resource Manager–only service, it is not supported in the Azure classic portal.

* Red Hat Enterprise Linux images are now generally available and offered through Azure Marketplace on a pay-as-you-go model with per-hour billing.

* Developers who used Facebook's Parse hosting (which is now closed) as the backend to support their mobile apps, can now utilize Azure App Service.

* Google's Chrome Music Lab makes use of Web Audio API, an open web standard that lets you create and manipulate sound right in the browser.

* ZXing ("Zebra Crossing") is an open-source, multi-format 1D/2D barcode image processing library. The ZXing Decoder Online web application is powered by the barcode scanning implementation in the open source ZXing project.

* ZXing (zebra crossing) provides the capability to initiate the bar code scanner via a webpage through a button click event, anchor tag, or other action that could call a URL on a mobile device.
When the barcode scanner application is installed on an android device, a URL call to:
zxing://scan/?ret=http://foo.com/products/{CODE}/description&SCAN_FORMATS=UPC_A,EAN_13
...will bring up the device bar code reader, the user scans the code, and the code is returned via the callback URL parameter supplied in the zxing URL.

* EAN, or EAN13, stands for European Article Number. The EAN includes the country of origin, the manufacturer, a product number & a checksum digit. When you only look at the barcode, you can't easily see which product it belongs to. EAN-Search.org website provides a reverse EAN lookup, that tells you the product the EAN code belongs to.

* 13-digit EAN-13 barcode format is the most common format used in India. UPC barcodes are 12 digits long, and are used mainly in the USA. EAN barcodes are usually 13 digits long, and they are used all over the world. Any number system which starts with the digit 0 is a UPC-A bar code. Most barcode scanners can read both types of barcode.

* As an affiliate of GS1 Global -  a not-for-profit, industry-led global standards body, GS1 India (set up by Ministry of Commerce and Industry, Governmentof India along with leading Chambers of Commerce and Industry, BIS etc in 1996 as a not-for-profit, independent standards body) administers and allocates GS1 product identifiers used in barcoding for unique and universal identification of supply chain objects, i.e. - products, logistic items, trading partners, locations, documents, assets etc. and other GS1 Standards.

* Google Shopping feeds targeting Australia, Brazil, Czech Republic, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Netherlands, Spain, Switzerland, the United Kingdom or the United States require merchants to submit valid Global Trade Item Number or ‘gtin’.

* Open Food Facts is a free, open and collaborative database of food products from the entire world.

* Facebook's Bug Bounty Program fetches 22-year-old Flipkart security engineer, Anand Prakash $15,000

* Cortana, Microsoft's voice-based virtual assistant, is also popular AI character in Microsoft's blockbuster video game franchise, Halo.

* The Hindu BusinessLine series covering the plans, proposals, strengths and weaknesses of the top 20 cities that the Government has identified for the 'Smart Cities' program is timely & insightful

* In 2002, Australian scientist Karl Kruszelnicki won an Ig Nobel Prize (link is external), a parody of the Nobel Prize award that “honors achievements that first make people laugh, and then make them think”, for his year-long belly button lint study of some 5,000 individuals. His main finding was that belly button lint is more prevalent in people with stomach hair, affects more men than women, and is made up of clothing fibers. The main engine of this process is belly hairs that act similar to a conveyer belt directing the fibers into the navel. Deep navels, poor hygiene, and obesity may result in more lint. Top-loading machines tend to be rougher on clothing than front-loading machines resulting in larger quantities of dislodged fibers that remain on the clothing, which then can result in more lint - Go Ask Alice