Are you planning to enter the mobile app industry? Then, it’s an exciting and right time!
Many technologies that were hyped earlier, have finally come into the mix and are used to develop scalable, real and usable products. As a result, businesses are embracing advanced technologies, and we are witnessing many novel ideas in the market. Some of the major innovations hitting the industry are:

Mobile IoT

Internet of Things (IoT) is not a new technology, in our daily life we see wearables to smart speakers IoT devices are around us. For instance, 3.6 billion connected devices were used in 2018. Such growth in numbers always presents opportunities for mobile app developers and entrepreneurs. Several smart devices now get through software and sensors all within a network which facilitates the exchange of data and execute diverse predetermined functions. Businesses across globe are expected to utilize the power of interconnected devices made possible by IoT space.\

Wearables

Wearable have appealed to many people which help them monitor different aspects of their health. They help in monitoring heart rate, blood pressure, calories count and much and is touted to become an indispensable accessory for almost everyone. The most exciting mobile app development trends are in more novel forms of wearable devices. For instance, Seismic introduced Powered clothing, which uses robotic components to support the user’s movements, augmenting the user’s strength and promoting good posture. Others include a smart pacifier which can monitor baby’s body temperature, wearable tech to log sleep cycles and even detect signs of breast cancer. Nowadays people have become more health conscious, aware of their lifestyles, hence there will more demand for wearable devices.

Virtual and Augmented Reality

The practical applications for VR and AR are countless. Virtual, Mixed and Augmented Reality has been used in everything, right from teaching, simulator games, overcoming PTSD, helping electricians handle complicated wiring in aircrafts. However the adoption has been quite gradual, due to technical limitations. In terms of products, it is slowly catching up eg: HTC and Oculus (mobile VR), MR systems in the form of Microsoft Hololens.

In the meanwhile, AI has been growing by leaps and bounds, which has led the way for practical applications of AR and MR. For instance, Google’s AR microscope that helps pathologists to detect tumors. Other organizations like Walmart are using MR technology for training employees right from customer service to compliance. For mobile app developers, this is an interesting arena to explore as companies sink additional development hours into these technologies, VR, AR and MR will play a significant role in how we work, learn and play.

m-Commerce

Mobile is already used widely for browsing, communicating and gaming. Now the trend is shifting more towards online mobile transaction. Mobile will increasingly be the first and often the only, touchpoint retailers will have with a shopper. In this regard, making more personalized, convenient and engaging mobile shopping experience will be a significant mobile app development trend. Small companies are willing to adopt, in an attempt to enhance customer engagement and sales. For mobile app developers, the key to success will be finding what the customers want and help in accelerating this industry.

Beacons

Beacons are potentially useful to many organisations. Beacons are simple, low energy transmitters that send their unique codes to nearby users, enabling mobile app deveopers to trigger events based on their proximity. They allow for location-based targeting, customer behavior monitoring, cross-selling and much more.

Beacons are deployed in retail stores, which helps in improving in-store customer experience. For instance Macy’s utilized beacons to help customers identify the products they need, Target used it as a navigational aid, Sam’s club introduced cashierless store and the recent one being Amazon’s Go Store. Besides, retail and marketing they are useful in home automation, self guided tours etc.

Mobile Wallets

Presently, customers are expecting convenient and safe payment methods from all the apps they use. With a shift in shopping styles across the globe there has been a significant move from cash and card payments to mobile wallets and digital currencies. Now most ecommerce platforms have integrated payment gateways and included mobile wallets such as Paypal, Google Wallet, Amazon Pay etc. They provide highest level of secure encryption which has become mainstream for all such apps. Moreover, the global mobile wallet market is projected to expand at a CAGR of 30% by 2026. Considering the ongoing growth of mobile commerce and consumer preference for m-wallets, people will increasingly adopt this type of payment and we can expect to see more mobile payment apps in future.

Chatbots

Chatbots are capable of delivering self-service and personalized responses to users in real time. With the advancements in AI, businesses and organisations are now integrating chatbots to better user’s interaction. For instance, they were earlier used in messaging apps like Facebook, Slack, Skype but the evolution of AI had made it possible to integrate with mobile native apps. They can improve functionality of mobile apps, increase user engagement to deliver better results.

Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning

AI and ML has been quite dominant technology and it is expected to continue that way. The advantages include analyzing enormous amounts of organizational data, providing valuable insights to business management. AI and ML can help in building smarter mobile apps that gives users a more personalized experience thus increasing user adoption and retention
So, let’s watch for the developments of these trends and see how they will continue to make a difference within mobile app development in the future!.

What is full stack?

Full stack means, a collection of technologies needed to complete the project. Example,

1. LAMP full stack web development (Linux Apache MySQL, PHP)
2. LEMP full stack web development (Linux Nginx MySQL, PHP)
3. MEAN full stack web development (MongoDB, ExpressJS, Angular, NodeJS)
4. C# full stack web development (C# – Dot Net Core, Angular, MS SQL)

What full stack developer do?

A full stack developer is a person who has the functional knowledge and ability to take the
concept and turn it into a complete product. The major role and responsibility for a full stack
developer is to work font-end and back-end technologies and manage database, web server.

Skills Sets for Full stack Developers

Front End

User experience one of important criteria to measure success of the project, the UX and UI
is implemented using front end technologies, like HTML5, CSS3, Javascript. There are modern
frameworks / libraries also available to make front end developer life easier. E.g., Angular, React
JS, Vue JS, JQuery, SASS, LESS, Bootstrap, Material Design.

Back End

The main responsibly of the back end developer is to manage the business logic, storing
data and API resources for the project. In addition to that they are able to handle database, web
server, security and architecture of a system. Full stack developer must have strong knowledge i n
any one of the server side programming like PHP, C#, NodeJS etc.

DevOps

“DevOps” means Development and Operations. The main work is, to coordinate across
the entire application life cycle, from development, testing to deployment and operations.
Configure and manage web application infrastructure, source control, web server configuration,
deployment and regulate application releases.

Database

Any project/product needs a data base to store and retrieve data. The full stack
developers able to write scripts to manage data (insert, update, select, delete) into database.
Should have knowledge in functions, views, stored procedures, triggers in any one of the most
commonly used databases like MySQL, SQLite, MongoDB, MS SQL.

Mobile Apps

Ability to learn and develop the cross platform native application using
Flutter Framework and React Native. These mobile apps are more closely connect with Web API’s
to fetch and display in application, Designing user friendly screens, adopting UX, nice page
transitions and manage data flow in application.

Advantages

1. The full stack developer involves, complete life cycle of project development.
2. They are must be capable of designing prototype, development, testing and deployment
and releases of project.
3. Full stack developers able to provide complete solution to problems, think globally,
creative and mange time effectively.

Disadvantages

1. Full stack developers cannot be expert in one skill. They have enough knowledge in
multiple skills to manage project independently.
2. Risk and Can Delay – When a single person handles all the responsibilities, there might
be some risk when they are in leave or can cause delay when dealing heavy computation and
data manipulation on one end.

Wrapping Up

As a full stack developer, you have to keep learning new updates in technology, strengthen
the core skills in any one of the full stack path, you don’t want to be master in all the skills, but
you must have capability to work on these technologies. First learn the concept, then practice and
implement it in possible places.

The amount of data that we generate everyday is truly staggering. At the moment, 2.5 quintillion bytes of data is created each day and is estimated to increase with the growth of Internet of Things (IoT). For instance, this consists of every credit card transaction you make, your texts across messaging platforms, even the webpage you open. Now that you have an idea of these numbers, just imagine how much data we collectively generate every single day. This leads to endless opportunities for many businesses who are keen to capitalize on the data, likewise Banking industry is no exception.

Presently, Digital banking is used by more than 2 billion people i.e almost half of world’s adult population. Hence, financial institutions have enough data at hand to rethink the way they operate, to become more efficient, customer-centric and as result more profitable. Banks have already been digitized which can be seen in Figure 1, now they are all set to get datafied.

Figure 1 Digital Transformation in Banks

(Source : Juniper Research https://www.juniperresearch.com/press/press-releases/digital-banking-users-to-reach-2-billion)

However, the ultimate question is “How do the banks get most of your data to stay ahead in the competition?”In this blog, we will discuss the applications of big data in banking sector.

The banking industry is among many industries which have enormous amounts of useful data about their customers but only few banks are utilizing this piece of valuable information to enhance the customer experience and using the data information to prevent fraudulent activities. According to recent research, only 37% of customers have responded positively saying banks understand their preferences and needs. It reflects, that banks are finding it a massive challenge to handle an ocean of informative data, which can be due to lack of skilled work force, unstructured data, high cost associated in storage and much more.However, the banks have realised the significance of data and gradually they have started applying Big Data Technology. The results are here, with almost sevenfold increase in the volume of data in past few years and experts believe this will propel the Banking industry. In this regard, Fintech firms have radically modified the financial landscape by facilitating the big data applications and complex calculations to financial decision making.

FinTech companies are proactive, and they have the ability to handle big data to provide unparalleled levels of convenience. In this process they are taking away a sizable chunk of traditional finance firms revenue by eliminating friction for customers, for instance payment companies like Paypal and Upstart now allow customers to easily make payments online and take part in peer-to-peer lending. On the other hand, traditional financial firms lack the infrastructure to support these type of services and are unable to understand how customers are using specific applications. They tend to rely on surveys rather than real-time data to identify how customers are responding to their services. The bottom line is that unless traditional financial firms can catch up to Fintech companies in terms of embracing Big Data, they will not survive.

Having gained an outline of Banking Industry, now let us look at the pros and cons of big data in banking which is listed below.

Despite the aforementioned challenges, the advantage of big data in banking easily justifies any risk. The insights it provides you, the resources it frees up, reminds again that data is an universal fuel that can propel your businesses. But it all boils down to how banks can use big data to their full potential. Let us delve into some practical applications of Big Data in banks.

Applications of Big Data in Banking

• Personalized customer experience
• User segmentation and targeting
• Process optimization and automation
• Improved cybersecurity and performance management
• Fraud Prevention
• Transaction Channel Identification
• Customer feedback and analysis

What’s the road ahead?

With all that can be achieved with the help of Big Data and the ideal data platform to harness it, it’s the right time to make a plan and act on it. To gain the most out of Big Data, banks should focus on these three steps.

• Develop a data strategy and align it with business goals

Most companies strive to be data-driven, but not all are successful. To overcome this companies need to define a comprehensive strategy that spans across all departments, help them accomplish both singular and broader business goals.

• Identify a data platform that is scalable and secure for your business

Flexible and secure platforms allow companies to collect, store and process data in real time. Security includes role-based access, vital information doesn’t get leaked, allows companies to track data usage on a granular level.

• Identify one business problem and expand on it

Companies should try to identify one business problem, solve it with data and then expand on the solution to address other issues.

It is evident that Big Data is an integral element of today’s financial services industry, and the success of financial firms will be determined by their ability to harness Big Data in a big way.

Final Thoughts

Doing the things the old-fashioned way is pretty risky nowadays. Banks must evolve and embrace new technologies if they want to sustain. Adopting Big Data analytics and intertwining into banking sector workflows is one of the key elements of surviving and prevailing in competitive business environment. Gone are the days, where we used to perceive banks with sophisticated marble halls, with clerks assisting customers. In the last decade, banks have heavily invested in technology includes incorporating web and mobile access services. Now it is time for them to empower their operations with Big Data analytics, AI/ML algorithms and other high-tech tools.

Blockchain technology is steadily gaining impetus and is deemed to have great importance in the global economy. Of all the available industries, where blockchain technology has been proposed to transform the way things are traditionally done, obviously there are many – e-Commerce is certainly the leader of the pack. E-commerce is amongst the industries that are steadily increasing the use of blockchain technology inorder to facilitate safer and faster financial transactions.

Of late, the commonbuzzwords used in the industry are “E-Commerce”,“Blockchain” and “Bitcoin”.  Besides, we have seen e-Commerce giants ranging from Walmart to Unilever shifting towards Blockchain. First things first, so what exactly is e-Commerce, and further delve into Blockchain and is it going to redefine e-Commerce industry?

Current Scenario of e-Commerce

Is the e-Commerce market expanding? Based on the data from IPC BE (e-commerce forum) the market trends and growth has been visualised in Figures 1-2. From Figure 1 it is evident that the projections are upward and seems to be undisputable with no signs of decline. The online sales improved from $2.3 to $2.8 trillion, almost comprising a 10% of current total global retail sales and increasing the online share close to 15% in 2019 which can be seen in Figure 2. The estimated growth rate is about 265% [Based on Data from 2014 ($1.3 trillion) vs 2021($4.9 trillion) projections]. In this regard to exploit this e-Commerce trend, physical stores must focus on e-Commerce infrastructure to bring their businesses from offline to online. For instance, when improvements are made in e-Commerce infrastructure, internet penetration and payment systems, this market is bound to expand even further.

Figure 1‑ Global Trend – e-Commerce Growth

Figure 2E-commerce Global Retail Sales

So how it actually works? The success is partly attributed to various e-Commerce platforms that are able to develop an e-Commerce solution that attracts small and medium enterprises which ideally don’t have time and resources to create their own e-Commerce platform. As result it involves operation costs, fees and commissions charges which leaves little room for small/mid level firms to make money out of e-Commerce. For instance it includes credit card/ payment processer fees also,Paypal typically charges about 3%. These factors need to be weighed in, then included in the price before passing on to the consumer. Morever there are various barriers limiting the e-Commerce growth such as complex and costly infrastructure, access issues and lack of trust in security and privacy. Because of this scenario, many small businesses end up in a place where they can’t compete. In this regard, we pose a question “Is it possible for Blockchain technology to solve the issues related to costs and infrastructure of e-Commerce?”

To address this question, we need to understand the fundamentals of Blockchain. Let’s have a look!

Blockchain and its purpose

A chain of online transactions usually performed in crypto currencies and conserved as shared legder across numerous computers on a peer-to-peer network is regarded as Blockchain. In a nutshell, it is a technology that allows information to be digitally transferred between people without any intermediaries like banks, insurance firms etc. They have significant applications in the areas like supply chain management, money transfer, online retail, data sharing and storage, digital identification systems and tax regulation, and so on. For example, blockchain allows companies to directly work with consumers to exchange money and services, thereby reducing the operating costs associated with servers, storage and security. It can handle user activities like product searches, processing payments and customer care. Some of the commonly used blockchain technologies are Ethereum and Bitcoin. Ethereum offers a technical platform for e-commerce websites where their blockchains can be managed. Bitcoin is basically a cryptocurrency that led to the creation of Blockchain technology.

Having gained an insight on Blockchain technicalities, let us explore how it is different compared to traditional e-Commerce. This comparison hopefully answers the question “Will Blockchain overtake traditional e-Commerce?”. The differences observed in payment methods are tabulated below, further Figure 3 illustrates the advantages in adopting Blockchain.

Figure 3.  Traditional e-commerce approach vs Blockchain comparison

( Source: https://www.openxcell.com/blockchain-set-to-redefine-ecommerce)

Blockchain’s influence on e-Commerce

The advent of Blockchain technologies has transformed the e-Commerce ecosystem. Now, e-Commerce players are shifting towards an economic ecosystem that is smoother, faster and easier for consumers and online retailers. In a way, Blockchains strive towards enhancing the customer experience. Some of the solutions using Blockchain are as follows:

• Enable cryptocurrency payments: Leads to larger consumer pool with low costs for exchanging money and services. Offers international transactions at lower exchange rate by which we can eliminate fraudulent purchases and charge-backs.

• Infrastructure:Blockchain is in decentralized nature, which will lower the need for data storage thereby cutting costs related with data handling and security. It has the ability to store information across the network. No need to worry on customer privacy and data security, blockchains anonymity and functionality to the rescue! As a result, low costs will enable the small businesses to break the barrier and enter into the market.

• Improved User Experience: Blockchain will eliminate multiple getaway logins while purchasing, in the meanwhile providing better security (DLT – Distributed Ledger Technology). Cheap, faster and more secure payments and a more transparent market place. Better visibility leads to increase in adoption ?!

Besides, there are wide range of applications for Blockchain in e-Commerce, which includes Fund Transfers, Web payment transactions, Decentralized digital market and effective Retail Management. Some of the applications of Blockchain in e-Commerce can be seen in Figure 4.

Conclusion

In future, Blockchains will act as the backbone for online sales and payments. Aims to democratize the economy by making the e-Commerce ecosystem more transparent, thereby allowing users to have control over their transactions. By adopting Blockchain, e-Commerce will become cheaper, faster, secure and more accessible. Cryptocurrency payment methods will benefit sellers in reducing costs, and opens a new horizon widening the scope of e-Commerce!

Gone are the days, where JavaScript developers were primarily seen as front-end developers, typically bound to the web browser. Today JavaScript is everywhere and is touted as the crown jewel of programming languages, the popularity can be clearly seen in Figure 1. The growth of JavaScript ecosystem coupled with the rise in popularity has literally changed the face of web development. For instance, earlier from only browsers it expanded to the server and now it’s become more extensive. Right from mobile apps, IoT devices, Bot Frameworks, 3D games and even Virtual Reality can be developed using JavaScript.

Figure 1  Stack overflow developers’ survey

(Source:  https://insights.stackoverflow.com/survey/2019#technology)

So, still wondering what led to this emergence and popularity of JavaScript?Here are some interesting features I opine that contributed to the popularity of JavaScript.

Ease of Use

Relevant frameworks and libraries are available online. JavaScript code is executable on the browser (client) as well as the server, and doesn’t require complitation at the client side . It has the ability to support functional as well as OOPS programming style. The presence of numerous JavaScript frameworks and libraries enables to develop both web and mobile applications.

Accessibility

We know that the success of any product depends on the ease of access. In this regard, this salient feature “accessibility” has made possible the growth of JavaScriptand its community. The online community provides relevant solutions to common problems, which is another reason that developers prefer JavaScript. As a result,the community has fostered creativity and innovation thus forming an integral part of JavaScript’s progress and evolution.

Performance

Being an interpreted language, JavaScript tends to be lighter and faster and less bulky than Java.This coupled with scalabilityand ease of use makes it ideal for most tasks.

Code Sharing

The package managers in JavaScript are intuitive and easy to use. These package managers and hassle-free environment allow the developers to share the code, thus saving a lot of time.

Editor/IDE support

No need of full-fledged IDE, allows developers to use lightweight editors such as Atom, VIM, Emacs etc.

Signs of constant innovation and adoption

Gradual rise in number of environmentshas led the JavaScript developers to create and explore new platforms. A classic example of Netflix utilizing Node.js for their front-end web applications. Besides, it serves as a great choice for developing cross-platform native applications.For instance, React and React Native is widely employed by Facebook, companies like Microsoft and Github have adopted electron.js to aid the development of cross-platform desktop applications.

Having gained an outline of JavaScript, let us dive into some of the essential JavaScript frameworks and libraries.

Node.js

Node.js is an open-source, cross-platform JavaScript run-time environment which allows to execute code outside of a browser. It has variety of applications, right from running the backend of websites to controlling robots and IoT applications on cloudplatforms.It is built on Google Chrome’s V8 engine.

React.js

React is a versatile, declarative and comprehensible JavaScript library for developing interactive UIs. Based on the data from NPM trends, the usage of different libraries, frameworks have been plotted in Figure 2 and percentage change in growth over a year has been tabulated in Table 2. The number of downloads statistic indicates that React.js is way head compared to other libraries which confirms that it is popular among developers.Further React.js has seen a swift growth since its inception by Facebook in 2013. Other attributes include ease of management, efficiency, ideal for large web applications, processes the data without page reloadings, SEO friendly and at last its reusable components which reduces the development time

.

Figure 2.  JavaScript libraries usage trends

Table 1. Growth of JS libraries

Angular

Angular is a full-fledged framework which can run in any platform. It is robust and mature when compared to React, besides it is primarily used for developing single page applications. It is maintained by Google and predominantly used in Google Fiber and AdWords. Though Angular is catching up, from Figure 2 it can be inferred that it is still behind React in terms of usage. Some of the influential factors include two-way data bind, components that support content projection, and Angular CLI as a decision making tool.

Vue.js

Vue.js is a relatively new JavaScript library that gained traction since 2018. It is easier to learn, thanks to excellent documentation coupled with numerous live examples. Moreover, it enables the developers to convert parts to old application to Vue without any rebuilding process, meaning enables to test small parts of the application without altering the entire application.The striking aspects of Vue.js are its clarity, simplicity, versatility, performance, enables to implement great UI ideas, easier to control the look and functionality of UI, provides proxy support, SVG animations and stable API.

Electron.js

Electron.js is a run-time framework which enables the user to create desktop-suite applications with JavaScript, CSS and HTML5. In a nutshell, it is an amalgamation of Node.js and Chromium.While developing a Desktop application the user needs to focus on certain secondary aspects like simplification of installation and packaging,  optimization of crash reports, supporting native menus, dialogs and notifications. In this regard usage of Electron.js addresses the aforementioned aspects, thereby allowing the developer to concentrate only on the core of the application. In addendum, it has the ability of auto-updating and crash reporting on Windows/Mac with Squirrel.

Final Notes

As a developer if you need your apps to be used by most people, then JavaScript is a great choice. The combination of all the above discussed features makes it more powerful and popular, which no other programming language can offer. Besides in this era of application development where speed, flexibility and versatility are highly valued, JavaScript is one of the valuable skills to have. Finally JavaScript is literally your canvas, now its time to paint the lily!