Swift Playgrounds shows how anyone can learn to code

In June 2014 at its WWDC event keynote in San Francisco, Apple introduced a new coding language called Swift. The idea was to make coding easier, less frustrating and to offer you a real-time look at what your code actually meant. Swift Playgrounds, launched earlier this year, is an iPad designed to make it even simpler.

Apple’s mission is simple: to get as many kids and first-timers as possible learning the basics of coding. This week, that drive sees the company taking part in the Hour of Code as part of Computer Science Education Week which runs until 11 December. Free workshops will be held at Apple stores around the country.

If you’re not able to get to one with your kids, just fire up the iPad, download Swift Playgrounds and you’ll find a special Hour of Code session there. Or, if you’re a teacher, you can download Apple’s pre-made lesson guides and start your own session. 

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Right at the outset of starting up the Swift Playgrounds app – a free download from the App Store – you’re introduced to coding in the most simple way. Half of the screen is taken up with a real-time graphic showing a character called Byte in his own 3D world. The other half is a screen for inputting your code, with a basic description and guide on how to achieve the objectives of that lesson.

In every instance, the aim is to get Byte to pick up a gem and/or flick a switch on the floor. As you progress through the lessons, commands get more and more complicated to build up your knowledge of how to string together commands.

The first chapter of lessons take you through stringing together very basic commands. You don’t have to type them all out, you can just tap on the command you want from the selection at the bottom of the screen. This immediately cuts a considerable amount of time out of inputting code, removing probably the most tedious part of real coding.

Following on from that, you learn to build complex single commands by grouping together existing simple lines. For instance, in any level where the same group of moves is repeated multiple times, it’s better to build a new function made up of individual commands.

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As an example, Byte needs to go up and down four sets of steps to collect a gem in one chapter. In this instance, it makes more sense to create one function that tells him to go up the stairs, collect the gem, then come back down and turn to the next set of steps, the repeat that three more times. It’s the difference between writing 28 lines of code and writing four.

One of the other great things about Swift Playgrounds is that if you make a mistake, and get commands in the wrong order, you don’t have to delete the entire list and start again. You simply tap on a line of code and drag it up or down to reorder.

While Swift Playgrounds will never be a tool to help you build a stonking new app, and become a coding wizard, it’s a really easy way of learning the basics. By gamifying the process, making input so easy to see and so visual, it’s about as user friendly as coding has ever been. We’ve tested it with some of our primary school age kids and, although initially tricky for them, they got into the groove eventually.

It stops lines of coding from looking like a jumbled mess or words and punctuation, and makes it far easier to understand. If you want to get into coding, or help your kids or pupils learn the basics, it’s one of the best ways to do it.

The Morning After: Friday December 9, 2016

Friday is here, and we learned that Magic Leap’s wondrous demo video last year was all CGI magic, that scientists have discovered a dinosaur tail with feathers, and explain why Pebble fans might not be happy with the company’s new owners.

Always read the fine print
Surprise: That first Magic Leap demo video was all special effects

For the last couple of years, Magic Leap has been promising a groundbreaking augmented reality experience. Despite hiring hundreds of employees and snagging big-name financial backers (like Google) it hasn’t actually shown off the technology publicly, leaving all of us to wonder what’s going on. The Information reports that the company has had trouble implementing some of its patented fiber-optic technology, and may be preparing a wearable headset that’s closer to what we’ve seen from Microsoft’s HoloLens than the WETA-created demo video it posted last year.

1921 – 2016
John Glenn, the first American to orbit the Earth, dies at 95

On Thursday John Glenn died at the age of 95 in Columbus, Ohio. One of NASA’s original seven Mercury astronauts, Glenn was the first American to orbit the earth, a combat pilot in World War II and the Korean War and a four-term US Senator. 36 years after his first first spaceflight, he became the oldest person to visit space at 77, flying a nine-day mission on the Discovery shuttle in 1998.

Yeah, like Jurassic Park
First dinosaur tail found encased in amber

A piece of amber found in Myanmar has provided scientists with their first well-preserved sample of a dinosaur’s tail, complete with feathers. Likely from a Cretaceous-era coelurosaur, it’s providing new information not only on dinosaurs, but also on how feathers have evolved.

Google’s Assistant is getting out there
Google opens up its Assistant actions to third party developers

Spotify shortcuts, WhatsApp replies and more could be coming soon to Google’s AI helper. Actions on Google was briefly described at the company’s October event, and is a little bit like IFTTT, making programmable ‘recipes’ for Google’s Assistant to follow. Now the developer platform is live, and third parties will eventually be able to create at least two types of Actions — Direct and Conversation. For now, only Conversation Actions are available, where “users won’t need to enable a skill or install an app, they can just ask to talk to your action,” Self-explanatory, then.

Cortana also getting the smarts
Windows 10 preview puts Cortana in control of your music

Cortana is the star of a big new Windows 10 Insider Preview build. Microsoft says that voice control of your PC was one its “top requests,” so the latest update now lets you shutdown, restart, lock or sleep your system using the voice assistant. You can also use natural language to play music on two apps, as well as control volume and navigate tracks.

Putting brakes on new Pebble hardwareFitbit’s Pebble acquisition risks alienating loyal users

Yesterday, Pebble announced that it’s getting acquired by Fitbit. It sounds like a smart combination, with Pebble struggling to gain mainstream market share in the tough wearables industry. However, it appears that the deal doesn’t include the startup’s hardware. And the only assets carrying over are key talent, software and intellectual property, Fitbit risks not only disappointing the thousands of loyal fans that believed in Pebble despite the odds.

But wait, there’s more…

• Killing children in ‘What Remains of Edith Finch’
• Microsoft’s Cortana gets a simpler look on iOS and Android
• Twitch gamers will stream from the White House next week

Microsoft Releases Office Diagramming App ‘Visio Viewer’ for iPad

Microsoft yesterday released an iPad version of popular Office diagramming and graphic app Visio. The iOS incarnation is limited to viewing Visio documents, leaving the editing of files to the desktop application, and instead focuses on bringing a touch-based browsing experience with intuitive pan and zoom features to users on the go.

Visio diagrams often comprise details that customers could miss on smaller screens. Built for iPad Retina display, Visio Viewer for iPad brings high-fidelity viewing of real-world processes and plans on the go. With the new exploration experience, plant managers can zoom in to production line issues from remote facilities, financial advisors can examine detailed workflows of a loan approval process while visiting clients around the world, retail district managers can conduct store management trainings with associates using detailed CAD-based store layouts and much more.

Visio Viewer for iPad can import documents from OneDrive, SharePoint, and email, with a search functionality built in to the interface for finding shape names, text, or data. Users are also granted the ability to adjust the visibility of different layers to reveal more structure in plans and diagrams.

Visio is a free download for iPad available on the App Store. [Direct Link]

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The Last Guardian review: Well worth the wait

There are few games that have been as hyped as The Last Guardian over the years. The spiritual follow-up to Ico and Shadow of the Colossus has been in development for almost 10 years and made its debut at the E3 games show way back in 2009.

But issues along the way forced the game’s release further and further back to the point it looked like it would never materialise. Finally, however, Sony confirmed it at E3 2015.

Originally destined for the PlayStation 3, given the time-frame, The Last Guardian is now a firm a PlayStation 4 exclusive, with some enhancements if you play on PS4 Pro.

So what has designer/director Fumito Ueda been doing in all that time, and was The Last Guardian worth the wait?

The Last Guardian review: Puzzlingly brilliant

Thankfully, the answer is yes.

Like Ico and Shadow of the Colossus, The Last Guardian is a puzzle adventure. It has platform elements, but relies heavily on problem solving to get from one location and set-piece to another.

These invariably involve encouraging a massive cat-dog-bird-thing you’ve befriended to leap chasms or stand in the right place so you can climb him to get to otherwise impossible ledges. And that’s mainly it. The gameplay mechanics are pretty straight-forward and basic, but extremely involving. And the story and emotive ride you’re taken on more than makes up for complexity.

You play a small child, who wakes in a strange place near a giant, hurt beast. After calming him through the removal of mysterious broken spears, freeing him from his shackles and naming him Trico, you embark on a journey of discovery – presumably to get back to wherever it is you came from in the first place.

Sony Computer Entertainment

By being suitably vague to begin with the narrative unravels along the way, feeding nuggets and clues to what the heck is going on. In many respects it echoes Ueda’s back catalogue and more recent hits, such as Journey, and it falls slap bang in the middle of baffling and whimsical, which is not a bad place to be.

The Last Guardian review: Measured storytelling

You care enough to keep going but the story never gets in the way of the majesty of the game. In essence, it is a sequence of massive, puzzle-oriented set pieces, with few requiring speedy action so you get plenty of time to take in the scenery.

It reminds us of Tomb Raider played through the eyes of a contemporary dance outfit. Most puzzles follow similar themes – pull this lever to do such and such – but the inclusion of Trico makes it altogether more heartwarming. This is a tale of friendship between one boy and his giant, dog-bird-cat beast rather than a pair of hotpants, couple of pistols or a sidekick called Sully.

Sony Computer Entertainment

One of the reasons that The Last Guardian couldn’t have been made for PS3 lies in Trico himself. The enormous beast has great AI and movement, acting like a real animal. It gets scared, curious and angry – often elements of puzzles or their solutions. And it moves beautifully. As do all the feathers on its back, which you can climb.

The Last Guardian review: Graphical marvel

To have such an enormous character on screen with so many nuances in behaviour and motion takes a lot of computing power and the PS4 copes wonderfully.

The game is graphically impressive as a whole, with outdoor locations seeming vast in their detail and scale. Indoors it’s all a bit murky, but that’s down to the art style rather than limitations. And if you’re playing the game on a 4K TV through PS4 Pro, you get extra resolution to play with and HDR (high dynamic range) pictures.

Sony Computer Entertainment

Some have bemoaned the frame-rate trade-off for higher resolution, but we didn’t notice too many dropped frames or stutter. We were too busy marvelling as our feathered chum leapt across chasms.

There are points in the game where it isn’t quite as perfect as we’d like, with climbing Trico sometimes a little clumsy, but the spirit and beauty more than make up for them. It truly is a wonderful example of measured storytelling.

Verdict

The Last Guardian has old school roots but is a very modern game. In an age where the top titles are effectively action movies you control, this is an indie classic that you’d happily sit in a trendy London cinema to see.

The 12-hours of play time are fraught with frustrations and head-scratching puzzles, but you never feel that the game is halting your progress, just your own inadequacies in not being able to solve each puzzle. Those 12-hours, therefore, could easily be extended.

It is also magically presented, with a main character in Trico that you will long remember after the final scenes play out.

Some things are indeed worth the wait.

Microsoft Cortana finally comes to Android in the UK, iPhone within weeks

Microsoft’s virtual assistant Cortana is finally ready to make her bow in the UK.

As well as a major update to the existing Android app in the US, Microsoft has made it available to UK Android device owners for the first time. It is available to download from the Google Play store now.

An iPhone version of the updated application will also be available in a few weeks, to US and UK iPhone owners – again a first this side of the pond.

In many ways Brits get a more rounded app. Instead of being a voice assistant primarily, the new Cortana software offers enhanced reasons to use it over Google Assistant or Siri.

• Cortana will soon be better at understanding English than you
• What is Google Assistant, how does it work, and when can you use it?
• 63 ways to get a giggle out of Siri

Version 2.0.1 has an improved look, which is more simple and, well, purple. It also brings the non-voice functionality to the fore, with quick actions popping up to give you immediate access to your most used functions without having to bark vocal commands at your phone. It will also now connect to your device’s calendar to sync reminders and meetings.

Answers will now appear full-page and the overall performance of the app will be faster and smoother.

Cortana is a free download and if you already use it on your PC or Xbox One, it’s a no-brainer as it syncs all of your information between devices.

Spotify isn’t acquiring SoundCloud after all

Just a couple of months ago, rumors indicated Spotify was negotiating to acquire fellow music streamer SoundCloud. Now, TechCrunch reports hearing from a source that those talks have ended and Spotify is walking away. According to the Financial Times, Spotify has considered this deal twice before and ended negotiations because it couldn’t agree on a price.

This time, however, TechCrunch says the sticking point is due to Spotify’s potential IPO plans and the licensing headache that could arise from acquiring SoundCloud’s remix-heavy catalog. Of course, if Spotify does go public this year, it’s possible the deal could be on the table again afterward.

Source: TechCrunch, Financial Times