Learn Apple’s coding language with Interactive Swift Programming Exercises

Ready to code like a pro? Swift is the shiny new language released by Apple in 2014 to simplify the job of coding for iOS and OS X, making iPhone app creation an all-inclusive experience.

In the Swift Programming from Scratch: Interactive Learning Platform course, you’ll learn how to program from scratch using Swift and learn many fundamental concepts. No prior programming experience is required to get a running start in the world of coding! For a short time, you can pick up this great offer for just £6.94 ($10) on Pocket-lint Deals.

Swift enables you to create custom data types using structures and classes, both striving for the same goal – to allow storage and passage of data through your code. With the Swift Programming from Scratch course, you’ll explore over 100 interactive exercises to master programming fundamentals applicable not just to your iOS coding projects, but also towards any other language you hope to master. Along the way, you’ll receive feedback from the automated training app, so you can stay clear on your progress as you learn at your own pace, one concept at a time.

Designed for people with no prior coding experience, this Swift programming course is ideal for anyone eager to learn the ropes of programming or how to make an app. You’ll even develop an understanding in Xcode along the way, familiarizing yourself with Apple’s integrated development environment.

Ready to head down the path toward mastery of Apple’s iOS and OS X platforms? Get started today for just £6.94 ($10) from Pocket-lint Deals.

Elon Musk’s companies team up: Tesla offers to buy SolarCity

Tesla Motors and SolarCity have always had a close link (Elon Musk is the chairman of both companies, and SolarCity was founded by two of his cousins — the Wall Street Journal breaks down the crossover here) but now they may come under one roof. They already pair up on charging stations and power for off-grid homes, but Tesla is offering to acquire the energy company, saying it wants to provide its customers with access to the “most sustainable energy source available: the sun.” Soon, you might be able to shop for solar panels, home batteries and an electric car all in one place.

The way Tesla sees it, linking up a solar panel, Powerwall battery and Model S/3/X electric vehicle means offering a more efficient way for customers to consumer energy that’s vertically integrated. On a call with reporters, Elon Musk said the all-stock deal would end up with a price between $2.5 and $3 billion. He also said that it shouldn’t impact plans for the Model 3 or Gigafactory going forward. According to Musk, “we’re not an automotive company,” pointing at the bigger issues it hopes to address around providing and using sustainable energy sources.

Musk and Solar City/Tesla board member Antonio Gracias have recused themselves from voting on the proposal on either end, and the deal is subject to approval by both company’s shareholders and boards of directors.

Source: Tesla Motors Blog

Newborn exoplanet might be the youngest ever observed

NASA’s planet-hunting Kepler space telescope has made another interesting cosmic discovery, the space agency reports this week. The youngest, fully formed exoplanet ever observed has been spotted just 500 light-years from Earth in the K2–33 star system. The star is a mere 5 million to 10 million years old, meaning the planet, lovingly dubbed K2–33b, is about the same age and practically a baby on the cosmic scale.

“Our Earth is roughly 4.5 billion years old,” Trevor David, lead author of the new study on the planet, said in a statement. “By comparison, the planet K2–33b is very young. You might think of it as an infant.”

Kepler first spotted the Neptune-sized planet as it zipped around its star once every five days. While confirming its planet status, NASA researchers also noticed “a thick disk of debris” around the K2–33, which is most likely leftover raw materials from the planet’s formation and means the star has only just recently reached the end of its planet-making stage. The majority of the other 3,000 confirmed exoplanets are found in star systems that are over a billion years old and the Earth itself is about 4.5 billion years old. K2–33b is also about 10 times closer to its star than Mercury is to our own Sun, which has researchers puzzled about how it could have formed at such a close orbit to begin with.

“After the first discoveries of massive exoplanets on close orbits about 20 years ago, it was immediately suggested that they could absolutely not have formed there,” David said. “But in the past several years, some momentum has grown for in situ formation theories [that the planet could form right where it is], so the idea is not as wild as it once seemed.”

And K2-33b is not the only newborn planet announcement today. According to the journal Nature, another relatively young planet has been spotted orbiting the 2-million-year old star V830 Tau, some 430 light-years away from Earth.

Faraday Future cleared to test self-driving cars in California

Faraday Future isn’t waiting for Michigan to get its act together before it starts testing self-driving cars in the US. Reuters has confirmed that the fledgling company has received approval to try autonomous vehicles on California roads later this year. It’s still not saying just when there will be a self-driving machine you can buy (the ‘regular’ electric car is still coming first), but the testing brings the startup a step closer to making that happen. One thing’s for sure: between Faraday, GM, Honda and other car makers, there will be a lot of hands-off transportation cruising Golden State streets before long.

Source: Reuters

Venus’ electric wind stripped its atmosphere of water

Venus is even less forgiving than scientists thought. NASA researchers have discovered that the planet has an electrical field so massive (five times larger than Earth’s) that it creates a wind strong enough to strip the atmosphere of water. It’s a one-two punch: the sunlight breaks the water down into hydrogen and oxygen ions, while the electric wind speeds up those ions to the point that they can escape Venus’ gravity. NASA isn’t certain why the field is so large, but they suspect that Venus’ proximity to the Sun (and the resulting bright ultraviolet light) might play a role.

The findings could alter both our understanding of the Solar System and our search for habitable planets. It lends support to the theory that Mars’ electrical field stripped it of water, for one thing. It also suggests that astronomers may have to be pickier when determining that an exoplanet potentially supports life — sufficiently strong electrical fields could rule out a planet that would otherwise be friendly. Don’t be shocked if scientists are suddenly more conservative about alien worlds in the future.

Via: Gizmodo

Source: NASA, Geophysical Research Letters

iOS 10 Beta Features Unencrypted Kernel Making it Easier to Discover Vulnerabilities

Apple’s iOS 10 preview, seeded to developers last week, does not feature an encrypted kernel and thus gives users access to the inner workings of the operating system and potential security flaws, reports MIT Technology Review. It is not known if this was an unintentional mistake or done deliberately to encourage more bug reports.

Security experts say the famously secretive company may have adopted a bold new strategy intended to encourage more people to report bugs in its software–or perhaps made an embarrassing mistake.

In past versions of iOS, Apple has encrypted the kernel, aka the core of the operating system, which dictates how software uses the iPhone’s hardware and keeps it secure. According to experts who spoke to the MIT Technology Review, leaving iOS unencrypted doesn’t leave the security of iOS 10 compromised, but it makes it easier to find flaws in the operating system. Security flaws in iOS can be used to create jailbreaks or create malware.

The goodies exposed publicly for the first time include a security measure designed to protect the kernel from being modified, says security researcher Mathew Solnik. “Now that it is public, people will be able to study it [and] potentially find ways around it,” he says.

Apple has declined to comment on whether the lack of encryption was intentional or a mistake, but security expert Jonathan Zdziarski believes it was done by choice because it’s not a mistake Apple is likely to have made. “This would have been an incredibly glaring oversight, like forgetting to put doors on an elevator,” he told MIT Technology Review.

He further suggests Apple may have chosen this route to prevent the hoarding of vulnerabilities like the one that was ultimately used by the FBI to break into the iPhone 5c of San Bernardino shooter Syed Farook and to have more people looking at the code to discover latent security flaws.

Related Roundup: iOS 10
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Hasselblad X1D leaks as world’s first medium format mirrorless camera

Swedish cameramaker Hasselblad is officially announcing the “world’s first medium format mirrorless camera” tomorrow, but photos of that camera have apparently leaked out a day early.

The camera will be called the Hasselblad X1D, and according to PetaPixel, which obtained the leaked photos, it will have a flat design somewhere between retro and futuristic. As you can see from the images, the camera will have a big sensor in the body cavity, while the back of the camera has a LCD screen and loads of buttons. We even get a glimpse of the clean digital interface on the screen.

You’ll also see in the photos a dial on the front and back of the grip and a built-in viewfinder. The leak also included details on the lenses that would be offered at launch: two prime lenses in 45mm and 90mm lengths, with apertures of f/3.5 and f/3.2, respectively. Keep in mind previous rumours did indicate the camera would be mirrorless and come with a built-in viewfinder and 50-megapixel sensor. 

Also, until now, it was unclear how much the Hasselblad X1D would cost, but now we know it’ll supposedly cost $8,995. Hasselblad will announce the X1D on 22 June. The event’s livstream will kick off at 2 pm (Swedish time). You can watch the broadcast from here.