This Month’s Biggest Tech Advancements You Should Know About - Haneke Design

Buzz / 05 02, 2023

THIS MONTH'S BIGGEST TECH ADVANCEMENTS YOU SHOULD KNOW ABOUT

Kotlin/WASM, WI-FI 7, and OperaGX have all emerged as some of the biggest and most recent tech advancements.


Kotlin/WASM Goes Experimental

Did you know that Kotlin, the preferred programming language for Android applications, is not just a Java Virtual Machine language? 

Kotlin logoBy changing Kotlin’s “target,” it can integrate with a wide array of other languages and architectures, such as Javascript for web development, Swift for multi-platform mobile development, and linuxX64, mingwX64, and macOS for native desktop applications.

With Kotlin Multiplatform, you can even have multiple targets in a single project!

This month, as part of Kotlin 1.8.20, the experimental build of the new WebAssembly target has been released! WebAssembly (or WASM) is a language modeled off of machine code that is designed to run directly in the browser without requiring the use of JavaScript, providing many performance improvements for browser-based applications.

Now, with the Kotlin/WASM target, computationally expensive Kotlin code can be packaged as standalone modules and compiled to run in the browser directly, and more GUI-focused Kotlin code can be transpiled to JavaScript with the Kotlin/JS target. 

“Because Javascript is already interoperable with WASM, Kotlin/WASM is interoperable with Kotlin/JS, giving you the best of both web execution environments all from one Kotlin codebase” explains Haneke’s Lead Mobile Developer, Matt Giallourakis

Many Kotlin targets are still in the pre-stable phases of development, so they may not be the right choice for your new customer-facing applications. However, it will be exciting to see how the future of browser-centric Kotlin plays out!

 

Wi-Fi 7: Connecting from Over the Horizon

wi-fi 7 logoWith Wi-Fi 6e introducing the 6-GHz band all the way back in 2020, we have all been eagerly waiting to see what new advancements and innovations Wi-Fi 7 will bring to the table.

Despite the specification not planning to be finalized until the year 2024, some flagship smartphones such as the new Motorola Edge 40 Pro already support Wi-Fi 7. 

“While 6e was about throwing more power at a higher frequency band for better peak data transfer, the goal of Wi-Fi 7 is to get better over-all performance by optimizing how devices communicate with routers” says Matt Giallourakis. 

One of these improvements is Multi-Link Operation, which allows a router and client device to communicate over multiple channels and frequency bands at the same time.

This allows for the performance boost of being able to use the high-frequency bands when close to the router, and the robust connection strength of the low frequency band, all while without having to switch between networks manually (no more having to remember whether to use the 2.4 or 5 GHz networks).

Another speculated improvement is dynamic access point coordination, for when multiple access points are available on the same network.

Switching between access points based on signal strength, instead of waiting until the client is out of range of the last access point to connect to a new one, would substantially improve average device bandwidth when moving around spaces with many access points.

 

Opera GX: For Gamers… and Software Developers?

Opera is one of the oldest web browsers still being actively developed.

OperaGX logo

They just released a version of its browser targeted specifically at gamers, RGB lighting integration and all.

As a mobile software developer, it’s not uncommon to have to give a remote live-demo of an app, which requires multiple IDEs, mobile emulators, and a slideshow program to be running alongside a browser which is screen-sharing on a video call.

To call that a resource-intensive situation would be an understatement.

“Usually, I have a good idea of how much RAM or CPU each program will take up, but Chrome just tends to eat as much of it as possible, leading to sluggish performance on everything else, which can give a bad impression of your app. Opera GX, on the other hand, has built-in customizable resource limiters, originally designed to minimize impact on gaming performance, that are also beneficial to developers who need to run multiple programs at once to do their work” Matt explains. 

Just within the last month, Opera has integrated ChatGPT and ChatSonic directly into the browser, allowing you to use these tools to summarize or expand upon snippets of text, or even entire webpages. 

This is extremely useful for programmers, who deal with complicated concepts and systems that an AI tool may make sense of much more efficiently than a developer alone.

Other features, such as a free built-in VPN and ad-blocker, can seamlessly increase the security of the browser, so developers don’t have to worry as much about their proprietary research and development being tracked or leaked through their browser by ISPs or hackers.

 

Contact the Haneke Design team to learn more about how we can help with your technology needs!

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