Last Friday, the Raizlabs team worked together to foster creative, innovative ideas and bring them to life. Hack Days, as they are more widely known, typically consist of programmers, designers, project managers and other development staff collaborating together on new projects. The wide range of ideas coming out of Raizlabs on Friday showcased the multitude of abilities and talent in the office. Here’s a look at the range of projects we tinkered away on:
iOS Components and Libraries
Product Engineers hacked away on a number of libraries, one called “FlippityFlip,” which allows users to flip between arbitrary views in an application, allowing for more space on screen for notifications or alternate controls. The new control is similar to the mechanism Apple uses to display notifications while a users is in an application. Upon completion, we hope to be able to use “FlippityFlip” in future in-house and client applications.
FeverTool
Our VP of Development, Craig, was presented with a problem by a pediatric doctor at a New England area hospital. Doctors were having a hard time determining what course of action to take with young patients when they entered the ER. After consulting with doctors, he built a simple app that allows medical professionals to input a child’s weight, date of birth, and fever which then returns a prescription recommendation for the infant.
Audio Apps
One of our senior developers set out to explore the new audio framework that will be released in iOS 6. These new frameworks will allow applications to easily obtain the audio spectrum from any audio input chosen by the user. The plan is to learn about the new framework and incorporate it into a custom visualizer application for iOS.
Another audio exploration was based on research for a memory game focused around musical pitch for Android. The game would help users develop an understanding of music theory and pitch range.
Notification Center – GitHub/Basecamp Integration
Two of our developers separately worked on ways to help our workflow based around the social coding website GitHub and project management site Basecamp. Alex worked on a notification manager in OSX that would integrate the two websites. Instead of emails from both Github and Basecamp notifying users of changes, any watched projects get updated at once, saving developers from duplicate emails from both websites. Meanwhile Andrew began work on a Mac app that combines Github and Basecamp, automating the flow of assigning items. Ideally, when an item is assigned in Basecamp, it will automatically be assigned in Github and vice versa.
Augmented Reality
Originally setting out to explore applications possible with Google TV, our developer Dylan changed his course of action mid-Hack Day. Instead, he set up a simple augmented reality game proof of concept that reveals itself when users hold up their Android phone to their TV. The project turned into a fun way to explore augmented reality capabilities and the Unity game engine, an authoring tool for creating 3D games or other interactive content. Augmented reality has become increasingly popular in mobile applications, with major companies such as Starbucks, Volvo, Ikea and Volkswagen introducing AR into their applications.
Passbook
Meanwhile, the AppBlade team (including our Boston and San Francisco staff), worked on exploring Passbook capabilities in iOS6. Passbook will allow iOS6 users to digitally store everything from boarding passes, movie tickets, and concert tickets to gift cards, all in one place. The exploration allows events like our “Drinks On Tap” to use passbook to issue geo-located tickets.
Product Lifecycle Exploration
Our newest designer, Michelle, got hacking on creating wireframes for her vision of a product lifecycle app. Michelle envisioned the application as a way for users to investigate what goes into the creation of different products and how long they last. The environmental impact of a product could also be explored visually, giving users an interesting way of seeing how consumer products affect the world.
The Raizlabs office provides an environment that fosters innovation, entrepreneurship, and creativity in creating technologies that will shape the future. Check out the available jobs listed on our website to join us.
