Web Development

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This guest post comes from Andreas Krohn, API Specialist and consultant at Dopter. He blogs about APIs at Mashup.se(in Swedish) and organises API events at Nordic APIs. The 600 million numbers that Truecaller has in its directory have been collected via crowd-sourcing. Truecaller’s users can share their contacts and in return they get access to search in the collaborative database. Thanks to this collaborative data solution, the directory is growing and being updated continuously. It also contains numbers that no other directories have, e.g. pre-paid phones. The API allows for reverse number lookup, which means that you can input a number and get a name back. It also returns a Spam score to indicate if the number is a likely spammer (telesales or robocalls) and a True score to indicate how popular the number is. How can the API be used? There are many scenarios where the Truecaller API can add significant value. For example it could be a global call centre that wants to know the names of the people that call in for support, or a bank that needs to confirm that a phone number on a loan application actually belongs to the applicant. The API itself has two methods where you send in a phone number and get back some data in JSON format. The trueScore method returns just True score for the number, indicating how popular it is. The search method returns True score, Spam score as well as the name attached to the number. Try it yourself by replacing {NUMBER} in the link below with your own phone number (including your country code): https://api.truecaller.com/v1.0/trueScore.json?phone={NUMBER} For more details about the how the API works go to the Truecaller API documentation. Avoiding Telephone Spam Since Truecaller directory is built by its user base, the success of the company is tied to keeping their users happy. This means that Truecaller needs to be vigilant against making their directory available to parties that might use it for nefarious purposes, like to spam users with sales calls. In the mobile apps this is taken care of by letting users control who sees their data. In the API this is done mainly by not allowing name lookup, just number lookup. That limits the API to just allowing users find the names of the owners of a phone number, not the other way around. Sponsored by

Advertise here via BSAThis article recently appeared on the Atari Arcade Developer Center, a collaboration by the teams at gskinner.com , Atari and Internet Explorer. The Atari Arcade: a true game portal showcasing what’s possible with web standards like HTML5, CSS3, and JavaScript. Slick graphics, fast, multi-player gameplay, and platform agnostic. Initially only targeting desktop and tablet-based browsers, we’ve now endeavored to bring the arcade to mobile. Choosing a Target By limiting to desktops and tablets in the first release, we narrowed our scope considerably, and were able to provide a semi-responsive layout with a single game size. Our reach included most standard resolution monitors, plus tablet form-factors like Surface and iPad. But we quickly learned that we were missing something by not targeting the huge number of users on mobile devices. That is, a vast market that now accounts for about 12% of all global internet traffic, spanning all kinds of dimensions, resolutions, and processors. Our next task was identifying an approach to bring the arcade to the mobile web. We wanted to support a variety of resolutions, including higher DPIs in new devices like Windows Phone 8 and iPhone 5. This article discusses the goals to mobilize the arcade, as well as some approaches, the issues we encountered, and some tips and tricks where we found value. Taking Aim We spent a good deal of time determining what was possible on different platforms to establish a feature set that was appropriate for mobile. Our goal was to build a site that: Could re-use the majority of the site framework we had already built Scaled fabulously on any resolution Performed awesomely on newer devices Was intuitive to navigate with touch Could include some of our games at launch, and all of our games shortly after Could be extended to third party developers! With this game plan, we set upon re-architecting the front-end of the site, and making the games elastic to support the resolutions we needed. What Works? The first task: eliminate platforms that just won’t work. With the wide array of platforms and models of phones, we did some focused testing on the following points: Technology. Some devices don’t have adequate canvas, JavaScript, CSS, or HTML support. Touch capabilities. All of the games are already touch-enabled, so we eliminated any candidates with only single-input touch support. Adequate resolution. Older browsers tack on a ton of browser chrome on mobile devices, and we needed enough real estate for our games to look great and display touch controls when required. Performance. Once it looked right, and functioned properly, we focussed on performance and monitored frame rates. We tested a number of devices – the primary targets being Microsoft’s Windows 8 devices (to highlight the technical capabilities of the platform), and iPhones (to reach the widest market). We also tested on a number of Android phones to see what we could support. The results were surprising. Not all phones are created equally, but the arcade ran quite well on almost everything we tested with. We got incredible performance on Windows Phone 8. It had the highest frame-rates, the site rendered as expected, and the multi-touch worked great. Unfortunately, we could only get our hands on a WVGA device (800×480) for launch, but we expect the WXGA and 720p devices will have no problems. The site and games performed great on the new iPhones, but it was clear from the start that Mobile Safari’s chrome consumed too much real estate. In order to support iOS5 in mobile Safari, the arcade needs to be pinned to the home screen to run in fullscreen. We then discovered that iOS5 and below have no hardware support in pinned site mode, so although we can support it, not all games perform well. We got mixed results on various Android devices we tested, including phones as well as a Nexus 7 tablet. The site and games mostly perf

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When building and updating native mobile apps, testing them can be a pain as this may require including an SDK or recompiling the app. Appium is an open source framework which helps automating mobile app testing from any language and any test framework, with full access to back-end APIs and DBs from test code. It works for both iOS + Android apps and tests can be written with Java, Objective-C, JavaScript, PHP, Python, Ruby, C#, Clojure, or Perl. The framework is Mac OS X only and requires Nodejs to run.Advertisements:ioDeck, a self-hosted and awesome PHP form generator. Professional XHTML Admin Template ($15 Discount With The Code: WRD.) SSLmatic – Cheap SSL Certificates (from $19.99/year)

This is fascinating stuff.

Duedil API widens its reach with company information from 20 additional countries across Europe. Box Developers can now take advantage of its HIPAA Compliance Plus: Khronos to create Camera Control Open Standard API, The Splunk SDKs for C#, PHP and Ruby have arrived and 9 new APIs. Duedil API Adds Private Company Data from 20 New Countries If you are looking at writing applications to help increase transparency in business, Duedil API could help you. The API gives you access to private data on companies that includes financial accounts, employee numbers, ratings, directors and much more. The latest version of the API adds data on an additional 20 countries across Europe in addition to its earlier released data on companies in England, Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and Republic of Ireland. The release also sees a shift to a brand new developer portal. Do we have a competitor now to Dunn and Bradstreet? Box gets HIPAA Compliance Applications that target the medical industry need to comply with stringent rules, especially when it comes to security of patient data. One such compliance is the HIPAA standard and developers often feel daunted to meet those regulations. If you are looking at storing medical data in the cloud, the news that popular file sharing service Box.net is now HIPAA compliant and by the nature of building your application on top of its API, you get HIPAA compliance too. Box recently acquired Crocodoc, a service that converts documents into HTML5 based interactive experiences and the medical files put into the cloud could magically transform into interactive viewers instead of just the plain list and download. API News You Shouldn’t Miss Khronos to Create New Camera Control Open Standard API IDInvest drops another $3 Million into Weemo for their WebRTC API Leading CRM Provider Broadens System Integration with Advanced API Services Burstly Debuts Its Testing-To-Revenue Restructure, Opens SkyRocket Monetization To All ParkMe App For Android: Google Maps API Enables 3 Features To Make Parking Easier Postmaster Raises $600K Seed Round To Expand Its Smart Shipping API, Partners With Lone Star Overnight The Splunk SDKs for C#, PHP and Ruby have arrived 9 New APIs Today we had 9 new APIs added to our API directory including a bitcoin up-time analysis service, a bitcoin payment and holding service, a financial information exchange service, a financial exchange service and an online gaming service. Below are more details on each of these new APIs. Bitcoin-Status API: Bitcoin-Status is a site that monitors the uptime of the major bitcoin exchanges, wallets, and other services. The site monitors if they are online, if they have had downtime in the last 24 hours, last 60 minutes, or currently. They also provide charting of up & downtime, reaction time, and loading time. The Bitcoin-Status API provides users free access to the data feeds for all of the tracked exchanges and service sites. Users can get the data in XML, JSON, or ARR. BitMyMoney API: BitMyMoney is a Netherlands based payment service that allows users to accept and make payments in Bitcoins as well as hold their Bitcoin investments securely offline. The BitMyMoney API allows users to make call to get the Bitcoin exchange rate for current Euro transactions, start a transaction, see a payment page, check a transaction status, and make other payment related calls. The service uses REST calls and returns JSON or JSONP. An account is required with service, and SSL is used for security. Deutsche-Boerse VALUES API: Deutsche-boerse is an exchange organization that is comprised of stock market investors, global capital market companies, and financial institutions They offer a full range of financial services, from securities and derivatives, to clearing services, and market data production. The VALUES API is a connection and log-in function that allow the user to access the exchange service. The service supports asynchronous data transfers between user syst

Minbox launched today with the intention to disrupt the already disruptive cloud storage space. Minbox lives as a Mac app that allows users to send files of any size in a fraction of the time other cloud storage providers offer. A quick glance at Minbox’s homepage offers a video demo that shows the same file sent via Minbox and then dropbox. Where Minbox sends the file in four seconds, Dropbox takes over five minutes to upload and send the file. Minbox founder, Alexander Mimran, told Programmableweb: “When it comes to file-sharing the world is focused on ’sync’ but a large component to the cloud-storage space is neglected… that’s SEND. We all send files on a daily basis and believe there are still too many pain points associated with the process—we’re focused on easing that pain.” Minbox believes file sharing should be free and fast. Despite the file size, send it with Minbox for no charge. Minbox has attracted major interest and funding in preparation for launch and has opened itself up to public evaluation today. To give it a shot, visit the Mac App Store. Sponsored by

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Orchestrate.io, a technology startup founded in March 2013, has just announced that the company has obtained a seed investment round of $3 million. Orchestrate.io is a brand new data API designed to eliminate the need for deploying databases when building new applications or when adding new features to existing applications. In addition to developing and deploying the Orchestrate.io service for strategic partners, the seed funding will be used to expand the core development team and deploy the service across multiple cloud providers on several continents. True Ventures leads the Orchestrate.io funding which has also been joined by Frontline Ventures and Resonant Venture Partners. Orchestrate.io is a company that was founded by a group of individuals that have helped enterprises and startups build large scale web and mobile applications. Orchestrate.io was founded to provide companies a simple solution to a regularly occurring set of problems, described by Orchestrate.io on their website: “While working with these companies, we noticed a pattern – to build interactive apps with engaging features, companies needed to run multiple databases. Companies often struggled with the complexity of operating these databases, making it difficult to scale, add new features, or focus precious resources on improving user experience.” The Orchestrate.io API makes it possible for developers to create applications that include database functionality without the need for setting up and managing multiple databases. Using a single API, developers can integrate into applications database queries such as “geospatial, time-series, graph, full-text search and key-value.” Today there are companies that have millions upon millions of users generating infinite volumes of data; companies including Amazon, Facebook, Google and Twitter. When it comes to the development of high volume, data-driven applications, application speed and scalability are key. The traditional relational database is often not an adequate option for the types of applications being developed today. Many developers have been moving away from relational databases, opting for databases that offer increased speed and stability such as NoSQL, in-memory and cloud. Another alternative to the relational database is Hadoop, defined by Wikipedia as “an open source software framework that supports data-intensive distributed applications.” Many of these types of databases also feature web service APIs which can be found in the Database Category of the ProgrammableWeb API directory. Orchestrate.io is not only a new alternative to relational and other established databases, it is also a cost-cutting and time-saving solution for enterprises that operate and maintain multiple databases. Antony Falco, Founder and CEO of Orchestrate.io and Co-Founder of Basho Technologies, states in the press release that: “Database and operating system licensing, servers, storage, power, labor, outsourcing, and professional services represents a market that exceeds $100B annually. We believe our service will save our customers significant time and money, allowing them to instead focus on what matters most – the end-user. With Orchestrate.io, our customers can build better apps, faster.” Orchestrate.io is currently in private beta and will be made generally available later this year. For more information, visit Orchestrate.io. Sponsored by