Web Development

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

HTML5 Up! is a website that creates and shares very good-looking and free HTML5-CSS3 templates. All the templates have responsive layouts (down to mobile) (uses Skel.js) and they are compatible with all major browsers. There are already 10+ templates where new ones are added within time and they can be used freely under the CCA license for both personal or commercial projects. 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)

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

When travelling, the first thing on the list of things to do after arriving at a destination is to get in touch with certain people to let them know you’re in town or just that you’ve arrived safely. Whether it’s sending a quick text, sending an email or ‘checking in’ on a social network, technology has made this easy enough to achieve while on the go. Oh Hey World is a service that makes use of all these options in the form of a simple application that allows users to share their location across multiple social networks, via text and email, with just one click. Oh Hey World’s API makes this functionality available to developers who may want to integrate it with other applications. Oh Hey World is all about enhancing the travel experience and simplifying the location sharing process. Users can sign in, set up a profile and begin to invite and follow friends that they want to keep up to date with. Once set up, users can then update their arrival in a new place and have it sent across several platforms with one check-in, connect with other friends who have checked in nearby, connect with people who share similar interests, choose who they want their check-ins to be sent to (public or private), or make use of the Wordpress plugin to update the current location status on a travel blog. The Oh Hey World API is useful for developers who are creating applications that require information on a person’s current location or time zone. The API requires a user name as input and will return the current location for that person. Oh Hey World is in beta phase at the moment, and interested developers should contact the company directly for further information. Sponsored byRelated ProgrammableWeb Resources Oh Hey World API Profile

Everyone is talking about mobile. Some e-commerce websites are venturing into it. Mobile commerce (also known as “m-commerce”) has immense potential, exhibiting a 86% growth rate and hitting $25 billion in 2012 (set to reach $86 billion by 2016, according to eMarketer). It’s also a whole new platform, with new interaction methods and usage contexts that introduce a host of limitations and pitfalls to watch out for when designing and running an m-commerce website. With few best practices yet established, m-commerce is, to a large degree, unchartered territory when it comes to actual implementation. This is why we decided to invest the better part of a year at Baymard Institute to conduct a large-scale usability study focusing specifically on m-commerce (following the “think aloud” protocol). We set out to explore the entire mobile shopping experience, including users’ conceptual understanding of m-commerce websites and how users interact with form fields, category navigation, search, product pages, the checkout process, etc. The 18 m-commerce websites that we tested were: 1-800-Flowers, Amazon, Avis, Best Buy, Buy.com, Coastal.com, Enterprise.com, Fandango, Foot Locker, FTD, GAP, H&M, Macy’s, REI, Southwest Airlines, Toys “R” Us, United Airlines, Walmart. Despite testing the mobile websites of some of the largest e-commerce players in the world, our subjects encountered 1,000+ usability-related issues during the testing sessions. These usability issues have been analyzed and distilled into 147 design recommendations in a report titled “M-Commerce Usability.” In this article, we’ll share 10 recommendations from that report with you. While following some of the guidelines would improve the usability of desktop websites, too, there is a major difference in the severity of breaking them. Whereas these guidelines are largely “nice improvements” on desktop, they are among the “vital basics” to get right on an m-commerce website. Thus, most of these usability guidelines are not exclusive to mobile, but they are much more critical to get right in the m-commerce context. 1. Make The Home Page Easily Scannable Issue: When users are not able to get an overview of the entire website by quickly scanning the home page, they will feel less confident with the website and often end up choosing the wrong path for their task. 70% of the test subjects scrolled up and down the entire page when first landing on a home page or a category list, in what most described as “getting an overview of my options.” These subjects wanted to see their options before deciding which to choose. Even when they knew how they wanted to find a given product, some subjects still chose to get an overview of the home page, presumably to get a better feel for the website on which they were going to shop. In some instances, when a subject found the category they were looking for, they continued to look through one or two other categories to get a better sense of the other options on the website. Most subjects scanned the whole home page to get an overview of their options and to better understand what they could do on a particular website. Here, one subject continued to explore the home page options, even after having found his desired navigation path of “category” → “men.” Therefore, making the home page easily scannable is important because this will be the first point of contact for a very large portion of your mobile visitors. This initial impression will have a significant impact on the types of products they expect your website to carry and, just as importantly, not carry. While “easily scannable” might sound a bit vague, three instances of “what not to do” became clear during testing. Having Too Many Visual Elements Avoid the confusing eye path that results from placing multiple highly graphical elements that demand attention high up on the home page. This was the case on Macy’s, where approximately 60% of the first viewable part of the home page

Like most content management systems, PyroCMS uses front-end themes. Though PyroCMS themes are built a bit differently than what you might be used to from other systems, they’re still quite easy to create. They’re so easy, in fact, that very little PHP experience is required to assemble them!

Our API directory now includes 95 sharing APIs. The newest is the Screenhero API. The most popular, in terms of mashups, is the Zillow API. We list 79 Box.net mashups. Below you’ll find some more stats from the directory, including the entire list of sharing APIs. In terms of the technical details, REST and JSON lead the way. There are 71 sharing REST APIs and 8 sharing SOAP APIs. Our directory lists 65 sharing JSON APIs and 36 sharing XML APIs. The most common tags within sharing are 55 social sharing APIs, 18 photo sharing APIs and 18 video sharing APIs. [mashup] On the mashup side, we list 25 sharing mashups. We named HOT as mashup of the day in January. For reference, here is a list of all 95 sharing APIs. AddNag API: Add message screens within apps AddShoppers Social Product API: Social eCommerce sharing platform awe.sm API: Conversion tracking for social media Babyworld API: Social sharing site for families Bambuser Metadata API: Live video broadcasting Bambuser oEmbed API: Embedded video player BigStock API: Image Database Service Bintray API: Binary package publishing and sharing service Box.net API: Online file storage Bump API: Mobile device data exchange service Cabinet API: Document Management Service Camera Plus API: iPhone photo application car2go API: Car booking service and local driver's information CodeSnipp.it API: Code sharing service Cogix Ratings API: Survey Creation Service CX API: Cloud storage and sharing service Datownia API: Data sharing platform Deskarma API: Knowledge sharing platform DocLanding API: File Storage and Management Service Dropbox API: Online storage provider Dubset MixSCAN API: Streaming music scanner EarthChem API: Earth sciences data sharing service Egnyte API: Cloud filesharing service Euro Bill Tracker API: Currency Tracking Service EyeEm API: Photo sharing and discovery service Fiabee API: Cloud synchronization and sharing platform figshare API: Research sharing service FileCopter API: File Hosting And Monetization Service Fishup API: Online photo sharing service Flintbox API: Collaborate Research Service GamerCV API: Gaming score retrieval service Gigatribe API: Hard drive file sharing tool Google Plus History API: Content sharing service Groupcentric API: User engagement service for applications HipGeo API: Trip tracking and recording application Infinigag API: Meme and photo sharing platform Informatica Cloud API: Data integration service Ipernity API: Media sharing service Joinup API: e-Government interoperability services review and sharing platform KickoffLabs API: Viral referral page service Kippt API: Bookmarking application Kompoz API: Music collaboration service Kongregate API: Game data integration service Lanoba API: Website registration and authentication service Latakoo Flight API: Video Transfer And Sharing Service Let's Crate API: File sharing service MashFree API: Photo sharing service Meme Generator API: Meme generation engine Music Xray S2O Partner API: Music sharing platform Musicplayr API: Music sharing service MyVidster API: Social video bookmarking nimbits API: Cloud based data sharing service OCLC Article Exchange API: Library document sharing service Oneall API: Social sign in and sharing service Opuss API: Word and text creation and sharing application Orb API: Digital media remote access and management Picplum API: Photo print sharing service PirateUpload API: File Sharing Service Pixorial API: Video collection and creation application Plazes API: Location based social network Plunker API: Multi-file snippet sharing service Po.st API: Advertising via content sharing services Ponoko API: Product creation platform Project Kenai SunCloud API: Open Source Project Collaboration and Management Service PSNapi API: PS3 game and player information service Punkrock.org API: Punk Music Community Service Q

A full-size iPad that gets closer to the lean design of the iPad Mini may finally be on the way. Production of the fifth-generation iPad is slated to begin in July, according to a report from Taipei-based Digitimes. The new 9.7-inch iPad will be 25 percent to 33 percent lighter than the iPad 4, Digitimes said. Specifically, the 2,048x1,536 pixel-density Retina display (same pixel density as the iPad 4) will have thinner glass - achieved by using new touch sensor technology - and, most importantly, a less bulky backlight apparatus, according to them.