This month, we started a new ThursdayThoughts series. Each week, we’ll hear from one of the Sonin team about what gadgets, tech news or mobile stories they’re excited about. As well as the latest projects they’ve been working on. In the first few weeks already, we’ve covered a wide range of topics, from emerging technologies such as Augmented Reality (AR) to industry insights like finance app encryption.
To get the latest in the ThursdayThoughts series, you can follow us on Twitter at @soninapps. But we’ll also be doing a monthly roundup here on the Sonin Industry Insights blog. To get the best of our insights straight to your inbox, subscribe to our newsletter in the footer below. Here are the quick links to this month’s ThursdayThoughts:
- Austin explores a different approach to mobile banking
- James has been experimenting with Augmented Reality (AR)
This page was last updated on: 26/04/2018
Weekly Mobile and Tech Insights from the Sonin Team
One of the projects I work on is with a financial company looking at how we can approach mobile financial services differently. To do this, we’ve experimented with new algorithms that are more intelligent and more versatile.
But this huge quantity of financial data must be kept confidential. So, I’ve been implementing low-level encryption and multi-factor authentication to ensure in-app information is always protected.
For example, Apple’s Face ID uses a 30,000-dot depth map with adaptive Artificial Intelligence (AI) to confirm its users’ identities. This data is then sent directly to the Secure Enclave in the iPhone X’s chip, not to Apple’s servers. Which is why large financial institutions like Nationwide and Halifax have been quick to adopt it. This new tech, combined with the latest coding practices, makes sure our data is secure at all times.
We’ve been working on a lot of augmented reality (AR) projects recently, and it’s been fun exploring the new possibilities as well as the new challenges of Apple’s ARKit.
We can add 3D models and lighting via SceneKit, which we’ve used for years as part of iOS. We can detect different surfaces and specific pre-trained images. With 3rd party libraries, we can track 2D images, cylindrical images, cuboid boxes, and even custom shapes, all at 30 fps with no lag. Even we’re impressed when we can track an image in real time with >98% accuracy despite only having barely 5% of the trained image in the camera view.
There are some drawbacks with AR. But by being one of the first to tackle AR projects, we’re discovering these problems, and working out how to get around them, before anyone else.
Related Reading from Sonin App Development
Future of Finance Apps: The financial services industry is at a tipping point. So, at The Financial Gap event, our MD Paul Jarrett spoke to professionals from the sector about the future of the finance app user experience (UX). There, he gave actionable advice on how businesses can better serve their users’ financial needs. Watch the video now.