February 2018

WHAT IS AUGMENTED REALITY

Augmented Reality was first achieved, to some extent, by a cinematographer called Morton Heilig in 1957. He invented the Sensorama which delivered visuals, sounds, vibration and smell to the viewer. Of course, it wasnt computer controlled but it was the first example of an attempt at adding additional data to an experience. Wikipedia describes?Augmented Reality ?as a live direct or indirect view of a physical, real-world environment whose elements are Augmented” by computer-generated or extracted real-world sensory input such as sound, video, graphics or GPS data.

Augmented reality is actually in simple words can be explained as adding some content in the real world which is actually not present there. Augmented reality is actually creating or adding a virtual world/ things over a real world. It brings 3D content to your eyes in the real world by using any medium like phone camera or web cams.

The first properly functioning AR system was probably the one developed at USAF Armstrongs Research Lab by Louis Rosenberg in 1992. This was called Virtual Fixtures and was an incredibly complex robotic system which was designed to compensate for the lack of high-speed 3D graphics processing power in the early 90s. It enabled the overlay of sensory information on a workspace to improve human productivity.

The best and most relevant example of app popularly known as Pokmon Go. Those who have played that that game knows what that game is. That game is actually creates virtual characters augmented in the actual world. The basic concept of that game is to catch pokmon as you open the app you see a different world in the same world. It just takes the real world as a base and shows augmented /virtual reality effects.

There are some popular apps other than Pokmon go if you want to take some good experience of virtual reality

1. Ink hunter
2. Augment
3. Holo
4. Sun Seeker
5. Aurasma
6. Quiver

Use of augmented reality can be done in different fields of study and practical use as:

1. Education

AR would also be a way for parents and teachers to achieve their goals for modern education, which might include providing a more individualized and flexible learning, making closer connections between what is taught at school and the real world, and helping students to become more engaged in their own learning.

2. Medical

AR provides surgeons with patient monitoring data in the style of a fighter pilot’s heads-up display, and allows patient imaging records, including functional videos, to be accessed and overlaid.

3. Military

In combat, AR can serve as a networked communication system that renders useful battlefield data onto a soldier’s goggles in real time. Virtual maps and 360 view camera imaging can also be rendered to aid a soldier’s navigation and battlefield perspective, and this can be transmitted to military leaders at a remote command center from the soldier’s viewpoint, people and various objects can be marked with special indicators to warn of potential dangers.

4. Video Games

A number of games were developed like Pokmon go and others. The gaming industry embraced AR technology in the best way possible for normal people.

And Much more

Future of Augmented?Reality

Experts predict the AR market could be worth 122 billion by 2024. So this report by BBC tells us that augmented reality has very big market as the development goes on and on.

Laravel – best PHP framework

Laravel is one of the highly used, open-source modern web application frameworks that designs customized web applications quickly and easily.

Developers prefer Laravel over to other frameworks because of the performance, features, scalability it provides. It follows Model View Controller (MVC) which makes it more useful than PHP. It attempts to take the pain out of development by easing common tasks used in the majority of web projects, such as authentication, routing, sessions and caching. It has a unique architecture, where it is possible for developers to create their own infrastructure that is specifically designed for their application. Laravel is used not only for the large projects but also best to use for the small project.

Laravels first beta release was made available on June 9, 2011, followed by the Laravel 1 release later in the same month.

Features of Laravel:

1. Modularity: Modularity is defined as the degree to which a systems components get separated and then recombines. You split the business logic into different parts, which belongs together.
2. Authentication: Authentication is the most important part of any web application and developers spent enormous time writing the authentication code which has become simpler with the update in Laravel 5.
3. Application Logic: It can be implemented within any application either using controllers or directly into route declarations using syntax similar to the Sinatra framework. Laravel is designed with privileges giving a developer the flexibility that they need to create everything from very small sites to massive enterprise applications.
4. Caching: Caching is a temporary data storage used to store data for a while and can be retrieved quickly. It is often used to reduce the times we need to access database or other remote services. It can be a wonderful tool to keep your application fast and responsive.
5. Method or Dependency Injection: In Laravel Inversion of control (IoC) container is a powerful tool for managing class dependencies. Dependency injection is a method of removing hard-coded class dependencies. Laravels IoC container is one of the most used Laravel features.
6. Routing: With Laravel, we can easily approach to routing. The route can be triggered in the application with good flexibility and control to match the URL.
7. Restful Controllers: Restful controllers provide an optional way for separating the logic behind serving HTTP GET and POST requests.
8. Testing & Debugging: Laravel is built with testing in mind, in Fact, support for testing with PHPUnit is included out of the box.
9. Automatic Pagination: Simplifies the task of implementing pagination, replacing the usual manual implementation approaches with automated methods integrated into Laravel.
10. Template Engine: Blade is a simple, yet powerful templating engine provided with Laravel. Unlike controller layouts, Blade is driven by template inheritance and sections.
11. Database Query Builder: Laravels database query builder provides a convenient, fluent interface to creating and running database queries.

Multi-factor authentication (MFA)

Multi-factor authentication(MFA)

Multi-factor authentication is a method of computer access control in which user granted access only after successfully presenting several separate pieces of evidence for authentication mechanism- typically at least two of the following categories: knowledge(something they know), possession(something they have), and inherence(something they are).

Two-factor authentication

It is a combination of two different components.
Two-factor authentication is a type of multi-factor authentication.

A good example from everyday life is the withdrawing of money from an ATM; only the correct combination of the bank card (something that the user possesses) and a PIN (personal identification number, something that the user knows) allows the transaction to be carried out.

The authentication factors of a multi-factor authentication scheme may include:

• Some physical object in the possession of the user, such as a USB stick with a secret token, a bank card, a key, etc.
• Some secret known to the user, such as a password, PIN,TAN, etc.
• Some physical characteristic of the user (biometrics), such as a fingerprint, eye iris, voice, typing speed, pattern in key press intervals, etc.

Knowledge factors

Knowledge factors are the most commonly used form of authentication. In this form, the user is required to prove knowledge of a secret in order to authenticate.

A password is a secret word or string of characters that is used for user authentication. This is the most commonly used mechanism of authentication. Many multi-factor authentication techniques rely on password as one factor of authentication.Variations include both longer ones formed from multiple words (a passphrase) and the shorter, purely numeric ,personal identification number (PIN) commonly used for ATM?access. Traditionally, passwords are expected to be memorized.

Possession factors

Possession factors (“something only the user has”) have been used for authentication for centuries, in the form of a key to a lock. The basic principle is that the key embodies a secret which is shared between the lock and the key, and the same principle underlies possession factor authentication in computer systems. A security token is an example of a possession factor.

Disconnected tokens

Disconnected tokens have no connections to the client computer. They typically use a built-in screen to display the generated authentication data, which is manually typed in by the user.

Connected tokens

Connected tokens are devices that are physically connected to the computer to be used. Those devices transmit data automatically.There are a number of different types, including card readers, wireless tags and USB tokens.

Inherence factors

These are factors associated with the user, and are usually bio-metric methods, including fingerprint readers, retina scanners or voice recognition.