S8:E5 - Big Tech Goes All-In On Passwordless Sign-In, Apple’s Gatekeeping of Web-Based AR, Apple Mail’s Nifty Email Tracking Blocker, and More

S8:E9 - Diablo Immortal and Video Game Accessibility, The Challenges of Creating an AR System, The Recent Wave of Tech Layoffs, and More

This week we’re talking about the recent wave of tech layoffs, and React Eurasia’s controversial decision to locate this year's conference in Dubai. Then we speak with Steven Spohn, senior director of development at The AbleGamers Charity Foundation about Diablo Immortal’s native voice chat transcription and speech-to-text accessibility feature, and where we are in terms of accessible design in the video game industry as a whole. Finally, we speak with Jeri Ellsworth, co-founder and CEO of Tilt Five about what some of the inherent challenges are with creating AR devices that might be making it difficult for both Apple and Google to launch the glasses they’ve been talking about for years. SHOW NOTES * DevDiscuss [https://devpods.dev/podcasts/devdiscuss] (sponsor) * CodeNewbie [https://www.codenewbie.org/podcast] (sponsor) * Avalanche [https://www.avax.network/developers] (sponsor) * React Eurasia's 2022 Location Twitter Announcement [https://www.trendsmap.com/twitter/tweet/1533728594094063616] * The Split-Screen Job Market: Low Unemployment, High Turnover, Plenty Of Openings—And More Layoff Headlines [https://www.forbes.com/sites/jenamcgregor/2022/06/03/the-split-screen-job-market-low-unemployment-high-turnover-plenty-of-openings-and-more-layoff-headlines/?sh=146918a32ff4] * Diablo Immortal will launch with native voice chat transcription and speech-to-text [https://www.theverge.com/2022/5/27/23144457/diablo-immortal-accessibility-text-to-speech-voice-transcription] * The AbleGamers Charity [https://ablegamers.org/] * accessible.games [https://accessible.games/] * Tilt Five [https://www.tiltfive.com/] STEVEN SPOHN Steven Spohn is an expert in the field of technology and disability. JERI ELLSWORTH Jeri Ellsworth's love for invention began with building race cars before working with hardware design, creating a complete Commodore 64 system on a chip housed within a joystick, called C64 Direct-to-TV. In 2011, she was hired by Valve Software to build and run their R&D team and was a key contributor to the technology used in the popular HTC Vive virtual reality headset. While at Valve, she began work on the AR technology that would become the basis for the technology behind Tilt Five. Her vision for the future of gaming is driving innovation for the entire Tilt Five team.

S8:E8 - Can Open-Source Exist in China, Apple Unveils New Accessibility Features, Salesforce Employees vs. the NRA, and More

In this episode, we talk about Salesforce employees calling for an end of the company working with the National Rifle Association. Then we speak with Zeyi Yang, reporter at the MIT Technology Review about a recent piece he wrote titled, "How censoring China’s open-source coders might backfire." Finally, we speak with Sarah Fossheim, independent accessibility engineer and creator and maintainer of the Ethical Design guide, about the new accessibility features Apple is bringing to its products. SHOW NOTES * DevDiscuss [https://devpods.dev/podcasts/devdiscuss] (sponsor) * CodeNewbie [https://www.codenewbie.org/podcast] (sponsor) * Avalanche [https://www.avax.network/developers] (sponsor) * RailsConf [https://railsconf.org/] * 'Unconscionable': Thousands of workers at Salesforce, San Francisco’s biggest employer, demand company stop working with NRA [https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Salesforce-workers-demand-company-stop-working-NRA-17202021.php] * How censoring China’s open-source coders might backfire [https://www.technologyreview.com/2022/05/30/1052879/censoring-china-open-source-backfire/] * Apple previews innovative accessibility features combining the power of hardware, software, and machine learning [https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2022/05/apple-previews-innovative-accessibility-features/] ZEYI YANG Zeyi Yang covers Chinese tech companies, products, communities, and how they interact with the world. He also tweets about Pokemon frequently. Title: China and East Asia Tech reporter, MIT Technology Review. SARAH FOSSHEIM Sarah Fossheim is a multidisciplinary developer, designer and accessibility specialist. They have a strong focus on dataviz accessibility and usability. Currently Sarah is working as an independent consultant, educator and advisor, helping companies create more accessible and inclusive solutions.

S8:E7 - Faking DEI Efforts, Ruby at Scale, and Diving Into PyScript

In this episode, we speak with Tara Robertson, a diversity and inclusion consultant about some of the ways the tech industry has continued to fail when it comes to DEI, which is a topic spurred by a recent piece in the New York Times titled, At Wells Fargo, a Quest to Increase Diversity Leads to Fake Job Interviews. Then we speak with Stefan Marr, researcher and Senior Lecturer at the University of Kent’s School of Computing about Shopify’s investment into Ruby at Scale, and the research he will be doing for them. And finally we speak with Fabio Pliger, Principal Software Architect at Anaconda, Inc. and creator of PyScript about, you guessed it, PyScript! Which was unveiled at PyCon US 2022. SHOW NOTES * DevDiscuss [https://devpods.dev/podcasts/devdiscuss] (sponsor) * CodeNewbie [https://www.codenewbie.org/podcast] (sponsor) * Avalanche [https://www.avax.network/developers] (sponsor) * At Wells Fargo, a Quest to Increase Diversity Leads to Fake Job Interviews [https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/19/business/wells-fargo-fake-interviews.html] * The Price of Wells Fargo’s Fake Account Scandal Grows by $3 Billion [https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/21/business/wells-fargo-settlement.html] * How to Talk to Your Boss About Race [https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/672435/how-to-talk-to-your-boss-about-race-by-y-vonne-hutchinson/] * Shopify Invests in Research for Ruby at Scale [https://shopify.engineering/shopify-ruby-at-scale-research-investment] * PyScript: Python in the Browser [https://anaconda.cloud/pyscript-python-in-the-browser] TARA ROBERTSON Tara Robertson partners with leaders eager to make their organizations more diverse, equitable, and inclusive through systemic change. She previously led Diversity and Inclusion at Mozilla and her work has been included in Harvard Business Review, Forbes and other publications. STEFAN MARR Stefan does research on how we can make dynamic language interpreters faster. These days, he is particularly interested in speeding up TruffleRuby’s interpreter. FABIO PLIGER Fabio Pliger is Principal Architect at Anaconda, where he spearheaded the creation and development of PyScript—a framework that allows users to create rich Python applications in the browser using HTML's interface and the power of Pyodide, WASM, and modern web technologies.

S8:E6 - DevDiscuss: You Too Can Create Beautiful Data-Driven Essays Like The Pudding

This week, we feature one of our favorite episodes of our sister podcast, DevDiscuss, where hosts Ben Halpern and Julianna Tetreault talk about creating beautiful data-driven essays with Michelle McGhee and Russell Goldenberg, Journalist-Engineers at The Pudding. SHOW NOTES * DevDiscuss [https://devpods.dev/podcasts/devdiscuss] (sponsor) * CodeNewbie [https://www.codenewbie.org/podcast] (sponsor) * Avalanche [https://www.avax.network/developers] (sponsor) * OpenAI [https://openai.com/] * Svelte [https://svelte.dev/] * The Pudding [https://pudding.cool/] * Polygraph [https://polygraph.cool/] * Gabriel Florit - On Responsive Design and Data Visualization [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BrmwjVdaxMM] * Who’s in the Crossword? [https://pudding.cool/2020/11/crossword/] * The Birthday Paradox [https://pudding.cool/2018/04/birthday-paradox/] * The Gyllenhaal Experiment [https://pudding.cool/2019/02/gyllenhaal/] * Life After Death on Wikipedia [https://pudding.cool/2018/08/wiki-death/] * We couldn’t get an artificial intelligence program to win the New Yorker Caption Contest [https://pudding.cool/projects/caption-contest/] * Nothing Breaks Like A.I. Heart [https://pudding.cool/2021/03/love-and-ai/] * Human Terrain [https://pudding.cool/2018/10/city_3d] * An Interactive Visualization of Every Line in Hamilton [http://shirleywu.studio/react-d3/slides/slide_08/hamilton/index.html] * Reconstructing Seven Days of Protests [https://polygraph.cool/projects/] * How you play Spades is how you play life [https://pudding.cool/2021/08/spades] * D3.js [https://d3js.org/] * GitHub: The Pudding [https://github.com/the-pudding] * Datawrapper [https://www.datawrapper.de/] * Flourish [https://flourish.studio/] * The Pudding: Our Resources [https://pudding.cool/resources/] * We investigated 200 crackers to learn about food allergies and labelling. Warning: may contain troubling results [https://pudding.cool/2021/12/sesame/] RUSSELL GOLDENBERG Russell Goldenberg is a Scorpio. He makes stories with data and code at The Pudding. Nowadays coding mostly in Svelte. MICHELLE MCGHEE Michelle McGhee makes visual stories at The Pudding. She also enjoys making delicious food and 3-pointers at pickup basketball.

S8:E5 - Big Tech Goes All-In On Passwordless Sign-In, Apple’s Gatekeeping of Web-Based AR, Apple Mail’s Nifty Email Tracking Blocker, and More

In this episode, we talk about Apple's gatekeeping of web-based AR on the iPhone, a neat feature added to Apple Mail that blocks email tracking, and we say goodbye to the iPod. Then we talk about Apple, Google, and Microsoft’s plan to implement passwordless sign-in on all major platforms with Jackie Singh, former senior incident response and threat analyst at Biden For President, who currently is the director of an anti-surveillance nonprofit, which advocates and litigates against government use of mass surveillance. SHOW NOTES * DevDiscuss [https://devpods.dev/podcasts/devdiscuss] (sponsor) * CodeNewbie [https://www.codenewbie.org/podcast] (sponsor) * Avalanche [https://www.avax.network/developers] (sponsor) * Apple is a massive force in AR. It’s also been holding the technology back [https://www.protocol.com/entertainment/apple-webxr-ar-ios-iphone] * Apple Mail Now Blocks Email Tracking. Here’s What It Means for You [https://www.wired.com/story/apple-mail-blocks-email-tracking-heres-what-it-means/] * The music lives on: iPod touch will be available while supplies last [https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2022/05/the-music-lives-on/] * Apple, Google, and Microsoft commit to expanded support for FIDO standard to accelerate availability of passwordless sign‑ins [https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2022/05/apple-google-and-microsoft-commit-to-expanded-support-for-fido-standard/] JACKIE SINGH Jackie Singh is the former senior incident response and threat analyst at Biden For President, who currently is the director of an anti-surveillance nonprofit, which advocates and litigates against government use of mass surveillance.