This was a busy week. We have news from our galaxy as well as the one that was a long time ago, far, far away. So without further ado, lets get started.

First black hole picture

For the first time ever we finally were able to capture the black hole. This is a breakthrough moment for the astronomy. We knew about black holes for a while now, but we have definite proof of their existence. I'm sure, this is the one of those pictures that become iconic.

Star Wars: Episode IX The rise of Skywalker

When I write this post, in Chicago, there is Star Wars Celebration happening right now. So Star Wars related news will be split into 2 weeks. But the main event, Episode IX panel, has already happened. Panel itself didn't unveil too many details, but we finally got the title and the teaser trailer.
I have to admit, J.J. Abrams knows how to tease a movie. The voice of the Darth Sidious/Emperor Palpatine, at the end, literally gave me a goosebumps.
Regarding the title, I believe that Skywalker will become a new name for a force sensitive people. Although I still prefer Jedi and Sith, it might not be a bad conclusion of the Skywalker saga.

Star Wars: Jedi Fallen Order

Finally we got our first look at this game. It is so long in the production that I started worrying it was canceled. Thankfully I was wrong and it will be release on 15th November this year. According to developers this game is singleplayer and story driven game, without any microtransactions, but I won't believe it until I see it.
Story wise, the game will take place between episodes III and IV, and will tell the story of the young Jedi named Cal Kestis. Beside that we don't know too much, but Lucasfilm already started planting some elements of the game into the universe.

SpaceX Arabsat-6A Mission

This week Space X launched, for the second time ever, the Falcon Heavy rocket. This time it was not only first commercial mission, but, for the first time, all 3 boosters have been successfully retrieved.
By retrieving most of the rocket, SpaceX has set the bar really high. The next milestone is successful crew mission.

Microsoft Edge

Microsoft has release first preview of the WebKit powered Edge.

Interesting links

• How to Understand the Image of a Black Hole
• Google Graveyard - Killed by Google
• What the Hex?
• Checklist Design - best UI elements for the best UX practice
• When does an anchor becomes a button?
• How to use CSS position to layout a website
• 339 bytes of responsive CSS

Image credits: Event Horizon Telescope.

This week I want to try a different approach to weekly digest. Instead of trying to keep it as one coherent piece, today, I will break it into separate sections. I believe this will make it more clear to see what actually happened each week and it should also make writing it easier. Those are the goals I want to verify with this little experiment.

Powerbeats Pro

One weeks after Apple's new AirPods release, Beats announced new truly wireless Powerbeats Pro. We knew they were coming, but now it is official, and we have the launch date. They are coming in May, in 20 countries, for about $250. Here are some features of the new earbuds:

• up tp 9 hours of listening time,
• Apple's H1 chip with for quick connection and hands-free “Hey Siri”,
• Sweat and watter resistant,
• Physical and programmable control buttons,
• Automatic pause and resume,
• Charging case, which work similarly to AirPods' case,
• 23% smaller and 17% lighter than its predecessor,
• Come in 4 colors: Black, Ivory, Moss and Navy.

The are a little pricey, but I'm waiting for them.
I was waiting patiently for sport version of the AirPods, but they've never come. Also, when I was fitting the AirPods, they were loose in my ears, so they would probably fall during the training. Powerbeats doesn't have this problem as they were design for athletes.
Beside the price, there is one more thing I don't like. It is the lightning jack on the charging case. I really wished Apple/Beats would finally switched to USB-C with all their products.

Visual Studio 2019

Microsoft has released the next version of its main development IDE. For me, the new IntelliSense powered by an AI is mind-blowing. Also live sharing built into the IDE looks awesome. There are many more new features and improvements, which you can check here.

Cloudflare free VPN

Cloudflare has added free VPN into its 1.1.1.1 DNS resolver app. What's interesting this is not a traditional VPN service. Usually the main reason we use VPNs it to trick websites and services into thinking wee are accessing them from a different location. That's no the case with Cloudflare’s service. Instead, the VPN works behind the scenes to increase speed and privacy.
This is different approach, but as long as it is keeping us safe I approve it.

List of interesting things

• VueSolitaire
• Super Charrio Kart
• Vue PWA example
• Vue.js Kanban Board Part I with PWA features in Part II
• How to Fix the Refresh Button When Using Service Workers
• Konami Code Fun: Adding Cheat Codes to your Website
• Libraries Used in the Top 100 iOS Apps
• 5 Tools To Speed Up Your App Development
• Why I Replaced Disqus and You Should Too
• The worst volume control UI in the world
• GDC 2019 Vault
• The Twelve-Factor App
• The first iPhone prototype: an exclusive look at Apple’s red M68
• The MacBook keyboard fiasco is way worse than Apple thinks
• Windows 10 Hero Desktop Image - Behind the Scenes
• Mathigon

Image credits: Apple.

The main event of this week was the launch and docking of the SpaceX's Crew Dragon capsule to the International Space Station. Capsule was launched to orbit on Saturday with Falcon 9 rocket. The launch was perfect, capsule has been deployed to orbit and the couple minutes later, rocket booster landed on the drone ship in the Atlantic becoming SpaceX's 35th successful landing.
In the meantime, the Crew Dragon capsule was on its way to ISS. On Sunday capsule reached the station and docked by itself to International Docking Adapter. During its stay, the crew members of the Space Station will perform various tests on the capsule to see how it performs in the space. Nasa and SpaceX plans to return capsule to Earth on Friday.
This mission is a final test of the Crew Dragon. If this mission is successful, we will be one step closer to real mission with the crew on board, which is scheduled for July this year.

That all folks. If you want more interesting things check this list out.

Learning about .NET Core futures by poking around at David Fowler's GitHub

An awesome guide on how to build RESTful APIs with ASP.NET Core

Scott Hanselman & Damian Edwards Talk about Microsoft & .Net Core 3

The Complete Guide to SCSS/SASS

Mask Compositing: The Crash Course

How “defer” operator in Swift actually works

Data structures to name-drop when you want to sound smart in an interview

How to Make Other Developers Hate to Work with You

Role of colour in UI

How to recognize fake AI-generated images

Image credits: Nasa.

This week we got some information about Apple event that is rumored for March. During this event we should see new iPads mini, which I've already covered two weeks ago, long awaited AirPower and AirPods 2 with new color options. Unfortunately, we don't know when we will be able to buy new AirPods, one rumor says it will be available this spring, and another says that we have to wait till fall. I cannot wait for new AirPods, especially black matte ones, and I hope we will get them in the first half of this year.

On the other side of the barricade, Samsung released a new tablet, Samsung Galaxy Tab S5e. Starting at $399 device has following specification:

• 10.5inch Super AMOLED (2560x1600) display,
• Qualcomm SDM 670 (Dual 2.0GHz + Hexa 1.7GHz) processor,
• 4GB or 6GB of RAM,
• 64GB or 128GB of internal storage,
• SD card slot supporting cards up to 512GB
• Front (8-megapixel) and back (13-megapixel) cameras,
• Up to 14.5h of battery life.

Right now, the market of the tablets is dominated by iPads. The root cause of that situation was lack of decent Android devices. With this new Galaxy Tab, Samsung finally has something that might be recommended as an alternative to the iPad.

From the other news, JPMorgan is launching its own cryptocurrency. Yeah, another cryptocurency to the collection. This time, one JPM Coin will be equivalent of one dollar, and will be used to perform real-time transfers of substantial amount of money, which right now might take even days. I'm not a big fan of another cryptocurency, but I'm glad to see that big and respected bank is going to use blockchain to transfer money.

That's it for this week, if you want more, here is the list of interesting things.

In 2018 I made $23k in revenue from my podcast

10 Signs You Will Suck at Programming

Write long function

Small Functions considered Harmful

Turn any Google sheet into an API instantly, for free.

Create Adaptive Buttons Using Combined Shapes In Sketch

If San Francisco Is So Great, Why Is Everyone I Love Leaving?

This is not a good beginning of the year for Apple, another week and another controversy. This time Apple had a big fail, people discovered that you could hear the person you were calling before they even pick up. The bug was easy to reproduce, all you have to do is call someone and add yourself to the call again. This bug has been discovered and reported by teenager and his mother, but it took Apple a week to acknowledge the problem. Looking at how slowly Apple is responding to bug reports, they found out about the exploit because all media started reporting it. Only then Apple has taken Group Face Time service down. The fix should be released next week.
There are two things that bother me in this whole situation. Why this nasty bug has not been detected by Apple's QAs in the first place? The second one, why it took Apple a week to react?

Sometimes Apple can do a good things. First they revoked Facebook's enterprise developer certificates for distributing "internal" applications outside the company. Then they did the same thing to Google. In both cases companies violated Apple's Enterprise Program privacy policy. In case of the Facebook the situation is even more interesting. It turned out that Facebook paid $20 for installing the VPN app to monitor iOS users activities.

That's all for this week, if you want more, here is the list of interesting things.

The Ultimate Beginner Git Cheatsheet

How to use the result type to handle errors in Swift 5?

Top 5 Frontend Development Topics To Learn in 2019

Jest 24: 💅 Refreshing, Polished, TypeScript-friendly

Netflix JavaScript Talks - Making Bandersnatch

The mistake developers make when coding a hamburger menu

HTTP/3: From root to tip

Programming Fonts - Test Drive

Image credits: Apple.