Development

QR codes have been around for 20 years and have now appeared everywhere. They're an ideal method of gaining instant feedback, entering competitions, providing additional information to customers or all 3.

This blog highlights 3 simple techniques to consider when using QR codes. Using a recent UK McDonalds campaign as an example I show how it could be improved to provide an experience I'd really love.

Device detection brings meaning to user agents. When used in aggregate analysis of web log files insights can be gained about the characteristics of device accessing a web site. This information can then be used to make smarter design decisions improving user experience and return on investment. Properties available include screen size, supported input methods, web browser capabilities and much more.

This example is written in Java and can be downloaded directly from our website.

If you could easily tell what type device was on your site, your server can make intelligent decisions about what content, scripts, and styles to send without you needing to worry about cross browser support for every part of your web application. This blog post shows how easy it is to address these issues with the new features of Microsoft MVC5.

Detecting mobile devices is important as websites designed with large desktop computer screens in mind rarely perform well on a mobile device. Detecting such devices allows you to present content in the right fashion for the viewing device which improves website performance for your visitors and leads to better user experience. You will find many device detection products on the market and they all claim to be the fastest and most accurate but they do not provide proof. 51Degrees device detection solution achieves 99.97 percent accuracy with 5 million detections per second on hardware that costs less than 1000 USD which makes our solution the fastest, most efficient and hence most environmentally friendly. 51Degrees device detection is easy to deploy in PHP, .NET, Java, Perl, Python and C. In this article you will find test results for the 3 test hardware platforms we used as well as instruction on how to test our device detection solution in your environment in just 4 easy steps.

Following live trials lasting more than 6 months we're delighted to announce version 3 of the 51Degrees device detection solution is fully released.

Available to all, including free Lite users, key improvements include:

• Over 100 times faster device detection
• Reduced memory consumption and faster start up times
• Automatic image optimisation (PHP, Java and .NET)
• Future proof algorithms supporting potentially millions of device combinations

A new property called IsMediaHub is now available for all Premium users to use.

Web performance is a vital component to creating a great web experience for your users. With this in mind, 51Degrees.mobi have partnered with the GSMA to create a mobile web performance section on the new GSMA smarter apps guidelines.

With Over the Air 2013 coming to a close last Saturday, I took some time to reflect on some of the more memorable talks given over the two-day event. Mobile and web performance guru Jon Arne Sæterås' presentation was particularly informative, and inspired me to write a quick summary for people that did not get the chance to see it live in person.

51Degrees.mobi device detection solution, available in C, PHP, .NET and Java platforms, has been recently ported to Python.

This article presents the solution, introduces the different Python packages composing the product and shows the implementation of a couple of simple use cases.

The ability to detect mobile devices is an important part of website and web application design. Over the last year, requests to sites from mobile devices such as tablets and smartphones have risen to almost 20% of total web traffic. As well as this, dozens of new devices with varying screen sizes, input methods and capabilities are released onto the market all the time. Keeping up with this diversity is a nessecery but difficult task for any organisation maintaining a presence on the web. A good solution is to use a Device Description Repository to detect mobile devices through the browser header and its User Agent. 51Degrees.mobi's professionally maintained device data makes this process easy to implement and stays current through automatic updates.