Photoshop CDS

When I first got introduced to Adobe Photoshop, all I could think of doing was morphing my face on the pictures of Bollywood celebrities. And then I watched a movie where the bad guys were using Photoshop to duplicate currency notes and print fake notes. That kick-started my plan to become the world's richest kid. Unfortunately, I couldn't convince my parents to partner in my get rich quick scheme and buy me an industrial printer 🥲.

However, you can't just scan and load currency notes in Photoshop today. Adobe Photoshop software includes a counterfeit deterrence system (CDS) that prevents the use of the product to illegally duplicate banknotes. As implemented, CDS prevents customers from opening detailed images of banknotes within Photoshop.

The CDS technology was commissioned by the Central Bank Counterfeit Deterrence Group (CBCDG), a consortium of central banks from around the world. Take a look at www.rulesforuse.org for complete information about the rules in different countries.

Twine

Do you have an exciting story you want to share with the world? But as a geek, you only know how to write code and not stories. Worry not, you can now use code to create interactive stories (much like games) and share it with others.

Twine is an open-source tool for telling interactive, nonlinear stories. You don’t need to write any code to create a simple story with Twine, but you can extend your stories with variables, conditional logic, images, CSS, and JavaScript when you're ready. Twine publishes directly to HTML, so you can post your work nearly anywhere. Anything you create with it is completely free to use any way you like, including for commercial purposes.

Reels vs TikTok

Since TikTok got banned in India, everyone has been hooked on to Instagram Reels. This was the perfect chance for Meta to change its game and move away from a photo sharing app (the good old days) to a short video platform and grab TikTok's market.

But did Meta invest in the right direction? A report reveals that users are spending less than 17.6 million hours a day getting their fix of Reels. Meanwhile, TikTok users spend 197.8 million hours on the short-form video centric platform, 10 times as much as those watching on Meta’s apps.

Maybe it's time for Meta to #makeinstagramgreatagain 🙂

Protocol Buffer

Protocol buffers are Google's language-neutral, platform-neutral, extensible mechanism for serializing structured data – think XML, but smaller, faster, and simpler. Users define how they want their data to be structured once. Then they can use special generated source code to easily write and read their structured data to and from a variety of data streams and using a variety of languages.

Read more about protocol buffer here and try it out using your favorite language.

Senior Engineers

Senior engineers don’t just own modules, they own entire projects. That doesn’t necessarily mean they’re the subject-matter expert on every small piece of the project. However, it does mean that they should have an idea of who owns what on the project. Thus, when approached for help with adding to or maintaining a specific part of a project, they should at least be able to direct you to the people with the knowledge to help you.

It's not just about your years of experience, but how you perform in your area, that separates a senior engineer from a junior engineer. Here are a few traits that define a typical senior engineer.