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August 17, 2020August 17, 2020

How did Bitcoin surge in the backdrop of the fall of USD?

The fall of the US dollar & the rise of Bitcoin coincided at the same time. So, let us find out the various factors in the background that have led to the consistent descending adjustment of interest rates on US Treasury bonds and substantive easing policies. These policies were instrumental in the selling of large amounts of US dollars, resulting in the fall of the dollar index. Going by the brand new data, the US dollar index has taken a beating and it is now languishing below 93. This fall is not only the steepest of this year, but also happens to be a two-year low. As for the US dollar offshoots market, short positions have also hit a new peak since April 2018. In fact, Global Hedge funds are expecting further erosion of the value of the US dollar: The betting pegs USD downfall to approximately $5.3bn this week to reach $24.5bn. Purely from the perspective of association, the connection amid Bitcoin & US dollar & gold & US dollar decreased, at the same time the interconnection between Bitcoin & gold strengthened. This has made gold & Bitcoin to realize their potential in the light of a tumbling US dollar index.

Demand for yellow metal surges

The economic prospect of gold can easily be explained by the downfall of the US currency, which has created a global demand for safe-haven assets like yellow metals. However, Bitcoin has some distance to cover to emerge as a safe-haven asset, the fact can’t be denied that it has the potential to be an alternative investment to gold. Also, as gold continues to dominate the mind of people, the greenback will increasingly flow to Bitcoin and other crypto currency avenues.

USD turns to USDT

Meanwhile, the demand for gold has come down, implying that more US currencies have made their way into the digital currency arena for stamping than before. Later on, these US dollars were turned into USDT, some of them made it to the exchanges. The USDT’s inpouring into exchanges improved by 282,539,130 USDT to 725,857.429 USDT on July 27, an important single day surge in 143 days. Despite a huge sum of USDT going into exchanges, data from Glass node indicates that the USDT amount is diminishing since April. During the same time, the Bitcoin equilibrium of exchanges has risen. Based on this, we can infer that the USDT going into exchanges were utilized to purchase Bitcoin.

Rise of Bitcoin

Observing these numbers, it clearly points that Bitcoin’s ascendancy this time has been drastically affected by the US dollar. It can be abridged as trails: There has been a steep fall of the US dollar index. The uncertainty scaled new heights , the value of gold multiplied. With gold value going through the roof high, investors begin to search for an alternative instrument of investment. A lot of USD turned into USDT, a large number of USDT flew into interactions. This led to the selling of USDT and purchase of Bitcoin. Balance of Bitcoin in exchanges rises. In case the dollar continues to fall, there is a huge chance of Bitcoin to rise. So, Bitcoin is a good investment option. If you wish to put your money in Bitcoin, then it is advisable to do so on a secure platform.

If you are looking for Blockchain developer to build your next bitcoin or else platform , feel free to to contact us .

August 13, 2020August 13, 2020

How can businesses benefit with Airbnb’s API?

Airbnb started off in 2008 with the objective of transforming the landscape of vacation rentals or Short-term rentals. Over the years, it has evolved into one of the biggest entities with footprints worldwide and a robust brand name. It provides a perfect platform for people to rent out their vacant residential spaces for travelers or tourists for a short duration. The duration could be one day or several months at a time. Presently, the Airbnb has ceased to be a mere trading space that connects hosts and tourists. It has gone way beyond the realm of rooms and apartments. The platform, currently, also provides local experiences and exclusive information on premium rental spaces for those eyeing world class amenities and facilities. In fact, the Airbnb is also eyeing a bigger pie in the hospitality segment by exploring new arenas.

The online marketplace has also provided people the opportunity to start independent property rental businesses. Over here, they are only required to deliver the property. The other essential things such as the listing, money transactions and customer assistance are very well looked after by the Airbnb. So, the platform has opened several potential business opportunities and it offers all kinds of assistance to business owners. All these could not have been possible without its Application Programming Interface (API).

What exactly is this API?

An Application Programming Interface (API) is a medium that connects two software applications. The applications cannot interact with each other without an API. The interface is widely-widely used, but not many are aware of the same. This is extremely beneficial for developers. For instance, if an application wants to click photos through the camera of a device, the developer does not have to build a camera interface. He or she only has to utilize the camera API of the operating system to insert the built-in camera interface into their app.

The application interface is significant in the matters of security as well. It can restrict the access control on hardware and software functionality for an app. For example, if an app wants access to a device camera via an API, it could be denied the same by the user upon prompting. This totally eliminates all the possibility for an app to access the camera. So, the API ensures that security of a device is not breached by a third-party software application.

Airbnb’s API not for everyone

The Airbnb came out with a distinct API of its own in 2017. The entity has always tread with caution when it comes to selecting partners. Despite heavy demand, the Airbnb had not given access to its API to other companies to make products using its platform.

However, the platform, eventually, became a part of the developer community in 2017 with its API. Following this, external developers got access to the Airbnb API. But, the API is not yet accessible to everyone as Airbnb has put in place several procedural safeguards to restrict the access. Due to the stringent policy, it becomes extremely tough to access the API. This way Airbnb is treading a unique path compared to other businesses in operation.

Benefits of Airbnb’s API to businesses

For those wanting to list their properties on Airbnb space, its API can be a very handy tool. This aspect motivates developers to incorporate effective tools in the API with which people, who list on Airbnb, can gain good control over the online marketplace.

The API provides users with a tool called OAuth. The tool is an open protocol which facilitates authorization of mobile and web applications conveniently in a standardized manner. The OAuth enables users to update the content and the rates of their listings via a single app.

It should also be noted that APIs permits software to software interaction. This implies that the Airbnb can also dispatch data back to the custom apps. So, when people make bookings via Airbnb platform, they will also get reservation and messaging details via API. This aspect ensures that businesses, which use the platform, can streamline their operations in an effective manner.

The procedure to acquire the Airbnb API

Despite being part of the developer community, the API of Airbnb is not easily accessible. The Airbnb has a very stringent policy in terms of providing access to the API.

Earlier, the interested parties had to fill out a form. Then on the basis of this, the company’s partnership managers took a decision on providing access to the API. However, this process has been put on hold now. Currently, the company’s worldwide team of partner managers is providing access to businesses on the basis of the supply potential, the technological prowess, and the capacity to support shared customers. Hence, the ideal option is to approach the company directly or through the partner managers.

If they permit you as a partner, then the Airbnb will give you API documentation in order to work out a development timeline. Now, developers can finish their task and launch the application.

In case of any doubt, seek the help of Airbnb partner manager. Once things are in place, you can start incorporating the list of lodging on the Airbnb platform through the API connection and start receiving travelers from all around the world.

Benefits of Integrating Airbnb API into your business

There are immense benefits for those businesses looking to integrate the Airbnb’s API. It becomes easier to manage the listing on Airbnb platform. You only need to log in to make any tweaks to the content listed, be it about the vacant space or price. In case you have multiple listing on the website, then you need to manage or change the content manually, which could consume a lot of time. However, with a custom property management software, linked to the website via Airbnb’s API, will help you make any number of amends in quick time.

This happens to be one of the convenient methods to manage list of properties on Airbnb.

In case you are dealing with multitudes of renters, then messaging each and every one manually can be a herculean task. In such a scenario, automated messages are the best options to respond quickly to each and every queries. So, an API-linked software can effectively deal with multiple queries and improve your image among customers.

This also helps in customer creation and retention as they would get a feeling that you would be around in case of any issue. In case, developers require any technical assistance that is not there in the documentation for the API, Airbnb’s worldwide team of partner managers will always be there to help you out.

Also Read : What Is API & How Does It Work ?

Seek expert’s help for API integration

If done properly API integration can work wonders for your business. However, the company would suffer a lot if the same is not performed with due diligence. As discussed previously, the API connects two softwares so as to facilitate effective communication between the two.

Hence it becomes imperative to entrust the task of integrating custom software solutions with APIs to experienced and skilled developers. For this you can trust Winklix with your eyes closed. Winklix happens to be one of the leading software companies across the world, which has successfully partnered with both renowned global brands and startups. Be it the custom CMS, payment gateway, mobile app or API integration with Airbnb, our skilled developers with their high-class expertise have accomplished everything. The company is based out of US with offices in Salt Lake City, Utah. So, get in touch with Winklix for any software development activities or smooth facilitation of Airbnb API integration.

August 5, 2020August 5, 2020

Understanding Python for Machine Learning – Part 1 (Data Types in Python)

Machine learning has become one of the most sought after fields in the current times. With advancements in both software and hardware, building complex mathematical and computational heavy models have become easier and quicker. Introduction of TPU (Tensor Processing Units) have further expedited the process of machine learning models. While all the advancements in the field of hardwares have enabled this change, one notable change has been in the use of python for machine learning algorithms.

Marking a shift from traditionally used language R (which is still preferred by statisticians), python has gained popularity in recent times amongst many python developers and python consultants. Many new 3rd party machine learning tools now provide python support out of the box. Infact, many companies have now started calling themselves python development companies.

Hence, through this series of articles, we will understand python for machine learning and how python consultants can leverage python to build robust machine learning models. As a first article in this series, we will understand different data types in python and their syntax in python.

Let us begin!

There are majorly 7 types of data in python

Text	String (str)
Numeric	Int, Float, Complex
Sequence	List, Tuple, Range
Mapping	Dictionary
Set	Set, Frozenset
Boolean	Bool (True/False)
Binary	bytes, bytearray, memoryview

We will now understand each of the above types in detail.

Text

Strings in python are a stream of characters, contiguous in nature. They are often represented in between single quotes. Strings allow slicing on them, that is, we can use parts of a string to extract substring out of it. One important thing to note is that unlike R, indexes in python start from 0.

Syntax and Output:

We can also use + operator to concatenate the strings.

Numeric

This type of data includes use of integer (signed), float (real values of floating point) etc. These are number inputs. It is important to note that all integer types in Python 3 are long. Hence, there is no separate long type in Python 3.

Syntax and Output:

Sequence

This is probably the most frequently used data type in Python. It finds several applications at different places. The basic data types like numeric and text are also used inside the sequence data type. That is, a sequence data type can contain data of type integer and float. To understand the concept better, let us understand what is a list, tuple and a range.

List

As mentioned above, since sequence data type can contain other data types as well, it is also called a compound data type. Lists are very versatile. List stores a sequence of values. It can be accessed using ‘[ ]’ and can be manipulated using operators like ‘+ and *’.

Syntax and Output:

Tuple

Similar to lists, except the values in the tuple cannot be changed/updated. The size of the tuple can also not be changed once created. In other words, tuples can be thought of as “read-only lists”. One change also lies in the syntax of tuple and list. Tuples are formed using parentheses ( ‘( )’ )

Syntax and Output:

Range

Range is often used in loops, to define a set of numbers over which the counter will iterate. It is used to create a sequence of numbers, with start(included) and end(not included) as its parameters.

Syntax and Output:

Mapping (Dictionaries)

Dictionaries are key-value pairs in python. Like hashtables, we have a key which corresponds to a particular value. When we want to access the value, we use the key corresponding to the value and the value is retrieved.

The key is generally an integer or a string, though they can be any of the python data types. The value can be any python object.

Syntax and Output:

With this, we come to the end of this article. In this article, we learnt how python developers and python consultants can use different data types in different scenarios. A python development company, which is planning to expand into machine learning and AI, should be able to understand and deliver on this basic premise of data types in python. This base can then be used to build great machine learning models.

As promised, as a multi-series tutorial, we will cover “Linear Regression in Python” in the next post.

Until then, bye bye!