Keeping up with technology is a lot of work. Luckily, we enjoy wading through the noise just to find the gems of awesomeness sprinkled throughout. Fusion Radar is our gift to you, Current or Potential Client, so that you can enjoy all of the awesome without any of the drudgery. Unwrap it each week, and know that you’re loved by the geeks and pixel-pushers at Agency Fusion.
Code for America
Code for America is a non-profit organization that promotes government reform via development, design, and research (all at a city level). Their site contains dozens of resources for getting involved in or informed about your city’s government; this includes everything from an app that will text you when your bus is getting close, to a site that helps users find food, heath care, housing, and employment within their zip code.
Squarespace Logo
Squarespace, a site that provides templates and guides to help you build your own website, now offers a way to build your own logo. You type your logo’s text, then customize it with a tagline, symbols, and colors. Squarespace displays the logo on business cards, a mock website, and t-shirts to help you visualize your creation.
Facets
Facets is an app by Hakiri that helps developers keep their code under constant supervision, without having to watch it themselves. It’s a free Gemfile.lock scanning tool that looks for vulnerabilities, and automatically reports back to the user when it finds them.
Apple CarPlay
Although it won’t be widely available, Apple is announcing CarPlay in select new cars this year. This is designed to make iPhone use safe while driving by adding a large built-in touchscreen you can use in lieu of your iPhone’s smaller screen, and by connecting your car’s knobs and controls to your iPhone.
Placeit
Placeit is a service that enables developers and designers show off apps in-context. The team at Placeit uses your screenshots and workflows and places them in realistic settings with different devices and backgrounds.
Truth
Truth is a new iPhone app that lets you send anonymous messages to anyone on your contact list. Instead of seeing your name and number, friends will see the Truth avatar and a code name. And in order to combat the possible abuse that could occur with anonymizing text messaging, Truth allows you to block anyone sending you messages you’d rather not receive.
Brick
Brick is a pack of reusable UI components built with x-tags, enabling users to quickly build mobile HTML5 apps. It provides you with cross-browser implementations of commonly-used UI elements, including items like calendars, slidebars, and cycleable galleries.
Zach Galifianakis vs. President Obama
Dismayed by the low numbers of health insurance applicants–particularly applicants in the 18-34 range–it looks like the White House is trying something entirely new to raise awareness of the ACA: humor. Zach Galifianakis interviewed President Barack Obama on his popular Funny Or Die webshow, Between Two Ferns. The video, which features dry sarcasm and not-so-subtle jabs from both President Obama and Zach Galifianakis, has generated hundreds of thousands of views within hours of its publication and has sent thousands of visitors to the government’s healthcare site.
2048
2048 is a simple but addictive online game created by GitHub user Gabriele Cirulli. In it, players attempt to add numbered tiles together until they reach the number 2048. It starts with small even numbers, and when two tiles of the same number are combined, they merge into one sum. This continues until you run out of space or hit the magic number: 2048.