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Announcement reads
Announcement posts on Yomu, summarised newest first.
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Announcement posts
Fly Changelog 1st May 2020
Fly’s 1 May 2020 changelog records enhancements to flyctl, a new Open Source page, and a revised load-balancing allocation algorithm. Version 0.0.117 added flyctl auth docker, allowing deployments of images directly to Fly by adding registry.fly.io to Docker’s authenticated registries, and introduced --image-label for selecting a specific image label at deployment time. The release also increased the timeout at the end of deployment monitoring to prevent erroneous “No Deployment” messages and changed deploy version negotiation to resolve API compatibility errors. For global applications with large numbers of instances, the new algorithm directs each incoming connection to an instance from the closest least-loaded service among three randomly selected healthy services in the app’s three nearest regions.
Developer Platform updates Spring 20'
Zoom introduced several updates across its developer platform alongside new roadmap milestones for 2020. Marketplace enhancements include a Developer Dashboard tracking install numbers and API usage, as well as dynamic OAuth scope configurations that distinguish mandatory and optional permissions. For client development, the WebSDK adds Microsoft Edge Chromium compatibility with video and VOIP support, whereas the iOS SDK incorporates Xcode 11 support. Due to increased developer demand, Zoom updated its V2 REST API rate limits and delivered new chat webhooks tracking message, channel, and member activity. Upcoming platform initiatives include the permanent termination of all legacy V1 APIs on May 31, 2020, platform security enhancements, and an iframe-free JavaScript embedding framework for the WebSDK.
Imaginary on Fly, just One-click
Fly announces a one-click launcher for Imaginary, an open-source image service that is among Fly’s popular global image-service use cases. The launcher is intended to let users create a running, production-ready version without infrastructure by pasting button code, and Imaginary’s creators added it to the project’s GitHub README. The post says users can get started with operations including converting and resizing images faster, while scalable SVG buttons are designed to work on pages. It also presents one-click launchers as a possible funding channel through revenue sharing and invites other open-source projects to help develop a process for launching applications on Fly.
Fly Changelog 17th April 2020
This changelog records updates to Fly’s infrastructure, flyctl tooling, and web experience during the week ending 17 April 2020. Version 0.0.116 improves diagnostics for invalid fly.toml files by listing problematic sections and settings, adds Homebrew upgrade instructions to the README, provides basic names for flyctl scale vm sizes, and packages flyctl for Arch Linux through flyctl-bin. On the platform, new applications receive their app.fly.dev certificate “instantly,” while Fly Proxy can serve replacement certificates two weeks before expiration when possible. The site also adds a dedicated ChangeLog page that consolidates recent entries, alongside an RSS feed containing changelog posts. The flyctl changes include contributions from Lars Lehtonen and Simon Willison.
Backwards Incompatible V2 API Changes
Following the removal of Zoom's Attention Tracking feature, backwards-incompatible modifications were introduced to the V2 REST API effective April 3, 2020. Under these deprecations, the attentiveness_score field in meeting and webinar participant reports returns an empty value, while the attention_tracking field across user, group, and account settings endpoints defaults to false. Both attention-tracking fields remain temporarily in API responses before full removal in a future release. Additionally, starting April 12, 2020, password-related configuration fields become immutable and permanently set to true for Free and single-host Pro K-12 Education accounts. These locking measures affect settings such as password requirements for scheduled, instant, or personal meetings, alongside PSTN password protection across account, group, and user endpoints.
Scaling Fly for All
Fly makes its scaling controls available to all users, allowing them to manage application instance counts across regions and choose virtual-machine sizes. The default plan places an application in one region, while Fly’s autopilot can add an instance when a connection limit of roughly 20–25 is reached and select its location. The new flyctl scale regions command reports or sets regions and per-region minimum counts; for example, ams=1 hkg=1 sjc=1 keeps at least one instance in each location, with weights influencing where new instances are preferred. Users can also run flyctl scale vm to apply a VM size to all current and future instances, triggering a new app version and redeployment. Available sizes range from micro-1x with 128 MB to cpu8mem8 with 8 GB, while the article notes that the system was later superseded.
Fly Friday - News and Tips
This Fly weekly update collects product news, community announcements, and a flyctl usability improvement. It points to guidance for building GraphQL APIs with Fly and for running a private DNS over HTTPS (DoH) service, while noting Firefox’s default DoH rollout in the USA. It also announces a new Fly user community portal with GitHub or social-media sign-in, alongside Turboku’s Product Hunt launch for faster Heroku apps. The technical note covers flyctl 0.0.96’s -c/--completion option: supplying bash or zsh generates a completion file, with zsh users able to redirect it to $fpath[1]/_flyctl and Bash users required to choose a location and source it from .bashrc.
Grab-Posisi - Southeast Asia’s First Comprehensive GPS Trajectory Dataset
Grab released Grab-Posisi, a GPS trajectory dataset covering Singapore and Jakarta designed to overcome the poor coverage, low sampling rates, and missing contextual metadata common in existing public datasets. Captured in April 2019 from drivers in transit, the dataset comprises 84,000 trajectories, over 80 million GPS pings, and more than 1 million kilometres recorded at a one-second sampling frequency. Each entry in the 2 GB Apache Parquet dataset records geographic coordinates, timestamp, accuracy radius, bearing, speed, mobile operating system, and vehicle mode. To protect privacy, driver personal information is encrypted and trip start and end locations are removed. The data enables applications including automated road network reconstruction, map matching, real-time traffic forecasting, and municipal infrastructure planning.
New API Rate Limiter
Zoom announced an updated V2 REST API Rate Limiter launching in March 2020 to replace its previous one-size-fits-all throttling system. Rather than applying uniform constraints across all subscription tiers, the new framework cross-references customer Account Types against API Request Groups categorized by infrastructure importance and load intensity. While most API rate limits are increasing, resource-intensive Dashboard APIs are reduced from 1 request per second to 6 or 12 requests per minute depending on account level. Throttled HTTP 429 responses will return X-RateLimit-Reset timestamps for per-minute limits and ISO8601 Retry-After timestamps for per-day limits. Additionally, the system introduces lock-key restrictions on specific user identifier path variables to restrict concurrency and enforce daily meeting creation caps.
What’s New and What’s Coming for Zoom Marketplace in 2020?
Zoom announced several updates to its App Marketplace alongside roadmap deadlines scheduled for early 2020. Marketplace enhancements include functional app categories, additional URL fields for Terms of Use and documentation, and support for defining multiple webhook event subscriptions within a single application. Administrators and developers gained webhook logs, enhanced pre-approval permission settings, and the ability to test draft applications directly in the installed apps interface for Data Compliance API compliance. To accommodate surging traffic, Zoom introduced revamped V2 REST API rate limits and breaking behavioral changes to the List Users API. Crucially, the platform set an absolute end-of-life date of April 26, 2020, for all legacy V1 APIs, requiring immediate migration to V2 endpoints.
Fly Friday - Flyctl and Ports
Flyctl adds a new -p option to flyctl apps create, allowing users to set an app’s internal port during initial creation. The numeric value is written to the generated fly.toml configuration, replacing the default port of 8080. This addresses workflows using prebuilt Docker images, where users may not control the port and previously had to create the app, edit fly.toml, and change the internal port manually. Available from Flyctl release 0.94, the flag removes that edit and is shown in the first Fly Friday video. The post defines the internal port as the port an application uses to communicate with the world, while the command-line setting supplies that value before deployment configuration is generated.
Investing in Developers — Zoom Developer Summit and Competition 2020
Zoom launched the Zoom Marketplace Competition for developers creating applications on the Zoom platform. Open to for-profit organizations with less than $10M in prior funding, the competition offers a selected winner up to $2 million in potential investment. Finalists pitch their proposals to venture partners from Emergence, Horizons Ventures, Maven Ventures, and Sequoia. In addition to capital, the winner receives advisory sessions with Zoom product experts, priority platform support, a DTEN D7 whiteboard, and multiple three-year software licenses. Submissions require explicit details regarding problem definition, customer demographics, traction, revenue models, competitive analysis, and team credentials ahead of the March 31st, 2020 deadline.
Simpler Fly deployments for NodeJS, Rails, Go, and Java
flyctl now supports building and deploying NodeJS, Rails, Go, and Java applications to Fly with two commands. The feature uses Cloud Native Buildpacks from buildpacks.io, turning an application into a Docker image during deployment without requiring users to understand Buildpacks. Cloud Native Buildpacks are described as an evolution of Heroku and Cloud Foundry systems, but are not compatible with their older buildpacks. After installing the latest flyctl, users can initialize an app with flyctl init --builder cloudfoundry/cnb:bionic and run flyctl deploy, then open it with flyctl open. Buildpack support complements Dockerfile-based image builds, while listed builders provide different language coverage and image sizes; the post recommends heroku/buildpacks:18 for its wider coverage.
Bug Bounty Year in Review 2019
Shopify’s 2019 bug bounty review describes experiments and process improvements intended to increase program speed, while reporting changes in response, resolution, disclosure, and bounty metrics. Shopify-Experiments, a private program launched in mid-2019 for high-signal, high-impact hackers, tested expanded scope, full payment after triage, disclosure requirements, self-closing false positives, and collaboration with third-party developers. Using registration data, HackerOne API exports, and a Slack chatbot, the team improved program analytics and automated report-state changes, assignments, comments, bounty suggestions, and common invalid-report closures. Average first response fell to 16 hours, triage to 2 days and 13 hours, bounty payment to 7 days and 1 hour, and post-triage resolution to 20 days and 3 hours; disclosures rose to 74 bugs. For 2020, Shopify announced full bounty payment within seven days of triage, a $50,000 maximum bounty, higher payouts for several vulnerability classes, and added visibility for duplicate reports.
Command Lines, Flyctl and Fly
Fly presents the Fly Global Application Platform as a command-line-first service and introduces flyctl as the way to sign up for free and manage an application's entire lifecycle. The post argues that command-line interfaces integrate directly with modern workflows, are simple and expressive, and keep developers in their terminal and current directory. To replace its Node-based command-line technology, Fly built flyctl in Go as self-contained binaries for macOS, Linux, and Windows, and adopted Cobra for familiar command/subcommand behavior and contextual help. Web interfaces remain intended for rich dashboards and metric displays, alongside interactive terminal use. The command-line approach also makes instructions self-contained, scriptable, and repeatable, which the post identifies as valuable for support and operations, while the open GitHub repository invites feedback.
React Native is the Future of Mobile at Shopify
Shopify is moving forward with React Native for new mobile apps after years of native development, driven by mobile purchasing volumes and a desire to consolidate iOS and Android work. It describes React Native as a framework that uses JavaScript and React’s declarative model to translate virtual DOM structures into native platform views through native bindings. Experiments with Arrive, Point of Sale, and Compass reported twice the productivity on Arrive, an estimated 80% code sharing target, and observed sharing of 95% for Arrive and 99% for Compass, while testing lowered the considered Android CPU threshold from 2GHz to 1.5GHz. The policy does not require rewriting existing native apps, leaves low-level libraries native and native hiring in place, and calls for dedicated React Native tooling, foundations, and open-source partnerships.
No More Forgetting to Input ERP Charges - Hello Automated ERP!
Grab launched an automated Electronic Road Pricing (ERP) fare calculation feature in Singapore to eliminate the need for driver-partners to manually track gantries and enter toll charges. Because Singapore gantries frequently adjust fares based on time and road conditions, manual entry often caused driver errors and revenue loss. Grab solved this by mapping precise geographical coordinates for every toll gate using satellite imagery and open data, matching frequent driver GPS pings against road layers and gantry locations. The engineering and operations teams also built an internal ERP Workflow tool to map ride trajectories and resolve driver dispute feedback within an average of one day. Following its rollout in Singapore, Grab began testing and planning regional expansion to Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia, and the Philippines.
A New Kubectl Plugin for Kubernetes Ingress Controller ingress-nginx
Shopify contributed a kubectl plugin to ingress-nginx, an open-source Kubernetes Ingress controller built on NGINX, because debugging and upgrading the heavily used controller often required long, frustrating sequences of kubectl commands. The plugin’s lint subcommand identifies ingress configuration that may need changes for a new release, while richer ingress listings expose individual paths, target services, and TLS configuration. It also wraps common kubectl operations, automatically selects an ingress pod, and helps inspect generated nginx.conf and dynamic configuration managed with openresty lua-nginx-module. The author reports substantially faster upgrades and debugging, comparing a rollout to version 0.24.1 with an earlier upgrade to 0.22.0 that took days, while acknowledging that growing Kubernetes expertise also contributed. Released with ingress-nginx 0.24.0, the plugin should also be compatible with 0.23.0.
Guiding You Door-to-Door via Our Superapp!
Grab addressed passenger navigation challenges at large Southeast Asian venues such as airports and shopping centers. Satellite signals weaken through concrete and steel, creating GPS inaccuracies that caused the rendezvous distance between passengers and drivers at large venues to exceed twice the average. While introducing Entrances previously mapped over 120,000 green dots to lower rendezvous distances, passengers still struggled to locate specific pickup spots indoors. The company launched Venues, an in-app feature delivering turn-by-turn text and photo directions to designated pickup points. To support this system, operations teams surveyed sites with cameras and scanners to capture landmarks, after which in-house teams masked faces and vehicle license plates.
One Million Dollars in Bug Bounties
Shopify announces that it has awarded more than $1M USD through its bug bounty programs, which complement its security strategy by bringing in researchers with varied perspectives to assess the platform. The company says it is the fifth public program among 176 on HackerOne to reach that milestone, after four years of working with researchers. It describes three resolved vulnerabilities: an SSRF in Shopify Exchange that could provide root access within one infrastructure subset, an admin authentication bypass involving duplicate partner accounts, and stored cross-site scripting from improperly sanitized sales-channel SVG files. Shopify disabled or audited affected services, deployed a metadata-concealment proxy, corrected account verification, removed unnecessary admin functionality, and checked for exploitation. It plans to experiment with ways to increase hacker engagement and make the program more attractive.
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