News

Kinect The Ultimate Security Device   Wednesday 15 February

A Lithuanian company has a prototype security system based on a Kinect that indicates how we might interact with the cash dispensers of the future.

Google Code In - The Winners   Wednesday 15 February

Google has announced the grand prize winners of its 2011 open source software development contest. The prize for the ten teenagers who scored most points, five of them from India, is a trip to Google Headquarters in Mountain View, California.

New Look for HTML5Rocks   Wednesday 15 February

Google has revamped its site for HTML5 developers. HTML5Rocks now has three channels - Games Business and Mobile and a  confusing monochrome background.

Mozilla Plans Metro Firefox For Windows 8   Tuesday 14 February

Mozilla is already working on a version of Firefox for Windows 8 Metro that will be focused on touch interaction. It hopes to have a proof-of-concept version available in the second quarter of this year. The big question is "will Microsoft level the playing field and allow Firefox the same privileges that IE has"?

GoingNative 2012 - The Videos   Tuesday 14 February

If you missed the GoingNative 2012 conference then the good news is that it isn't too late. Microsoft has made available all of the sessions as videos. If you only have time to watch one, then make it the talk that opened the conference by the creator of C++, Bjarne Stroustrup.

Windows Azure Toolkit for Social Games   Tuesday 14 February

There’s a new version of the Windows Azure Toolkit for Social Games and it is available on Github to make it more accessible.

WebKit Is Breaking The Web   Monday 13 February

WebKit's dominance is causing a real problem for other browser makers. It is a complicated story but an inevitable one, and perhaps would be better described as W3C's biggest blunder.

MITx Experimental Course Announced   Monday 13 February

A free online course in electronics, the "prototype" for future courses being offered in MIT's online curriculum, MITx, is now open for enrollment and will begin in March.

Oracle Advanced Analytics for R   Monday 13 February

Oracle has launched Advanced Analytics for R modeling language as an alternative to using external analytical servers.

Augmented Reality Is Magic (Video)   Sunday 12 February

An award winning-effect in this video showcases haptic augmented reality - being able to touch the virtual objects that are overlaid on top of the real scene.

FSF Wants To Police JavaScript Use   Sunday 12 February

The Free Software Foundation (FSF) is an organization that I usually support enthusiastically, but its latest suggestion is more doubtful. See what you think.

A Change of Direction in the Race for Browser Market Share?   Sunday 12 February

Has Internet Explorer really halted its long-term downward trend and taken share from both Firefox and Chrome in the first month of 2012?

Windows 8 For ARM Is Something New   Saturday 11 February

Microsoft has finally issued a statement about Windows 8 on ARM. What does it all mean for developers? We have a summary that reads between the lines.

3D Printing 101 - The Programmer's Angle   Saturday 11 February

3D printing is the next revolution. It has been around as a concept and a high-end tool for some time. but it is finally beginning to become affordable for personal use. Personal 3D printers will change things and in ways that we can only guess at.

Language Wars - PHP, Python, Ruby   Saturday 11 February

Want to start an argument? Simply say any one of the three languages, Python, Ruby, PHP, is the best. Programmers tend to be very fixed in their language preferences and very ready to recommend their favorite to you.

Oracle v Google Trial Could Start April   Friday 10 February

It now seems that the Oracle-Google lawsuit over Android patents and copyright issues could go ahead as soon as April 2012, thanks to some unexpected maneuvering on the part of  Oracle.

NoSQL Predicted To Grow in 2012   Friday 10 February

A new survey from Couchbase predicts growing adoption of NoSQL in 2012 attributing this to the inflexibility and rigid schemas associated with relational technology.

Sponsor a Valve on Colossus   Thursday 09 February

The UK's National Museum of Computing has come up with a novel idea to raise funds for its new gallery for its rebuilt Colossus computer - you can sponsor a valve.

Google+ Devs Gain Google+ Page   Thursday 09 February

The latest Google+ page on the scene has a hint of recursion about it. It's the Google+ page for Google+ Developers.

MSDN Magazine February 2012 - Asynchronous Programming, WP7 and MVC   Thursday 09 February

This month's MSDN Magazine is out and the I Programmer team has leafed through the online version to discover what it has to offer.

Professional Programmer

C# Books - Pick of the Shelf   Friday 10 February

If you are looking for a book on C# you are likely to be overwhelmed by the sheer number of titles on offer. In Programmer's Bookshelf we trawl through our reviews, to find ones you might find helpful at specific stages and for different purposes.

eBooks

Introduction To Kinect   Monday 13 February

The Kinect is currently the hardware that provides developers with the greatest opportunities for innovative programs - both games and "serious" artificial intelligence applications. How does it work? How do you use it? What can you use it for?

Projects

Where are you from? IP Geolocation   Wednesday 15 February

Knowing where a website visitor is located is vital if you hope to have a chance to provide information that is geographically relevant. The simplest solution is to use IP geolocation.