News

Learning To Be A Computer   Wednesday 29 October

We have recently seen how much neural networks can learn, but the latest example is very strange. Google has succeeded in teaching a neural network to be a computer simply by showing it programs and what results they produce.

HTML5 Is A Finished W3C Standard   Wednesday 29 October

If you are a web developer you will probably want to remember where you were on the day (October 28th, 2014) that HTML 5 became a standard. But my best guess is that you will just yawn and get on with the real task of working in an ever-evolving environment. 

Self Paced Haptics MOOC   Wednesday 29 October

Introduction to Haptics is an online self-paced course that introduces a topic increasingly important in robotics and engineering. To get the most out of it you need to build your own Hapkit, an interesting project in its own right.

New Docker Engine   Tuesday 28 October

Docker has released a new version, Docker Engine 1.3, and has signed a partnership with Microsoft to add the open container technology to the next Windows Server and Azure.

MATLAB 2014b - Must Have Tool For Data Scientists   Tuesday 28 October

The latest release of MATLAB features a new graphics system for better visualization and new functions for processing big data on your desktop that can scale for use with Hadoop. This makes it even more powerful for working with big data.

Firefox OS Comes To Raspberry Pi   Tuesday 28 October

Firefox OS hasn't taken over the world yet despite its promise. Now we have a small effort from Mozilla to make it run on one of the most successful budget devices in the world - the Raspberry Pi.

CheckCell Detects Bugs In Spreadsheets   Monday 27 October

A free Excel  plug-in that takes a new approach to automatically finding data errors in spreadsheets has been released. Rather than looking for errors in programs and formulas, CheckCell sets out to debug the underlying data.

EF7 Drops XML Modeling Favors Code First   Monday 27 October

Microsoft is dropping some ways of modeling data in the next version of Entity Framework (EF) to make the database tool more lightweight.

GNU Emacs 24.4 Released   Monday 27 October

The new version of the cross platform text editor widely used on Linux represents quite a big update and includes new functionality.

Microsoft Garage - What?   Sunday 26 October

The Garage is a place that Microsofties go to play with their pet projects. Now Microsoft has decided to make this into the stuff of myth and legend and let us get at the fruits of this unpaid labour. What is going on?

Bring Back RoboGames And Inspire Underprivileged Kids   Saturday 25 October

A new series of the show in which weaponized robots wage battle in the arena is planned for 2015 - but only if  $40,000 can be raised on Kickstarter. This isn't just a commercial venture. Instead it aims to reach a new generation of robot enthusiasts.

Kinect SDK 2 And An Xbox Adaptor   Friday 24 October

The Kinect is a well developed depth camera, but the SKD for version 2 is only just rolling out. You can now also use the Xbox One Kinect with the PC and create Windows Store apps. Is this the start of the new Kinect era?

Google DeepMind Expands   Friday 24 October

Furthering its push into artificial intelligence research Google has acquired two more UK AI start ups and announced a partnership with Oxford University.

Survey Indicates Fast Take Up Of Java 8   Thursday 23 October

Survey findings suggest Java 8 take up is faster than expected and developers are already starting to think about Java 9. 

Raspberry Pi Gets HAT Touch Screen   Thursday 23 October

The founder of Raspberry Pi was interviewed about all things Pi and gave way some hints on what is coming in the near future.

Google Adds Firebase To Its Cloud   Thursday 23 October

The acquisition will add the Firebase backend service to Google's Cloud Platform lineup making it easier for developers to sync data across web and mobile apps.

Synaptic - Advanced Neural Nets In JavaScript   Thursday 23 October

This is a project you need to know about if you have an interest in AI or teaching AI. Put simply it is JavaScript library that lets you implement and work with neural networks. What's special is that this one lets you do much more than a simple introduction.

The Core

Linq and XML   Tuesday 28 October

XML, which is all about tree structured data, and Linq, which is all about querying collections, might not seem to fit together, but they work together just fine.

Getting Started With jQuery - Filters   Saturday 25 October

Mastering the core of jQuery is first a matter of understanding selectors and then DOM manipulation. Filters are often confused with selectors but they are quite different and serve an important purpose.