News

Feminist Hacker Barbie?   Wednesday 26 November

Can you see Barbie as a computer engineer? No, apparently nor can Mattel, though the online community is giving a much more accurate and amusing view of how things would work out under the hashtag #feministhackerbarbie.

Halting Problem Used To Prove A Robot Cannot Computably Kill A Human   Wednesday 26 November

As far as missuses of computability, and the halting problem in general, goes you probably couldn't find a better example. A recent paper set out the arguments over an important topic - robots that have the power to kill. The conclusion is that computer science proves they should be banned.

Developer Salaries Rise - But What About The Gender Gap?   Wednesday 26 November

It's a well known and deplorable fact that women are under-represented in software development. Average pay for developers is increasing, but what are the salary differences between men and women?

PyCharm 4.0 Released   Tuesday 25 November

IPython Notebook Support and a NumPy array viewer are two of the new features in PyCharm 4.0 and support for unit test subtests is another.

Google Gets Closer To Killing Old Style Browser Plugins   Tuesday 25 November

Google announced last year that it was planning to remove support for NetScape style plugins. Now the timetable for removing the feature from Chrome has been announced. How big a problem does it pose?

IBM Big Data Contest   Tuesday 25 November

A top prize of $20K is on offer in a contest that asks devs to use big data to provide insights into real world civic issues.

Robot Security Guards Demoed At Microsoft   Monday 24 November

Microsoft has showcased K5 robot security guards at its Silicon Valley Campus. The 5-foot tall machines are said to provide a “commanding but friendly physical presence.”

Lovelace 2.0 Test - An Alternative Turing Test   Monday 24 November

To pass the Turing Test an artificial agent has to convince human judges that they are conversing with a human rather than a computer. To overcome the flaws in this test as a demonstration of intelligence a new test has been proposed based on creativity.

How Google Does Multi-Platform In Inbox   Monday 24 November

One of the biggest problems programmers face today is making a single code base work across a range of systems. How a giant company like Google solves the problem is obviously going to be interesting.

Finland Dumps Handwriting In Favor Of Typing   Sunday 23 November

It seems incredible that in the 21st century schools are still teaching children to scratch marks on paper. Well in Finland they are taking a step in the direction of the future by giving up teaching handwriting.

What Does The NSA Think Of Cryptographers?   Saturday 22 November

A recently declassified NSA house magazine, CryptoLog, reveals some interesting attitudes between the redactions. What is the NSA take on cryptography?

Easy Street View And Photo Spheres Embedding   Friday 21 November

A little while ago, Google introduced a very easy to use way of embedding maps into web pages. Now you can embed StreetView and  Photo Sphere images in the same way.

Google Lovefield Relational Query Engine   Friday 21 November

Google has released Lovefield. an open source JavaScript SQL-like database library for web developers. You can check it out on GitHub.

A New Future For Mozilla   Thursday 20 November

Mozilla has announced a new regional strategy for its Firefox browser search facility. It has decided to terminate the existing arrangement with Google and has embarked on a 5-year arrangement with Yahoo as its US partner that comes into effect in December.

Flow - A Static Type Checker For JavaScript   Thursday 20 November

If your biggest objection to JavaScript is that it is that it is dynamically typed, then Flow from Facebook might be just what you are looking for. 

Professional Programmer

Weak typing - the lost art of the keyboard   Tuesday 25 November

The keyboard is still the predominant way we interact with a computer. Voice input, touch screens and even whole body gestural input may be on the increase but most of us still type our commands or data into the machine. So how important a skill is typing for programmers?

The Core

Android Adventures - ViewPager   Thursday 20 November

The ViewPager widget is one of the most used of the advanced UI components. However, the story of how to make use of it is a tricky one. Let's see how simple we can make it.