News

Over 4 Billion Internet Users   Wednesday 31 January

Well over half of the world’s population is now online, with the latest data showing that nearly a quarter of a billion new users came online for the first time in 2017. There are now over 4 Billion Internet Users and over 3 billion are active users of social media.

Adversarial Attacks On Voice Input   Wednesday 31 January

The Alexa, Google Voice, Siri or Cortana revolution is bringing voice control into every home. The AI revolution has started without us even noticing and it is far from secure. It seems to be fairly easy to issue commands that are recognized by the device, but sound completely innocent to a human.

Apache Kibble Software Manager   Wednesday 31 January

Apache Kibble is now a Top Level Project. Kibble is an activity reporting platform created to collect, aggregate, analyze, and visualize activity in software projects and communities.

Ink To Code Microsoft Draws The UI   Tuesday 30 January

Ink to Code is a Microsoft Garage project which lets you draw your UI and then converts it to a layout in Visual Studio. Sounds like a good idea, but is it?

TensorFlow 1.5 Includes Mobile Version   Tuesday 30 January

The latest release of TensorFlow has been released with TensorFlow Lite included, along with a new Eager Execution mode.  

Top 10 JavaScript Errors   Monday 29 January

Know your enemy is good advice, but do you know the most common errors made in your favourite programming language? Rollbar has looked at more than 1000 real world projects and made a list of the ten most common errors in JavaScript.

Algorithms & Data Structures MicroMasters   Monday 29 January

The first course in a new MicroMasters program on the edX platform starts on February 1st. To gain the credential, which comprises eight courses, will take twelve months and counts towards a Masters degree from the University of Rochester. 

Beyond Holograms - Volumetric Images Using Optical Trap Display   Sunday 28 January

Researchers at Brigham Young University in Utah have made a breakthrough with the creation of a “free-space volumetric display”, capable of reproducing full-colour graphics floating in the air, visible from all angles.

Plan 28 - Can Babbage's Analytical Engine Be Built?   Saturday 27 January

Plan 28 is an ongoing project to build Charles Babbage's Analytical Engine by the 2030s, two hundred years after it was originally designed. Current work is focused on compiling a searchable cross-referenced database for the entire Babbage archive, which is proving a mammoth task.

The Who and Why of Hacking   Friday 26 January

The 2018 Hacker Report from HackerOne gives a rounded view of today's hackers revealing who they are and what motivates them. It also shows how hacking makes the money go around.

MapR Releases Docker Container For Local Development   Friday 26 January

MapR has released a Docker container made up of Drill, Apache Spark, the MapR file system, and MapR-DB that provides a really useful option for any developer who wants a simple way to try out big data development.  

Intel Ships New RealSense Cameras Is This The Kinect Replacement We Have Been Looking For?   Friday 26 January

With Microsoft stopping the production of the Kinect, the Intel RealSense family of cameras seems like the obvious replacement. But there are problems - can we trust Intel to keep the hardware in production?

Udacity's Flying Car Nanodegree About To Lift Off   Thursday 25 January

The inaugural session of the new nanodegree program, which intends to equip its students with skills needed for a future in which travel will not only be autonomous but also take place in the air, starts at the end of February. Enroll in Flying Cars and Autonomous Flight Nanodegree before February 7th for 25% discount on cost of first term.

SQLite Adds Zipfile Support   Thursday 25 January

There's a new version of SQLIte with support for Zip files, an improved query planner, and a sqlite_btreeinfo virtual table.

The Core

The Programmers Guide To Kotlin - Iterators, Sequences & Ranges   Monday 29 January

Collections are fundamental to the use of most object-oriented languages and Kotlin is no different. It takes the Java collections and pushes them further. In this extract from my recently published book, the focus is on iterators, sequences and ranges. 

The Programmer's Guide To The Transfinite   Thursday 25 January

You may have heard a rumor that infinity comes in a number of different types. Get to the bottom of the theory and dispel misconceptions surrounding a leph-z ero and all that , with a programmer's view of the transfinite numbers.