News

Amazon Simple Workflow Service   Wednesday 22 February

A workflow service that you can use to build scalable applications has been released by Amazon.

Oracle v Google - Less Damages, Fewer Patents   Wednesday 22 February

With a trial of its lawsuit against Google over Android perhaps only two months away, Oracle has dropped one of the patents at  issue and it may also be seeking a more modest sum in damages.

Code Hero Achieves Target   Wednesday 22 February

Educational game Code Hero has succeed in the initial crucial challenge - that of raising sufficient funds to secure its own future. There are, however, some great rewards still on offer before its Kickstarter campaign finishes. Can we find some Senator Heroes in time?

Dart + Chromium = Dartium   Tuesday 21 February

Google has released an experimental build of Chromium that includes an integrated Dart language runtime. The browser, nicknamed  Dartium, is being made available as a technical preview for those who want to see how the Dart virtual machine works in a browser.

New Java 7 Certification Exams   Tuesday 21 February

The Oracle Certified Associate, Java SE 7 Programmer  exam is now available. Candidates have two-and-a-half hours in which to tackle 90 questions and need to  score 75% to pass.

ASP.NET MVC 4 Released in Beta   Tuesday 21 February

Microsoft has released the beta of ASP.NET MVC 4, with new features including the ability to create Web APIs.

Pay-As-You-Go for Electricity   Monday 20 February

As the world becomes more aware of the cost of power and the need to eliminate waste and misuse, Sony has come up with an idea that uses near field communication to authenticate its proper use.

Developer Job Trends   Monday 20 February

HTML5 is the top growth category for US developer jobs with a 350,000% increase over the past 2 years, dwarfing any other category. Jobs for in Android mobile app development are also experiencing strong growth. But what does this mean in the overall programming language jobscape?

MySQL Cluster 7.2 For Distributed Computing   Monday 20 February

The latest version of MySQL Cluster has been released by Oracle with performance enhancements that enable it to deliver a billion queries per minute using only 8 data nodes.

Aldebaran's Humanoid Robot Romeo On Video   Sunday 19 February

Meet Romeo, Aldebaran's full size humanoid robot. The question everyone wants answered is how well will he walk? This video doesn't reveal Romeo's walking prowess and he may even seem a bit creepy when compared to his little brother Nao.

Driverless Cars Become Legal - The Implications   Sunday 19 February

Last week Nevada's Legislative Commission approved regulations allowing for the operation of self-driving vehicles on the state's roadways. This brings closer the day when roads will be full of driverless cars - a scenario that is examined in a thought-provoking infographic.

Kids in the Age of the iPad   Sunday 19 February

Kids have always been keen adopters of gadgets and Nielsen now reports that seven out of every 10 children in table-owning households get to use the tablet. So what types of app appeal to this growing audience?

Cartoon - Highways and Programs   Sunday 19 February

This week's selected xkcd cartoon might be puzzling to some. Why roads? The simple answer is that, to the algorithmic mind, every program is a road to travel and we are not talking philosophy here.

Tetris In 140 Bytes   Saturday 18 February

Is it possible to write a program in no more than a tweet's length? A website called 140byt.es says it is and has an implementation of Tetris to prove it.

Google Body Revitalized as Zygote Body   Saturday 18 February

Body Browser, one of the casualties of the Google Labs closure, is back online hosted by Zygote, the company that provided the imagery for Google Body Browser.

Driverless Cars - More Than Just Google   Saturday 18 February

Google's autonomous car has already clocked up thousands of miles on American roads and is even legal on public roads in Nevada. Now there are also robot cars under development in France, Germany, and the UK.

Standalone Lua Development Tools   Friday 17 February

A standalone version of Lua Development Tools for Windows, Mac OS X or Linux is now available as a  ready-to-use Eclipse product.

Just Enough Error Correction   Friday 17 February

The trick with error correction is choosing the minimum number of bits to apply to provide accurate communication at the maximum rate possible. A new technique uses just as much error correction as needed has been granted a patent.

Time Running Out to Kickstart Code Hero   Friday 17 February

Code Hero is a new way to learn game programming - absorb programming techniques while playing a game that is fun and challenging. It's a great idea, but time is running out to fund it via Kickstarter. Get a copy of the beta by pledging a dollar to the project. 

New Algorithm Takes Spoilers Out of Pics   Thursday 16 February

How to remove those pesky people who walk right into your carefully planned photos? Now you can have them retouched from history simply by tapping on their images.

HeidiSQL Reaches Version 7.0   Thursday 16 February

The lightweight GUI Windows client for MySQL, HeidiSQL, has been updated. Version 7.0, which offers basic support for Microsoft SQL Server, is now available for download.

Microsoft @ DevWeek 2012   Thursday 16 February

DevWeek is the UK's biggest independent conference for .NET developers. This year delegates can have the "inside" take on Microsoft technologies as well the "indie" one.

Professional Programmer

Windows 8's Private API - WOA For Developers   Friday 17 February

Third party developers face a problem when it comes to Windows 8 on ARM (WOA). The "MetroTop" - part Metro part desktop apps that run on any ARM-based Windows 8 device rely on an API that is available only to Microsoft. Is this deliberate policy and can it be tolerated?

eBooks

Using the Kinect Depth Sensor   Saturday 18 February

In the third chapter of our e-book for Version 1.0 of the Kinect SDK together with the Windows version of the Kinect hardware, we look at how to use the raw depth data that the Kinect provides to display and analyze a scene and create a live histogram of depth.

Babbage's Bag

Grammar and Torture   Wednesday 22 February

Computational grammar is a subject that is sometimes viewed as a form of torture by computer science students, but understanding something about it really does help ....