Programmer Puzzles

Value Or Reference? A C# Puzzle   Friday 16 March The difference between a value and a reference type is very clear to most C# programmers, but it can be a shock when a simple piece of code that seems to do exactly what you want has a surprise in store.

News

Firefox 11 Brings 3D Debugging   Wednesday 21 March

Firefox has been improving its developer tools over the last few releases. The latest version 11 takes us into some new territory - 3D. 

Facebook vs Google - Developer's Take   Wednesday 21 March

The majority of developers want a better understanding of social networking. In the face-off between the two dominant players, while at first glance it seems developers choose Facebook over Google, there's more to be said.

Bodymetrics Brings Body-mapping to Bloomingdales   Tuesday 20 March

One of the first commercial applications of Kinect for Windows was being demoed in a Bloomingdale's store last week, helping customers to find perfect fitting jeans.

Picture-Hanging Puzzles   Tuesday 20 March

Here's a puzzle that is just asking to be turned into a popular browser-based game. Is it the next twist on Cut the Rope?

On-Android IDE for Android Developers   Tuesday 20 March

An Android Java IDE called AIDE has been developed that frees you from the need to program on a desktop PC by letting you code instead on Android devices.

Support for Visual Studio 11 in Web Workbench 3   Monday 19 March

Mindscape has updated Web Workbench, the Visual Studio extension, to add support for Visual Studio 11.

Computer Competes in Crossword Tournament   Monday 19 March

Can a computer program beat the best human crossword puzzle solvers? Not yet according to the results of last weekend's American Crossword Puzzle Tournament in which the computer was foiled by the ingenuity of the human puzzle setters.

Date set for Oracle v Google?   Monday 19 March

The Oracle v Google trial  has been set to start on April 16th. It took Google less than a day to ask for a postponement and an even shorter time for the judge to respond discouraging this delay.

OpenNI Challenge for Natural Interaction App   Sunday 18 March

A competition, opening on April 1st, is asking you to develop apps using the free OpenNI open source framework, which provides an API for writing applications that make use of natural interaction.

The Arduino Doodle Clock   Sunday 18 March

This video is simply mad, but in a way that deserves a few seconds of your time. Watch as it counts down the seconds until it can erase a digit. It almost has personality.

Speech Synthesizer in 1K of JavaScript   Sunday 18 March

The idea of creating a speech synthesizer in JavaScript seem fairly incredible, but to do it in 1K characters is amazing.

Anant Agarwal Heads Online Learning at MIT   Saturday 17 March

The prototype MITx course opened on this month with over 100,000 students enrolled. Now its creator and tutor, Professor Anant Agarwal has been appointed the director of MIT's Open Learning Enterprise.

Four Generations - Video   Saturday 17 March

Four Generations of Computers is a new sequence of videos from the Open University designed to get you interested in its computing courses.

Pong Developer Challenge   Saturday 17 March

Atari is offering up to $100,000 in a contest for a new version of Pong for the iPhone/iPad/iPod Touch, the classic game that launched video games 40 years ago.

Google Prediction API 1.5   Friday 16 March

A new version of the Google Prediction API has been released with extra features for working with data models, and more samples.

Learning From Data - Live From Caltech   Friday 16 March

Do you fancy joining in a course taught by Caltech Professor Yaser Abu-Mostafa? If so you can sign up as a remote student to join in lectures twice per week. The catch is that the lectures are live and you have to "be there" even if it is the middle of the night for you.

Judea Pearl Latest Winner of Turing Award   Thursday 15 March

Judea Pearl of the University of California, Los Angeles has become the the winner of the 2011 Turing Award for "Fundamental contributions to artificial intelligence through the development of a calculus for probabilistic and causal reasoning."

Normal Numbers - A Video In Rhyme   Thursday 15 March

Vi Hart has produced another video in rhyme - this time demonstrating that non-repeating infinite numbers don't have to be normal. If you like poetry or math this is a must-watch clip.

Google I/O 2012 Registration Announced   Thursday 15 March

Google I/O is the annual event for developers at which Google unveils new products. This year's event will last three days and ticket prices are twice as much as before - unless you are a student or academic. 

Encyclopaedia Britannica Goes Digital Only   Thursday 15 March

There will be no more print editions of Encyclopedia Britannica. It will continue to be updated but its future is as software and online. Has Wikipedia finally killed the desire to own bound paper books? Has knowledge finally become instant and free?

JavaScript On the Rise   Thursday 15 March

JavaScript has jumped to eighth position in the TIOBE ranking pushing Python and Perl into the last two positions in the top 10. The real question is why has it taken so long for JavaScript to claim what is obviously its new status?

The Core

The Digital Camera   Wednesday 21 March

Digital cameras are everywhere and both users and apps can assume that they are available most of the time. We take an in-depth look at how a digital camera works and some of the difficulties of using one.

Arrays in Python   Monday 19 March

One of the most fundamental data structures in any language is the array. Python doesn't have a native array data structure, but it has the list which is much more general and can be used as a multidimensional array quite easily.