News

Robot With "Human" Body Is Well Into The Uncanny Valley   Wednesday 12 December

If you build a robot using methods that mimic the human body does it make it more likely to move like a human? It seems it does and, what is more, the effect is unsettling.

2013 C++ Conference - Registration Opens   Wednesday 12 December

The second annual C++Now Conference is to be held May 12-17, 2013 in Aspen, Colorado and registration is now open.

Android Developer Survey Needs Your Input   Wednesday 12 December

If you are involved in developing Android Apps, Google would really welcome feedback for its 2012 Android Developer Survey. It closes on 16 December so don't delay.

Firebug 1.11 Released   Tuesday 11 December

Firebug, the well loved Firefox debugger, has something of a struggle on its hands, assuming it has hands, because of the way its host browser is attempting to make it obsolete. Can the new version keep it glowing for a while longer?

Google Grants for Computer Science Education   Tuesday 11 December

Google is currently accepting applications for funds from its CS4HS program, which is intended to promote the teaching of Computer Science and Computational Thinking in the high school and middle school curriculum.

25 GPUs Crack Passwords In Minutes   Tuesday 11 December

A recent demonstration of how GPUs can speed things up, and not always for the greater good, came in the form of a 25 GPU machine that could crack passwords in minutes - but what exactly does "crack a password" mean?

Amazon SDK for Node.js   Monday 10 December

Amazon has released an SDK that you can use to call Amazon Web Services from your node.js apps.

Inside SQL Server Pro December 2012   Monday 10 December

The latest edition of SQL Server Pro magazine highlight’s the 2012 SQL Server Pro Editors’ Best and Community Choice Awards, and as always, contains much more…

Ada Lovelace's Anniversary Celebrated With Google Doodle   Monday 10 December

Today's Google Doodle marks the birth 197 years ago, on December 10, 1815, of Ada Lovelace in the recognition of her status as the word's first computer programmer and a computer visionary.

CSEd Week Starts Today   Sunday 09 December

Today marks two events. It is the anniversary of the birth of computer science pioneer Grace Hopper and, in the United States, it is the start of Computer Science Education week. And there is a link between the two.

Leap 3D Sensor - First Demos   Sunday 09 December

Although the Leap 3D sensor is still not available for general sale, the developer kits do seem to be producing some impressive results. It looks as if the Leap might be the great leap forward it promised to be.

ROS - Robot Operating System Is Five!   Saturday 08 December

If you think of the great open source operating systems, you think of Linux, BSD and so on. But when it comes to robotics, ROS is the open source to use. Five years since its launch we have a video to celebrate.

Social Media Use - How, Where and Why   Saturday 08 December

Social media is taking over our lives. We didn't need a research report to tell us that. However, the details of how, why and even when we use social networking is both interesting and useful.

Unshuffling A Square Is NP-Complete   Saturday 08 December

New NP complete problems are always interesting because they broaden our conception of what is difficult to compute. Now we have a new result that unshuffling square strings is NP-Hard.

Distribute Internal Apps Via Google Play   Friday 07 December

The Google Play Private Channel has been established to give business organizations an easy way to distribute internal Android apps to their employees and associates.

Intel GraphBuilder Good For Extracting Knowledge From Big Data   Friday 07 December

Intel's Open Source Technology Center has released GraphBuilder, an open source tool that you can use to create web-like structures for analyzing big data.

Atlas Computer Switched on 50 Years Ago   Friday 07 December

The world's first supercomputer, built at the University of Manchester by a group led by Tom Kilburn in collaboration with Ferranti, was formally switched on on December 7, 1962.

Microsoft Closes Silverlight.net   Thursday 06 December

You have to be some optimist if you believe that Silverlight has any future in the new Microsoft, but it is still interesting if sad to watch as the edifice is taken down. The news today is that the Silverlight-specific website has been removed and all we have now is a mess of broken links.

Socl - Collage Meets Search Meets TypeScript   Thursday 06 December

Coursera Career Services Announced   Thursday 06 December

Coursera is inviting its students to opt-in to a services that matches job seekers to job opportunities. Employers pay for this service and Corsera's academic partners will receive a share of these fees.

Professional Programmer

Trouble At Code School   Friday 07 December

Computer Science Education Week is a good time to consider how things are going in the teaching of programming. The verdict however is more a "what are these guys doing" rather than a "well done". What is wrong with code school?

The Core

Small Basic - The Programmer's Guide   Wednesday 12 December

If you have been looking for a simple language that makes it possible to teach complete beginners then you might be pleased to meet Small Basic. It is, as its name, suggests a small and simple language but it also has lots of rewards built in to keep the beginner's interest.

History

Manchester Computers of the 1950s   Monday 10 December

In the period after World War II, Manchester in the UK was one of foremost centers of computing expertise.
In 1948 Tom Kilburn and Freddie Williams designed, “Baby" or Small Scale Experimental Machine  and followed up with the wold's first stored program computer,  the Manchester Mark I in 1949. What happened next led to the Atlas and the MU5.