News

Windows 8 Passes 100 Million App Downloads - Is this a mark of success?   Wednesday 09 January

Microsoft has announced that it has already sold 60 million licenses for Windows 8 taking into account both upgrades and sales to OEMs for new devices, claiming that this is a similar sales trajectory to that experienced with Windows 7.

Google Announces Advanced Power Searching Course   Wednesday 09 January

Building on its success with its Power Searching course, Google has announced a follow-on two-week online class and you can sign-up now.

Intel's Vision For 2013 - Perceptual Computing   Wednesday 09 January

Intel has unveiled details of its game changing products and strategies for 2013 at CES - including innovations in "perceptual computing".

Mozilla-Style Web Apps With Mortar   Tuesday 08 January

Mozilla has a lot riding on its particular view of a web app being accepted by as many programmers as possible. To help with the task of building web apps Mozilla-style, we now have Mortar - a set of templates and tools.

CREATE - A Game Jam for OUYA   Tuesday 08 January

A 10-day competition with $45,000 in prizes has been announced to promote the OUYA console and its ODK.

Lego Mindstorms EV3   Monday 07 January

The third generation of the Lego Mindstorms robotics system, which is unveiled at this week's CES in Las Vegas, is is even more programmable than before and adds mobile support.

The Top Languages of 2012   Monday 07 January

Every January it is traditional to compare the state of the languages as indicated by the TIOBE index. So what's up and what's down this year?

2013 FIRST Robotics Competition   Monday 07 January

The 2013 FIRST Robotics Season started on January 5th with students across the US plus teams in Canada, Mexico, Israel and Australia embarking on a six-week project to build robots that will take part in this year's game, Ultimate Ascent.

Mayan to Spanish on Translator Hub   Sunday 06 January

Many people were concerned that the Mayan calendar predicted the end of the world on December 21st  2012. Microsoft research, however,  took the optimistic view and demonstrated a Mayan to Spanish translation system.

JellyBean On Over 10% of Androids   Sunday 06 January

The latest figures from Android Developers is that Android 4, Ice Cream Sandwich and Jelly Bean, now has almost 40% share of the market and Gingerbread has fallen below 50%.

The Value Of STEM   Sunday 06 January

RackSpace has produced an interesting infographic explaining why STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) eduction is important and what you can do to encourage it.

Leap Motion In Asus Deal   Saturday 05 January

The Leap, a tiny low cost device, that lets users control a PC using hand gestures is going to be bundled with Asus laptops and desktops.

Raspberry Pi Educational Manual Released   Saturday 05 January

A free for non-commercial use teaching manual written by  a team of UK teachers from Computing at School (CAS) is now available  for download at the Pi store.

Occupy ACM - No More Paywalls   Friday 04 January

The scandal that is the archaic practice of making money from research paid for by the public has raised its head once again. Perhaps now it is time for members of academic organizations such as the ACM to take the democratic lead and force open access policies.

Top 10 Smartphone Apps 2012   Friday 04 January

Nielsen has published statistics for the top Android and Apple apps of 2012.

PrimeSense Imagines A 3D Sensor World   Friday 04 January

PrimeSense has just released a video view of how they think its 3D sensor could change things. It is a bit over the top in places, but it does give you a clear idea how important 3D cameras are when coupled with the right software. For example, who needs a touch screen when the machine can see what you are touching....

Cassandra 1.2 Released   Thursday 03 January

A new version of NoSQL database Cassandra has been released. The new release has improved support for dense cluster, simplified application modeling, and improved data cell handling.

Ubuntu For Phones   Thursday 03 January

As if there weren't enough mobile phone operating systems to contemplate - now Ubuntu does phones and we have yet another flavor of Linux to code for.

The Core

Sound Hardware   Monday 07 January

The original PC could just about manage to make a rasping sort of “beep” but today’s machines are expected to make any noise you care to think of and sound like a hi fi or even better. We’ve come a long way since the tiny internal loudspeaker used to make the beeps – it's still in there but rarely used.

Babbage's Bag

The Monte Carlo Method   Wednesday 09 January

Monte Carlo methods are powerful ways of getting answers using random numbers to problems that really don't seem to have anything much to do with randomness. For example, you can find Pi and multiply two matrices together all by generating random numbers.

Projects

Dealing With Forum & Mailing List Spam   Friday 04 January

Forum spam is a big problem and very difficult to combat. There are some solutions, none perfect, but this one might help reduce the burden on spam in your forum or mailing list.