Programmer Puzzles

Vertex Coverings And The Cool Kids Problem   Friday 11 January

Joe Celko has posed another puzzle that requires you to think like a programmer. This one asks us to find the cool kids in a social network - the ones who taken together know everyone else. This is also a classic problem in graph theory and it is NP-compete, something the cool kids probably don't know.

News

Get Your Windows Phone 8 App on TV   Wednesday 16 January

Microsoft has launched a new head-to-head app contest for Windows Phone 8. The top prize in the Next App Star Contest includes a US wide TV ad campaign.

Learn How To Use APIs At Codeacademy   Wednesday 16 January

Codeacademy has introduced a new set of free online classes that teach how to build simple API apps with Youtube, Bitly, Twilio and more.

PrimeSense Give Details Of Tiny Depth Sensor   Wednesday 16 January

PrimeSense has given some technical details of the new Capri sensor which promises to be small enough to fit in mobile devices.

New Android Chrome Beta Channel   Tuesday 15 January

Google has announced a beta channel for the Android version of Chrome. This is a step in the right direction for mobile/desktop parity.

15,000 Apps Submissions During Blackberry Port-a-Thon   Tuesday 15 January

Blackberry's incentive of $100 per approved app appears to have motivated developers. 1,000 people around the globe recently participated in online events and submitted over 15,000 apps for BlackBerry 10.

Java Still Insecure Warns Homeland Security   Tuesday 15 January

Oracle has issued a patch to remedy a security flaw in response to an urgent recommendation of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to computer users to disable the Java plug-in. But is it enough and why is Java getting so much bad press recently?

SQL Server Pro Magazine January 2013   Monday 14 January

Here's a detailed look at the January 2012 issue of SQL Server Pro magazine (January 2013), the online subscription-based monthly magazine that has news and articles from across the SQL Server world.

Tributes for Internet Activist Aaron Swartz   Monday 14 January

The news over the weekend that 26-year old Aaron Swartz had committed suicide has led to an avalanche of tributes and also debate about the principles that led to him facing a trial that could have resulted in a  long prison term.

JSTOR Extends Free Access - But Not Much   Monday 14 January

The digital library JSTOR, which controls access to more than a thousand academic journals,  now offers free access to some of its store of online books and papers. However, this is far from the ideal of open access and may not even be a move in that direction.

Kilobots Work Together   Sunday 13 January

The Kilobot swarm building robot is an ideal candidate for experiments in how swarms can do useful things. We have three new videos showing how cooperation pays off even if there is no master controller.

Authentic HAL 9000 Replica   Sunday 13 January

ThinkGeek has produced a handcrafted replica of HAL 9000, the (fictional) homicidal robot from 2001: A Space Odyssey. Is this a must-have gadget?

New Browsers - Firefox 18 And Chrome 24   Saturday 12 January

It can be difficult to keep  up with the latest browsers, so what is new in Firefox 18 and Chrome 24 both of which have just become available on the release channels.

Progress With EDSAC Rebuild   Saturday 12 January

A computer conservation project to build a working replica of one of the first general purpose computers has reached an important milestone. Work has now begun on manufacturing the huge steel chassis required to replicate EDSAC as it was in 1949.

Get Set for Facebook Hacker Cup 2013   Friday 11 January

Registration is now open for the third annual Facebook algorithmic programming contest. The qualification round begins on January 25th and this year's top prize is $10,000.

Easy Windows RT Jailbreak   Friday 11 January

Hard on the heals of the news that Windows RT can be modified to run unsigned desktop applications, we have the exploit packaged and ready to run by almost any user.

RavenDB 2.0 Released   Friday 11 January

A new version of the RavenDB document database has been released. The improvements are mainly to performance, and the team has fixed the problems with memory use in the earlier release.

Ford Extends Sync AppLink API   Thursday 10 January

Ford is opening up its developer program for Sync, its voice-controlled in-car entertainment system that integrates with iOS, Android and Blackberry apps  and at the same time is offering the system to other car manufacturers. Is this enough to make it an attractive proposition?

Window RT Jailbreak - Why Is It Needed?   Thursday 10 January

Microsoft has attempted to lock down some aspects of Windows 8 and has done even more to secure Windows RT. As you might expect this is simply an invitation to jailbreak the system, but surprisingly the jailbreak attempt has led to a slightly deeper question - why is the Windows RT desktop locked down at all?

Rock, Paper, Azure Challenge Relaunched   Thursday 10 January

Microsoft's weekly online challenge where US-based holders of a Windows Azure account (including a 90-day free trial) can win prizes is running again with three weeks still to go.

The Core

JavaScript Data Structures - The Linked List   Monday 14 January

JavaScript may not have pointers but it has everything you need to construct sophisticated data structures if you think about things in the right way. In this article we implement a classical linked list structure.

Babbage's Bag

Assemblers and assembly language   Wednesday 16 January

The sort of instructions that most computers recognize are too simple for humans to be bothered with - and so we invented assembly language. Find out how it works and how it started the whole movement to abstract away from the computer's hardware.