News

Fedora May Replace MySQL With MariaDB   Wednesday 23 January

Fedora is proposing to replace MySQL with MariaDB in Fedora 19 because of fears that Oracle is moving towards a more closed model for the software.

Developer Phones for Firefox OS   Wednesday 23 January

Mozilla has announced developer preview phones for its mobile operating system, Firefox OS. An open phone using open web technologies is an exciting prospect for developers.

Amazon Offers GPU Access to Udacity Students   Wednesday 23 January

Amazon Web Services will provide access to GPU compute instances on Amazon EC2 to students taking Udacity's Intro to Parallel Programming course that starts on February 4, 2013.

Cipherbase - Encrypted SQL   Tuesday 22 January

Microsoft Research is working on a SQL database system for storing and processing strongly encrypted data. The Cipherbase system is based on a combination of customized trusted hardware and Microsoft SQL Server.

Microsoft Goes Its Own Way With WebRTC   Tuesday 22 January

Despite having no luck convincing the W3C WebRTC group to take notice of its proposal, Microsoft is moving ahead to implement it anyway. This is another example of Microsoft going it alone when it comes to browser standards, but the situation is actually quite complicated.

.NET Developers Salaries   Tuesday 22 January

Despite the economic climate, over sixty percent of US-based Microsoft .NET developers who participated in a recent survey had seen a rise in their pay in 2012 and the average salary reported was $94,381.

Dataclips 2.0 - A Pastebin For SQL   Monday 21 January

There’s a new version of a tool described as pastebin for SQL. Dataclips 2.0 adds the ability to fork your dataclips, to control access granularly, and to create dashboards to make it easier to browse dataclips.

JavaScript Comes to Minecraft   Monday 21 January

JavaScript is the language of the client and it is becoming the language of the server. Now it seems set to be the language of Minecraft.

Hardcode Competition - Focus On Security   Monday 21 January

Google's contest for teams of students aimed at promoting the importance of security throughout the software development lifecycle has just started.

New Center for Data Mining   Sunday 20 January

A new computational institute is being formed the aim of mining' big data' and  addressing challenges ranging from climate change to energy management.

Free Windows 8 Teaching Resources From Microsoft   Sunday 20 January

Are you look for teaching materials related to Microsoft technologies, including Windows 8, either for independent study or to teach your students? If so its worth seeing what's on offer at  Microsoft's Faculty Connection site.

Baxter Is A Useful Robot - Sort Of   Sunday 20 January

Rethink Robotics' Baxter promises a new era of low-cost computing, one that brings the benefits of robots to small firms and perhaps revitalizes local manufacturing. To prove that this is realistic we have a video of Baxter doing useful things.

Web IDE The Easiest Way To Program Raspberry Pi   Saturday 19 January

The Raspberry Pi Web IDE, which Adafruit announced a few weeks ago, is up and running. and there is an easy-to-watch video to get you started with using it.

Terahertz Transducer On A Chip Provides X-ray Vision   Saturday 19 January

Terahertz waves - between microwaves and infrared - can be used to see through materials and act as a sophisticated x-ray. Now researchers have managed to create a Terahertz wave source on a chip, opening the door to mobile devices.

Verizon $10 Million Developer Contest   Saturday 19 January

Verizon has announced a competition with $10 million in prizes, including a $1 million top prize, for applications in healthcare, education, and sustainability that make use of Verizon’s platforms.

New jQuery Releases   Friday 18 January

The final versions of jQuery 1.9 and jQuery Migrate 1.0 and the beta of jQuery 2.0 have been released. So has the jQuery Plugin Registry, a new website to serve as a central repository.

W3C Pointer Events Standard   Friday 18 January

W3C has just released a working draft of the Pointer Events standard which has mostly been contributed by Microsoft as implemented in IE10. This is an attempt to unify the way we work with "pointer" input devices but it also highlights the mess that we are in at the moment with regard to touch input.

Microsoft Brings Devices Under Unified Management   Friday 18 January

Microsoft is offering a 30-day free trial of Windows Intune, its subscription-based single solution that lets IT managers manage all their devices together in the cloud.

Google Glass Developer Events   Thursday 17 January

Google Glass is an exciting technology and who wouldn't want to get their hands on one. After parting with $1500, some developers are finally going to get something for their money in the form of a two developer events.

$2 Million On Offer in Blackberry 10's Last Chance Port-A-Thon   Thursday 17 January

RIM has had so much success with its series of Port-A-Thons to make existing apps available on the Blackberry 10 platform, that is has announced a final event this weekend.

Oracle Patches 86 Flaws in Database and Enterprise Products   Thursday 17 January

Oracle’s latest Critical Patch Update addresses 86 security vulnerabilities affecting many products including MySQL. The most serious security problem being fixed scores 10 on the Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS), and addresses a problem in the Oracle Mobile Server database.

The Core

JavaScript Hoisting Explained   Wednesday 23 January

Hoisting, a JavaScript feature that allows you to make forward references to functions and variables, can seem extremely complicated and arbitrary. Once you know the principle that governs what is going on, however, it just seems simple and very logical.

Creating Web Apps - The Touch API   Monday 21 January

Touch interfaces are spreading and web pages can no longer ignore touch, even on the desktop. The HTML5 touch API is fairly well supported, so let's find out how it works.

History

Howard Aiken and the Harvard Mark I   Saturday 19 January

The Harvard Mark I now has an established place in the history of computing. However, without financial help from IBM it would never have materialized. It is 75 years since the memorandum formalizing IBM's development of this iconic machine was written on January 18, 1938.