Programmer Puzzles

The Post Production Problem   Friday 01 March

Joe Celko has posed another puzzle that requires you to think like a programmer. This one is all about Post tag machines, which have absolutely nothing to do with mail of any type but a lot to do with strings and computability.

News

Eclipse Orion 2.0 Now Ready   Wednesday 06 March

The Eclipse Orion project has released version 2.0 of Orion, the project to create a browser- based platform for integrating web development tools.

Kinect Can Detect Clenched Fist   Wednesday 06 March

We are still waiting for a next generation Kinect with improved resolution and other features, but meanwhile Microsoft Research is already hard at work implementing new software that could be more important.

Super Seeing Software Ready To Download   Wednesday 06 March

We reported on Eulerian Magnification about a year ago. It is a very simple technique that can be used to let you see things that are beyond the range of normal human vision. Now the MIT research group has released its software for us all to use.

Office Developer Tools for Visual Studio 2012   Tuesday 05 March

Microsoft has released Office Developer Tools for Visual Studio 2012. The tools have been available in preview form, and offer an alternative to Napa, Microsoft’s online lightweight app creator.

Myoelectric Input - Better Than Kinect?   Tuesday 05 March

It seems we are in search of ever better input devices. After being satisfied with a mouse for many years we now want gesture input and the easiest way may be to tap into a user's muscles.

Linear Solver In Linear Time   Tuesday 05 March

Solving a general linear equation is more than quadratic in the size of the matrix, but if it has a particular form you can now do the job in nearly linear time. The breakthrough is not only faster, it is simpler and has lots of uses.

Free ASP.NET Training Videos   Monday 04 March

Scott Hanselman, Damien Edwards and Jon Galloway have recorded 8 hours of content based on classes they have given around the world.

The Morse Robot Simulator Reaches Version 1   Monday 04 March

Morse 1.0 is an open source robot simulator with full ROS support. Not only useful and fun, it also has uses in both research and teaching.

Which Browser Holds Sway?   Monday 04 March

The answer to this question depends on who you ask. Latest figures for browser popularity suggest that IE comes out on top. Or that it lags well behind Chrome. How can this be?

Computer Science MOOCs for March   Sunday 03 March

If you've not yet joined in a Massive Online Open Course there are always new opportunities to do so. Here's a round up of some of the Computer Science classes starting this month.

Robots As Dancers - The Nao Dance Troupe   Sunday 03 March

The power of the human form seems to have the ability to captivate us even when its only a few inches tall and very clearly a machine. Is there anything more than amusement in a troupe of dancing robots?

Google+ Sign-In   Saturday 02 March

Google had added application sign-in to the Google+ platform to give you a way to let users sign in to your Android, iOS or Web apps with Google.

BigDog Throws A Cinder Block   Saturday 02 March

Boston Dynamic's BigDog never fails to amaze or amuse, but it has moved on into the slightly threatening category. It can now throw a cinder block further than seems reasonable.

Join The Baidu Developer Platform   Friday 01 March

The Chinese Internet giant has launched its Cloud Develop Center, an English language site that promises to provides tools and invites devs to join its platform.

Google Zopfli - Nice Compression Shame About The Speed   Friday 01 March

Google is offering us a new lossless compression tool called Zopfli. it can produce zip files that are up to 5% smaller with no negative effects on the end user. There is a catch - Zopfli is much slower than your average zip.

iOS Dominates The Enterprise   Friday 01 March

Apple emerges as the clear winner among enterprise users, claiming the top five spots for device activations, and more than 90 percent of all tablet activations, in Q4 2012

IE10 Available for Windows 7 At Last!   Thursday 28 February

IE10 has been the standard browser in Windows 8 since it launched, but the Windows 7 version has only just been released. Why has it taken so long?

Firefox OS Gathers Support   Thursday 28 February

Mozilla has announced that several handset manufacturers and telecomms operators are partnering with them in launching phones running Firefox OS in 2014.

CoffeeScript Supports Literate Programming   Wednesday 27 February

The latest release of CoffeeScript has a new ‘literate’ mode to make it easier to develop Markdown documents that are executable.

The Core

Getting Started With QUnit Testing   Monday 04 March

Testing JavaScript with qUnit is very easy and it rewards the effort you put in many times over. Find out how easy it is to add some tests to an existing JavaScript program.

Babbage's Bag

Codd and his Rules   Wednesday 06 March

Theories of how we should organize databases are thin on the ground. The one exception is the work of E.F. Codd , the originator of the commandment-like “Codd’s Rules”. This approach to database has been codified into SQL - Structured Query Language -  and so into most of the databases on the planet, despite what the recent NoSQL movement might want you to think. So what are Codd 's Rules and what is a relational database?