News

Protest Against Adding DRM APIs To HTLM5   Wednesday 17 April

The Free Software Foundation is urging its members to sign a petition to protest moves to incorporate Digital Rights Management technologies into the next generation of core web technologies.

Elastic MapReduce Demo Shows How to Handle Large Datasets   Wednesday 17 April

Amazon WebServices has posted a video on YouTube showing how you can get started using Elastic MapReduce to handle large datasets quickly.

Python 3.3 Overtakes 2.7 - Time To Switch?   Tuesday 16 April

Python download statistics for first quarter of 2013 show that Python 3.3 has finally overtaken Python 2.7 as the Python of choice. But are there still barriers to making this move? 

Google Glass API Full Details   Tuesday 16 April

With the shipping of the Google Glass Explorer kit to the lucky people who qualified, Google has released detailed specifications for the hardware and the full Mirror API.

JSON Linked Data   Tuesday 16 April

JSON Linked Data is getting closer with the publication of two Last Call Working Drafts by the W3C's RDF Working Group and its JSON-LD Community Group.

Google Doodle For Euler & His Beautiful Equation   Monday 15 April

Today is the 306th anniversary of the birth of Swiss mathematician and physicist,  Leonhard Euler and to celebrate we have a Google Doodle that brings together some of his most important mathematical discoveries

RunRev's Open Source LiveCode   Monday 15 April

RunRev is launching an open source version of its LiveCode application development software. The finance was raised by a Kickstarter campaign earlier in the year.

Kitty Radar Cat Detector   Sunday 14 April

The Kittydar cat radar detector, written in JavaScript, is now available on Github. Kittydar, short for kitty radar, performs the vital task of identifying the locations of all the cats in an image you present to it.

Demaines Become Guggenheim Fellows   Sunday 14 April

MIT Computer Science Professor Erik Demaine and his father, artist and mathematician Martin Demaine have been named 2013 Guggenheim Fellows for their work with origami from wood, plastic, metal and glass.

Code Spells - Teaching Java to Kids   Sunday 14 April

Computer scientists at the University of California, San Diego, have developed an immersive, first-person player video game designed to teach students in elementary to high school how to program in Java.

FSF Says Close Windows 8   Saturday 13 April

The Free Software Foundation is seizing the opportunity provided by Windows 8 to strengthen its campaign to get computer users to switch to free software. Its infographic is intended as a parody - so don't get confused.

The Perfect Snake   Saturday 13 April

Snake is still a well known game because of its suitability for  mobile phones - but did you know it was possible to win? We have a video for you that shows a perfect game of snake and it is fascinating and mesmerizing as a display of strategy.

Recognition for LLVM   Friday 12 April

The ACM's Software System Award for 2012 has gone to  LLVM, the language-independent collection of programming technologies that turn programming languages into machine code.

Ripple - A Better Bitcoin   Friday 12 April

An open source, peer-to-peer payment network has been launched in beta and gives a way for people to send money to anyone, anywhere, using their currency of choice, including Bitcoins.

AlwaysOn Availability in SQL Server Pro Magazine   Friday 12 April

Become a SQL Server superhero and save the day when disaster strikes! Find out how in April's SQL Server Pro, the online subscription-based monthly magazine’s. Here’s a detailed look at April's issue.

AMD - No DirectX 12   Thursday 11 April

This is a strange story that is difficult to make sense of. An AMD Vice President of Global Channel Sales, Roy Taylor, has said that there will be no DirectX12 at any time in the future.

Windows 8 Hastens Decline of PC   Thursday 11 April

Figures from IDC show that PC shipments in the first quarter of 2013 suffered the worst year-on-year contraction in nearly two decades.

Persona Web Login Beta 2   Thursday 11 April

Mozilla has released the second beta of Persona, its web login technology designed to eliminate the need for site-specific passwords on the web.

Professional Programmer

Windows 8 - The Desktop Destroyer   Friday 12 April

Windows 8 is a disaster and while Microsoft has had disasters before this one is different because the times are different. The miscalculation of Windows 8 isn't just a train wreck, it is in danger of bringing the whole railroad down.

The Core

jQuery UI Custom Control - Widget Factory   Wednesday 17 April

So you have been using jQuery and jQuery UI but you have a few custom JavaScript controls that don't work in the same way. The solution is to create a jQuery UI custom control so that you can use everything in a uniform way. The only problem is that you have to use the mysterious Widget Factory, which makes it seem more difficult than adding to basic jQuery. 

Babbage's Bag

Data Structures Part I - From Data To Objects   Monday 15 April

What makes the difference between a truly awful and a truly great programmer is the way that they use data. The code matters but it is almost an after thought once you have decided on the data structure. We may all want to learn to code but perhaps learning to "data" would be a better goal.