Programmer Puzzles

Programmer Puzzle - Hermit Boxes   Friday 14 June

Can you program a solution to this puzzle  in which you place 3D boxes on a 2D grid to prevent your opponent being able to make a legal move? Let's hear what the team at International Storm Door & Software think of the problem.

News

New Beta of Open Source Entity Framework   Wednesday 19 June

Beta 1 of Entity Framework 6 has been released, with EF tooling included and the ability to generate and alter stored procedures.

TypeScript 0.9 Released   Wednesday 19 June

TypeScript, Microsoft's replacement for JavaScript, has reached 0.9, a release that is important for the inclusion of Generics and a re-engineered compiler.

New Ruby Website Now Open   Wednesday 19 June

Ruby.org, the official website of the Ruby community has been revamped and has switched from a private CMS to an open process so that every Rubyist can help to maiintain it.

Deep Learning Powers BING Voice Input   Tuesday 18 June

Deep neural networks seem to be entering a new phase and AI is going mainstream. Microsoft has implemented its BING voice search using artificial neurons and the system is faster and more accurate.

Two in Three App Developers Not Breaking Even   Tuesday 18 June

The majority of respondents to a recent survey indicated that they are not yet breaking even with the revenue they are generating with their app compared to the costs of operating it and 81% are not making enough money to consider their app a standalone business. However, 81% of respondents stressed that they are not considering abandoning their app.

Google App Engine Version 1.8.1 Released   Monday 17 June

Google has released the latest version of Google App Engine, with the Search API moving a stage closer to General Availability.

NAG Routines for Supercomputers   Monday 17 June

The new NAG Library for Intel Xeon Phi was recently launched ahead of this year's International Supercomputing Conference, which is being held this week in Leipzig, Germany. NAG is showcasing Mark 24 of the NAG Library for SMP & Multicore at ISC13.

Microsoft Pays Up To $100K for Windows Phone Apps   Monday 17 June

According to a well-supported rumor Microsoft is paying some developers up to $100,000 to port popular apps to Windows Phone 8.

BigQuery Updated and Repriced   Monday 17 June

Google BigQuery has been updated. The service for analyzing large amounts of data now can handle larger result sets, and has functions for advanced analytics, and caching of large query results. At the same time lower prices have been announced.

Google Uses Search Data To Predict Box Office Hits   Sunday 16 June

It should come as no surprise that popularity of movie trailers is correlated with a movie's success. However, a Google whitepaper reveals that search query patterns can predict box office performance with a surprising degree of success.

MIT Invents A Tactile Display   Sunday 16 June

Researchers at MIT have designed a wearable tactile display that uses vibrations to provide information. This could prove a useful way to provide feedback for those with impaired hearing, or in noisy environments.

Kisses Across The Web   Saturday 15 June

You may think a good user interface for your app involves making it easy for users to enter their login details, but think again, and think more attention grabbing this time.

Mapping in the Cloud with Rapyuta   Saturday 15 June

Mapping is widely considered the most difficult perceptual problem in robotics, both from an algorithmic but also from a computational perspective. An innovative way around the problem relies on Rapyuta, the RoboEarth Cloud Engine.

Javapocalypse - It's Happening Now   Friday 14 June

Java - evil. Byte code is like communism.  "It is a virus". So we turn off Java and yes there is a button that can do that. Watch as events unfold in this stylish promo for JavaZone Norway. 

Google Explains How AI Photo Search Works   Friday 14 June

A short time ago we reported that Google was using some sort of AI to find photos that contained named objects. It seemed a reasonable guess to say that it was using convolutional neural network but there were no details - now there are.

Crypto Made Easy   Friday 14 June

 A new cartoon introduction to cryptography doesn't gloss over the details, but it all seems so much easier in black-and-white.

License To Code - Java EE 7 Is Released   Thursday 13 June

Java EE 7 is being "launched" with a video "Licensed To Code". Get it - EE7 and 007?  Or is Oracle letting slip that it really would like us to need a license to code?

Chart.js Dashboard Challenge   Thursday 13 June

A new contest invites designers and developers to find interesting ways to visualize real personal data using the open source JavaScript Library, Chart.js.

New Tools For Structured Web Pages   Thursday 13 June

Google has released a new tool for structuring web pages to include rich snippets, and has updated another launched last year.

Professional Programmer

WAT! JavaScript, Ignorance And Prejudice   Monday 17 June

It is easy to make fun of a language when you don't really understand it and are simply comparing it to what you already know. JavaScript suffers a lot from the WAT! style of humor. So does it deserve it?

History

Konrad Zuse And The First Working Computer   Wednesday 19 June

You may well never have heard of Konrad Zuse, but he has a better claim than most to be the man who invented the programmable computer in the sense of actually building one. He also could be the man who invented the first high-level programming language. So why don't we know more about him and what he did?