News

New Kinect SDK 1.8   Wednesday 18 September

A new Kinect SDK brings with it some interesting new high-level features and, at last, HTML support.

Google Extends Scope of Patent Search   Wednesday 18 September

Google has added four new sources of international patents to its Patent Search with the aim of increased discoverability of prior art for future patent applications.

RAD Studio Goes Mobile   Tuesday 17 September

Embarcadero Technologies has released RAD Studio XE5, a new version of its flagship product that will let you write C++ and Delphi apps for Android and iOS as well as for Windows and Mac.

Udacity Forms Open Education Alliance   Tuesday 17 September

At last week's TechCrunch Disrupt Sebastian Thrun announced a new alliance, headed by Udacity, to develop "career readiness". This is a new attempt to address the skills gap by involving technology companies in providing education that is relevant to employment opportunities.

APIMiner Automatically Adds Examples To Android Docs   Tuesday 17 September

APIMiner has just reached version 2.0, and if you don't know about it you might be missing out on a useful tool and a really good idea. 

3-Sweep - 3D Models From Photos   Monday 16 September

3-Sweep looks like magic. You draw a few simple shapes which automatically snap to the object outlines in the photo, drag a few things and you have a complete, textured model that you can manipulate within the photo.

Imagine Cup 2014 - Registration Open   Monday 16 September

Microsoft has officially launched the Imagine Cup 2014 season and student teams can now register and start to work. The website has also been revamped with a new logo, but the three main competitions are staying the same.

Google Drops MySQL For MariaDB   Monday 16 September

Google is moving away from MySQL to MariaDB in a move that will make it easier for other companies to migrate from older MySQL installations.

Mitsuku wins Loebner Prize 2013   Sunday 15 September

The final round of the 23rd annual Loebner Prize competition took place in Londonderry, Northern Ireland on September 14th, with four chatbots hoping to convince four judges that they were humans. Mitsuku, a chatbot that is kept busy chatting to people around the world, was awarded this year's bronze medal.

SkyCall - Guided By A Drone   Saturday 14 September

MIT researchers have surpassed themselves in thinking up a new use for a drone, a quadcopter to be exact. Lost? No problem. just summon SkyCall.

Coder - Raspberry Pi As a Web Development System   Friday 13 September

If you think about the low-cost Raspberry Pi computer as just something that is used within hardware projects, Google has a surprise for you - a complete web development system, including server.

Java SE 8 JDK Preview Available Now   Friday 13 September

Oracle has made available a preview of the development kit for Java SE (Standard Edition) 8 so that devs can try it out and iron out the bugs.

It's Programmer Day - What Are You Going To Do?   Friday 13 September

As well as being Friday the 13th, today is also Programmer Day. Instead of regarding it as a lighthearted joke, or an opportunity to have some fun, perhaps we should take it more seriously.

Google & edX In New Collaboration   Thursday 12 September

There's a new massive force on the horizon for the mooc landscape as Google and edX combine their existing open platforms to enable anyone who wants to to anyone to create and post courses.

Looking Forward to SQL Server 2014   Thursday 12 September

September 2013 SQL Server Pro Magazine is already addressing the question, What’s in the next version of SQL Server? It also looks at questions regarding SQL Server 2014’s In-Memory OLTP Engine.

Babbage's Bag

Prime Numbers And Primality Testing   Tuesday 17 September

Testing to see if a number is a prime or not is the basis of many encryption and security methods. It has long been assumed that there is no fast way, i.e no polynomial time method, to determine if a number is prime, but now we know different. It is lesson to us all that a classic problem that was long thought not to have a polynomial solution does indeed have one. Given that we rely on some of these problems to keep our secrets safe, this is a change in perspective.

Turing's Test, the Loebner Prize and Chatterbots   Thursday 12 September

The Turing Test - it's pure Hollywood. Any time a character in a film wants to impress all they have to mention is the Turing Test. There is even a $100,000 prize, the Loebner Prize, for the first AI to pass the famous test - but this too is mostly Hollywood. With the next Loebner Prize due on September 14th, it's a good time to review the whole situation.