News

Google Switches Off Keyword Data   Wednesday 30 October

In an effort to be more secure, Google no longer tells websites what keywords were responsible for directing traffic to the site. The only exception is paid-for search results, which still come with keyword data.

Turbo Pascal In JavaScript   Wednesday 30 October

Everyone is now used to the idea that JavaScript can do amazing things, but Turbo Pascal in a browser is worth a look for anyone who remembers its original implementation. It includes a p-code virtual machine that is binary compatible with the UCSD compilers. 

Bill Lowe - IBM PC Pioneer   Tuesday 29 October

William C Lowe, who masterminded Project Chess to build the first IBM PC and changed the world of computing, died from a heart attack on October 19th, 2013, at the age of 72.

Mozilla Web Literacy Standard V1.0 Launched   Tuesday 29 October

Mozilla's Web Literacy Standard, a specification for the skills and competencies people need to read, write and participate effectively on the web, was unveiled at last week's Mozilla Festival and is now live on Webmaker.org.

Lightbeam Shows Who’s Tracking You   Tuesday 29 October

An add-on for Firefox that lets you see an visualization of which applications are tracking you and how they are connected, was just released at Mozfest.

Telegraph Contributor Says Coding Is For Exceptionally Dull Weirdos   Monday 28 October

The UK Government is trying to figure out how to teach children to code by changing what is taught in schools. The Telegraph, a leading UK newspaper, has put the other side of the case -  Coding is for "exceptionally dull weirdo(s)"

Software From The 80s Running In Your Browser   Monday 28 October

The Internet Archive now enables you to experience software the way it was over thirty years ago with its newly launched Historical Software Collection.. Currently this has a couple of dozen titles which you can attempt to run in one of today's web browsers.

Kinect Yoga for the Blind   Monday 28 October

Researchers at the University of Washington have created an app that gives spoken feedback to users on how to accurately complete a yoga pose.

Five Reasons To Teach Kids To Code   Sunday 27 October

As programmers we appreciate why knowing how to code is really important. But if you find it difficult to express why, this infographic gives five reasons - and I'm sure you can add more.

The iRobot 110 - Just Don't Do This With Your Roomba   Saturday 26 October

iRobot is best known for its Roomba range of robot vacuums, but it also builds defense robots. The 110 FirstLook is a throwable robot that can now poke its nose into things that might be dangerous.

Statutory Pardon For Alan Turing - Update   Saturday 26 October

The prospect of an official pardon in respect of his conviction for gross indecency will be granted to Alan Turing, almost 50 years after his death by suicide is now within sight after the House of Lords approved the latest stage of the bill without debate. It still has to pass through the House of Commons.

Skype Terminating Desktop API   Friday 25 October

Developers are waking up to the fact that the Sykpe Desktop API is to be withdrawn at the end of December 2013 - and are trying to reverse the decision with a petition.

Yandex Cocaine   Friday 25 October

Yandex, the leading search engine in Russia, has launched Cocaine, an open service that will let developers to design their own PaaS clouds.

New Theme and New Widgets in jQuery Mobile 1.4   Friday 25 October

jQuery Mobile 1.4 Release Candidate 1 is now available. The focus of this new version is on performance improvements. It introduces several widgets and screen furniture, a new default theme and SVG icons.

Azure SDK 2.2 Released   Thursday 24 October

Microsoft has released an update for Azure SDK 2.2 with support for remote debugging and a preview of management libraries for .NET

AppCode 2.5 Includes More Code Generation Options   Thursday 24 October

The latest version of AppCode, JetBrains IDE Objective-C IDE for iOS and OS X developers, has been updated to fully support iOS7 and has new features that apply to C/C++ as well as to Objective-C.

Adobe Snap.svg JavaScript Library   Thursday 24 October

Adobe released Snap.svg, a new free open source JavaScript library for working with SVG (Scalable Vector Graphics) at the HTML5 Developer's Conference in San Francisco.

The Core

The Confusing Comma In JavaScript   Thursday 24 October

Not every comma in JavaScript is an operator - in fact most of them aren't. It is time to confront the confusing comma.

Babbage's Bag

Hashing - The Greatest Idea In Programming   Tuesday 29 October

Although it is a matter of opinion, you can't help but admire the idea of the hash function. It not only solves one of the basic problems of computing - finding something that you have stored somewhere - but it helps with detecting file tampering, password security and more.