News

The Astonishing Progress Of Blink   Wednesday 09 April

It is just over a year since Google broke away from WebKit and decided to create its own version of the rendering engine just for Chrome. What is amazing is just how much benefit Chrome has accrued from the change.

Windows 8 Sideloading Enhancements   Wednesday 09 April

If you use the sideloading facility to install apps without using the Windows Store in Windows 8.1, the new Windows 8.1 Update adds two new features that possibly makes it more usable in an enterprise setting.

MySQL Update   Wednesday 09 April

Oracle has announced a Development Milestone release for MySQL 5.7, with benchmarked speeds twice those of MySQL 5.6

Google I/O 2014 Registration Dates Pushed Back   Tuesday 08 April

We already know the dates and venue for Google I/O 2014 - it will take place June 25-26 at Moscone West in San Francisco but the date for registration has just been pushed back a week.

C# 6.0 Features   Tuesday 08 April

With the release of Roslyn, the .NET cloud compiler, we have our first view of the features that are likely to make it into C# 6.0 - why so little publicity over a major event?

SQL Server Pro Magazine April 2014   Tuesday 08 April

Discover all the new and exciting features of the just released SQL Server 2014, inside this month’s SQL Server Pro Magazine

April MOOCs in Computer Science   Monday 07 April

The MOOC format seems particularly suited to computer science and every month seems to brings new ones. This month's round up includes a new provider, courses at several different levels, and a couple of apps to help you keep up.

SQL Server 2014 Released   Monday 07 April

SQL Server 2014 is now generally available, with support for in-memory OLTP, and integration with Azure.

XP Officially Dead - What Next?   Monday 07 April

With almost 30% of desktop users and an estimated 95% of ATM machines still running Windows XP, the cut off of security patches for the operating system is a scary prospect.

Break This Robot Apart And It Reassembles   Sunday 06 April

This is terrifying - a robot that you can't destroy. If you break it by kicking it to pieces then the pieces simply move towards each other and reassemble.
Is this science fiction or gothic horror made real?

Festo's BionicKangaroo   Saturday 05 April

Festo is renowned for building amazing robotics platforms that are based on nature and the latest, a hopping kangaroo that is controlled by gesture, is another masterpiece of engineering.

TypeScript 1.0 Released   Friday 04 April

Microsoft announced the release of TypeScript 1.0 at the BUILD developer conference and is now taking pull requests for bug fixes, improving documentation and "general cleanup".

.NET Goes Open Source   Friday 04 April

Microsoft has formed the .NET Foundation with the idea that the best future for the technology is open source. Is this a positive or a negative in the life of .NET?

Bredan Eich Leaves Mozilla   Friday 04 April

Last week Brendan Eich was appointed CEO of Mozilla. Yesterday he resigned that position and left the company he co-founded 15 years ago, saying "I will be taking time before I decide what to do next.”

Microsoft Reveals "Universal" Apps   Thursday 03 April

Universal apps are part of Microsoft's "One Windows" strategy. A universal app sounds as if it might be what we are all looking for. Write once run anywhere - well as long as it's Windows. Not quite.

Microsoft Releases WinJS 2.1 As Open Source   Thursday 03 April

WinJS is Microsoft's JavaScript library for developing WinRT or Windows Store apps. One of the lesser announcements at this year's Build is that it is being released as open source.

iPython 2.0 Released   Thursday 03 April

iPython 2.0 has been released. Its major new features include interactive HTML widgets, and directory navigation in the notebook dashboard.

Professional Programmer

Developers - Microsoft Is Back!   Saturday 05 April

Microsoft has generated a warm glow for developers at this year's BUILD. There really does seem to be a different attitude in the air and things are moving - but are they?

History

Thomas J Watson Jr and the IBM 360 Fifty Years On   Tuesday 08 April

The first IBM System 360 was launched on 7th April 1964 and with it a new era of computing started - modular, upgradable and eventually a commodity item. The 360 architecture influences everything including software.