News

Google Cayley Graph Database   Wednesday 02 July

Google has released an open source graph database written in Go, making it available on GitHub.

Android App and New Courses from Udacity   Wednesday 02 July

Udacity now has an Android version of its app that lets you study its online courses on your smartphone. There also a new course on developing your own apps for Android.

ServiceWorkers Are Coming!   Wednesday 02 July

Mozilla has just announced that it will have ServiceWorker support in Firefox and Firefox OS by the end of September. The only question in your mind right now is - ServiceWorkers?

A Quick Guide To Platform Conversion With Xamarin.Forms   Tuesday 01 July

Xamarin has produced a handy cheat sheet showing how app controls differ between iOS, Android and Windows Phone. It makes a fascinating comparison and you can't help wonder why we can't have a standard way of working with all of them. 

Gmail Gets A Restful API   Tuesday 01 July

Why exactly does Gmail need an a Restful API? Isn't IMAP or POP3 enough? 

Fast.js JavaScript Versions Of Built-In Functions Are Faster   Tuesday 01 July

Just to demonstrate how all grown up JavaScript is, Fast.js re-implements a number of built-in native functions in JavaScript. Guess what - they are faster!

Dart 1.5 Released   Monday 30 June

Google has released Dart 1.5 with improvements for Android Web developers.

Free Online Clojure MOOC   Monday 30 June

A course that sets out to provide an introduction to functional programming using the dynamically typed language Clojure takes a very different approach to most MOOCs.

Android Studio Graduates To Beta   Monday 30 June

Although Google I/O didn't bring us the finished version of Android Studio, we do have the first beta.

Tell Me Dave - Robots Understand Verbal Commands   Sunday 29 June

Of course, one day robots will have to accept our commands in plain natural language rather then as accurate programs. We all know how vague and messy that could be. 

EDSAC Diagrams Rediscovered   Saturday 28 June

Circuit diagrams of EDSAC, the first general-purpose computer,  have been donated to the team which is currently reconstructing the historic computer using incomplete evidence.

Google Moves On From MapReduce, Launches Cloud Dataflow   Friday 27 June

Google has introduced a new cloud analytics system called Cloud Dataflow that is a successor to MapReduce.

The Most Exciting Thing At Google I/O - A Piece Of Cardboard   Friday 27 June

Google handed out pieces of cardboard at this year's I/O 2014, but not any old piece of cardboard. This one piece of cardboard could change everything - sort of.

New Android L Goes Flat   Thursday 26 June

Google I/O seems short on the glitz and glamor of previous years and the next version of Android is the biggest news. Is the redesign just a case of Apple envy? Or is there some real advantage to the upgrade?

Microsoft JavaScript Cryptography Library   Thursday 26 June

A cryptography library developed by Microsoft Research has been released for researchers and developers.

Amazon Offers Coins For Apps   Thursday 26 June

Develop an app for Fire OS, and Amazon will give you up to $15,000 in Amazon coins.

Projects

The Knapsack Problem   Tuesday 01 July

I like problems that look simple and turn out to be really difficult. It's the way that something simple can hide a complexity that you never guessed at. Fortunately for me the universe seems to be built in this way! One particularly fascinating problem that also has applications in cryptography is the knapsack or sum partitioning problem.

Building Geo-tracking Apps with AngularJS, Ionic, and the Salesforce REST API   Thursday 26 June

This project, based on the Force.com REST API, takes you through the steps required to create an iOS Geo-tracking app using  free resources and open standards - OAuth protocol and RESTful APIs - ideal for a multi-platform environment.