News

A Better Turing Test - Winograd Schemas   Wednesday 13 August

The Winograd Schema Challenge is a new annual competition designed to judge whether a computer program has truly modeled human level intelligence. The first submission deadline is October 1, 2015 and a grand prize of $25,000 will be awarded to the winning program that passes the test.

Microsoft Research Shows How To Turn Any Camera Into A Depth Camera   Wednesday 13 August

It's SIGGRAPH so you expect a lot of amazing graphics, but Microsoft seems to cornering the market in wow. In this case, take any ordinary video camera and, with a small change, turn it into a really good depth camera. 

Algorithmia - An App Store For Algorithms   Tuesday 12 August

Algorithmia is a new marketplace for algorithms where people who need to use an algorithm can find one without having to implement it for themselves and algorithm creators can get paid for their efforts.

New Enterprise APIs For Android Developers   Tuesday 12 August

Android is undergoing changes that give developers the means to make it easier to deploy and manage in enterprise environments. This is courtesy of  Samsung which recently formed a new partnership with Google to integrate its KNOX technology into Android ‘L’.

Taking The Shake Out Of GoPro   Tuesday 12 August

Microsoft Research has outlined a method for effectively taking the shake out of first person videos and condensing them down so that they are actually interesting.

OpenGL 4.5 Announced And Microsoft Joins In   Monday 11 August

The Khronos Group has announced the release of OpenGL 4.5 at SIGGRAPH and, as unlikely as it might sound, Microsoft has joined Khronos and WebGL.

Learn More About Intel RealSense Technology   Monday 11 August

Intel recently announced a contest for designing apps for its groundbreaking RealSense platform. A webinar on Wednesday August 13th on how applications are changing as a result of gesture recognition promises to provide technical details never disclosed before.

Visual Studio Discouragement   Monday 11 August

Two Visual Studio extensions have been created to cater for both optimists and pessimists.

Look And Say Numbers And Conway's Constant   Sunday 10 August

A new video from Numberphile has John Conway recounting the story of look and say numbers and their interesting properties. It's a story of regularity, but not one that comes from arithmetic. 

Imagine Cup Winners 2014   Saturday 09 August

The finals of the Imagine Cup were recently held in Seattle attended by 34 teams, 125 students in all, representing 34 countries. Winners of the Imagine Cup, Team Eyenaemia will be meeting with Bill Gates in the next couple of months to get his advice on their project which detects anemia with a selfie.

Google Fit SDK Preview   Friday 08 August

Google announced Google Fit at this year's I/O but there wasn't much to say other than it would be launched some time towards the end of the year. Now we have the preview SDK ready for the Fall final release. 

Android Usage Overtakes iOS   Friday 08 August

In terms of device ownership Android already outstripped Apple. Now it has overtaken iOS in terms of OS share.

p5.js Bringing Processing To The Web   Thursday 07 August

p5.js is a JavaScript library that takes the core ideas of Processing and brings them to the web. The first public beta of this open source project has just been released.

70 Years Ago - Formal Presentation of Harvard Mark 1   Thursday 07 August

The computer dreamed up by Howard Aiken and built with financial help from IBM was formally presented to Harvard University on August 7, 1944.

Mathematica 10 Now On Raspberry Pi   Thursday 07 August

With the recent release of Mathematica 10, you might be surprised to discover that you can now get it for free with a Raspberry Pi. 

The Core

Real Raspberry Pi   Thursday 07 August

Raspberry Pi has been a huge success and I'm not talking about something to eat. It's a small fully functioning computer that costs next to nothing. But why would you want one when you have PC, a tablet and a smart phone? In this first chapter of our new ebook we explore the Pi in the real world - not just tutorial examples but it doing real things.

History

Howard Aiken and the Harvard Mark I   Tuesday 12 August

The Harvard Mark I now has an established place in the history of computing. However, without financial help from IBM it would never have materialized. It is more than 75 years since the memorandum formalizing IBM's development of this iconic machine was written on January 18, 1938.