News

Doctor Who Teaches Programming   Wednesday 22 October

Dr Who is a sci fi hero to a great many kids and not so kid like techies. What could be more logical than to get him, and everyone's favourite killing machine, the daleks to teach programming and all cleverly disguised as a game. 

Windows 10 Suggestion Box   Wednesday 22 October

Microsoft seems to have decided to use UserVoice to get feedback about what should be in Windows 10. What is really surprising is that users don't seem to have a clue.

AngularJS Superluminal Nudge Released   Wednesday 22 October

Google has released AngularJS 1.3, codenamed "superluminal-nudge" on account of its substantial performance improvements.

Python Tools for Visual Studio Gets New Focus   Tuesday 21 October

PTVS 2.1 has just been released and now can be used for free with Visual Express. The more interesting news is that the PTVS team has become part of the Azure Machine Learning group and it PTVS2.1 already has some Machine Learning templates.

IBM Launches IoT Foundation   Tuesday 21 October

Just about everyone you can think of wants a slice of the Internet of Things pie and now IBM has placed its best bet for securing its IoT profits in the future - the IBM Internet of Things Foundation. What are they trying to sell you?

Debian And The Systemd Storm - Ready To Reconsider?   Monday 20 October

Debian has adopted systemd in place of the existing init system and this seemingly small technical change is creating mayhem. Is it about to move back to init or will the Fork Debian group have to go though with their threat?

Ceylon 1.1.0 And Ceylon IDE 1.1 Released   Monday 20 October

A new version of statically typed language Ceylon has been released with performance improvements, API optimizations, and new features. The Ceylon IDE also been improved.

Linus On Linux And Strong Language   Sunday 19 October

In a recent video made of a Q&A at this year's LinuxCon, Linus Torvalds says some interesting things - including some comments about his interesting robust style. It also gives us the amazing one-liner, "On the Internet nobody can hear you being subtle."

Drone Racing Star Wars Style   Saturday 18 October

Drones are fun, but still a technology in search of a killer application. Perhaps we have just found it - Star Wars style pod racing.

Apache Storm Added To Hadoop On Azure   Friday 17 October

Microsoft has released a preview of Apache Storm in its Hadoop-on-Azure service.

Double Rewards For Finding Bugs In Facebook Ads Code   Friday 17 October

Having fixed several bugs in its ads code internally, Facebook is hoping to get whitehat hackers to uncover any more that are lurking. From now until the end of the year it will pay out double for bugs in ads.

BCS Certificate in Computer Science Teaching   Friday 17 October

A new certification for teachers of Computer Science at both Primary and Secondary level is being offered  by Computing At School under the auspices of the British Computer Society. A 10% early bird discount is currently on offer.

JDK 9 Early Access Now Available   Thursday 16 October

You can now try out the new JDK 9, though only in an early adopter version at the moment.

Android L Is Lollipop And New Nexus Devices   Thursday 16 October

Google has finally officially launched Android 5 as Lollipop along with a bunch of new Nexus devices. So what does our new Android world look like?

MOOC On Functional Programming Using Haskell   Thursday 16 October

Erik Meijer's Introduction to Functional Programming MOOC has just started. If this is a topic you want to know more about, this free class could be an ideal route.

The Core

Android Adventures - ListView And Adapters   Friday 17 October

ListView is probably the most commonly used and needed UI components in an Android app. It isn't difficult to use, but you need to get to grips with the idea of an "adapter" and understanding what is going on pays dividends.

Babbage's Bag

Reverse Polish Notation - RPN   Tuesday 21 October

This week's cartoon is based on the use of RPN or Reverse Polish Notation. This used to be a basic of the computer programmer's world, but today it is not as well known. Hence there may be some perfectly clued up programmers who are still left wondering what the sausage is doing outside of the bun.