News

SparkleVision - Seeing Though The Glitter   Wednesday 14 January

Another new application of computational photography lets you reconstruct an image that has been reflected by a rough shiny object - a glitter-covered surface, say.

Lua 5.3 Released   Wednesday 14 January

The latest version of scripting language Lua has been released with a number of new features.

Microsoft Mass Migration To GitHub   Wednesday 14 January

Visual F# has moved from CodePlex to GitHub. Roslyn is also making the move this week and the .NET Core, open sourced last November, has already made its home there, along with TypeScript. So where does this leave CodePlex? 

Computing Teachers Concerned That Pupils Know More Than Them   Tuesday 13 January

A survey of UK schools carried out by Microsoft and Computing at School reveals some worrying statistics that are probably more widely applicable. 

An Algorithmic Challenge   Tuesday 13 January

Churchill Navigation is challenging developers to beat its own solution to an interesting problem. There's a first prize of $5K plus two runner-up awards of $2000 and $500.

Rust 1.0 Alpha Released   Tuesday 13 January

A new systems programming language focusing on safety, performance and concurrency has been released as an alpha version.

Google Maps API Libraries for Java and Python   Monday 12 January

Google has added free open source client libraries for Java and Python to the Google Maps API.

Poker Sorted - Meet Cepheus   Monday 12 January

Cepheus, programmed by researchers at The University of Alberta has a strategy for two-player limit Texas hold'em poker that is unbeatable by a human poker player.

Find N-Body Solutions In Your Browser   Sunday 11 January

When three or more bodies, planets say, move under their own gravity they can produce amazing orbital patterns. With Choreo.2.3.js you can try your hand at finding new solutions interactively in a browser. 

Chappie - How To Respond To A Thinking Robot   Saturday 10 January

A movie that could be considered a mashup between RoboCop and Short Circuit introduces Chappie, a gifted, special child robot. The dark side of the plot is how the world reacts, something that tackles a topical issue.

Ruby and Rails Updated   Friday 09 January

Ruby 2.2.0 has been released, as has Rails 4.2 The improvements to Rails include a new Active Job framework, which has enabled support for sending asynchronous mails, faster queries, a web console, and better handling of foreign keys.  

Microsoft Needs To Make Silverlight's Future Clear   Friday 09 January

To any reasonable observer it appears that Silverlight is dead and has been dead for quite some time. However, Microsoft has never made a statement to this effect - we are supposed to guess. Now DevExpress, a well known UI toolsmith, has decided enough is enough and has put its Silverlight controls into maintenance mode. 

Yahoo Boosts Search Share   Thursday 08 January

Yahoo has seen a welcome increase in its share of search as a result of becoming the default search engine in Firefox 34 for its US-based users. While it has dented Google's share the impact is negligible and may only be temporary.

SQL Joins Visualizer   Thursday 08 January

If you’re learning SQL (or teaching someone else), working out which Join you need can be confusing. A newly released open source utility provides both explanations and code.

JavaScript Is The Language Of 2014   Thursday 08 January

The January 2015 TIOBE index is out and it names JavaScript as the language of 2014. At long last, JavaScript is Language Of The Year.

Professional Programmer

2014 A Programmer's Year Part II   Tuesday 13 January

2014 may be over but its effects echo on. Having already looked at languages, OS, Web dev and mobile in Part I of our review of the year, we now turn attention to the more technical happenings that were important surrounding IoT, AI and Security and bow out with Films of the Year

2014 A Programmer's View   Thursday 08 January

What happened in 2014 that was important to programming and programmers? Here we look back at languages, OS, Web dev and mobile. Next time AI, IoT and security.