News

Microsoft Tears Node.js From V8   Wednesday 20 May

Node.js is a way of running JavaScript on the server and until now it has been tied to the V8 JavaScript engine. Now Microsoft has forked Node.js to make it run on its Chakra JavaScript engine so that Node.js is available on Windows 10 IoT core. 

Computer Visionary Alan Kay Turns 75   Wednesday 20 May

Alan Kay, the computer visionary whose Dynabook concept was a futuristic idea in the 1970s of the sorts of devices we now use, celebrates his 75th birthday this week.

Time-Lapse Videos From Internet Photos   Tuesday 19 May

Computational photography is approaching the status of magic. Imagine amassing photos from all round the world taken by different people at different times and putting them together to make time-lapse videos of popular locations. You don't have to imagine because Google together with the University of Washington has done it. 

Software Quality Blamed For Airbus Crash   Tuesday 19 May

After a fatal crash of an A400M troop and cargo transport plane last week, Airbus has asked its military customers to conduct checks of the software in the electronic control unit (ECU) of the engines.

NAG Library Extended   Tuesday 19 May

The Numerical Algorithms Group (NAG) has released an updated version of its library of  mathematical and statistical routines. Mark 25 adds more than 80 additional routines, bringing the total to over 1800.

Vorlon.js JavaScript Debugger Released   Monday 18 May

Microsoft has released an open source, extensible, platform-agnostic tool for remotely debugging and testing your JavaScript. It takes its name, vorlon.js, from the TV series Babylon 5.

Python 3 For Science - A Survey   Monday 18 May

Python is a popular language for science - but the scientific community seems to be happy with Python 2 and reluctant to progress to Python 3 as revealed by a new survey.

Rust Hits Stable 1.0 - So What?   Monday 18 May

Rust is Mozilla's attempt at creating a system programming language to replace C and C++. It has now reached a stable version 1 and it is time to ask if there is any reason to take notice.

Earn United Airlines Award Miles For Finding Bugs   Sunday 17 May

A new Bug Bounty program has been launched. Instead of cash United Airlines is offering Award miles in return for finding vulnerabilities. But looking for ones in on-board systems or avionics is strictly off limits.

Microsoft Hyperlapse Ready For Use   Saturday 16 May

Have you ever wished you could take the bumps, shakes and the boring bits out of your videos? Now you can with Hyperlapse, a technology developed by Microsoft Research's Computational Photography Group.

JavaScript 20 Years Old Today   Friday 15 May

Brendan Eich reports that he thinks it was the week of May 6th to May 15th 1995 when he worked on Mocha the language which was to be renamed JavaScript.

Google Cloud Bigtable Beta   Friday 15 May

Google has announced a cloud-based NoSQL database service capable of handling large amounts of data. Cloud Bigtable is a beta release, but uses technology already in use at Google.

io.js Joins Node.js Foundation   Thursday 14 May

io.js, the project that forked from Node.js at the end of 2014, has decided to join the recently established Node.js Foundation, effectively remerging with Node.js.

Wolfram Image Identification Project - A Neural Network By Any Other Name   Thursday 14 May

Wolfram's latest project is to bring image identification to the masses with a new ImageIdentify function. How does it work? Some sort of neural network is about as far as you can get. 

Proposed Schedule for Java 9   Thursday 14 May

Oracle has announced the schedule for Java 9 with a target release date of September 22, 2016. The question is, will there be significant slippages this time?

The Core

The Greeks, George Boole and Prolog   Tuesday 19 May

Logic isn't the most exciting of subjects and you might think that it had its day with the Greeks, but you would be wrong. Logic isn't just part of programming, it can be all of  it!

The Trick Of The Mind - Programming & Algorithmic Thought   Thursday 14 May

This introductory chapter of our new ebook on the nature of programming is aimed at programmers and non-programmers alike. If you can't program then find out why you should learn. If you can program then find out why what you do is special and how it is a generally applicable thinking style.