News

A Robot Learns To Do Things Using A Deep Neural Network   Wednesday 27 May

We seem to be starting on the road to autonomous robots that learn how to do things and generalize. Watch as a robot learns how to use a hammer and adapts to changes in the setup.

Russian Students Break Contest Records   Wednesday 27 May

A team from ITMO University in St. Petersburg emerged as the winners of the 2015 ACM-ICPC and were the first team in the history of the competition to solve all of the problems. The team also beat its own record for highest number of wins by becoming the Gold Medal Winners for the sixth time.

Windows App Studio Does Universal Apps   Wednesday 27 May

It is difficult to judge the level of interest in universal apps, perhaps because Microsoft isn't being very clear about exactly what they are, but now almost anyone can create them. App Studio now supports Windows 10 and universal apps.

LOGJAM - Can The NSA Break 1024-bit DHM Keys?   Tuesday 26 May

The difference between security done right and not quite right can make what is theoretically secure into something that is practically crackable. New results demonstrate how falling back to a small encryption key can make the data readable by almost anyone with the need - this is the LOGJAM vulnerability. But given enough resources can state agencies break 1024 bit keys?

Visual Language Snap! Version 4.0 Released   Tuesday 26 May

Snap! is a free, browser-based educational programming language  inspired by Scratch. This month it reached Version 4.0.

John Nash Dies In Car Crash   Monday 25 May

John Nash had a great deal of influence on computing without ever really being part of it all. Here we tell of some of the things he worked on and why they are important.

Separating Reflection And Image   Monday 25 May

When you take a photo through glass the big problem is the reflections that you get from things inside the room. Unless you got to a lot of trouble to adjust the lighting these can ruin a shot. Now MIT researchers have a computational way of separating image from reflection. 

.NET T-Shirts - Would You Wear One?   Monday 25 May

Now that coding has become a very cool thing to do, plans are in hand to produce t-shirts sporting .NET language logos. Developers are invited to have their say on design issues such as color.

Play With Your Pet With Telepresence   Sunday 24 May

iPetCompanion is a web-based system that lets people view and play with pets remotely. Already a success in animal shelters, it is now looking to provide a home version with a Kickstarter campaign.

Google Founders Win New Test-of-Time Award   Saturday 23 May

At this year's 24th International World Wide Web Conference, held in Florence, Italy, Sergey Brin and Larry Page, became the inaugural winners of a new Test-of-Time award.

Java Reaches 20th Anniversary   Friday 22 May

Java is arguably today's most important programming language and while it has its flaws and detractors it has had a big impact. It was first officially announced on May 23rd 1995 and Oracle has already been celebrating its 20th Birthday.

Microsoft Open Sources WCF   Friday 22 May

A new version of WCF that targets .NET Core has been donated to the family of .NET Foundation open source projects.

Powerful New Features For Edison   Thursday 21 May

Intel has updated the firmware and software for its Edison IoT device. The new features open up the potential for what you can do with this embedded microcontroller.

Software Gives Centimeter Positioning With Phone GPS   Thursday 21 May

It is a little known fact that GPS can provide much more accurate positioning, although only if you provide a big enough antenna. This isn't a reasonable proposition for most applications, but now we have an algorithm that can extract the extra accuracy using nothing but a standard mobile phone aerial.

Web Design Course From Code School   Thursday 21 May

Code School has added a course on website design to its growing list of "learning by doing courses". It also has a time-limited offer for those who want to try the wider range of courses from its parent company, Pluralsight.

The Core

Android Adventures - Menus, Context & Popup   Tuesday 26 May

As well as the all-purpose action bar, there are three other commonly encountered menus - the context menu, the contextual action menu and the popup menu. They share the basic Android approach to menus and they also have some special characteristics.

History

Alan Kay   Thursday 21 May

Alan Kay is perhaps the best known computing visionary - but what was his vision of?