News

Malmo AI Available On Github   Wednesday 28 December

Microsoft's Project Malmo platform for AI experimentation is now available on Github. The Malmo platform is built on top of Minecraft and uses its experiences and interactions to learn how to interact with the world.

Cyanogen All But Dead - Google's Android Fine   Wednesday 28 December

With open source you can never write that a project is dead, but in this case it can't really get any closer to dead. Cyanogen was the only credible alternative to a Google and to be honest it was more a hope than a credible anything.

Commemorating the Birthday in 1791 of Charles Babbage   Monday 26 December

Today we celebrate the birth on December 26th, 1791 of Charles Babbage, the man who invented calculating machines that, although they were never realised in his lifetime, are rightly seen as the forerunners of modern programmable computers, enabling us to consider Babbage as the Father of the Computer. 

Christmas Is NP Hard   Sunday 25 December

It is official - Xmas is NP hard. See exactly how and appreciate the value of holiday algorithms.

Knuth's 22nd 360 Degree Not Christmas Tree Lecture   Saturday 24 December

Every year Donald Knuth traditionally gives a lecture inspired by some tree-like topic, and even though he gave up the tree theme a year or two ago, the lecture is still called the Christmas Tree Lecture. This year's is a technological breakthrough because it was videoed in 4K 360. 

Track Santa's Progress Across The Globe   Saturday 24 December

Santa and his reindeer have just 24 hours every year on deliver presents to children everywhere. In case you think he might get lost, both Google and NORAD have apps and websites to show where he has got to.

Micro:bit Coming Soon to USA   Friday 23 December

Adafruit has posted a notice reminding its customers that the micro:bit will soon be available, inviting people to sign up to be notified when they are available. If you can't wait, UK-based Tech Will Save Us already ships worldwide.

Cure53 XSSMas Hacking Challenge 2016 Underway   Thursday 22 December

Cure53 XSSMas Challenge, initiated in 2013, is a recurring hacking event, where those challenged have to solve a complex security puzzle in order to win money and fame, attempting to hack a web site in any means necessary. 

Firefox Hardware Report   Thursday 22 December

Mozilla has compiled and published an analysis of the hardware used by a representative sample of Firefox desktop release channel in order to advise its community of web developers about the hardware market.

The Core

jQuery 3 - Forms   Monday 26 December

Forms are a special part of the HTML UI because they provided a way to get data back to the server. You can get data back to the server in other ways, namely Ajax but Forms are still a good way to work. jQuery helps make it easier and more flexible to use forms.

Android Adventures - Fragments and Android Studio XML   Thursday 22 December

Creating and using Fragments is usually a matter of working with XML layouts. Android Studio can help with this task. In this part of Android Adventures we look at how easy working with Fragments can be if you make use of the templates and other facilities provided by Android Studio.