News

New Developer Tools Unveiled At F8   Wednesday 13 April

A simplified log-in process and expanded access to the Messenger platform with the ability to create bots are two major announcements from Day 1 of Facebook's Developer event, F8 currently underway in San Fransisco. Both these enhancements increase FB Messenger's scope for commercialism.

React 15 Released   Wednesday 13 April

Facebook has released a new stable version of React, its open source JavaScript library. Release 15 follows Release 0.14 and has both major and minor changes.

New Scroll Mode Makes It Easier to Read Fast   Wednesday 13 April

One of the really big changes in the way we read that results from moving to digital is that we tend to scroll through text. However, this isn't the best way to read things quickly and a new scrolling method might just be up to 60% faster.

JetBrains Updates Upsource   Tuesday 12 April

An updated version of the Upsource code review tool has been released with support for reviewing PHP code.

Node.js Foundation Survey   Tuesday 12 April

The Node.js Foundation has released its first Node.js User Survey Report. It reveals that Node.js is emerging as an universal platform/language used for web applications, IoT, and enterprise.

GNU Gneural Network - Do We Need Another Open Source DNN?   Tuesday 12 April

Everyone who is anyone needs their own neural network package and GNU, not to be left out of the action, has just released version 0.8.0 of Gneural - what else would they call it? Is this just a gesture to freedom? Has the horse already left the stable?

Play by Play: C# Q&A with Scott Allen and Jon Skeet   Monday 11 April

Play by Play is Pluralsight format in which celebrity programmers are asked to work on a randomly assigned task, giving the audience a rare opportunity to observe how they work and the way they think towards reaching a solution. This one features Jon Skeet and Scott Allen.

Red Hat Linux Developer Suite   Monday 11 April

 Red Hat Enterprise Linux is now available for free to developers who are members of the Red Hat Developers Program. 

New Bipedal Non-Humanoid Robot From Google X   Sunday 10 April

Schaft, one of the Google X robotics companies, has unveiled an armless bipedal robot capable of carrying heavy loads and climbing stairs at a New Economic Summit, NEST 2016, in Tokyo.

Amazon Alexa Skill Contest   Saturday 09 April

A series of four bi-monthly contests has just launched on Hackster.io to encourage innovation with Alexa, Amazon's cloud driven service that adds voice technology to services and devices. 

Android Studio 2 Is Launched - A New Era   Friday 08 April

Android Studio 2 is now available to download and it really does take Android developement to a new high. But with a mature Android Studio, comes even more chioce of how to develop Android Apps.

MIT Professional Education Program On IoT   Friday 08 April

The latest online course from MIT Professional Education is on the Internet of Things and starts on April 12th. Its premise is that by 2020 there will be 50 billion devices will be connected to the Internet and that organizations need to prepare for the challenges this presents.

Microsoft Strengthens Graph API   Friday 08 April

Microsoft has announced improvements for developers targeting Microsoft Office, starting with enhancements to the Microsoft Graph APIs that can be used to build smarter business solutions.

Nest Shutting Down Smart Home Hub Servers - The Danger of the Cloud   Thursday 07 April

Owners of the Revolv, a smart home hub capable of controlling things like lights, doors, alarms and even coffeepots recently discovered that as of next month Nest is shutting down the servers that the hubs depends on, effectively trashing their smart home systems.

A Neural Net Colorizes Photos   Thursday 07 April

We have looked at the problem of auto colorization before, but this new solution produces bright results rather than unsaturated colors. It is almost good enough for real use. 

The Core

Crash Analysis with HP AppPulse Mobile on iOS   Monday 11 April

Every app developer faces the challenge of tracking down issues that face users once the app has been released into the wild. We can test for many scenarios, but something will inevitably slip through the cracks. HP's AppPulse Mobile helps capture these elusive cases by providing developers with actionable data to resolve issues that go beyond a stack trace.

History

Andrew Booth and the Forgotten Computers   Thursday 07 April

When you think of early pioneering computers you tend to imagine huge monsters with thousands of valves and a team of technicians to match. Small computers started earlier than you might think, as the remarkable story of ARC, an early British computer proves. It was the brainchild of Andrew Booth, also known for Booth's Multiplier, a technique that is still used in today's smartphones.