News

Visual Studio Code Reaches Version 1.0   Wednesday 20 April

Visual Studio Code, Microsoft's free and open source editor, has reached version 1.0. This is a rare milestone as open source projects usually spend their entire lives in perpetual beta. Visual Studio Code is also proving to be an inexplicable success. 

Be Counted In the Next VisionMobile Survey   Wednesday 20 April

After the recent publication of its 2016 Q1 report, VisionMobile is already gathering data for the next report, which will cover the languages and tools we are across six sectors mobile, cloud, desktop, IoT, machine learning, and AR/VR.  The more developers take part, the more complete the information we'll have about the State of the Developer Nation.

Google Launches CS EDU Website   Wednesday 20 April

Google has launched a website to make it easier to find information about the company's learning programs, educational tools and resources.

Hello WWDC 2016 - Registration Open   Tuesday 19 April

Apple has announced that WWDC 2016 will take place in San Francisco June 13-17 and you have until  Friday, April 22 at 10:00 a.m. PDT to apply for tickets, which will be allocated through a random selection process. 

RPerl - Running Perl 5 Faster   Tuesday 19 April

Version 1.7 of the Perl 5 to C/C++ optimizing compiler, codenamed Tycho was released earlier this month. The issue RPerl tries to address is Perl's slow performance, sufficient for most cases, but prohibitive for the real time domain.

Microsoft Closes RoboVM - What Should Devs Do?   Monday 18 April

RoboVM, a technology that allows you to run Java applications on iOS devices, is widely used by game developers. The news that it is to close comes as a blow to those developing games with libGDX, but a lifeline is already under construction.

Storm Reaches 1.0   Monday 18 April

The new version of Apache Storm has improved performance, new APIs, and state management among a long list of other new features and improvements. 

What Makes A Bot?   Sunday 17 April

The past month has seen an explosion in the use of the term "bot". Simply using the word imbues almost magical qualities in apps that would otherwise seem mundane. So what should we expect from the new generation of bots?

BBC Micro To micro:bit   Saturday 16 April

Last month saw the arrival of the BBC micro:bit into schools across the UK. These tiny devices are intended to inspire a new generation of youngster to get into digital technology -  wearables, the IoT and of course coding.

Bing Maps V8 Control   Friday 15 April

There's a new version of the Bing Maps control with improvements including spatial analytics tools and Streetside imagery.  

SDD 2016 Offers Over 100 Sessions   Thursday 14 April

Software Design and Development, taking place 16-20 May, 2016 is a major London-based developer event that attracts speakers and delegates from the UK, Europe and beyond. Book your place by Friday April 22nd to save up to £100.

TensorFlow 0.8 Can Use Distributed Computing   Thursday 14 April

The only real problem with the previous release of Google's TensorFlow was that it would only work on one computer. Training neural networks is computationally intensive so the good news is that the latest release can make use of as much hardware as you can throw at it. 

Facebook Roadmap For Connectivity, AI and VR/AR   Thursday 14 April

Mark Zuckerberg unveiled a 10-year plan for the future of Facebook on the opening day of F8 and more details of what the future holds emerged on Day 2, including news of a new R&D lab, Building 8.

The BBC Micro:bit Is An Mbed Device In C/C++   Thursday 14 April

The Micro:bit is unique as an educational platform - easy to use and supported by easy languages, but what you might not have noticed is that it is built on top of the ARM mbed IoT software and now its supporting C/C++ libraries have been open sourced. 

The Core

With the Rise of DevOps, Perl Shows Its Muscle   Monday 18 April

Perl is seeing a real revival in interest.  Why? Because Perl is a fantastic DevOps tool. With the rise of DevOps, Perl has once again solidified its long held reputation as the duct tape of the Internet.

Projects

Commando Jump Game For The Micro:bit In Python   Friday 15 April

The Micro:bit is quite a capable computer but it does have one limitation - it only has a 5x5 LED matrix display. What sort of game could you possibly program on that!