News

You Only Look Once - Fast Object Detection   Wednesday 23 August

Neural networks have made computer vision possible, but there are still many difficult situations that they don't work so well in. If you want to do object detection and labeling then the traditional approach is likely to be too slow, but now we have YOLO V2 which can label entire images in one operation. 

Java EE To Get Open Source Foundation   Wednesday 23 August

Oracle intends to move stewardship of Java EE (Enterprise Edition) to a third party existing foundation after the official release of Java EE 8 later this year. 

Chrome Enterprise - Google's New Push Into Business   Wednesday 23 August

Google has launched a new subscription service for businesses that use Chrome OS devices. Building on Chromebooks for Business, which it replaces, Chrome Enterprise will have an annual cost of $50 per device. 

Crowd Sourced Solar Eclipse Megamovie   Tuesday 22 August

Using photographs contributed by observers on the path of totality, Google computers have stitched together images of the 2017 solar eclipse to create the “Eclipse Megamovie.” The resulting movie is intended as a preview of the larger publicly available dataset of photos that will enable scientists around the world to study the sun and its atmosphere. 

Spectacular Launch For Android Oreo   Tuesday 22 August

To add excitement to what might otherwise have been an annual routine hardly worth noting, Google chose the height of the 2017 solar eclipse to launch Android 8.0 and its name Oreo. 

Codecademy Introduces More Paid Options   Tuesday 22 August

Codecademy, which offers online courses that feature interactive coding exercises, has added a variety of options for obtaining help from humans. New Codecademy Pro Intensive courses are coming on line with feedback from mentors and even one-to-one chats. 

SharePoint Unite Early Bird Offer   Tuesday 22 August

Delegates registering for SharePoint Unite in Haarlem, Holland this October can get  €100 off by registering before September 8th, as well as a 20% discount with an exclusive I Programmer code.

Ceylon Moves To Eclipse   Monday 21 August

Ceylon was Redhat's Java killer. Of course, it didn't kill anything much and now it has been "donated" to the Eclipse foundation. You can view this as a positive or a negative step depending on your outlook. What you can't avoid is the simple fact that building a Java killer is too easy and there are too many of them. 

TypeScript 2.5 Adds Optional Catch Binding   Monday 21 August

 The release candidate of TypeScript 2.5 is available, though just for Visual Studio and Sublime Text at the moment. Support for other editors will be added soon. 

Amazon Expands Alexa Skills Rewards Program   Sunday 20 August

Amazon is introducing a system of direct payments to developers who create and maintain the "most engaging" Alexa skills. It is also covering AWS usage charges so that you can't lose out by building and hosting popular skills.

Even More Chinese Dancing Robots   Sunday 20 August

A new Guinness World Record for the "Most Robots Dancing Simultaneously" has been set in Guangzhou, Guangdong, China with 1,069 knee-high Dobi robots. The feat was staged by manufacturers WL Intelligent Technology Co Ltd to promote this range of toy robots which can also sing, box, play football and execute kung fu moves. 

Microsoft Introduces CoCo Blockchain Framework   Friday 18 August

Microsoft has developed a blockchain framework that uses Intel technology to bring the protocol more widely into business use.  The Confidential Consortium (CoCo) Framework was created to solve the issues surrounding the current blockchain protocol technology. 

Top 10 From Around the Web: More Web Design Resources   Friday 18 August

We start this roundup of external blog posts with a guide to getting started with Bootstrap, and two more posts cover responsive web design. Another key topic is deciding what to charge for the web design services you provide.  

Update: New Proof That P≠NP   Friday 18 August

Proofs that P=NP, and even for the less exciting and more likely P≠NP, abound. Most of them by enthusiasts who, usually, can be commended for their enthusiasm, but not so much for their proofs. However, the latest proof is by a respected complexity theorist and can't be dismissed in the usual way. 

Bootstrap 4 Enters Beta   Thursday 17 August

The front-end web framework Bootstrap is a highly successful open source project. After two years in alpha, the first beta of Bootstrap 4 has been released. 

GitHub Introduces Embedded Code Snippets   Thursday 17 August

GitHub has added support for embedded code snippets, and there's an updated version of Git, the open source version control system, with a long list of changes, several to the UI. 

The Core

JavaScript Async - Events   Monday 21 August

JavaScript is an asynchronous language - what exactly does this mean? We delve into events to find out how this basic behavior affects the way JavaScript works and how best to think about it. Asynchronous code is a big topic, but events are where it all starts.

History

Marvin Minsky   Thursday 17 August

Marvin Minsky was, and remains, one of the best known of the revolutionary thinkers of the early days of AI, robotics and computer science.