News

Apache Flex Rides On   Wednesday 21 November

The announcement of  the Apache Flex SDK Installer 1.0 as an "incubating release" signals that Flex, which was formerly Adobe's framework for cross-platform rich Internet applications based on Flash, lives on as an open source project.

Opinions Sought On Java EE 7   Wednesday 21 November

When a project is as large as the next revision of Java EE it is difficult to decide where priorities lie. What has to be included and what can be postponed? The Java EE Expert Group has asked for feedback. 

Firefox For Android on ARMv6   Wednesday 21 November

Mozilla has widened the reach of Firefox for Android - making Firefox seems a much more viable platform for developers. Adding support for ARMv6 processors potentially brings Firefox to millions of devices.

Free COBOL in Enterprise Developer Personal Edition   Tuesday 20 November

Micro Focus has launched a free version of its Enterprise Developer programming environment for creating applications for IBM mainframes.

World's Oldest Digital Computer Works Again   Tuesday 20 November

After a three-year restoration project, a 61-year-old computer known as the WITCH that features 828 flashing dekatron valves, 480 relays and a bank of paper tape readers, clatters back into action today at the UK's National Museum of Computing.

What Would You Do With A Siri-Like API?   Tuesday 20 November

Maluuba, a startup that has developed a Siri-like app for Android, has released the first Alpha of its natural language API, called nAPI.

Kinect Avatar Animation   Monday 19 November

Considering the number of amazing demonstrations that the Kinect puts on, there aren't as many commercial apps for it as you might expect. FaceShift is a new motion caputure program that uses the Kinect to map your body and facial expression to the head of an avatar - in realtime.

First PHP 5.5 Development Preview Released   Monday 19 November

New feature in PHP 5.5 include support for generators and a new password hashing API. It will no longer support Windows XP and 2003.

Cash Injections for MongoDB   Monday 19 November

Intel and Red Hat have both  made strategic investments in 10gen, the company behind the NoSQL database, MongoDB.

The Influence Of Warren McCulloch   Sunday 18 November

A collection of articles on neurophysiologist Warren McCulloch is currently free to read. The man who gave us perhaps the first neural network was also well connected in his own right and surprisingly influential.

E-Books Not Confined To E-Readers   Sunday 18 November

What is the most popular device on which to read an e-book? For the age group 16-29 it's a desktop or laptop.Even among the 30+ age group, desktop/laptop is the second choice of device.

Be Sirious - Who Uses Siri?   Sunday 18 November

Two thirds of iPhone 4S users who live in countries that support the service use Siri. The question is why? What do they get out of it and what characterizes the one third who don't like Siri?

NeoFace Recognizes Shoppers   Saturday 17 November

A new service based on the NeoFace recognition system from NEC can provide data on who is visiting a store that can be used to fine tune marketing strategies.

GIF Becomes Word Of The Year 2012   Saturday 17 November

GIF started out as a humble acronym 25 years ago, entered common parlance as the format used for web graphics and now achieves fame as a verb by becoming Oxford Dictionaries USA Word of the Year 2012.

ITU - A Danger To The Free Internet?   Friday 16 November

Internet campaigning organizations are calling on governments to oppose handing over key decisions about the internet to the ITU at next month's World Conference on International Telecommunications. to be held from December 3-14 in Dubai.

The Naming Of Operating Systems - Fedora 19 Is Schrodinger's Cat   Friday 16 November

The naming of software projects, especially open source projects, is often a little eccentric but it really matters. In this case the Fedora project decided to take a vote on it. The options available give a deep insight into the geek mind.

Try Firefox OS On the Desktop   Friday 16 November

Firefox OS is one of the potential destabilizers of the mobile market in near future. Its native apps are web apps and it could mean one app for all platforms. Now there is an easy one-download way to try it out as a Firefox extension. It can also be used to test any apps you may have ready to go.

Android SDK 4.2 And Tools 21   Thursday 15 November

Following the update to Android 4.2 (still called Jelly Bean) the SDK and the SDK Tools have been updated.

SPARQL Moves Closer   Thursday 15 November

The W3C SPARQL Working Group has published documents that move SPARQL 1.1 to the status of Proposed Recommendation, signaling that it is now time to implement this specification.

Kinected Browser - Kinect On The Web   Thursday 15 November

The Kinect is well supported by a good and evolving SDK on the desktop, but until now using it in a browser wasn't easy. Now Microsoft Research has a free JavaScript API, Kinected Browser, that lets you integrate the Kinect with HTML.

Professional Programmer

HTML5 After The Hype   Friday 16 November

If you are a programmer you might have found the whole fuss about HTML5 that hit the "media" puzzling. Didn't you want to say - "It's just a markup language". Now the hype is all but gone. What remains?

The Core

Creating The Python UI With Tkinter - The Canvas Widget   Wednesday 21 November

The most powerful of the Tkinter widgets is the canvas. You can use it to create general graphics and it can be used to create custom widgets. It's worth knowing about.

Babbage's Bag

Introduction to Boolean Logic   Monday 19 November

It may sound like a daunting topic, but Boolean logic is very easy to explain and to understand. It represents the simplest of all the logics and the very basics of computing.