News

It Is Official - IE 11 To Support WebGL   Wednesday 26 June

WebGL allows web developers to create hardware accelerated 3G graphics suitable for game or simulations. The big problem is that of the big three browsers only Firefox and Chrome support it and Microsoft have claimed that it was too insecure to implement in IE. Now it seems Microsoft has changed its mind.

Microsoft and Oracle To Work Together   Wednesday 26 June

Microsoft and Oracle have signed a new partnership under which key Oracle software will be authorized for use on Microsoft’s Windows Azure cloud service. 

ROSPHERE - A Hamster Ball Robot   Tuesday 25 June

Just when you thought you had seen every type of robot locomoton possible, the Universidad Politécnica de Madrid comes along and shows you another one. This time it's a ball that rolls around the ground as if it had a hamster inside.

Web Telephony API   Tuesday 25 June

The System Applications Working Group of W3C has published a Working Draft of the Web Telephony API, which can be used to create apps to manage phone calls.

A Billion Neuronal Connections On The Cheap   Monday 24 June

Recent advanced in deep neural networks have been very encouraging to AI researchers but there is a snag. To train the number of neurons needed costs big money but now Google's AI team has a way of getting you back in the game - at only $20,000.

Nominations Open For Java Awards   Monday 24 June

Anyone with an interest in Java can now submit nominations for this years Duke's Choice Awards, the annual awards for Java-powered technologies and contributions to the Java Community.

NeDB - Lightweight Database in JavaScript   Monday 24 June

If you want to play with an embedded persistent database for Node. js , you might find what you’re looking for in NeDB .

A Robot That Runs Like A Cat   Sunday 23 June

This is a cat video with a difference - the cat isn't the star of the show. Take a lightweight robot body and make it run like a cat. Sounds easy, but making it look as good as it does takes work - see the video.

Megastereo - Panoramas With Depth   Sunday 23 June

Disney Research has made a breakthrough in implementing the technique of acquiring depth information from a simple camera scan of a scene. The images can also be stitched together to create hi-res panoramas with or without 3D information.

Imaging The Pulse   Saturday 22 June

Recently MIT CSAIL researchers invented a way to tune into the small changes in a video that are missed by human perception. Now the same team has a new way of seeing the human pulse by detecting the movements it induces in the head.

Mozilla ScienceLab   Saturday 22 June

Mozilla's latest initiative is Mozilla Science Lab, intended to foster digital literacy among science practitioners and help researchers around the world use the open Web to shape science’s future.

Google Celebrates Baby's 65 Years   Friday 21 June

It is 65 years since the Manchester Small Scale Experimental Machine, Baby, made its first successful run of a program on June 21st 1948. To mark this anniversary, Google has produced a short video.

PHP 5.5.0 Released   Friday 21 June

PHP has come a long way since it was first released and now we have version 5.5 with some interesting sophisticated new features.

Microsoft Offers $100,000 For Novel Exploits   Friday 21 June

Connector for Node.js in MySQL Cluster   Thursday 20 June

Oracle has released version 7.3 of MySQL Cluster software as GA (Generally Available), with a NoSQL JavaScript Connector for Node.js and support for Foreign Key Constraints.

Dart Gets A Beta SDK   Thursday 20 June

Google has released the beta of the Dart SDK which includes an editor with much improved code completion and analysis, so it might be regarded as another step toward an IDE of sorts.

Professional Programmer

Web Apps Or Firefox OS Apps?   Friday 21 June

Mozilla has released a video that promotes the idea that Firefox OS is "the platform HTML5 deserves". Sounds like a strong comment on the future, but is Mozilla really creating a platform for standardized web apps or something new?

The Core

The First Things I Look At On A SQL Server – Part 1   Monday 24 June

I’m often called upon to investigate problems with an unfamiliar SQL Server database. So I need to gather information about the server and its databases quickly. With this in mind, I have a set of scripts that I typically run, and I’ll share these with you here.

Babbage's Bag

Cache Memory And The Caching Principle   Wednesday 26 June

The caching principle is very general but it is best known for its use in speeding up the CPU. We take a look a the basic of cache memory, how it works and what governs how big it needs to be to do its job.