Programming
There are few things as maddening as being in the middle of a task on a computer, and having the software freeze up on you. This can be particularly enraging if you haven’t backed up your work recently, and you know that the only way of “thawing out” the program will be to execute a force quit – your work will be lost, all because the (insert word of your choice here) computer didn’t know what to do next. Fortunately, however, researchers from MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory have developed a tool that jolts stalled programs back into action. Read More
Situated as they are, high above the surface of the Earth, satellites are pretty much left to fend for themselves – if a piece of space junk is drifting towards one, for instance, no one is going to be there to push it out of the way. To address this type of situation, engineers from the University of Southampton have developed what they say is the world’s first control system for programing satellites to think for themselves. It’s a cognitive software agent called sysbrain, and it allows satellites to read English-language technical documents, which in turn instruct the satellites on how to do things such as autonomously identifying and avoiding obstacles. Read More
Apple relaxes development tool restrictions for iOS: Flash is back
Apple has caused a lot of confusion for iPhone app developers by banning them from creating apps using any compiler not created by Apple, but then approving apps that break this rule – even going so far as to promote them in the App Store. Finally it looks like Apple has seen the light (and presumably the benefits) and announced that it has relaxed restrictions on its iOS developer license, opening the doors to native Flash and AdMob applications – as long as the resulting apps do not download any code. Read More
When Google announced this past Monday that the company would be releasing App Inventor, an app development tool requiring zero programming knowledge, a number of questions arose around the tech sphere. Would this lead to an explosion of Android apps? And if so, how are we supposed to filter through all the 'crapps' that are sure to enter the marketplace (Attention, World, I invented a word: crap+apps=crapps). Does this mark a turning point where programmers start to become obsolete? Read More
Google has launched a new open-source project for its Chrome browser that will enhance 3D graphics rendering capabilities without the need for users to download additional drivers. Dubbed ANGLE (Almost Native Graphics Layer Engine), the project aims to allow Windows users to run WebGL content without having the traditionally necessary OpenGL drivers installed. Read More
Rebooting your PC after updating software is one of the more tedious aspects of working on computers. New award-winning software, called Ksplice, however, addresses this by enabling important updates, like security patches, without the need to restart – at this stage – Linux-based computers. Read More
