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Four short links: 24 May 2013

By Nat Torkington
May 24, 2013

Ubiquity — Sears Holdings has formed a new unit to market space from former Sears and Kmart retail stores as a home for data centers, disaster recovery space and wireless towers. Google Abandons Open Standards for Instant Messaging (EFF) — …

In-Memory Databases, Burning Silos, Reintroducing Dart, and Google Glass Gatherings

By Adam Flaherty
May 24, 2013

In-memory Databases: A discussion of near real-time manipulation of massive datasets Burning the Silos: Minimize boundaries to reduce product cycle times. Dart Is Not the Language You Think It Is: Seth Ladd’s enthusiastic reintroduction of Dart prompts a voluminous discussion …

Visualization of the Week: CIA rendition flights of terror suspects

By Jenn Webb
May 23, 2013

The Rendition Project, a collaboration between academics at Kent and Kingston universities and the NGO Reprieve, has developed an interactive visualization of the extent of CIA rendition flights of terror suspects. In a post at The Guardian’s Datablog, James Ball …

TurboGears2

By Rachel Roumeliotis
May 23, 2013

Alessandro Molina, is CTO at Axant.it and a member of the TurboGears web framework development team. I recently got the chance to sit down with him to talk about the exciting opportunities TurboGears offers users, how being open source has …

TurboGears Just Keeps Getting Better

By Meghan Blanchette
May 23, 2013

Alessandro Molina, is CTO at Axant.it and a member of the TurboGears web framework development team. I recently got the chance to sit down with him to talk about the exciting opportunities TurboGears offers users, how being open source has …

Burning the silos

By Mike Loukides
May 23, 2013

If I’ve seen any theme come up repeatedly over the past year, it’s getting product cycle times down. It’s not the sexiest or most interesting theme, but it’s everywhere: if it’s not on the front burner, it’s always simmering in …

How Web Pages Can Extend (or Drain) Mobile Device Battery Life

By Jenn Webb
May 23, 2013

According to recent Global Mobile Data Traffic Forecasts (PDF), the number of mobile-connected devices will surpass the world’s population this year, and by 2015, there will be 788 million mobile-only Internet users. A recent paper, “Who Killed My Battery: Analyzing …

End-to-End JavaScript Quality Analysis

By Ariya Hidayat
May 23, 2013

The rise of single-page web applications means that front-end developers need to pay attention not only to network transport optimization, but also to rendering and computation performance. With applications written in JavaScript, the language tooling itself has not really caught …

Doug Hanks on how the MX series is changing the game

By Meghan Blanchette
May 23, 2013

Doug Hanks (@douglashanksjr) is an O’Reilly author (Juniper MX Series) and a data center architect at Juniper Networks. He is currently working on one of Juniper’s most popular devices – the MX Series. The MX is a routing device that’s …

Four short links: 23 May 2013

By Nat Torkington
May 23, 2013

Kindle Worlds Fine Print — Amazon’s fanfic publishing system has a few flaws: no pr0n, no slash (crossovers), and Amazon Publishing will acquire all rights to your new stories, including global publication rights, for the term of copyright. I can’t …

Talking about in-memory

By Jim Stogdill
May 22, 2013

I flew to the west coast this week to attend Maker Faire with my computer-programming, ham-radio-building, hardware-curious teenage cousin. I’ve attended twice in New York but this was my first trip to the mothership. Wow. So much cool stuff to …

Four short links: 22 May 2013

By Nat Torkington
May 22, 2013

XBox One Kinect Controller (Guardian) — the new Kinect controller can detect gaze, heartbeat, and the buttons on your shirt. Surveillance and the Internet of Things (Bruce Schneier) — Lots has been written about the “Internet of Things” and how …

From JavaScript to Declarative Markup

By Simon St. Laurent
May 22, 2013

Web architecture separates structured content (markup), presentation (style), and behavior (JavaScript). As recently as a decade ago, many developers worked in all three, but the years since Ajax arrived have brought more specialization. The rise of JavaScript in particular has …

The elusive quest to transform healthcare through patient empowerment

By Andy Oram
May 21, 2013

Would you take a morning off from work to discuss health care costs and consumer empowerment in health care? Over a hundred people in the Boston area did so on Monday, May 6, for the conference “Empowering Healthcare Consumers: A …

Looking ahead to a world of data-dominated decisions

By Andy Oram
May 21, 2013

Measuring a world-shaking trend with feet planted in every area of human endeavor cannot be achieved in a popular book of 200 pages, but one has to start somewhere. I am happy to recommend the adept efforts of Viktor Mayer-Schönberger …

Four short links: 21 May 2013

By Nat Torkington
May 21, 2013

Hyperinflation in Diablo 3 — interesting discussion about how video games regulate currency availability, and how Diablo 3 appears to have messed up. several weeks after the game’s debut a source claimed that there were at least 1,000 bots active …

Dart Is Not the Language You Think It Is

By Seth Ladd
May 21, 2013

When Dart was originally launched, many developers mistook it for some sort of Java clone. In truth, Dart is inspired by a range of languages such as Smalltalk, Strongtalk, Erlang, C#, and JavaScript. Get past the semicolons and curly braces, …

JavaScript Flexibility: Fun, But Use with Care

By Elisabeth Robson
May 21, 2013

When you begin programming in JavaScript, you’ll need to use variables. A variable is just a bit of storage to hold a value. Just about every line of code you write will use a variable of one kind or another, …

Google Glass: From Google I/O to Maker Faire

By Rachel Roumeliotis
May 20, 2013

I had quite an experience at Maker Faire this weekend. So instead of a follow up on Google I/O today I’m going talk about how wearables, specifically Google Glass, seem to be bringing people closer together rather than farther apart. …

Upward Mobility: Special Effects Wizardry

By James Turner
May 20, 2013

Most developers aren’t great UI designers (although, as with everything, there are exceptions). But there are a few quick tricks that can dress up an app, even if you don’t eat and breathe Photoshop. Let’s look at a simple iPad …

Monarch Butterflies and Monsanto: Collateral Damage

By Edie Freedman
May 20, 2013

Monarch butterflies are dying off in record numbers. A recent census taken at the monarchs’ wintering grounds found their population had declined 59 percent over the previous year and was at the lowest level ever measured. In an interview with …

The post Monarch Butterflies and Monsanto: Collateral Damage appeared first on Animals.

Four short links: 20 May 2013

By Nat Torkington
May 20, 2013

Our Fair Deal — international coalition (EFF, InternetNZ, Demand Progress, Creative Freedom Foundation, many others) raising awareness and petitioning lawmakers to reject copyright proposals that restrict the open Internet, access to knowledge, economic opportunity and our fundamental rights. (via Susan …

Building Windows 8 Apps, Hadoop Developer Track Course, Write/Speak/Code, and More

By Jenn Webb
May 20, 2013

Each Monday, we round up upcoming event highlights from the programming and technology spaces. Have an event to share? Send us a note. Zero to App in Two Weeks webcast: Kraig Brockschmidt shares lessons learned to help you improve your …

Kate Matsudaira: If You Don’t Understand People, You Don’t Understand Ops

By Courtney Nash
May 20, 2013

While automation is clearly making everyone’s lives who work in Operations much better, startup founder Kate Matsudaira (@katemats) acknowledges that “No one ever does their work in a vaccum.” You can try as much as possible to Automate All The …

Improving options for unlocking your graph data

By Ben Lorica
May 19, 2013

The popular open source project GraphLab received a major boost early this week when a new company comprised of its founding developers, raised funding to develop analytic tools for graph data sets. GraphLab Inc. will continue to use the open …

Strata Week: Are customized Google maps a neutrality win or the next “filter bubble”?

By Jenn Webb
May 17, 2013

Google aims for a new level of map customization Google introduced a new version of Google maps at Google I/O this week that learns from each use to customize itself to individual users, adapting based on user clicks and searches. …

Software and the physical world

By Jim Stogdill
May 17, 2013

In this episode of the Radar podcast series Jon Bruner and I are joined by Mike Loukides as we muse more on software and the physical world. No coffee shop clatter in the background this time around as we were …

Google I/O, Big Data Adolescence, Visualization, and the Future of Open Source

By Adam Flaherty
May 17, 2013

Google I/O: O’Reilly Editor Rachel Roumeliotis reports from the conference floor. Big Data, Cool Kids: Fumbling toward the adolescence of big data tools. Code as Art: Interactive Data Visualization for the Web author Scott Murray on becoming a code artist. …

Three organizations pressing for change in society’s approach to computing

By Andy Oram
May 16, 2013

Taking advantage of a recent trip to Washington, DC, I had the privilege of visiting three non-profit organizations who are leaders in the application of computers to changing society. First, I attended the annual meeting of the Association for Computing …

Four short links: 16 May 2013

By Nat Torkington
May 16, 2013

Australian Filter Scope Creep — The Federal Government has confirmed its financial regulator has started requiring Australian Internet service providers to block websites suspected of providing fraudulent financial opportunities, in a move which appears to also open the door for …

Hypermedia APIs

By Rachel Roumeliotis
May 16, 2013

Mike Amundsen explains why developers should explore hypermedia possibilities as they develop RESTful applications.

Exploring Hypermedia with Mike Amundsen

By Simon St. Laurent
May 16, 2013

The Web’s flexibility has helped it to survive and thrive, pushing well beyond the browser-based universe where it first showed its promise. While I’ve spent most of my time working with the HTML/CSS/JavaScript side, the HTTP side of the original …

A Matter of Semantics

By Mike Amundsen
May 16, 2013

Messages on the Web carry three levels of information: Structure Semantics, Protocol Semantics, and Application Semantics. No matter the implementation style, all three of these are needed for any successful communication between client and server. This threesome (S-P-A) forms the …

Google I/O 2013: Android Studio, Google Play Music: All Access, and New Advances in Search

By Rachel Roumeliotis
May 16, 2013

While there was no skydiving this year to show off Google’s new wearable Glass, there were plenty of attendees wearing them proudly including me. This year hardware, however, didn’t take center stage. The focus was on new tools and upgrades …

Six disruptive possibilities from big data

By Jeff Needham
May 15, 2013

My new book, Disruptive Possibilities: How Big Data Changes Everything, is derived directly from my experience as a performance and platform architect in the old enterprise world and the new, Internet-scale world. I pre-date the Hadoop crew at Yahoo!, but …

Visualization of the Week: Real-time Wikipedia edits

By Jenn Webb
May 15, 2013

Stephen LaPorte and Mahmoud Hashemi have put together an addictive visualization of real-time edits on Wikipedia, mapped across the world. Every time an edit is made, the user’s location and the entry they edited are listed along with a corresponding …

Sascha Bates on Configuration Management: It’s Not about the Tool

By Courtney Nash
May 15, 2013

“Puppet and Chef are completely different, and yet exactly the same,” admits Sascha Bates. In this interview about her talk at the upcoming Velocity Conference, she discusses common pitfalls that people can avoid when getting started with configuration management. And …

Four short links: 15 May 2013

By Nat Torkington
May 15, 2013

Facial Recognition in Google Glass (Mashable) — this makes Glass umpty more attractive to me. It was created in a hackathon for doctors to use with patients, but I need it wired into my eyeballs. How to Price Your Hardware …

Survey on the Future of Open Source, and Lessons from the Past

By Andy Oram
May 15, 2013

I recently talked to two managers of Black Duck, the first company formed to help organizations deal with the licensing issues involved in adopting open source software. With Tim Yeaton, President and CEO, and Peter Vescuso, Executive Vice President of …

What Kind of JavaScript Developer Are You?

By Simon St. Laurent
May 14, 2013

“JavaScript developer” is a description that hides tremendous diversity. While every language has a range of user skill levels, JavaScript has a remarkably fragmented community. People come to JavaScript for different reasons from different places, and this can make communication …

Big data, cool kids

By Edd Dumbill
May 14, 2013

The big data world is a confusing place. We’re no longer in a market dominated mostly by relational databases, and the alternatives have multiplied in a baby boom of diversity. These child prodigies of the data scene show great promise …

JavaScript Makes Browsers Behave

By Elisabeth Robson
May 14, 2013

If you know HTML and CSS, you’re ready to begin learning JavaScript. But you might be surprised, because JavaScript looks quite different from both HTML and CSS. That’s because JavaScript is a language for computation. Unlike HTML, which is for …

Four short links: 14 May 2013

By Nat Torkington
May 14, 2013

Behind the Banner — visualization of what happens in the 150ms when the cabal of data vultures decide which ad to show you. They pass around your data as enthusiastically as a pipe at a Grateful Dead concert, and you’ve …

User-Centered Design

By Rachel Roumeliotis
May 13, 2013

Travis Lowdermilk (@tlowdermilk) is a software developer who recently joined Microsoft as UX Designer for Visual Studio. He hosts the Windows Developer Show and advocates for User-Centered Design (UCD). Travis is the author of User-Centered Design: A Developer’s Guide to …

Big data, cool kids

By Edd Dumbill
May 13, 2013

The big data world is a confusing place. We’re no longer in a market dominated mostly by relational databases, and the alternatives have multiplied in a baby boom of diversity. These child prodigies of the data scene show great promise …

Genomics and Privacy at the Crossroads

By James Turner
May 13, 2013

Two weeks ago, I had the privilege to attend the 2013 Genomes, Environments and Traits conference in Boston, as a participant of Harvard Medical School’s Personal Genome Project. Several hundreds of us attended the conference, eager to learn what new breakthroughs might …

Upward Mobility: Dump Those iOS Delegates

By James Turner
May 13, 2013

Because so much of iOS programming involves the delegate pattern (the UITableViewDelegate being a prime example), it’s natural that when programmers are developing their own classes that need to be able to asynchronously call back to a client class, they …

Tech Events You Don’t Want to Miss

By Jenn Webb
May 13, 2013

Each Monday, we round up upcoming event highlights from the programming and technology spaces. Have an event to share? Send us a note. Kicking up the Dust with NodeJS and a Bunch of Other JavaScript Goodness: Bill Scott talks about …

Four short links: 13 May 2013

By Nat Torkington
May 13, 2013

Exploiting a Bug in Google Glass — unbelievably detailed and yet easy-to-follow explanation of how the bug works, how the author found it, and how you can exploit it too. The second guide was slightly more technical, so when he …

Make It Simple: Architecting Your JavaScript Applications for Testability

By Sara Peyton
May 13, 2013

Mark Ethan Trostler (@zzoass) writes and tests code for a living, currently at Google. The veteran coder and author of Testable JavaScript recently delivered a comprehensive lesson on writing and maintaining testable code to some 400 folks from around the …


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