Google software luminaries such as Unix co-creator Ken Thompson believe that they can help boost both computing power and programmers' abilities with an experimental programming language project called Go.
And on Tuesday, they're taking the veil of secrecy off Go, releasing what they've built so far and inviting others to join the newly open-source project.
The computing industry is in constant tension between making a fresh start and evolving the current technology. The limits of today's hardware designs and programming technology led the Go team to take the former approach.
Intel's James Reinders is an expert on parallelism; his most recent book covered the C++ extensions for parallelism provided by Intel Threaded Building Blocks. He's also the Director of Marketing and Business for the company's Software Development Products. In Part 1 of our discussion at the Intel Developers Forum in September we talked about how to think about performance in a parallel programming environment, why such environments give developers headaches, and what can be done about it.
Here, in Part 2, we move on to cloud computing, functional and dynamic languages, and what needs to happen with … Read more
With a project called Closure Tools, Google plans on Thursday to start helping developers who aspire to match the company's proficiency in creating Web sites and Web applications.
Google is a strong proponent of using JavaScript to write Web-based programs, part of its Web-centric ethos. Indeed, the company has pushed the language to its limits with services such as Gmail and Google Docs, and it developed its Chrome browser in part to enable JavaScript programs to run faster.
But writing, debugging, and optimizing heavy-duty JavaScript can be difficult--in part because a given JavaScript program sometimes works differently on different … Read more
Multicore processors are here to stay and the number of cores that we'll see packed onto a single chip is only going to increase. That's because Moore's Law is only indirectly about performance; it's directly about increasing the number of transistors. And, for a variety of reasons, turning those transistors into performance today largely depends on cranking up the core count.
There's a downside to this approach though. Programs that consist of a single thread of instructions can only run on a single core. This in turn means that they're not going to … Read more
That's the pitch Apple has been making to TV networks in recent weeks. The company is trying to round up support for a monthly subscription service that would deliver TV programs via its multimedia software, multiple sources tell me.
Apple isn't tying the proposed service to a specific piece of hardware, like its underwhelming Apple TV box, or its long-rumored tablet/slate device. Instead, it is presenting the offer as an extension of its iTunes software and store, which already has 100 million customers.
That's a big if: Apple has told industry executives it wants to launch the service early next year, but I have yet to hear of a single programmer that has made a firm commitment to the company, which has tasked iTunes boss Eddy Cue with promoting the idea.
But industry executives believe that if anyone jumps first, it will be Disney, since CEO Bob Iger has shown a willingness to experiment with Apple and iTunes in the past: In 2005, Disney was the first player to sell its programming on iTunes, via a la carte downloads. And Apple CEO Steve Jobs is Disney's largest single shareholder, a result of Disney's 2006 acquisition of Jobs' Pixar animation studio. Apple didn't respond to requests for comment.
Network executives I've talked to are intrigued with the idea--they are eager to find new revenue streams--but are also wary, for multiple reasons. … Read more
Amid work to ready NASA's Ares I-X rocket for a long-awaited test flight next week, a presidential panel charged with reviewing the nation's manned space program submitted its completed report Thursday, concluding NASA's planned shuttle replacement will cost too much and take too long to build to be a viable option.
Even so, panel members said they looked forward to the $445 million test flight Tuesday and the data it will generate to help validate computer models and processes that will be useful in any future rocket design efforts.
Eolas Technologies, a company that ground through a years-long patent infringement lawsuit against Microsoft, now has sued a large swath of corporate powers for infringement of that same patent and another related patent concerning interactive programs on Web sites.
The list of defendants includes many high-profile companies inside and outside the tech world: Adobe Systems, Amazon, Apple, Blockbuster, Citigroup, eBay, Frito-Lay, Go Daddy, Google, J.C. Penney, JPMorgan Chase, Office Depot, Perot Systems, Playboy Enterprises, Staples, Sun Microsystems, Texas Instruments, Yahoo, and YouTube.
Eolas' suit is not to be taken lightly. Although the earlier Microsoft case took many years to … Read more
PhotoLine provides a wealth of tools for editing photographs. While there is a great deal of options, the program seems to be aimed at users with a lot of prior image altering knowledge.
The program's interface kept us guessing when we started since it was cluttered with icons for editing tools and various windows with technical information. A visit to the Help file's definitions clarified a lot, but we still needed to experiment, especially to understand the more technical aspects. The program offered a great deal of editing options, from ones that fix small facial blemishes to cropping … Read more
In a surprise announcement, Adobe Systems said Monday that Flash programmers now can bring their applications to Apple's iPhone, a domain of high interest that's been off limits for the programming technology.
Because of Apple restrictions, though, Flash isn't coming in the form in which most people experience it, a Web browser plug-in. Instead, programmers will be able to change Flash applications into native iPhone applications using Adobe's Flash Professional CS5 developer tool, currently in beta testing, then offer their programs as an Apple App Store download.
A-PDF Info Changer lets you change the primary file information of a PDF item without altering its content. The program has an incredibly basic layout and produces effective results.
We were surprised by how basic the black-and-white interface was, but we were not turned off by it. The program offered us no Help file, but was so intuitive we never worried about getting lost. The program's layout practically held our hands for the entire process, which took less than a minute to convert information. Once our file was selected, we simply filled in fields for Author, Title, Subject, and … Read more
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