Programming

I just pray that Microsoft doesn't cave to pressure from partners to punt on Surface.

The first public plea came this week from Acer, which, in effect, begged Microsoft to drop Surface.

If that happens, Microsoft will lose the consumer to Apple for good. Probably sooner rather than later.

And if Acer is that worried about Surface, then it should out-design Microsoft or look elsewhere. Right now I don't see anything from Acer that would make me chuck my MacBook and iPad.

But Surface could. And it gets even more interesting when I see that Redmond is already working on Surface 2. … Read more

With Intel's annual conference just around the corner, its next-gen silicon is always a hot topic.

And this year, that's Haswell. Why should you be interested in Haswell? Well, it's going to be inside some of the thinnest, lightest, most powerful ultrabooks, MacBooks, and tablet-ultrabook hybrids to date. (And throw Microsoft's next-gen Surface tablets into that mix too).

Haswell's marquee feature -- besides being a new microarchitecture -- is that versions of the processor will put more of the PC's core functions inside one chip package than any Intel processor to date. And that … Read more

Microsoft is bulking up design teams for next-gen Surface devices, despite the pleas of PC partners like Acer.

Acer recently asked Microsoft to reconsider its Surface strategy, but Redmond seems to be doing just the opposite, as dozens of job postings on its career page attest. Some of the job postings seem to imply that Surface products are the true expressions of Microsoft's vision.

"The Surface Team focuses on building devices that fully express the Windows vision," a few of the job listings say.

And that's the whole point of Surface, isn't it? Microsoft needed … Read more

OAuth 2.0 promised to improve authentication on the Net, but its author has resigned from the project after concluding the standard "is a bad protocol."

"When compared with OAuth 1.0, the 2.0 specification is more complex, less interoperable, less useful, more incomplete, and most importantly, less secure," Eran Hammer-Lahav said in a blog post yesterday. "I resigned my role as lead author and editor, [withdrew] my name from the specification, and left the working group...Deciding to move on from an effort I have led for over five years was agonizing." … Read more

Qualcomm's first quad-core Snapdragon chip has arrived in a tablet -- but only for those with $1,300 burning a hole in their pockets and developers.

The tablet packs an APQ8064 Snapdragon S4 quad-core chip -- one of the most highly-anticipated quad-core ARM processors. Why? Because Qualcomm S4 silicon -- currently dual-core -- can be found in popular mobile devices, including the Samsung Galaxy S III and the HTC One S.

The S4 is also slated to appear in the 4G version of the Asus Transformer Pad Infinity tablet.

And that means, of course, we can expect the quad-core … Read more

Google's popular Nexus 7 tablet has display issues, according to an expert.

First of all, let's be clear: Google seems to have a certifiable hit with the Nexus 7 tablet and reviews have mostly been positive, if not very positive. And there have been no major complaints from review sites about the display.

That said, Raymond Soneira at DisplayMate Technologies says the tablet's display "falls short." Not mincing words, he says in a new blog post that he knew "something was seriously wrong" when he looked at the standard photos that DisplayMate uses … Read more

SPDY, a Google project to try to speed up the Web, is gaining new allies interested in using it as a basis for rebuilding a fundamental Internet technolog that's remained largely unchanged since 1999.

SPDY reworks HTTP, the Hypertext Transfer Protocol by which Web browsers request Web pages and by which Web servers deliver those pages over the Internet. Every time you load a Web page, you use HTTP or its securely encrypted sibling, HTTPS. An upgrade would bring improvements to a vast number of people -- but on the flip side, making changes to something so basic and … Read more

Microsoft's new programming model WinRT -- showcased by the new Windows 8 -- is designed to keep Microsoft relevant in the increasingly mobile world, analysts from research firm Gartner said in a statement today.

"Windows 8 is the start of Microsoft's effort to respond to market demands and competitors, as it provides a common interface and programming API (application programing interface) set from phones to servers," Michael Silver, vice president and analyst at Gartner, said in a press release.

Gartner's analysts, who recently released a report on the changes to Windows, said enterprises will take … Read more

Unity Technologies, maker of a widely used video-game engine, today announced that its fourth-generation product will introduce new animation technology and extend its support for Adobe Systems' Flash Player, Linux, and Microsoft's DirectX 11.

The game engine brings physics simulations and other tools to programmers -- especially those who want to reach multiple computing systems. Such "cross-platform" developer tools are a good fit for today's world: Unity games can be adapted for Windows, OS X, iOS, Android, Xbox, PS3, Wii, and the Web, though adjustments are necessary for performance and interface differences.

Unity 4 will be … Read more