Visual Studio 2011: Developers’ first reactions
With Microsoft readying a beta version of Visual Studio 11, the next major upgrade to the company's IDE, developers are interested in HTML5 backing as well as in basic functional fixes. Visual Studio 11, available as a developer preview since last month, is set to feature accommodations for the upcoming Windows 8 OS, as well as the Windows Azure cloud computing platform, along with capabilities such as code cloning and enhanced unit testing. No release date is yet scheduled.
"I do like the HTML5 stuff they're showing and also some of the intelligence enhancements they have for CSS [Cascading Style Sheets] 3," says Joel Padot, a developer at Florida Farm Bureau Insurance. His company is looking at HTML5 and Web applications as way to support mobile devices. (HTML5 features are planned for the HTML editor in Visual Studio 11.) Padot also praised code review capabilities planned for the Visual Studio Team Foundation Server application lifecycle management server. Read more...
New details emerge about Oracle’s Social Network
More specifics about Oracle's new Social Network software came to light on Thursday, following the product's debut at the OpenWorld conference earlier this month.
Oracle Social Network is part of the company's new Public Cloud lineup. It will serve as a high-profile competitor to the likes of rival Salesforce.com's Chatter as well as the array of speciality enterprise social-network vendors in the market.
OSN is "part of a much broader user engagement platform" powered by Oracle's WebCenter family of technologies, with the other pillars including Sites, Portals and Content, said Andy Kershaw, senior director of product management, during a webcast Thursday.
Companies are using collaboration tools today in a "very much siloed" manner, he said. For example, a conversation may begin in an instant-messaging program, but then one party to the discussion may later reply by e-mail and point someone to a document stored in yet another system. Read more...
First Lady Michelle Obama Sends Her First Tweet
First Lady Michelle Obama has officially joined the Twittersphere with her very first tweet on October 19 sent from the World Serie
s. Mrs. Obama's first tweet went out over the @joiningforces account to answer questions about Joining Forces and to spread awareness about supporting America's troops.
The First Lady joined with Dr. Jill Biden, the Second Lady of the United States, to talk about Joining Forces at -- of all places -- the first game of the World Series. The choice was actually appropriate since Game One was officially dedicated to veterans, service members and their families. Read more...
Have a lot of Facebook friends? Your brain has more grey matter too
If you've got a ton of Facebook friends, your friend count isn't all you've got to brag about — you might actually have a superior brain too. According to a new study comparing groups of people with many Facebook friends versus those with only a handful, the former group of social media socialites actually has more grey matter in the areas of the brain implicated in social skills. Grey matter is packed with neuronal cell bodies, in contrast to white matter, which primarily contains the tendrils that transmit signals from neuron to neuron. Read more...
Adobe Flash exploit allows websites to access your webcam without permission
Your webcam can be a powerful tool for communicating with loved ones or even having a conversation with a world-famous luminary. But when that power is put into someone else's hands, it can have dire consequences. A new exploit of Adobe's Flash media application could potentially allow websites to access your webcam without your permission, opening the door for any number of unseemly people to peer into your world. Read more...
Worms Crazy Golf tops iPhone Games of the Week
The strategy game series Worms is generally about big explosions and cartoonish wars, but the earthworm battle atmosphere is pretty well translated to golf with Worms Crazy Golf. A worthy title for the Games of the Week, it heads up a great list of titles that includes multiplayer, puzzle and action titles. Check them out below.
Worms Crazy Golf (iPhone, iPad) $2.99
Worms manages to hit a stride similar to Super Stickman Golf – a side-scrolling golfing game with crazy environments – and takes it up a notch. First is the Worms license, which adds a humorous and cartoonish bent to the game. Then, the game expands on the simplicity of its golf undertones by throwing in things like the ability to choose what club to use or add spin to the ball after it lands. There are also obstacles like groundskeepers and sheep with which to deal, resulting in a fairly deep golf experience that’s also light-hearted and fun. It has pass-and-play multiplayer, so it’s great for a party as well as alone. Read more...
Amazon Silk Web browser given green light by EFF
Amazon's Kindle Fire is off the hook with one important group when it comes to privacy worries about Silk, the specially created Web browser for the new e-reader/tablet due out next month.
Representatives from the non-profit Electronic Frontier Foundation have talked with Amazon officials about the speedy, new cloud-based browser, focusing on what user information will be transmitted via the cloud and shared by the company.
"Our conversation with Amazon allayed many of our major concerns," said the EFF.
As msnbc.com's Wilson Rothman explained when Kindle Fire was announced, Silk "weds the tablet to Amazon's cloud network. The browser gathers user behavior in order to predict where you'll go next, and caching that Web page in advance. If you always jump from msnbc.com to the tech/sci page, it will start loading it on the back end, so that it's quicker to load for you." Read more...
Internet talks about ‘Occupy Wall Street,’ media listens
First proposed by anti-consumerist magazine Adbusters earlier this year, the Occupy Wall Street movement started gaining notable Internet "buzz" on Sept. 10, NM Incite reports. Much to the consternation of many following the movement, however, it took mainstream media almost a month to start paying attention. When Web traffic suddenly shot up on Thursday, Oct. 6, the world couldn't help but notice.
That's the day when police arrested a mass of protesters on the Brooklyn Bridge, and videos of officers pepper-spraying citizens went viral. Not long after, the media followed suit. These are the findings of Web analytics company NM Incite and Think Progress, a progressive ideas and policies blog.
Tracking "Occupy Wall Street" in blogs, boards, groups, videos and images, NM Incite registered a drastic spike on Oct. 6, with 13,133 messages across Internet forums on that day. As the chart below reveals, a comparable spike occurred on the following Monday, Oct. 10, accompanying news that GOP candidate Buddy Roemer and Ben & Jerry's Ice Cream stated support for the movement. Read more...
This robot might beat your Angry Birds high score
Those of us who grew up in the latter part of the 20th century were inundated with sci-fi fantasies of humanoid robots flying spaceships, helping to win wars, and engaging in witty banter with humans and other robots alike. You could make the case that real robots have now done all of the above, but what we have here may be a robot occupation that had never occurred to you. This robot prefers to keep things simple. His speciality is slingshotting birds into unsuspecting pigs.
Yes, this robot has been built to play Angry Birds. It uses a retractable finger-like rod that is covered in some kind of skin-like synthetic material that fools a touchscreen into thinking it’s a human finger. The robot’s creator, Jason Huggins, then sends signals to two servo motors via keys on a remote. While there’s no C3PO-like (or even Siri-like) artificial intelligence involved, what we do have is a remote-controlled robot that can smash swine with the best of them. Read more...
Google Doodle celebrates Disney Legend Mary Blair
When I was growing up Disney cartoons and feature-length films were something you looked forward to appearing on TV every major holiday, and Disneyland was a place that I always wanted my parents to take me to. But it was always seen as just Disney the brand, never the clever and talented people behind it.
The Google Doodle today aims to change that by highlighting one of Walt Disney’s best artists. She was so good in fact, she was honored with the title of Disney Legend.
Her name was Mary Blair, and today she would have been 100 years old. Not many of us reach three digits though, and Blair was no exception. She died in 1978, but left behind an impressive portfolio of work that helped shape a number of Disney’s most celebrated works. Read more...