Wednesday: November 9, 2011
Adobe gives up on trying to get Flash to work on mobile devices.Our future work with Flash on mobile devices will be focused on enabling Flash developers to package native apps with Adobe AIR for all the major app stores. We will no longer adapt Flash Player for mobile devices to new browser, OS version or device configurations. Some of our source code licensees may opt to continue working on and releasing their own implementations.
Monday: January 7, 2013
New Lego Mindstorm sets come with iOS and Android support right out of the box.Its updated Mindstorms EV3 runs on new Linux firmware that's ready for Android and iOS control out of the box, creates an overall more hackable platform and allows further programming on the core Intelligent Brick itself; accordingly, there's an SD card slot for local storage. A built-in infrared sensor expands the possibilities for a more autonomous design, as well -- Lego suggests that EV3 constructs can follow other moving gadgets, or even their creators, around the room.
Tuesday: December 18, 2012
Why Google's GMail outage may be a sign of things to come.The answer is that most of the coders behind today’s popular websites and services are deploying their code when it’s ready—not at some pre-determined point when downtime may not be noticed. It’s called continuous code deployment, or some variation on that theme, and everyone from Facebook and Netflix to smaller services do it. While it may occasionally cause a few blips, those blips should be shorter and less catastrophic.
Wednesday: November 9, 2011
Bret Victor's not-so-brief rant on the future of interaction design.If you haven't seen Microsoft's video entailing what they think the future of technology holds, you should watch it (readily available on source URL as an embedded clip). So watch that video and then read Victor's thoughts on the matter. That being said, I do have a minor point of contention. I did get some hands-on time with a Kinect-enabled Xbox 360 this past weekend and it was a fun, dare I say, semi-magical experience. I highly reccomend Double Fine's Once Upon a Monster (even the demo is fun).
Thursday: August 11, 2011
Begone memory leaks! Firefox 7 will reportedly use up to fifty percent less memory.If you leave Firefox running for any length of time its memory footprint seems to keep increasing. This can escalate to the point where it stops responding and there’s nothing to do but restart the browser. Personally, I’ve seen this problem have less of an impact during my daily usage since moving to Firefox 5, but it’s still there. Mozilla knows this problem exists and aims to fix it. By the time we see Firefox 7 available for download it will use as much as 50% less memory than any version that has gone before, as well as having those problematic memory leaks fixed.
Wednesday: August 3, 2011
An interesting video showing off the impressive CGI used in Game of Thrones.Andy Gavin has written a post with a behind the scenes video from HBO's Game of Thrones depicting how most of the locations are built using modern CGI and clever scouting. If you've watched the show (and I highly recommend that you do) some of the per-CGI moments in the video may actually take you by surprise, once you see their post-CGI counterparts.
Monday: July 25, 2011
A good primer on web operations for my fellow web developers out there.Every little piece of it can break at any time, can stall at any time. The more pieces you have in your application puzzle, the more breaking points you have. And everything that can break, will break. Usually not all at once, but most certainly when it's the least expected, or just when you really need your application to be available.
Tuesday: July 12, 2011
Pandora decides that it is finally time to go the way of HTML5.It seems to be a week of redesigns around the Interwebs. The source link will take you on over to TechCrunch which has a brand new look. The actual content of the article will tell you about Pandora's upcoming redesign, which will also has a brand new look. The new site bring everything you love about Pandora minus the use of Flash in favor of HTML5. And according to TechCrunch, it's beautiful.
Monday: July 11, 2011
A handy tutorial regarding how to make your very own mixtape flash drive.Have a couple of old analog cassette tapes in the basement just laying around that you don't know what to do with? Why not bring them into this century's (or last depending on who you ask) technology by adding a hidden flash drive. Think of all the conversation starters this little gem will result in when you bust this out at the local coffee shop.
Thursday: July 7, 2011
Installing spy camera software on laptops at the Apple Store may not be the smartest idea.So the story kinda goes like this, an artist wanted to capture various people as they stared blankly into computers, you know for purposes of art (better explanation via source link). The computers happened to be the public ones at a New York City Apple retail store. No big deal, right? The Secret Service apparently felt differently and issued a search warrant for computer fraud. Whoops.
Wednesday: July 6, 2011
Nintendo states no interest in bringing games to iPhone or Android.According to AllThingsD Nintendo's stock took a beating after this announcement. From Nintendo's point of view this an obvious move. They make the hardware, they develop games on their hardware. Would you expect to see Apple putting iOS on an Android phone in the near future? If you said yes, proceed to smack yourself in the face. Now do it again.