Developers

Philips Wants Devs' Bright Ideas for Its Web-Connected Light Bulbs
March 11, 2013

Dutch electronics giant Philips, which launched its Hue Web-connected LED home lighting system in October, released a development kit Monday in the hopes of integrating official applications -- and more possible home uses -- for its technology. Developers can use the API as they choose, and can keep all their earnings from commercializing products.

Open Source's Deep Dive Into the Enterprise
March 06, 2013

Server provisioning and configuration management and automation are the latest examples of where the tech industry is being driven, largely by open source software. The leading open source server and IT infrastructure automation frameworks, Opscode Chef and Puppet Labs' Puppet, sit on the leading edge of significant trends under way in enterprise IT.

Hackathon's Goal: A Smartphone Game That Scores Points for Cancer Research
March 02, 2013

A UK-based charity is sponsoring a weekend hackathon, but those invited won't be using their coding talents to advance any business causes. The 40 programmers, gamers, graphic designers and other specialists will spend the time designing a smartphone game that can let average users help with cancer research.

Google Adds Cross-Platform Notifications Brick to Chromium Build
February 01, 2013

Google appears to have taken a step toward integrating Android's Google Now notification feature into Chrome. French programmer Francis Beaufort revealed Thursday that he spotted a new notification center in the latest Windows Chromium build that includes rich templated notifications.

Facebook's Relationship With Developers: It's Even More Complicated
January 31, 2013

Facebook dropped a bombshell on its developer community last week with the rollout of a clarified platform policy -- one that de-friends certain apps. The new policy spells out which types of apps can use its data. Namely, developers must show "reciprocity"; their apps must let users post content to Facebook if they want to use the vast social network's friend-finding features.

Google Open Source Program Manager Chris DiBona: Best of Both Worlds
January 29, 2013

In 1996, two Stanford University students, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, created a unique search engine called "BackRub" that ran on the school's server. After one year, BackRub's bandwidth outgrew the university's needs. Its creators rebranded BackRub into Google, a respelled reference to "googol." It is a mathematical term for the number represented by the numeral 1 followed by 100 zeros.

Mozilla Lures Devs to Firefox OS With Shiny New Toys
January 23, 2013

The Mozilla Foundation on Tuesday announced that smartphones running its Firefox OS will be available to developers in February. The preview phones are being produced in collaboration with Geeksphone and Telefonica. The idea is to entice devs to create apps for the Firefox OS. "These devices have not been designed for consumers," said Mozilla spokesperson Diane Zuniga.

Ouya Comes Out of the Gate Running
December 29, 2012

The gaming revolution has begun. Ouya, a startup that launched with the outsized goal of challenging the big three gaming platforms of Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo, reported on Friday that it had shipped 1,200 consoles to developers. The Android-based product is a deceptively simple-looking cube the size of a coffee mug, which is meant to hook up to a television set.

Report: Mobile Game Devs Need Out-of-Band Marketing
November 14, 2012

App developers, and especially developers of mobile games, are familiar with the cutthroat world of the app store. To get attention, developers must deploy marketing campaigns. However, it's essential for developers to do more than just app store promotions to drive mobile game downloads, concludes a report released Tuesday by Inside Network.

Google to Developers: You Have the Con
October 16, 2012

Google on Monday made its new Android developer console available to devs everywhere on Google Play. The console was announced at Google I/O in July, and devs were invited to test out a beta version. "The developer tools and portal are key areas of enablement for any application platform," said Al Hilwa, program director for applications development software at IDC.

Box Embed Tools Tear Down Content Walls
October 09, 2012

Box on Tuesday unveiled Box Embed, a new HTML5-based framework, at its Boxworks 2012 conference in San Francisco. This lets users embed Box's various features -- uploads, search, comments, sharing and file edits -- easily in their website, forum or blog. The company also announced that 10 enterprise software partners, including Oracle, SugarCRM, NetSuite and Zendesk, will use Box Embed in their apps.

Heins Stokes BlackBerry Embers
September 26, 2012

RIM Chief Executive Thorsten Heins on Monday told a crowd of developers that BlackBerry was still very much a player in the mobile world. He made the somewhat startling pronouncement that the company's subscriber base had risen to 80 million from 78 million over the most recent quarter, despite the lack of new products or major initiatives.

Analyst: Flame Devs Used FOSS to Help Them Hide
September 17, 2012

The developers of the now-notorious Flame malware used command and control servers running the 64-bit version of Debian and the OpenVz virtualization technology in their work. They wrote most of the server code in PHP, researchers at Kaspersky Lab and Symantec have found during continuing investigations into the malware.

Island Dispute Prompts Violence Against Japan's Tech Titans
September 17, 2012

Japanese electronics company Panasonic halted some of its operations in China after protesters -- apparently upset about Japan's claim to disputed islands -- attacked a pair of Panasonic factories. Protests also forced Japanese electronics company Canon to close three of its four Chinese plants.

Facebook Kisses HTML5 Goodbye With Rebuilt iOS App
August 25, 2012

Facebook has released a new version of its iOS app, one that the company rebuilt from the ground up using Apple's Xcode integrated development environment. In doing so, it got rid of HTML5, on which the previous version of its iOS app relied. The move to native iOS has sped up the app's performance, Facebook stated.

Twitter Tosses Tumblr Out of the Friend-Finding Circle
August 24, 2012

Weeks after removing its find-friends feature from Instagram, Twitter has done the same to blogging service Tumblr. Twitter's already changed the rules for app developers in version 1.1 of its API, which is coming soon. Both parties took a low-key approach when asked to comment.

Twitter Wants to Keep Devs' Hands Out of the Cookie Jar
August 17, 2012

While Twitter restricts users to just 140 characters in a single tweet, its developers are limited to just three characters -- namely its "API" -- and it's cracking down on that. Twitter announced Friday that it will further restrict developer access to its API -- discouraging services that tend to replicate the Twitter experience, among other things.

Goko Shows Its Hand
August 16, 2012

Startup game company Goko emerged from its 2011 stealth launch on Thursday, officially unveiling its HTML5-based lineup. The company -- which released its software development kits to independent developers interested in publishing and monetizing games for the HTML5 platform -- has held its cards closely but is now revealing its hand.

App.net Chases Ad-Free Social Network Dream
August 14, 2012

App.net founder Dalton Caldwell watched the social Web's trajectory with admiration and then dismay over the years. From all accounts, he liked its initial promise. As it morphed into a commercialized, ad-supported ecosystem of products, however, he apparently grew disillusioned. Hence the crowd-funded campaign Caldwell has launched to build ad-free, subscriber-based rival products.

Qt's Move Gives FOSS the Jitters
August 13, 2012

There's been much ado about Linux desktops in recent months, but few would dispute KDE's prominence among them. That, indeed, is one of the many reasons there's been so much concern over Nokia's impending sale of the Qt toolkit, upon which KDE is based.