- Tricorder Project — open sourced designs for a tricorder, released as part of the Qualcomm Tricorder X Prize. (via Slashdot)
- Microsoft’s New Open Sourced Stacks (Miguel de Icaza) — not just open sourced (some of the code had been under MS Permissive License before, now it’s Apache) but developed in public with git: ASP.NET MVC, ASP.NET Web API, ASP.NET Web Pages v2. The Azure SDK is also on github.
- In An Internet Age, Crime is Essential to Freedom (Donald Clark) — when a criminal asks: “How do I secure payment and store my ill-gotten gains”, somewhere else, a refugee asks: “How can I send funds back to a relative such that they can’t be traced to me”.
- NSA: China Behind RSA Attacks (Information Week) — I can argue both sides about whether government cloud services are a boon or a curse for remote information thieves. Looking forward to seeing how it plays out.
"Microsoft" entries
Developer Week in Review: When giant corporations collide
Oracle and Google head to trial, Microsoft and Linux are BFFs, and the dirty secrets of game cheats.
If Microsoft and Linux can kiss and make up, why is Oracle having such a hard time getting along with Google? Elsewhere, a look inside elaborate game cheats.
Developer Week in Review: Google I/O's ticket window opens and shuts in record time
Google I/O reg disappoints many, Microsoft shares, and happy birthday to gcc.
Google I/O registration was there and gone so fast you might have missed it if you blinked, Microsoft is sharing more of its code Apache-style, and the leading compiler package in the world celebrates a milestone.
Developer Week in Review: Google I/O’s ticket window opens and shuts in record time
Google I/O reg disappoints many, Microsoft shares, and happy birthday to gcc.
Google I/O registration was there and gone so fast you might have missed it if you blinked, Microsoft is sharing more of its code Apache-style, and the leading compiler package in the world celebrates a milestone.
Four short links: 29 March 2012
Tricorder, Microsoft and Open Source, Crime is Freedom's Contra, and Government Cybercrime
Four questions about Microsoft with Mary Jo Foley
Mary Jo Foley on what’s on the horizon for Microsoft in 2012.
Long-time Microsoft reporter Mary Jo Foley tells us what to expect with Windows 8, Metro design guidelines, and the Kinect SDK for Windows.
Four short links: 13 March 2012
RoboTranslation, Basketball Visualization, Distributed Datasets, and UW's Open 3D Printing Lab Reopens
- Microsoft Universal Voice Translator — the promise is that it converts your voice into another language, but the effect is more that it converts your voice into that of Darth You in another language. Still, that’s like complaining that the first Wright Brothers flight didn’t serve peanuts. (via Hacker News)
- Geography of the Basketball Court — fascinating analytics of where NBA shooters make their shots from. Pretty pictures and sweet summaries even if you don’t follow basketball. (via Flowing Data)
- Spark Research — a programming model (“resilient distributed datasets”) for applications that reuse an intermediate result in multiple parallel operations. (via Ben Lorica)
- Opening Up — earlier I covered the problems that University of Washington’s 3D printing lab had with the university’s new IP policy, which prevented them from being as open as they had been. They’ve been granted the ability to distribute their work under Creative Commons license and are taking their place again as a hub of the emerging 3D printing world. (via BoingBoing)
Developer Week in Review: The new iPad and the big meh
It's iPad evolution rather than revolution, increasing patent penalties for Android, and Raspberry Pi is served.
Apple unveils pretty much what it was expected to unveil, and decides to treat Android as a cash cow rather than an enemy. Meanwhile, the Raspberry Pi is finally out, so let the hacking begin.
Four short links: 24 February 2012
Analytics in Excel, HTTP Debugger, Analytics for Personalized Healthcare, and EFF To The Rescue
- Excel Cloud Data Analytics (Microsoft Research) — clever–a cloud analytics backend with Excel as the frontend. Almost every business and finance person I’ve known has been way more comfortable with Excel than any other tool. (via Dr Data)
- HTTP Client — Mac OS X app for inspecting and automating a lot of HTTP. cf the lovely Charles proxy for debugging. (via Nelson Minar)
- The Creative Destruction of Medicine — using big data, gadgets, and sweet tech in general to personalize and improve healthcare. (via New York Times)
- EFF Wins Protection of Time Zone Database (EFF) — I posted about the silliness before (maintainers of the only comprehensive database of time zones was being threatened by astrologers). The EFF stepped in, beat back the buffoons, and now we’re back to being responsible when we screw up timezones for phone calls.
Developer Week in Review: NASA says goodbye to big iron
Goodbye to big iron at NASA, Microsoft opens up Visual Studio, and open source meets a rabid fan-base.
This week, NASA marked the end of an era, as the last of its big iron is retired. Microsoft continues to signal that its forays into open source are legitimate. And a new open source gaming project has a little extra horse-power, thanks to the fans behind it.
Developer Week in Review: A pause to consider patents
There was good news and bad news on the intellectual property front this week.
We take a look at two major events that rocked the technology intellectual property wars, centered on a courtroom in Texas and a standards body a continent away.