Features: Microsoft sacrifices Office to save Windows
Microsoft recently announced that its next Office suite will have a free online counterpart. It also just released Silverlight 3.0, which competes directly with Adobe Flash. While each of these products is competitive in its own right, they're collectively part of a strategy by Microsoft to protect the future of Windows.
Michael Scalisi 17/07/2009 03:08:00
Features: Chrome OS could offend the open source community
The announcement a few days ago of Google's new Chrome OS was simultaneously shocking and expected. It's a typically understated and quietly ambitious move on behalf of Google. It's also proof -- if it were needed -- that Google people are supremely smart. They have their sights firmly set on the future as well as the here and now.
Keir Thomas 10/07/2009 23:36:00
Features: Open-source media player VLC hits the big time
For several years, the free, third-party media player of choice for many video connoisseurs was the open-source VLC media player. It worked on multiple operating systems, it worked on a bare install of Windows without any special codecs, and it was light and fast. All that is still true. Now, VLC finally hits an important milestone: version 1.0.0 (given the James Bond-referencing nickname of Goldeneye), and with this version comes a pile of useful new features.
Steve Horton 10/07/2009 07:00:00
Features: Is Chrome OS the future of computing? I hope not.
Google's idea of an operating system sounds pretty cool: Lightweight. Speedy. Secure. Web-centric. But while I'm sure Chrome OS will pick up some fans, I have a hard time seeing this as the way of the future for computing.
Nick Mediati 09/07/2009 06:43:00
Features: Software not smart enough to sort human relationships
Internet search engines and software applications can catalog huge volumes of information, but they aren't smart enough to trace personal relationships between people, according to the executive chairman of World-Check, a company that maintains a database of individuals that banks and other companies might want to think twice about doing business with.
Sumner Lemon 29/06/2009 16:10:00
Features: HTML 5: Could it kill Flash and Silverlight?
HTML 5, a groundbreaking upgrade to the prominent Web presentation specification, could become a game-changer in Web application development, one that might even make obsolete such plug-in-based rich Internet application (RIA) technologies as Adobe Flash, Microsoft Silverlight, and Sun JavaFX.
Paul Krill 17/06/2009 08:09:00
Features: Adobe Flash, Flex ignite with Flash Catalyst
If only it were as easy to build a Web application as it is to design one in Illustrator and Photoshop. Maybe it will be someday, and maybe that someday is closer than we might think. Adobe has certainly succeeded in shrinking the distance between design and development with its latest batch of RIA tools: Adobe Flex 4 SDK, Adobe Flash Builder 4 (the Flex Builder IDE renamed), and Adobe Flash Catalyst, all recently made available in public beta.
James R. Borck 16/06/2009 07:55:00
Features: Mozilla's Jetpack builds on Firefox's top strength
Ask people what they like most about the Firefox browser and the answer is almost unanimous: The add-ons. Though blamed for slowing browser performance, the downloads allow users to customize the Firefox experience. Jetpack, announced yesterday, hopes to make these extensions easier to create.
David Coursey 23/05/2009 00:55:00
Features: One way to build mobile-friendly apps for all devices
Adam Blum, CEO of startup Rhomobile, says 90% of the programs being written with his company's open source mobile application framework are by ISVs and the other 10% by enterprises, but over time he'd like to see those percentages reversed.
Bob Brown 23/05/2009 04:20:00
Features: Old-school programming techniques you probably don't miss
Despite its complexity, the software development process has gotten better over the years. "Mature" programmers remember how many things required manual intervention and hand-tuning back in the day. Today's software development tools automatically perform complex functions that programmers once had to write explicitly. And most developers are glad of it!
Esther Schindler 30/04/2009 09:52:00
 
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