Yelp is announcing a new program designed to provide developers with easier access to local data and content. Yelp Fusion will provide broader content and search tools, as well as a new initiative to integrate the Yelp Fusion API into developer education.

“As devices and services are increasingly expected to be locally aware, Yelp content is more important than ever,” said Chad Richard, senior vice president of business and corporate development at Yelp. “We are delighted at the amazing array of independent developers, startups and industry leaders who want to integrate Yelp content. We have had over 1,000 developers involved in the Yelp Fusion public beta program. We can’t wait to see these new experiences roll out.”

More information is available here.

Microsoft creates open-source tool Vcpkg
Microsoft announced the availability of Vcpkg on GitHub, a tool that simplifies acquiring and building open-source libraries on Windows.

According to senior program manager of the Visual C++ team Eric Mittelette, acquiring native libraries on Windows is a critical part of the application development process. Microsoft surveys said that the current process of acquiring native libraries falls below C++ developers’ expectations when compared to other platforms, so the Visual C++ team decided to examine the platforms to see what they could create.

Vcpkg was created with a set of principles, such as eschewing the need for installation, providing customizable builds, a ports collection approach, and making open-source tools available. All of the features in this new tool are detailed here.

New Touch Sense SDK for Android developers
Immersion Corp. has announced its new TouchSense SDK for mobile apps: a new haptic solution that combines the functionality of the TouchSense SDK for mobile games and the Touch Sense SDK for mobile video into one packaged SDK for Android app developers.

This combined SDK will give developers the ability to create engaging mobile experiences for users. By creating one SDK, the mobile app development process can be streamlined so there’s less overhead and it’s more beneficial to the developers, according to the company.

The solution aims to help Android developers with headaches that they encounter when distributing high-quality haptic-enabled content to their end users. The SDK offers flexible integrations with multiple APIs, including a Unity plug-in. Also, Immersion is offering developers 30 predesigned effects that they can put into their applications.

Twilio releases Voice Insights
As WebRTC becomes more common, Twilio wants to ensure developers can measure, monitor and build call solutions into their apps. Voice Insights is an API that provides network and device metrics, and allows developers to adjust their application response depending on the network and device conditions.

It features the ability to respond to issues during live calls, diagnose network and device problems affecting call quality, and report on WebRTC performance.