Microsoft announced that it is supporting the addition of Microsoft exFAT technology to the Linux kernel. exFAT is a file system used in Windows, as well as many SD cards and USB flash drives.

“It’s important to us that the Linux community can make use of exFAT included in the Linux kernel with confidence,” John Gossman, Microsoft distinguished engineer and Linux Foundation board member wrote in a post. “To this end, we will be making Microsoft’s technical specification for exFAT publicly available to facilitate the development of conformant, interoperable implementations.”

Microsoft also said that it expects to include a Linux kernel with exFAT support in future revisions of the Open Invention Network’s Linux System Definition. 

SmartBear announces acquisition of mobile app test automation platform BitBar
SmartBear announced that it is acquiring Bitbar, a provider of a mobile test automation platform and device cloud. 

With the acquisition, Smartbear said it plans to expand the company into CI/CD pipeline integration for mobile test automation and to bolster its device cloud offering. 

“We built Bitbar to make developers’ lives easier, helping software organizations to be agile and flexible,” said Marko Kaasila, the CEO and co-founder of Bitbar. “Joining SmartBear means bringing the most flexible web and mobile app testing platform to more forward-thinking DevOps teams.”

ActiveState replaces Readme with CLI tool
ActiveState introduced its State Tool, a CLI tool that automates the tasks that frustrate developers, such as the setup of development and test systems. 

The State Tool lets developers:

  • Deploy a consistent runtime environment into a virtual environment on every machine
  • Centrally create secrets that can be securely shared with all team members more easily than using a password manager
  • Create and share cross-platform scripts that can include secrets in order to kick off builds and run tests
  • Centrally automate all of the development workflows that developers typically address

“With the trend toward microservices, more projects are getting started more often, which translates into more projects needing to be maintained,” ActiveState wrote in a post. “ActiveState has built the State Tool to address many of the tasks that plague developers at project setup or worse, when they have to dive back into an older project.”

Accusoft announces FormSuite for Invoices with machine learning capabilities
Accusoft announced the release of FormSuite for Invoices, which incorporates machine learning technology to improve table recognition. 

With FormSuite for Invoices, developers can build their own custom accounts payable (AP) data entry automation solution with premium components in semi-structured forms processing and developer toolkits. 

The company added that with the latest advancement, table accuracy improved on average by about 50 percent and field accuracy improved on average by about 2 percent.