Cortana for Android is now available to users through a public beta. According to Microsoft, the application for Android is similar to Cortana for Windows PC or Windows Phone. It features the ability to set and get reminders, search the Web, and track information such as flights. Currently the hands-free capability for Cortana is only … continue reading
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) wants to make it easier for those who are deaf or hard of hearing to communicate. The organization recently announced it will develop an open-source video platform for users to communicate with businesses and government agencies using American Sign Language. The platform will be available for mobile and desktop operating … continue reading
Google announced the release of Go 1.5 today. This new version of the programming language and its associated tooling includes many performance improvements, as well as fundamental changes to the runtime and compiler. Previously, the Go compiler and runtime included C code, but all traces of C have been expunged. The Go runtime and compiler … continue reading
Google and Intel are teaming up to provide 3D capabilities to Google’s Project Tango smartphone. Project Tango is an Android smartphone designed to track 3D motion in real time. Intel recently announced it would be providing Project Tango and RealSense technology in an Android smartphone developer kit. The developer kit will enable indoor navigation and … continue reading
Google has officially announced Android M will be called Android Marshmallow. “Whether you like them straight out of the bag, roasted to a golden brown exterior with a molten center, or in fluff form, who doesn’t like marshmallows? We definitely like them,” wrote Jamal Eason, product manager for Android, in a blog post. (Related: Tips … continue reading
Oracle hasn’t stopped swinging in its longstanding bout with Google over Java API copyrights in the Android operating system. The company filed another complaint on Wednesday in a San Francisco District Court to broaden its case against Google, claiming the six latest versions of Android—Gingerbread, Honeycomb, Ice Cream Sandwich, Jelly Bean, KitKat and Lollipop—released since … continue reading
IBM is launching new Bluemix services for developers. The new tools are designed to give developers an easy way to integrate data analytics and visualization into their cloud-based applications. IBM Streaming Analytics, now in open beta, provides a way for developers to visualize data. IBM dashDB, now generally available, enables information-management, analytics and business intelligence … continue reading
Researchers from Georgia Tech have discovered an emerging class of C++ bugs, and Facebook has awarded them US$100,000 for their efforts. The bugs are rooted in a new method for identifying “bad casting” vulnerabilities in C++ programs casted dynamically or statically at runtime. The researchers, who presented their findings at the USENIX Security ’15 conference, … continue reading
Google this morning removed the beta label from Google Cloud Dataflow. The company also introduced Google Cloud Pub/Sub, as well as integrations between these services and the Google BigQuery service. Together, developers can use these services to provide analytics, stream processing and batch processing applications within the same infrastructure. Cloud Dataflow is built around the … continue reading
Google recently announced it was becoming a new company named Alphabet, but there is just one problem: Someone already owns the trademark and Internet domain. The New York Times reported that BMW is the current owner, and the company doesn’t want to sell. A spokeswoman for BMW told the Times the company has no plans … continue reading
Engineers at MIT have developed a way to give robots better dexterity and grip. The engineers developed a model that allows robots to predict the force a gripper needs to pick up something, giving it the ability to adjust its grasp. The researchers see this new approach as being helpful in medicine, disaster response, and … continue reading
Developers building applications for Android have a plethora of options to choose from when it comes to devices, and that landscape is only continuing to grow. According to a recent report from OpenSignal, 2015 saw 24,093 different Android devices from 1,294 different brands, compared to 18,796 devices from last year. “This year we see a … continue reading
