The Heterogeneous System Architecture (HSA) Foundation has announced version 1.0 of its CPU/GPU specification, designed to provide a common framework for developers to create applications to run across PCs, mobile devices, servers, consoles and the Internet of Things running different processors. HSA 1.0 lays out standard guidelines for how “kernel agents” such as GPUs, DSPs … continue reading
Ever since Apple launched its digital personal assistant Siri on iOS devices, companies have been trying to develop their own speech-recognition and natural-language-processing technologies. BlackBerry has the BlackBerry Assistant, Google has Google Now, and Microsoft has Cortana, for instance. The evolution of these virtual personal assistants started out as a way for these companies to … continue reading
After nine years, Google’s open-source code repository, Google Code, started closing shop today by disabling new projects and announcing the permanent shut down of the service by January 26, 2016. Google Code started as Google’s answer to SourceForge, the predominant code repository back in 2006. The reliability of SourceForge was brought into question that year … continue reading
Now that its codebase is finally viewed as stable, OpenSSL is getting a good top-to-bottom once-over in the form of a sweeping audit. It’s been close to a year since the Heartbleed bug sent the Internet into a frenzy over security. It spurred the software industry to rally behind OpenSSL—sending in more developers, revamping the … continue reading
Docker has acquired software-defined networking startup SocketPlane with the goal of creating a Docker-native networking ecosystem. According to a Docker blog post written by the SocketPlane team, partners already showing interest in Docker networking include Cisco, IBM, Joyent, Microsoft, Rancher, VMware and Weave. SocketPlane’s efforts will focus around the Docker APIs, collaborating with partners to … continue reading
As Docker continues to gain popularity, more and more minimalist operating systems are emerging to run the platform in production and at scale. Rancher Labs recently announced a new open-source operating system designed explicitly for Docker. While Docker is able run on almost any Linux distribution, RancherOS was conceptualized out of the company’s own needs, … continue reading
Mikeal Rogers, a developer on the io.js team and an active member of the Node community, has posted a proposal on GitHub for reconciliation of the io.js fork with Node.js. Rogers posted an open GitHub proposal entitled “Reconciliation Proposal #978,” laying out preliminary plans for the merger, the technical governance structure, proposed working groups, and … continue reading
This week, we are featuring a new open-source project dedicated to Docker: RancherOS. RancherOS, created by Rancher Labs, is an operating system designed to fully embrace Docker. “At Rancher Labs we focus on building tools that help customers run Docker in production, and we think RancherOS will be an excellent choice for anyone who wants … continue reading
As a teenager with too much free time, Mitchell Hashimoto’s natural coding ability and love of video games got him in a bit of trouble. Under threat of legal action from Neopets and others, the enterprising 14 year-old high school freshman forcibly shut down his US$25-per-month membership site selling automated video game cheats he coded … continue reading
ASP.NET 5 development has been underway for some time, but Microsoft is finally giving the open-source cross-platform Web framework a proper introduction. Along with new ASP.NET 5 features and improvements delivered with the release of Visual Studio 2015 CTP 6, Scott Guthrie, Microsoft’s executive vice president of its Cloud and Enterprise group, published a blog … continue reading
Chef, the company behind the open-source IT automation and configuration-management framework, has announced a partnership with Microsoft to improve the native enterprise automation capabilities on the tech giant’s various platforms and services. Chef and Microsoft will collaborate to develop new automation tools for Microsoft Azure, Visual Studio and Windows PowerShell DSC. The partnership is the … continue reading