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ACLU urges devs to safeguard users with anti-snooping measures
Apple recently announced that it was closing the loophole that allows authorities into iPhones via the charging and data port. The company said it wasn't trying to defy police, but rather deter criminals and spies who aren't bound by privacy laws. However, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) believes that government requests for personal data still represents a significant security risk to users, and is launching a guide for software developers to help them make more informed decisions about protecting the integrity of software update channels.
GitHub Education is a free software development package for schools
GitHub, the online, open-source code repository recently acquired by Microsoft, has already made big moves to support future software developers. In 2012 it launched the Student Developer Pack, in 2015 it built the GitHub Classroom for teachers, and earlier this year it opened up teacher training with its Campus Advisor program. Now, it's packaging all of these tools and features together under the umbrella "GitHub Education", which will available to schools completely free of charge.
Facebook Open Academy puts students on real coding projects for college credits
While books and lectures are essential, there's nothing like real world experience, and that's what Facebook's Open Academy offers to budding software developers. The initiative, which debuted as a pilot program at Stanford, has now expanded to 22 universities' computer science departments across the globe. It not only gives students a chance to work on real open source projects like Ruby On Rails and Mozilla Open Badges, it also pairs them up with mentors for guidance. Of course, we wouldn't be surprised if Facebook's using the program to hunt for gifted devs -- or if young hopefuls see it as their entry into one of the best companies to work for. If you'd like to get involved, or bring the program to your university, check out the program's Facebook page for contact information -- but hurry, the 2014 winter session kicks off in February. [Image credit: Facebook Open Academy]
PSA: Google I/O registration opens tomorrow, March 13th at 7AM PT
If you're still recovering from losing an hour of sleep this past weekend, you may have forgotten that registration for Google's annual I/O conference opens tomorrow at 7AM PT. General admission is $900, while full-time students or faculty members of high schools and colleges can score a discounted Academic pass for $300. In order to attend Google's three-day shindig, you'll need to be at least 16 years old, have a Google+ profile to sign into the registration process and a Google Wallet account to purchase your ticket. While it remains uncertain if the company will be serving up slices of Key Lime Pie at this year's conference, we wouldn't be surprised if some type of dessert-flavored software is announced along with a few other goodies. Google warns that tickets will be limited, so if you plan on attending you'll definitely want to set yourself a reminder and make sure that all of your ducks are in a row in order to increase your odds of securing a spot.
Developer won't patch XBLA game because Microsoft would charge 'tens of thousands' of dollars
Seeing as how so much software is moving to online distribution, the significance of this controversy might extend far beyond gaming and XBLA. For now, however, the spotlight is firmly on Microsoft and the way it charges developers for testing their games and patches, after a well-known developer made an unusually public complaint. In a post on its official blog, Polytron said it would not patch a rare game-saving bug in its popular title Fez, because Microsoft would charge it "tens of thousands of dollars to re-certify the game." It added that "had Fez been released on Steam instead of XBLA," the problem would have been fixed "right away" and at no cost to the developer, which strongly hints that it'll jump to another platform as soon as its XBLA exclusivity expires. Responses to the story over at our sister site Joystiq are decidedly mixed, with some folks outraged that Microsoft's high maintenance attitude could hold back improvements in this way while others suspect Polytron of blame-shifting.
Apple intros App Store volume purchasing, businesses enthused
Got iOS devices deployed across your enterprise? Listen up. Apple's just announced the Volume Purchase Program, enabling businesses to procure applications from the US App Store en-masse. Upon registering with Cupertino, corporate overlords can then access a web-form to acquire and sling apps to their plebeian employees at will. And for those needing custom corporate-only software? It looks like bespoke B2B applications -- even ones built by third parties -- will soon be distributed via the same mechanism. We're not orchard owners, but them Apples are looking mighty tasty, and it's past BlackBerry season, right?
TouchStudio from Microsoft Research tests users' willingness to code solely on their phone
While touchscreens bring imagery and ideas to unprecedented personal levels, unsurprisingly, they have remained entirely inadequate for building the programs that enable this humane experience. Now, a project from Microsoft Research aims to shatter this axiom with the TouchStudio development environment for Windows Phone. Enterprising coders may get their hands on the initial release of this paradigm buster in the Marketplace, where they're invited to try their hand at coding applications using only fingers on glass. The SDK includes a handful of sample scripts to get you going, along with the proper hooks to access many of the phone's built-in sensors. While this dev kit won't let you to build the next killer app by simply dragging and poking haphazardly, if you happen to prove us wrong, we really want to hear about it. [Thanks, Fred T.]
Nokia sells Qt commercial licensing and services business to Digia
Now that Nokia has shifted to a Windows Phone-centric smartphone strategy, it's only natural for the company to divest itself of responsibility with regard to the Qt framework at the heart of Symbian and MeeGo development -- a platform Nokia acquired from Trolltech back in January of 2008. We just got word that Digia will acquire the Qt commercial licensing and services business from Nokia, including the transfer of some 3,500 desktop and embedded customers actively using Qt today. Sebastian Nyström, Nokia Vice President, Application and Service Frameworks, had this to say about the agreement: "Nokia will continue to invest in developing Qt as a cross-platform framework for mobile, desktop and embedded segments, focusing on open source development and expansion, we wanted a partner who can drive the commercial licensing and services business around Qt. Digia has proven, in-depth Qt expertise, operational excellence and a keen interest in growing and improving the overall Qt community and so well positioned to expand the Qt Commercial licensing and services business." So, if you're interested in developing in Qt commercially, Digia will be your contact just as soon as the transaction completes sometime later this month. [Thanks, Nisse]
Nokia to developers: no Qt for Windows Phone development
Nokia's been beating the Qt warpath for years after purchasing the developer framework from Trolltech back in January of 2008. In fact, Nokia just made the switch to Qt exclusively back in October in a sign of its unrelenting support for the unified development environment. That, like all previous Nokia strategies, is in for a big change today. While Qt will continue on as the development framework for Symbian and MeeGo, Microsoft will provide its free Windows Phone Developer Tools (Visual Studio 2010, Expression, Silverlight and the XNA Framework) to developers interested in developing for Nokia Windows Phones (get used to that phrase) while providing "guidance" to anyone wishing to port their apps to WP7. In other words, Qt will not be adapted for Windows Phone 7 APIs. Full letter after the break to what we imagine is a very disgruntled and previously loyal Nokia developer community.
Software to be unpatentable in New Zealand, Peter Jackson said to have some opinion on that
Oh, New Zealand, you country full of crazy cats. When will your zany ways end? Looks like the government of the country which produced Peter Jackson, famed director of The Lord of the Rings Trilogy will finalize a move to make software unpatentable via a Bill which would make that the law of the land (software patents do not exist in Europe, either). The basic argument here is that patent trolls -- and to some extent, patents in general -- stifle innovation and make it nearly impossible for software developers in the NZ to get their groove on. New Zealand's two largest software manufacturers, Jade and Orion, both support the banishment of such patents, so it'll be interesting to see just how awesomely creative future software developments from the country become. Either way, we doubt Jaron Lanier will ever be moving there.
Adobe halts investment in iPhone-specific Flash dev tools, has another dig at Apple (update: Apple responds)
Color us unsurprised, but it's still notable to hear that Adobe is stopping investment in its software's capability to port content over to iPhone OS. The company's great hope on this front, Packager for iPhone, will still ship as part of Flash CS5 as planned, but beyond that Adobe is essentially giving up on Apple's mobile OS until further notice. In spite of being repeatedly rebuffed by Jobs and company before, the Flash maker had kept up hope that it could sway (or nag) Apple into validating its wares, but the final straw in this relationship seems to have been Apple's dev tool lockdown. So what will Adobe do now? Principal Product Manager Mike Chambers tells us that Android is doing kind of okay and his company will shift its attentions to it and other mobile platforms. Of course, we're just giving you the cleaned up version -- for the full finger-pointing diatribe against Apple, you'll have to hit the source link. Update: Right on cue, here's Apple's terse response: "Someone has it backwards--it is HTML5, CSS, JavaScript, and H.264 (all supported by the iPhone and iPad) that are open and standard, while Adobe's Flash is closed and proprietary."
Adobe AIR developer demonstration: one game, five platforms, all the same code
We love the idea of Android apps running on iPhone and vice versa, and that's exactly what Adobe's selling with its multiplatform development solution AIR -- but though we've seen a demo here and there, conversations we've had with the company led us to believe that AIR was not yet up to the task. However, Adobe dev Christian Cantrell has the proof -- he created a game of Reversi that runs on five platforms without having to change a single line of code. In a video after the break, he demonstrates iReverse running on OS X, Windows 7, Ubuntu Linux, the iPhone, a Droid and the new iPad, explaining how it took only a series of seriously tiny platform-specific wrappers to make his program function on each. Since each platform has its own hardware strengths, this kind of convergence isn't always a good thing -- but if it provides extra incentive for developers to get cracking on hot new apps, we're all for it.
iPhone app scoops best software prize on Microsoft campus
Poor Microsoft. You generously welcome a Startup Weekend on your campus, where all manner of geeks and techies code their hearts out for 54 hours straight, you throw in the BizSpark program to encourage them to use your tools, and what do you get in return? Learn That Name, voted best app in show and designed for use on Apple's iPhone and Palm's Pre. Gee thanks! On the bright side, we congratulate Microsoft for allowing people to write for their platform(s) of choice -- and hey, it's not like Redmond has been lacking in innovation lately, right? Video demo of the name memorizing game / app is after the break.
Palm throws Virtual Developer Lab doors wide open
For the legions of developers anxious to use their talents to build for Palm (yes, all four of you), listen up. By partnering with DeviceAnywhere, Palm has opened up its Virtual Developer Lab, which enables devs to remotely access actual Treo / Centro handsets in order to test out software, capture screen shots / video of processes, create an audit trail through the capturing of keystrokes and share data / collaborate with colleagues online. If you're swearing up and down that this stuff isn't new, you're not (entirely) crazy -- DeviceAnywhere has been offering up this remote demo access on a variety of handsets for quite some time. Palm's just making the extra effort to ensure you and your three pals know about it.[Via CNET]
Greg Joswiak on iPhone applications
Fortune's Big Tech blog has posted an interview with Greg Joswiak, the head of iPod and iPhone marketing. In the interview, Joswiak talks about the evolution of new iPod features and how Apple has taken the device beyond just a simple music player. Of particular interest (at least to me) is Joswiak's mention of iPhone application development and sales. He talks about his excitement in bringing "legitimate" developers into the iPhone application space (heh) and promises digital application signatures. Although he spins this as a way to ensure the application on your iPhone is the correct application that the developers intended to ship, it's also pretty obviously a way to ensure that the application on your iPhone has been vetted by Apple. The apps will conform to a development environment that maintains "security and reliability" while offering "some really cool things", i.e. no unlocks and a possibly limited subset of the development space. One thing the article makes clear is that the SDK will not be invitation only. Joswiak says the SDK will bring in grassroots small developers as well as "legitimate" developers, a move he sees as "awesome".
More maps and modes for your Sin Episodes
Ritual Entertainment is about to release four extra maps and a new gameplay mode for Sin Episodes, at no extra charge for auto-download via Steam (the "no charge" bit will no doubt make many console owners jealous). The four new maps will be dedicated to the new mode called "Arena"--which is a single player experience akin to many games' survival modes--and will be designed around typically generic first person shooter situations like an office, a turbine room and a processing plant. Shawn, the lead game designer of Sin lays it down on his blog; "It's an infinitely repayable single player mode where you continually try and beat your high score". Our translation: "shoot loads of people and then obsess over the number of enemies you shot in the groin".Other bits mentioned on Shawn's blog include a comprehensive stat tracking system, enabling yourself and other players to compare their groinshot score, the mention of the impending release of a Software Development Kit (SDK) and a Sin development Wiki, and absolutely no news about when Episode 2 is going to hit Steam; Shawn got a little excited and forgot to give us any information beyond saying that he'd "be on the look out for some Episode 2 media in the near future" if he was you. We want dates dammit![Via EuroGamer]
Intel Software Development Tools Beta for Mac OS
Intel is offering a free trial of the following products for MacIntel developers: Intel® C Compiler for Mac OS Intel® Fortran Compiler for Mac OS Intel® Math Kernel Library for Mac OS Intel® Integrated Performance Primitives for Mac OS I'm not sure much of this would be of interest without a machine running OSx86. Also, I'd be interested to see if these are really necessary in light of the offerings Apple gives to developers. Perhaps in the interest of science someone might enlighten me to the advantages of using an Intel C compiler versus using gcc on OS X? Would the advantages be arbitrary or based on coding style?[via Slashdot]
