Friday 31 October 2014

Four short links: 31 October 2014

Tangle — a JavaScript library for creating reactive documents from Bret Victor. (via Tom Armitage) The Internet Arcade — classic arcade games, emulated in the browser. Verb — a CAD library for the web [...] a JavaScript library for creating …



By O'Reilly Radar - Insight, analysis, and research about emerging technologies



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Chi è lo stalker immortale in GTA online?

4-Acre Spider Web Engulfs Building

4-Acre Spider Web Engulfs Building

Spiders form communal webs more often than you think.


The post 4-Acre Spider Web Engulfs Building appeared first on WIRED.




















By WIRED



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Andy Rubin, the founder of Android, leaves Google

The Google robotics division will now be led by James Kuffner.



By Ars Technica



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Thursday 30 October 2014

TimeSheet.js: una libreria per visualizzare attività ed eventi

TimeSheet.js è una semplice libreria JavaScript utile per visualizzare delle attività o degli eventi estesi nel tempo, per esempio uno schedulatore di lavori o, addirittura, un diagramma di Gantt.


Timesheet.js


Con poche righe di codice e senza dover includere librerire esterne come JQuery o AngularJS , è possibile generare una TimeSheet in HTML5 graficamente personalizzabile tramite CSS3.


Se, per esempio, vogliamo visualizzare una timesheet delle auto restaurate negli ultimi 5 anni dalla nostra (ipotetica) officina, il codice JavaScript sarà il seguente:




new Timesheet('garage-timesheet', 2009, 2014, [

['08/2009', '06/2011', 'Lancia Stratos'],

['04/2010', '05/2013', 'Fiat 600 Multipla',

['06/2010', '04/2013', 'Volvo P1800'],


The post TimeSheet.js: una libreria per visualizzare attività ed eventi appeared first on Edit.







By Edit



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Feast: Another Disney Short Film to Look Forward To – Or Not

We’re huge fans of short films here at ForeverGeek. When Paperman was released, we even asked everyone to “drop everything” and watch the short immediately. Some of my favorite Disney short films include Geri’s Game, Jack-Jack Attack, The Blue Umbrella, and For the Birds. In my opinion, Partly Cloudy is the best of them all. […]



By ForeverGeek



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Senior checking new framework

Google releases its souped-up bookmarks manager for Chrome... again

We've caught glimpses of Google's new image-rich bookmarks system for Chrome a couple of times in the past, and now it's back with a new name, but not much in the way of new features. The extension formerly known as Google Stars is now simply (and...



By Engadget RSS Feed



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Microsoft Launches Microsoft Health And The Microsoft Band


Today Microsoft launched a new platform called Microsoft Health, and to accompany this they are officially launching the long rumored health and fitness band, called, well, Microsoft Band. And to satisfy the new cross platform initiatives by the company, Microsoft Health is compatible with several fitness tracking services such as UP by Jawbone, MapMyFitness, MyFitnessPal, and Runkeeper. The Microsoft Band will be compatible with iOS, Android, and Windows Phone, which should satisfy most smartphone owners, and there is a Heath app available for each platform as well.



Microsoft Health is described as a cloud based service which can unite data from different health and fitness devices and services into a single secure location. This will allow a more holistic picture of your health and fitness activities to be monitored. Microsoft Health will track things such as steps, calories, heart rate, and other data, where it can then be analyzed by the Microsoft Intelligence Engine which will let the user know things such as which exercise they performed that burned the most calories during a workout, and how much restful versus restless sleep they are getting. Over time, and if you allow it access to more data, it will be able to extrapolate if eating breakfast helps you run faster, or if the number of meetings during a day impacts how you sleep, as examples. You can also opt in to connect Microsoft Health data with the already existing HealthVault to share your data with a medical provider. It is early days yet, but as a platform this seems to be where the health and fitness industry is heading. If you can get over the big brother aspects of having all of your movements and activities tracked, there may be some real insights gained in how your work, fitness, and leisure activities affect your health and wellbeing.



Microsoft is planning a steady release of information regarding Microsoft Health over the next while, including additional device and service partnerships and SDK availability.



It has long been rumored that Microsoft would re-enter the smart watch game, but over time the rumors morphed into a fitness band. The Microsoft Band is a smart band designed to be worn continuously, 24 hours a day. It includes 10 smart sensors for heart rate monitoring, calorie burn measurement, sleep quality tracking, and more. It will also include guided workouts which are curated by well-known fitness experts. In addition, it will provide some of the smart watch capabilities such as notifications as well as access to Cortana if you are connected to Windows Phone 8.1. The Microsoft Band is available starting October 30th for $199 from the Microsoft Store.




































































Microsoft Health
Microsoft Band
Band MaterialThermal plastic elastomer with adjustable fit clasp
Display11mm x 33mm 1.4" TFT Capacitive full color display, 320 x 106 resolution
Battery Life48 hours of normal use; advanced functionality like GPS use will impact battery performance
Average Charge TimeFull chage in less than 1.5 hours
Battery TypeDual 100mAh rechargeable lithium-ion polymer batteries
Operating temperature ranges-10°C to 40°C (14°F to 104°F)
Maximum operating altitudeapproximately 12,000m
SensorsOptical heart rate sensor

3-axis accelerometer/gyro

Gyrometer

GPS

Ambient light sensor

Skin temperature sensor

UV sensor

Capacitive sensor

Galvanic skin response

Microphone
Additional technologyHaptic vibration motor
ConnectivityBluetooth 4.0 LE
Operating System SupportWindows Phone 8.1

iOS 7.1 and later

Android 4.3-4.4 phones with Bluetooth
Water ResistanceDust and Splash resistant
Warranty1 year limited
Price$199

The wearables market is certainly in its infancy, so it is exciting to see the different array of devices appearing. Whether the market will tolerate them has yet to be decided, but companies such as Fitbit have proven that there is certainly a market for the health and fitness band. Microsoft has a relatively affordable offering here which is both cross platform, and a capable smart device. Microsoft Health as a platform is the bigger play here. Allowing access from many vendors is a great way to get initial buy-in from users, and once the fitness data is up in the Microsoft Cloud, I am sure Microsoft is hoping to capture some of these users for their other cloud offerings.







By AnandTech



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Themosis – Build Custom Applications with WordPress

Themosis framework is a tool to help you develop websites and web applications faster using WordPress. Using an elegant and simple code syntax, Themosis framework helps you structure and organize your code and allows you to better manage and scale your WordPress websites and applications. From a technical point of view, Themosis framework is a [...]


The post Themosis – Build Custom Applications with WordPress appeared first on WebAppers.


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By WebAppers



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Wednesday 29 October 2014

Red Hat begins offering free OpenShift to startups


Red Hat is looking to lure startups to its web of services with a new program that gives budding businesses free access to OpenShift Online, Red Hat's public cloud app development platform.


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By Tux Machines



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Google’s Project Ara Modular "LEGO" Smartphone Shown Booting Up on Video

Latest video shows a functioning prototype



By DailyTech Main News Feed



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On Asm.js

Asm.js deserves closer inspection for two reasons. First, it's the one "native browser VM" that doesn't massively reinvent wheels. Second, it's the only time a browser vendor's "next-gen JS" attempts have actually gotten everybody else to pay attention. But what are we transitioning into exactly?



By OSNews



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Four short links: 29 October 2014

TweetNLP — CMU open source natural language parsing tools for making sense of Tweets. Interview with Google X Life Science’s Head (Medium) — I will have been here two years this March. In nineteen months we have been able to …



By O'Reilly Radar - Insight, analysis, and research about emerging technologies



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Tuesday 28 October 2014

An Open Source Platform That Makes Building Apps Cheap and Easy

An Open Source Platform That Makes Building Apps Cheap and Easy

Schmidt thinks it's a waste of time for companies to build the same foundations again and again, which is why he founded Meteor, which builds an open source web programming framework that anyone can use to build complex, desktop-style applications in the browser. "The idea of Meteor is that everyone should have that stuff," he says. "It shouldn't take a couple years to get to the market."


The post An Open Source Platform That Makes Building Apps Cheap and Easy appeared first on WIRED.








By WIRED



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Four short links: 28 October 2014

Build Quality In — an e-book collection of Continuous Delivery and DevOps experience reports from the wild. Work in progress, and a collection of accumulated experience in the new software engineering practices can’t be a bad thing. UX Directory — …



By O'Reilly Radar - Insight, analysis, and research about emerging technologies



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It's Official: HTML5 Is a W3C Standard

rjmarvin (3001897) writes The Worldwide Web Consortium today has elevated the HTML5 specification to 'recommendation' status , giving it the group's highest level of endorsement, which is akin to becoming a standard. The W3C also introduced Application Foundations with the announcement of the HTML5 recommendation to aid developers in writing Web applications, and said the organization is working with patents holders of the H.264 codec to agree on a baseline royalty-free interoperability level commitment.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.




















By Slashdot



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Adding REST-based Web Services to IoT Devices

Using JavaScript and Node.js to quickly add new capabilities to IoT projects



By Dr. Dobb's All



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Intel INDE Tool Suite Arrives

Development for cross-OS and cross-architecture mobile and PC applications



By Dr. Dobb's All



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Monday 27 October 2014

Google's Trojan Horse reaching completion: Open files in Windows with Chrome Apps

For a significant number of users a computer session starts, and ends with Chrome. Google continued to reinforce this with Chrome Apps, which are apps that run on the desktop, outside of the browser and can be pinned to your taskbar. You will soon be able to open files from the Windows file explorer directly in Chrome Apps. Chrome apps will be able to specify the file types they handle, and for those file types, you will see the Chrome App listed in 'open with' when you right click a file. If the Chrome App is the only app installed… [Continue Reading]



By BetaNews



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Qoffee Creates an Agenda to Keep Your Meetings Moving


You've just spent an hour in yet another fruitless meeting. Worse yet, it went halfway into lunch. Yaaay. Qoffee solves this problem by setting an agenda that you'll actually stick to.


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By Lifehacker



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Rack Unit

Sunday 26 October 2014

Taiga, a new open source project management tool with focus on usability


Taiga is an open source project management tool that aims to solve the basic problem of software usability. Designed with this sole aim, the developers claim it's "beautiful to look at all day long."


Let's start with the history of how Taiga began and then move on to the innovative features this new project management tool offers.


It started with the team at Kaleidos, a Madrid-based company that builds software for both large corporations and startups. Though much of their time is spent working for clients, several times a year they break off for their own Personal Innovation Weeks (ΠWEEK). These are weeklong hack-a-thons dedicated to personal improvement and prototyping internal ideas of all sorts. While there, they unanimously decided to solve the biggest of their own problems: project management.


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By Tux Machines



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Adding an external GPU to your old laptop

Stephan Deutsch ran into this review of an external graphics card adapter that can blow new life into your old laptop. The procedure looks simple enough and the results are impressive! I stumbled across this DYI review of a 50 USD device that allows people to use an external graphics card from a PC on [...]



By BlenderNation



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Building All the Major Open-Source Web Browsers

An anonymous reader writes: Cristophe de Dinechin, long-time software developer, has an interesting article on the processes involved in building the major browsers. From the article: "Mozilla Firefox, Chromium (the open-source variant of Chrome) and WebKit (the basis for Safari) are all great examples of open-source software. The Qt project has a simple webkit-based web browser in their examples. So that's at least four different open-source web browsers to choose from. But what does it take to actually build them? The TL;DR answer is that these are complex pieces of software, each of them with rather idiosyncratic build systems, and that you should consider 100GB of disk space to build all the browsers, a few hours of download, and be prepared to learn lots of new, rather specific tools."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.




















By Slashdot



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