Monthly Archive:: May 2018

Embedded systems have started to become extremely complex. The big push to connect every device to the internet to create the IoT is causing a demand for embedded software engineers that has not yet been seen in recent history. This big push is causing a vacuum in which companies can't find enough embedded software engineers. Instead of training new engineers, they are starting to rely on application developers, who have experience with Windows applications or mobile devices, to develop their real-time embedded software. The problem, of course, is that these engineers don't understand the low-level hardware, but only high-level application frameworks that do all the work for them.

The bitcoin network is run by miners, computers that maintain the shared transaction ledger called the blockchain. A new study estimates that this process consumes at least 2.6GW of power - almost as much electric power as Ireland consumes. This figure could rise to 7.7GW before the end of 2018 - accounting for almost half a percent of the world's electricity consumption.

Previously, HTTP usage was too high to mark all HTTP pages with a strong red warning, but in October 2018 (Chrome 70), we'll start showing the red "not secure" warning when users enter data on HTTP pages.

The operative word is "adaptive". XAC's potential truly begins with its back-side strip. There, you'll find a whopping 19 ports, all 3.5mm jacks. No, this isn't a giant middle finger to the headphone-jack haters at Apple and Google. Rather, these ports see Microsoft connecting with, and loudly celebrating, what has long been an open secret in the world of gaming peripherals: the community of add-on devices designed for limited-mobility gamers.

Oversized buttons, finger switches, blowing tubes, foot pedals, and other specialized inputs have long been built for gamers who can't hold onto or efficiently use average controllers (gamepads, keyboards, mice). Recent speeches from company heads like CEO Satya Nadella and Xbox chief Phil Spencer have paid lip service to "inclusivity" in computing and gaming, but this device, the XAC, aims to do the trick by connecting niche add-ons to standard Microsoft hardware.

This doesn’t have to be forever. Maybe in the future, developers will start using React Native to build desktop applications. Or perhaps Flutter! Electron apps have a bad reputation for using too much RAM, have potential security issues, can’t (yet) match the speed of C++, and they often lack the polish and familiarity of a great native app.

But it seems clear to me that OS-specific SDKs are becoming a liability for desktop OS vendors. Developers want to use the technologies they know, and they want maximum reach for the products they build. And they’re smart enough to get what they want. A lack of cooperation on the part of Apple, Google, and Microsoft will only hurt users.

Say hello to your new Electron overlord.

Twitter has long had a strange disdain for third-party Twitter apps, but it's allowed many of them to pass under the radar for the last several years. That's starting to change this summer, when Twitter will revoke a key piece of access that developers currently have to the service, replacing it with a new access system that limits what they can do. The changes aren't going to make third-party Twitter clients useless, but they are going to make the apps somewhat worse.

This is a little exploration into applying '90s-era design & principles into a modern platform with some primitive components. The assets and design metrics were (for the most part) taken from an actual installation of Windows 95. These are pixel-accurate renditions of the original design.

Four of the largest cell giants in the US are selling your real-time location data to a company that you've probably never heard about before.

In case you missed it, a senator last week sent a letter demanding the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) investigate why Securus, a prison technology company, can track any phone "within seconds" by using data obtained from the country's largest cell giants, including AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile, and Sprint, through an intermediary, LocationSmart.

Surface Hub 2 was designed from the ground up to be used by teams - to get people out of their seats, to connect and ideate, regardless of location. The new Surface Hub 2 is sleeker, more agile and more affordable to fit any workspace or work style. The gorgeous 4K+ 50.5" multi-touch display creates an inviting canvas to co-create, harnessing the power of Microsoft Teams, Microsoft Whiteboard, Office 365, Windows 10 and the intelligent cloud. The 4K cameras that rotate with the device, integrated speakers and far field mic arrays allow everyone in the meeting to feel as if they are right in the room with the rest of the group, while our standard Surface 3×2 aspect ratio means everyone has more usable space to create and collaborate.

This is just a slightly modified version of the standard DOSBOX emulator. I have just hacked in my own shader which emulates some aspects of old CRT monitors, as I prefer to play emulated games with such a filter, and the built-in dosbox filters are not to my taste. I made this because I wanted it myself, but since I have it I thought I'd share it. There's probably lots of things which could be done better, but it's good enough for my needs right now, so leaving it like this for now.

The kernel is the only UNIX code that cannot be substituted by a user to his own liking. For this reason, the kernel should make as few real decisions as possible. This does not mean to allow the user a million options to do the same thing. Rather, it means to allow only one way to do one thing, but have that way be the least-common divisor of all the options that might have been provided.

"Sunrise day" for the GDPR is 25 May. That's when the EU can start smacking fines on violators.

Simply put, your site or service is a violator if it extracts or processes personal data without personal permission. Real permission, that is. You know, where you specifically say "Hell yeah, I wanna be tracked everywhere."

Of course what I just said greatly simplifies what the GDPR actually utters, in bureaucratic legalese. The GDPR is also full of loopholes only snakes can thread; but the spirit of the law is clear, and the snakes will be easy to shame, even if they don't get fined. (And legitimate interest - an actual loophole in the GDPR, may prove hard to claim.)

Toward the aftermath, the main question is What will be left of advertising - and what it supports - after the adtech bubble pops?

After the release of the Iyonix PC in 2002, RISC OS started moving from 26-bit architecture towards 32-bit. Nowadays all modern RISC OS machines are 32-bit, but an awful lot of older applications are still not compatible with modern 32-bit RISC OS.

Aemulor, originally a commercial application but now free to download, is a software emulator that allows RISC OS applications which were written for a 26-bit ARM systems to be used on more recent CPUs that provide only 32-bit addressing modes. RISC OS itself is unaware that there is anything unusual about the 26-bit applications that are running under Aemulor, to RISC OS they appear as normal applications - they appear on the icon bar and can communicate fully with other 26 or 32-bit applications.

Among all the new additions to Android P including new navigation gestures, Slices API, and new biometrics API, there are some other changes which may also be impactful in a more subtle way. One of these is the removal of App Not Responding (ANR) dialogue boxes for foreground apps. The ANR dialogue appears when something is preventing the main UI thread from responding. When this happens in Android Oreo or below, the ANR dialogue is shown to the user to let them know. Now, in Android P, the application will just crash without any kind of notification for the user.