Articles about Developer

One of Google's slightly more unusual hardware releases is the OnHub wireless router. At $200, it's a network device that some might consider expensive, but at the same time its performance has impressed. A router is a router is a router, you might say, but Google's OnHub is somewhat different to the majority.

A teardown by iFixIt revealed the guts of the router, showing that it's a TP-Link device (confirming what Google had already said) with a somewhat unusual antenna design. It's an intriguing piece of hardware that Exploitee.rs has referred to as being "at heart a Chromebook without a screen modified as a router". The good news for anyone who likes to get their hands dirty with some hardware hacking? It is rootable and Exploitee.rs reveals all.

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Mozilla will kill "most" NPAPI plugins in Firefox almost two years after Google took the same action with Chrome. Back in September 2014, Google announced that NPAPI support would be removed starting in January 2015. Mozilla is now playing catch-up, and plans to end NPAPI support by the end of 2016.

When Google announced its decision, speed, stability, and security were cited as reasons for ditching plugins, and Mozilla is taking much the same line. The company also points out that many features and functions that only used to be possible through the use of NPAPI plugins can now be achieved through native web APIs. But what is this going to mean for users?

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If you have an iPhone, you're stuck with running iOS apps; if you have an Android phone, you're stuck with Android apps. At least that used to be the case. For desktop platforms such as OS X and Linux, tools and emulators exist that make it possible to run software designed for a different platform. CodeWeavers produce CrossOver which enables PC games and applications to run on non-PC platforms.

At the moment, CrossOver is available for Mac and Linux, but there are plans to bring the tool to Android. This means that, ultimately, it should be possible to run Windows software on an Android phone or tablet.

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Google today announced a project which has the aim of speeding up the web for mobile users -- Accelerated Mobile Pages, or AMP. While there are clearly benefits for users in speeding up the web, Google is pushing the benefits that advertisers could reap: if a page takes too long to load, visitors may give up and not see any ads at all.

The AMP project is an open source initiative that gives publishers the ability to optimize their site code for mobiles so it will "load instantly everywhere". The aim is to be as platform independent as possible, allowing for optimize-once workflow. The result of a collaboration between Google, Twitter, WordPress, LinkedIn and others, a new open framework called AMP HTML has been put together from existing web technologies.

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Microsoft seems to be placing increased importance on gaming. The latest in its list of acquisitions is game physics company Havoc which has been bought from Intel for an undisclosed fee. Used in titles such as Assassins Creed, Call of Duty, and Halo, Havoc's physics and AI solutions will be an important weapon in Microsoft's gaming arsenal alongside DirectX 12.

Announcing the acquisition, Microsoft says it will "work with developers to create great gaming experiences, and continue to license Havok's development tools to partners".

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Reviews can be an important factor in deciding which app or extension to install. The idea of user reviews is something that has been adopted by Apple in its App Store, and is also used by Microsoft and in Google Play. The Chrome Web Store also features reviews, and a new feature has just been added that could make them more useful than ever -- the ability for developers to respond.

This is an important change as it gives developers the right of reply. When reading a review written by someone you almost certainly don't know, it can be hard to tell if their opinion should be trusted. Did they rate the app or extension poorly because there is a problem with it, or did they not understand how to do something. Giving developers the chance to reply to reviews allows for greater transparency and allows others to see that the developer in question is reading feedback -- but it may not all be good news.

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Google is increasing the maximum APK size in Google Play from 50MB to 100MB. The move comes in response to developers creating apps which offer richer experiences, and helps to avoid the need to download additional data after the initial APK download.

Expansion Files can still be used to allow for apps that exceed the 100MB barrier, but the aim in increasing the base limit is to speed up the installation for users. Now, rather than downloading an app followed by additional updates once the installation is complete, larger apps can now be downloaded and installed in one fell swoop.

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One of the key features of iOS 9 -- and one of the reasons 16GB iPhones were not killed -- is app slicing. This innocuous-sounding feature reduces the amount of space apps take up on iPhones and iPads... or at least it does when it is working.

At the moment Apple has a problem with iCloud which is preventing app slicing from working correctly. The feature works by only downloading the components of an app that are needed to perform specific tasks on a particular device, but at the moment regular, universal apps are delivered by default.

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Visit just about any website and you’re pretty much guaranteed to see a Twitter button of some sort. Just as here at BetaNews, you’ll be offered the chance to follow the author of the article you’re reading (or the site’s Twitter feed), as well as being given the opportunity to tweet about the page you’re looking at.

Now this familiar page furniture is about to get a new look. From next month, a new set of buttons is rolling out with a fresh, flat, modern look. It’s a redesign that will please minimalists, but there are important API changes coming that will annoy some developers.

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In the aftermath of the big App Store security breach, today Apple reminds developers where they should obtain Xcode. It's not rocket science—from sanctioned distribution sources. I received an email this morning from the company, dispatched to members of its developer program.

To recap: As the new week dawned, Apple rushed to remove content from its Chinese App Store loaded with XcodeGhost malware. Developers using a counterfeit version of Xcode caused the first, major, widespread security crisis for the seven year-old App Store.

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Windows 10 is a major departure from the norm for Microsoft. This is not only the first time Windows has been made available as a free upgrade, but the first time that users have been able to get actively involved in the development process. The existence of the public previews for Windows Insiders has made this one of the most transparent development programs to come out of Redmond.

Broken down into the Fast Ring and the Slow Ring, Microsoft has explained how the Windows 10 development process works, saying that the former is for those who want to be on the bleeding edge, the latter for those who want to play it safer. Ultimately, however, you should be either in or out, and this leads us to the question: what's the point of the Windows 10 Slow Ring?

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Apple has started a clean-up operation of the Chinese version of its App Store after it was flooded with apps infected with XcodeGhost malware. The problem was not detected by Apple, but a number of security firms who discovered various malicious iPhone and iPad apps littering the Store.

The apps made their way past Apple's usually-rigorous vetting process after developers were tricked into using a counterfeit version of the Xcode tool to create them. The attack has been described as "a pretty big deal" although at this stage there are no reported instances of data theft or attacks on victims.

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Buy buttons are not exactly new to Twitter, but until now they have only been available to a limited number of users. Now, thanks to San Francisco-based Stripe, anyone is able to use a tweet to sell a product.

Stripe has launched a new service called Relay. It is a set of tools that can be used to sell through any app that makes use of Stripe -- and that includes Twitter. Relay can be used to allow for instant purchases, and address what Stripe perceives to be a problem with mobile e-commerce sites.

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Fujitsu has revealed details of a new wireless receiver capable of data transfer rates of "several tens of Gigabits per second". Operating on the terahertz band, the receiver is over 100 times faster than current devices that use the 0.8-2.0 GHz range.

Described as "the world's first 300 GHz band compact receiver", the receiver is ten times smaller than previous models, opening up the possibility of use in mobile devices. Shrinking the unit has reduced its size to under one cubic centimeter and Fujitsu says that it "enables mobile devices to instantly transfer 4K or 8K HD video".

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DevOps. It’s the buzzword of the moment. According to Gartner, it’s growing so fast in popularity that a quarter of Global 2000 organizations will deploy it by 2016.

So what exactly is it? And why is everyone talking about it?

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