Developers

Every industry has a hero who paves the way with innovation. Cisco is looking for developer heroes for the open source software industry and hopes to find three as winners of its Think Inside the Box Developer Contest. The contest, which started in October, encourages developers to produce applicati...

The mobile Internet device is the most exciting new device category to hit the market since the smartphone. A MID is a handheld device that delivers high-speed wireless Internet and multimedia services, typically with a 4- to 7-inch screen form factor. Most MIDs will be based on the Linux operating ...

Linux has proven that the open source model works -- it addresses two of the biggest challenges for IT professionals: the high cost of infrastructure software and the limitations a closed stack imposes on the enterprise. Open source is particularly appealing for cost savings, vendor neutrality, acce...

PicSay is one of the winners of the Android Developer Challenge, a contest Google set up to get a batch of decent apps into the Market in time for its launch. Cash prizes went to the devs who built the coolest apps for the platform. It's just an entertaining little app -- it's not likely you'll be u...

A quiet battle of sorts is taking place behind the scenes in the software industry. Software as a Service and cloud computing have evolved, placing much more attention on Web-based applications. This greater focus has also raised expectations for the services delivered via Web 2.0. The open source s...

Adoption of online video is finally moving into the mainstream. Once constrained to companies for whom the production and distribution of video was their primary business, online video is now entering a stage of broad adoption by companies of all sizes who see video as a way to broaden their marketi...

Fourteen more companies have joined the Open Handset Alliance, throwing their support behind Android -- the open source mobile platform developed by Google. The most notable new member is Sony Ericsson, which, interestingly, is also a member of the Symbian Foundation. This surge in membership will...

While the Google-backed Android gang is busy building applications and trying to get new phones manufactured, Google itself has ponied up a new unlocked device for developers: the Android Dev Phone 1. Basically, it's a "T-Mobile G1" that's SIM-unlocked and hardware unlocked, which will let users run...

One of the most exciting aspects of the PlayStation 3 is that it allows users to install an alternative operating system. You can't overwrite Sony's GameOS or access privileged resources, but you can run your own applications on the new Cell Broadband Engine processor -- called the "CBE processor" o...

So here we are. Home prices and incomes are falling, foreclosures are rising, layoffs are multiplying, and wealth is evaporating. Everyone is looking for signs of stability, but each new day brings new despair and uncertainty. Amidst the reckoning, it's hard to imagine the future, but regardless, it...

Web developers have many options for the servlet containers they use to host Java apps. Included in these choices are both classic proprietary and a host of open source containers. For the typical Java application developer, the container that holds one or more Java applications together is fairly t...

Multimedia infotainment devices are a hot seller in today's automotive market and can be the deciding factor in which vehicle a customer ultimately chooses. The automotive infotainment market has successfully navigated the initial wave of consumer devices invading the automobile, offering basic conn...

Simplify. That, at its heart, is the purpose of XBRL -- extensible business reporting language. XBRL employs a common set of tags for financial terms, making reports more searchable and transparent to everyone who uses them. Designed to provide information to investors and anyone else researching fi...

In the past five years, the mettle of mobile Linux has been tested -- and it has deservedly earned a shining new reputation as a real technology of choice -- an embedded operating system and a flexible platform for truly open innovation. Linux has even gained the status of the de facto operating sys...

Engine Yard, a software developer of cloud deployment and open source tools for Ruby on Rails applications, last week released an open source framework for building fast, high-performance Ruby applications. Called "Merb," the programming tool is similar to Ruby on Rails. Merb is an MVC framework. It...