Darryl K. Taft

As rumors continue to swirl about a new Microsoft tablet PC project, Gizmodo comes along with new evidence of just what Microsoft may be up to. According to some reports, Microsoft is allegedly in the thick of development on a new tablet-like device code-named “Courier.” According to an All About Microsoft report, “Gizmodo showed off […]

Microsoft has announced the release to manufacturing of Windows Embedded CE 6.0 R3, the next-generation of the componentized, real-time Windows Embedded CE operating system that now features a rich immersive user experience provided by Microsoft’s Silverlight Rich Internet Application (RIA) platform. Microsoft announced the RTM of the new release at the Embedded Systems Conference (ESC) […]

Zend Technologies, in association with IBM, Microsoft and others, has launched the Simple API for Cloud Application Services project, a new open-source initiative that enables developers to use common application services in the cloud, while enabling them to unlock value-added features available from individual providers. Zend officials said the Simple Cloud API project aims to […]

Adobe Systems has announced the availability of Adobe Flash Platform Services for Distribution, a new service that enables advertisers and content publishers to promote, measure and monetize applications across social networks, desktops and mobile devices. Adobe Flash Platform Services are online, hosted services that allow developers to add innovative capabilities to Web applications with a […]

20 Things You Might Not Know About COBOL (as the Language Turns 50) by Darryl Taft No Title The name COBOL was decided upon at a meeting of the Short Range Committee of CODASYL (the Conference on Data Systems Languages) held on Sept. 18, 1959. No Title COBOL, one of the oldest programming languages, gets […]

The COBOL computer programming language has turned 50 as of Sept. 18, making it one of the oldest programming languages still in use. Officials at Micro Focus, a provider of enterprise application management, testing and modernization solutions that has made its name on COBOL, said the company is celebrating the 50th anniversary of the date […]

Web 2.0 giants Facebook and Google continue to offer developers new ways to experiment with and improve application development on their platforms. Facebook has launched Facebook Prototypes, a platform where Facebook engineers can showcase internal projects they are working on that have not yet been accepted as projects the company will offer to users. “We’re […]

MySpace has both announced and open-sourced a new technology known as Qizmt, an internally developed framework for distributed computation based on the MapReduce framework. Created by the Data Mining team here at MySpace, Qizmt can be used for many operations that require processing large amounts of data such as collaborative filtering for recommendations and analytics. […]

The tireless, developer-centric engineers at Google have come up with Noop, a new language that runs on the Java Virtual Machine. “Noop (pronounced ‘noh-awp,’ like the machine instruction) is a new language that attempts to blend the best lessons of languages old and new, while syntactically encouraging industry best-practices and discouraging the worst offenses,” according […]

Adobe’s $1.8 billion acquisition of Omniture signals the move toward more “smart” Web content and applications that provide analytics information for developers and designers. Adobe announced its plans to acquire Omniture on Sept. 15 in a deal valued at nearly $2 billion to integrate Adobe’s creative design tools with Omniture’s Web analytics technology. But why […]

The market for online community software, including social networking applications, is expected to grow to $1.6 billion in 2013, spurred by increased use in the enterprise, according to a recent study by market research firm IDC. With consumer social networks going mainstream, people are demanding similar applications in the workplace that provide easy-to-use and many-to-many […]

Even in the midst of a recession, the mainframe continues to be a strategic platform as many data center managers said they expect to increase spending on mainframe technology. According to a recent survey by market research firm IDC, nearly one-half of respondents indicated they plan to increase annual spending on mainframe hardware and software. […]