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Showing posts from May, 2023

Brave makes its Search API available for developers

Brave, the web browser that preserves privacy and automatically blocks ads and tracking, has made its Search API available to developers.  Brave Search is a private search engine, meaning that it doesn’t save your search history or track you. In 2021, Brave made it the default search engine in their browsers, replacing Google.  Developers can use the API to integrate Brave’s search capabilities in their applications, granting access to high-quality, Web-scale data.   Unlike Google’s Search ranking algorithm, which no one is quite sure how it works entirely, Brave Search enables the community to rank content using the Goggles features. Goggles exists on top of the search index and acts as a custom re-ranking.  The Brave Search API starts from $3 per 1000 queries, though users can also access a free version limited to 1 query per second and 2,000 per month.  “Brave is on a mission to build a user-first Web. That mission starts with the Brave browser and Brave Search. But it also

How useful has ChatGPT actually been for marketers?

Because of ChatGPT, a lot of the current ways of working are in the process of morphing into something different. One area of the business where this is especially true is marketing. ChatGPT, and other generative AI technologies, are particularly good at communication, rewriting content, and generating ideas, which makes it the perfect companion to help with marketing strategy.  And while there was a lot of hype around ChatGPT when it first launched, that initial hype has died down a bit as people incorporate it into their workflows and discover what is and isn’t possible. While many marketers are finding success in using it for some elements of their jobs, many also believe it is not quite at the point it needs to be to do it all.  “I think what I see more likely to be the adoption is more of a generation tool to generate content options, but then have a marketer or a human in the loop to edit, approve and publish those choices. It’s much easier to edit something rather than to cre

There doesn’t have to be tension between engineering managers and individual contributors

Engineering managers and individual contributors usually want the same thing: to produce quality work in a way that feels creative and collaborative, all while doing so in a predictable and sustainable way. I’d even say you would struggle to find someone who doesn’t want this type of work agreement.  It’s also important to note that there’s healthy tension and unhealthy tension between engineering managers (EMs) and individual contributors (ICs). Great teams work well when they have a healthy amount of tension — they ask questions and challenge each other respectfully to get to the best solution. But there are a lot of moving parts to make the EM–IC relationship work, and it’s the friction between these parts that can create unhealthy tension. Reasons why there might be tension between EMs and ICs When it comes to measurement and evaluation, EMs and ICs have different perceptions of what  adds value. This can be based on several tension-causing factors. (1) Different goals based o

5 Best Cross Platform App Development Frameworks of 2023 Neeraj Mishra The Crazy Programmer

In the realm of technology and business, it is evident that expanding one’s user base is crucial for driving revenue growth. In addition, having a robust cross-platform app has become increasingly essential in today’s rapidly advancing technological landscape. The rationale behind this is quite clear: by creating a cross-platform app, you can effectively reach a larger audience while maintaining cost-effectiveness. The competitive nature of the digital landscape has posed challenges for developers, compelling them to explore new app development solutions that yield optimal results with minimal effort. The demand for cross-platform app development frameworks has witnessed a remarkable surge. This surge can be attributed to the fact that cross-platform applications possess a wider reach compared to native apps, offering businesses the opportunity to engage with a larger user base, making it a truly distinctive technology. As the demand continues to rise, a multitude of exceptional cro

Microsoft releases Fluent 2 to enable more creativity in design

Microsoft has unveiled the latest evolution of its design system, Fluent. Fluent 2 includes changes that aim to enable better collaboration and creativity.  “We improved on the solid foundations from Fluent 1 and injected innovative additions. All to empower makers at every angle of the system to drive toward a single purpose. That purpose? One Microsoft across the products we offer, the services we provide, and the communities we make,” Microsoft wrote on its website. New features include a more cohesive color system, token system, standardized corners, greater customizability, robust usage guidance, and accessibility notation.   The new token system is designed to enable a more seamless handoff from design to development teams.  Currently, Fluent 2 contains components for Web React, iOS, and Windows, and Android components are in the works.  Fluent 2 has already been implemented by Microsoft in their recent redesign of Teams. “Our adoption of Fluent 2 was critical for this v

SD Times Open Source Project of the week: Microsoft Dev Home

Microsoft Dev Home is a new control center for Windows that offers users a way to monitor projects in their dashboard using customizable widgets. It enables customers to track all of their workflows and coding tasks in one location.  Dev Home also allows customers to set up their dev environment by downloading apps, packages, or repositories; connect to develop accounts and tools; and create a Dev Drive for storage all in one place.  The centralized dashboard with customizable widgets helps to monitor workflows and track dev projects, coding tasks, GitHub issues, pull requests, available SSH connections, and system CPU, GPU, Memory, and Network Performance.  This open-source project also provides a machine configuration tool intended to assist with the setup of a development environment on a new device or the onboarding of a new development project. According to the GitHub page , the machine configuration tool offers a list of popular applications when choosing apps to install.

How to Hire Great Software Engineers – Standards, Tips & More Neeraj Mishra The Crazy Programmer

Software engineering is one of the most sought-after careers in the current labor market in today’s world of digital transformation and technological advancement, where the demand for specialized technical skills is constantly increasing, and the need for developing custom software solutions flourishes. As a result, hiring the right software engineer can be a daunting task, particularly as the IT world is facing developer scarcity on a global scale. Although it can be challenging to find the right talent with the necessary technical qualifications, it is not impossible. In this article, we will discuss different aspects of how to hire great software engineers with quality and ease. Which Qualifications Should You Look for in a Software Engineer? When you hire software engineers , there are several qualifications and skills to consider. Here’s a list of some essential qualifications and traits to look for when hiring software engineers: Educational Background : A bachelor’s or mas

Google to use AI to create personalized ads

Google has developed a conversational technology within Google Ads intended to help create campaigns and simplify navigating Search ads by merging the user’s understanding with Google AI. Marketers can give Google AI the landing page they want for their campaign and it will provide a summary of it. From there, it will give keywords, titles, pictures, and other assets for one’s campaign. Users can also change these ideas if needed. “Now, users can chat their way into better performance — ask Google AI for ideas, just like you might ask a colleague,” Jerry Dischler, the vice president and general manager of Ads at Google, wrote in a blog post .  Google will soon be adding generative AI to automatically created assets (ACA) for ads to more effectively create and adapt Search ads based on the context of a query.  “For example, with a search for ‘skin care for dry sensitive skin,’ AI can use content from your landing page and existing ads to create a new headline that aligns even more c

EPUB 3.3 released, becomes W3C Recommendation

EPUB is an interchange format for digital documents that can represent and package together web content like HTML, CSS, SVG, and other resources.  Version 3.3 is backwards compatible with the previous version 3.2, so documents created in 3.2 are also valid in 3.3 and no changes need to be made for document workflows. Becoming a W3C Recommendation means that EPUB 3.3 is now a web standard. The process for standardization includes a thorough review by W3C members, which often leads to important technical changes. Recommandations also include detailed guidelines for implementation.  During the standardization process, W3C also creates a test suite, which they have done for EPUB 3.3.  The W3C has also significantly updated the EPUB documentation. The content specification has been separated from the reading system specifications, because usually there are two different groups of people interested in each. They have also worked to make the documents more readable.  Work was also don

Gartner: CTOs who lack outcome-focused technology risk delayed disruption response

Recent Gartner research has revealed that by 2025, the 80% of CTOs who don’t have the correct tools in place to support business and customer needs or adapt to change will negatively impact their business response to disruption.  The research also showed that executive leaders are currently sharing unrealized dependencies that can help to meet business growth expectations once they are properly identified.  These unrealized dependencies can also function to bridge the multiple capability gaps that exist across the enterprise.  Additionally, it was revealed that even when solutions reach end-of-life, executives chose to upgrade and customize the older systems rather than opting to invest in newer solutions with enhanced capabilities. The unfortunate result of this is the build-up of technical debt without an actionable plan to reduce it.  Research also showed that organizations are finding it more difficult to compete because of the resource demand for more temporary solutions, hind

KPI anti-patterns hinder business outcomes

When it comes to data-driven decision-making, quality control, goal alignment, and accountability, establishing and adhering to key performance indicators (KPIs) is the industry standard for creating and maintaining exceptional engineering teams.  Unfortunately, there are a few engineering KPI anti-patterns that reduce the organizations’ ability to understand how their performance relates to business outcomes. When teams start measuring for the first time, they tend to use those metrics to drive accountability and predictability. But according to Jeremy Freeman, co-founder of value stream intelligence platform provider Allstacks , failing to trace those metrics back into business outcomes is the first of three KPI anti-patterns he discussed in a recent call with SD Times. The message from executives is that organizations need to be more data-driven, and there are countless metrics that can offer some visibility into the activities and performance of the product development team. “I

Microsoft Build: Windows Terminal Preview 1.18, Azure Developer CLI, new Azure Cosmos DB features, and more.

Microsoft’s annual developer conference, Microsoft Build , kicked off yesterday, and as a result, the company has been making a lot of updates to its developer offerings.  Windows Terminal Preview 1.18 was released, which means Windows Terminal has now been updated to version 1.17. This release includes the addition of Tab Tearout, which allows you to drag tabs out of Windows Terminal and into different windows. The terminal also now reloads environment variables whenever a new tab or pane is opened, where previously you would have to fully restart the terminal after installing something.  The Atlas text rendering engine in Windows Terminal has also seen many improvements after being nearly completely rewritten, and it now supports overlapping text.  RELATED CONTENT: Microsoft Build 2023 brings expansions to the AI ecosystem, new plugin capabilities with Microsoft’s Copilot ecosystem, and more The company also announced the general availability of the Azure Developer CLI , whic

Tidelift has been awarded a $3.5 million contract to secure software supply chains

Security and resilience solution provider Tidelift has announced that it has been awarded three contracts with the U.S. government, equalling over $3.5 million. With this, the company intends to expand its public sector organization to meet the growing demand for improved cybersecurity supply chain risk management from the U.S. government.  According to Tidelift, this effort began in May of 2021, when the White House passed an executive order aimed at improving the nation’s cybersecurity , and since then government actions around cybersecurity efforts have gained momentum.  These research awards come as a part of the U.S. government SBIR program, a program geared at helping U.S.-based businesses realize their technical potential while also encouraging further tech innovation and meeting research and development needs. With this, Tidelift will be partnering with the Department of the Air Force and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency to try and motivate innovation in the sy

Microsoft Build 2023 brings expansions to the AI ecosystem, new plugin capabilities with Microsoft’s Copilot ecosystem, and more

Microsoft Build 2023, the annual conference aimed at engineers and developers using Windows, Microsoft Azure, and other Microsoft technologies, kicked off this morning and there have been several announcements made. An expansion of the AI plugin ecosystem Microsoft’s Copilot ecosystem has been expanded to include Copilot in Power BI and Copilot in Power Pages in preview; Copilot in Microsoft Fabric, which is set to become available in preview soon; and Windows Copilot, which will start to become available for preview in June. Additionally, new features were introduced that are geared at helping developers construct their own copilots and next-gen AI applications. Among these capabilities are plugins that help to get the most value out of copilots by allowing them to interact with other software and services. Plugins for Microsoft 365 Copilot This release is intended to increase extensibility and allow every developer to integrate their apps and services into Microsoft 365 Copilot.

The Rage Cage – Episode 2: Open Source

What’s got Scott Moore all ticked off this week? Open source, that’s what. Listen as he explains how ‘free’ isn’t always free, inside “The Rage Cage.”   The post The Rage Cage – Episode 2: Open Source appeared first on SD Times . from SD Times https://ift.tt/0neajOJ

Red Hat Service Interconnect facilitates communication between multiple platforms and clouds

Red Hat Service Interconnect, which can simplify application connectivity and security across platforms, clusters, and clouds, is now generally available after being announced at Red Hat Summit. The solution is based on the open-source project Skupper.io, which enables secure communication across Kubernetes clusters with no VPNs or special firewall rules. According to Red Hat, application architectures are changing to take advantage of the open hybrid cloud and require flexible, secure connections for applications. AI/ML applications can be distributed across on-premises, edge and cloud systems, and businesses require connections across multiple clouds and infrastructures. This requires coordination between developers, network admins and security admins to set up trusted, specific connections, which can slow developer productivity and innovation, the company explained. Red Hat Service Interconnect facilitates communication between multiple platforms and clouds, allowing developers t

Red Hat announces new development platform to manage DevOps tool sprawl

Red Hat today announced Red Hat Developer Hub, an enterprise-grade, unified and open portal designed to streamline the development process through a supported and opinionated framework.  The Red Hat Developer Hub is built from the open-source project Backstage and was built to help navigate the sprawl that DevOps teams often face, according to the company.  Internal developer portals must be created and maintained which has become a much more complicated task today due to the occurrence of large enterprises inhabited by various tools, continuously innovating security parameters, and legislation that varies by industry and location. The platform was built to improve experiences on platforms related to Kubernetes and containers such as Red Hat OpenShift. The platform offers a single pane of glass to view all available developer tools and resources to increase productivity, self-service capabilities and guardrails for cloud-native application development, and proper security and govern

GitLab 16 offers new AI-powered DevSecOps platform

GitLab today unveiled its newest major release, GitLab 16. This brings users new DevSecOps platform-wide capabilities as well as multiple features that the company is planning to rollout throughout the year. This release provides an enterprise-grade, AI-powered DevSecOps platform with features geared at helping customers write better code faster. Users also gain security testing and analysis, observability, and proactive vulnerability detection. Current AI-powered features include Suggested Reviewers, Explain This Code, Explain This Vulnerability, and Value Stream Forecasting. A few features have not yet been released, such as Refactor This Code and Resolve This Vulnerability. GitLab 16 also automates software delivery and secures the end-to-end software supply chains of users. Enterprises are enabled to start, scale, and secure their software supply chains while also gaining increased visibility into their threat landscape and establishing policies to ensure compliance standards ar

Google will soon add AI features to Colab

Google will be making some AI enhancements to its Colab offering, which is a browser-based tool for writing and executing Python code, that is often used by beginners to learn how to code without needing to set up a coding environment. The tool will soon incorporate AI coding features such as code completion, the ability to generate code from natural language, and even a code-assisting chatbot.  Colab will leverage Codey, a family of code models built on PaLM 2, which was recently unveiled at I/O. Codey has been fine-tuned using a vast dataset of high-quality, permissively licensed code from external sources to enhance its performance in coding tasks. Moreover, the versions of Codey utilized to power Colab have been specifically tailored for Python and for the unique needs of Colab. Colab users in the United States will be granted initial access to the Codey models integrated within Colab, delivering a significant boost to programming speed, quality, and comprehension. The primary em

Ted Nelson Biography Ruchi Mishra The Crazy Programmer

Theodor Holm Tedson aka Ted Nelson was born on June 17, 1937, in Chicago Illinois, United States. He is a cyber philosopher, computer scientist, and IT specialist. Name Theodor Holm Tedson Father Ralphan Nelson Mother Celeste Holm Birth Date June 17, 1937 Birth Place Chicago Illinois, United States Awards Yuri Rubinsky Memorial Award Known For Hypertext Early Life Ted’s parents are responsible for his productive and creative work. His father’s name was Ralphan Nelson who was a famous film director and won the Emmy award. His mother’s name was Celeste Holm, she was an actress who won an Oscar. Mostly he lived with his grandparents first in Chicago but later in Greenwich Village. At a young age, he used to go on the sets with his father. He used this experience later to make an experimental student short film when he was studying for his graduate degree. In 1959, he earned his bachelor’s degree at Swarthmore College, Chicago. Ted went to Harvard Uni

Microsoft shares release candidate for TypeScript 5.1

Microsoft is nearing the release of TypeScript 5.1, and before the final release has launched the release candidate . The company says that no new features or changes will be made between this and the final release.  In TypeScript 5.1 functions that return “undefined” will no longer be required to have a return statement. Previously the only functions that could have no return statements were those that returned “void” or “any”. Another update is that when a function doesn’t have a return expression and is passed to something that expects a function to return “undefined,” TypeScript will now infer that the function’s return type is “undefined.” This release also builds upon something that was introduced in TypeScript 4.3, which was that “get” and “set” accessor pairs could specify two different types. Now, it is possible for those types to be completely unrelated, whereas before there was a requirement that the “get” type be a subset of the “set” type.  TypeScript 5.1 decouples typ

SD Times Open-Source Project of the Week: Snapchange

Snapchange is a Rust framework that can be used to fuzz a target binary with minimal modifications, offering useful insight into the process. It works by replaying physical memory snapshots in order to make the fuzzing of various targets more efficient and less complex.  As it is agnostic to the target operating system, the snapshot process is primarily focused on Linux-based targets to capture the necessary debugging data. This is made possible by utilizing the features of the Linux kernel’s KVM (Kernel Virtual Machine) feature. The project started out as an experiment by the AWS Find and Fix (F2) open-source security research teams to explore the potential of using KVM in enabling snapshot fuzzing. Snapchange works by injecting mutated data into the virtual machine and provides a breakpoint-based hooking system. It offers real-time coverage reports in formats such as Lighthouse and LCOV, as well as single-step traces which are useful for debugging. With Snapchange, it is possible