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When only one SBOM will do, consider these formats

A software bill of materials (SBOM) is a tool designed to share detailed information on code components in a standardized way. The SBOM has become an increasingly important tool for both application security purposes and governmental compliance.  To minimize inconsistencies and encourage greater transparency, three primary SBOM formats have emerged, each of which allow companies to generate, share, and consume supply chain data. Before you choose, it’s important to understand what the current SBOM format options are and how they are best suited to you. Here, we’ll explore all three formats – SPDX, CDX, and SWID – share their attributes and weaknesses, and offer guidance to help you find the perfect match.  First, let’s discuss why there are so many different formats. The simplest reason is that guidance around the use and requirements of SBOMs is still quite new. While SBOMs have been around for a while, it was less than two years ago that the software bill of materials was advanced

How to Prepare for Data Scientist Interview in 2023? Neeraj Mishra The Crazy Programmer

One of the fastest-growing domains in the recent years is data science. For those who don’t know, data science revolves around different subjects that ultimately lead to one goal. Subjects include math, statistics, specialized programming, advanced analytics, machine learning , and AI. Working with these subjects, a data scientist uses his expertise to help generate useful insights for guiding an organization with respect to the data they have. Organizing and explaining this data for strategic planning is what a data scientist does and should be skilled at. It’s an exciting field, and if you’re an expert or someone who wants to excel as a data scientist, then you must be adept at what you do. When that’s done, make sure to apply for as many postings in reputed organizations as possible since the job’s quite in demand. As for the interview process, it can be tough and hectic since you need to demonstrate a good insight into the domain to ensure that you’re an expert. Companies don’t

Bard now connects to Google apps and services

Google has unveiled its most advanced model of its conversational AI, Bard, to date, introducing enhanced integration with Google apps and services to provide more helpful responses. Additionally, Bard has refined its “Google it” feature to verify answers, and its expanded capabilities are now available in a wider range of contexts and Google applications, including Gmail, Docs, Drive, Google Maps, YouTube, and Google Flights. “We’re committed to protecting your personal information. If you choose to use the Workspace extensions, your content from Gmail, Docs and Drive is not seen by human reviewers, used by Bard to show you ads or used to train the Bard model. And of course, you’re always in control of your privacy settings when deciding how you want to use these extensions, and you can turn them off at any time,” Yury Pinsky, director of product management at Bard wrote in a blog post .  Bard is introducing a feature that simplifies building upon shared conversations. Users can no

Java 21 adds virtual threads preview and generational ZGC

Java 21 is here, and it includes many improvements, such as the preview of virtual threads and the final version of the generational ZGC. Most updates in Java are categorized into different named projects . In this release the features come from three projects: Project Loom, which has to do with concurrency in Java; Project Panama, which is improving how you can connect Java and native code; and Project Amber, which Oracle describes as a project to “explore and incubate smaller, productivity-oriented Java language features that have been accepted as candidate JEPs.” One of the Project Loom additions in this release is virtual threads, which Georges Saab, senior vice president of development for the Java Platform at Oracle and OpenJDK Chair, describes as being one of the most influential preview features in this release. Virtual threads are “lightweight threads that dramatically reduce the effort of writing, maintaining, and observing high-throughput concurrent applications,” as defi

New Amazon Bedrock preview feature allows foundation models to connect to company data sources

AWS has announced a new feature that will let companies connect their own data sources to foundation models (FMs), which are general AI models that are trained on a large set of data and then can be adapted further for specific uses.   This is an extension of the company’s recent announcement for Amazon Bedrock that allowed developers to create managed agents using generative AI. Amazon Bedrock is a solution for building generative AI applications using FMs. According to Amazon, giving these FMs access to your company’s data can help in generating “more relevant, context-specific, and accurate responses.” The agent searches for the appropriate knowledge bases, retrieves relevant information, and adds that information back into the input prompt to add additional context. It also provides source attribution to whatever data it retrieves for transparency and to prevent hallucinations, which is when an AI model outputs something not based on or related to the input data.  AWS say

Perforce adds generative AI to test automation platform

Perforce Software, a DevOps solutions provider, has introduced Test Data Pro by BlazeMeter, an advanced component of its continuous testing platform.  Test Data Pro utilizes AI technology to streamline and make test data generation more accessible. The primary goal is to address the significant challenge of obtaining accurate and synchronized test data, which is particularly crucial as organizations embrace a “shift left” approach in testing, Perforce explained “Obtaining test data from production is a time-consuming process involving multiple teams. PII data has to be properly scrubbed, and the data has to be synchronized across the testing landscape,” explains Stephen Feloney, VP of continuous testing at Perforce. “Because of this lengthy process, testers refresh data less often than they should. Now consider today’s world of rapid releases. There is no time to get data and prep it. Developers and agile testers needed to test yesterday.” One of its standout features is the utiliza

Actions to take to support women in technology

Despite the efforts in recent years to bring more women into tech, women still only make up less than a third of the STEM workforce, according to data from MIT . According to MIT, some of the actions that can be taken to increase these numbers include encouraging girls to pursue an education in STEM from a young age, creating inclusive workplaces, promoting female role models, providing professional development opportunities, and addressing structural barriers, like the gender pay gap and lack of family-friendly policies.  Crystal Nguyen, a research engineer at E Ink , which develops the technology found in Kindle screens, shared some of her perspective in a Q&A on being a woman in engineering and how she hopes companies change policies to be more inclusive and supportive of women.  Q: What does it mean to you to be a woman in engineering? A: Being a woman brings a certain cultural expectation that goes beyond any single industry or vertical, so it is important to consider th

Google Play updated with new features to keep users safer

Over the past few months, Google has provided updates on its significant privacy and security efforts, aiming to assist users in adapting to forthcoming changes and utilizing new tools and resources, such as  improved account data transparency and controls available in the app’s Data Safety section and the introduction of new functionality for Android 14.  Google is now announcing the forthcoming phase of features, tools, and updates that have been developed to maintain the platform’s safety and reliability. In the App content page in Google Play Console, Google plans to “show not just existing declarations, but also upcoming declaration requirements and deadlines to give users more time to plan,” Jacqueline Hart, director of trusted experiences for Developer Enablement at Google, wrote in a blog post .  A new notification feature on the Google Play SDK Index is being provided to assist users in making informed decisions regarding SDK versions and potential policy violations on Go

SD Times Open-Source Project of the Week: Vely

Vely is an application framework that is based on the C programming language, built for developing high performance apps without needing to be a C expert. It can help build a number of types of applications: web applications, command-line programs, cloud applications, middleware, distributed systems, database applications, and IoT. The project website even includes some sample applications created using Vely.  Statements written using Vely are very intuitive so that it’s easy to get a clear understanding of what it is they do. The maintainers say that Vely code is closer to natural language than a typical programming language. This is useful in both writing code and also for whoever is maintaining it later on.  These statements tend to be declarative, descriptive, and short. Once written, they are precompiled into C code and then you are given a native executable. Therefore, you wouldn’t need to be an expert in the language because Vely can write the necessary code for you.  It

CloudBees has a new DevSecOps platform specifically for platform engineering

CloudBees has announced a new DevSecOps platform that was built with platform engineering in mind.  Platform engineering is a discipline that brings together several different roles and integrates siloed technology into a single platform. The new platform centers the developer experience, minimizing cognitive loads and making DevOps processes invisible. It achieves this through blocks, automations, and “golden paths.”  The platform is also open and extensible so that platform engineers can make use of other DevOps tools in the industry, including CloudBees’ Jenkins. “This flexibility to orchestrate any other tool enables organizations to protect the investments they have already made in tooling. Teams can continue to use their preferred technologies simply by plugging them into the platform,” CloudBees wrote in a press release .  It uses a self-service model to enable developers to be more autonomous and not have to wait on others for automations, actions, or resources. The plat

JetBrains now has a dedicated IDE for Rust

JetBrains, the creator of many popular IDEs, has an exciting announcement for Rust developers. RustRover is a new IDE specifically for the Rust language. Previously the only tooling available for Rust from JetBrains was IntelliJ Rust, which was a plugin for IntelliJ-based IDEs. For many years, Rust has topped the Stack Overflow Developer Survey as the most loved language. According to JetBrains, the Rust community includes over 2.8 million developers. This popularity is what led JetBrains to focus on making a dedicated platform for those developers Despite its benefits, some of the challenges with developing in Rust is that it is a complex language and has a steep learning curve. JetBrains says RustRover was designed to tackle those challenges.  “With RustRover, we are addressing the evolving needs of developers in a market that is rapidly developing, witnessing a surge in the Rust ecosystem: 56% of developers we surveyed have started adopting Rust in the last 6 months,” said Vi

5 Applications of Blockchain Technology in Programming Neeraj Mishra The Crazy Programmer

Stuart Haber? Scott Stornetta? Ring any bells? How about Stefan Konst? Not really? Well, then you probably know Satoshi Nakamoto, and by ‘know,’ I mean heard of, because, of course, he/she/it’s faceless. But blockchain technology, whose re-emergence from the cold pings back to his 2008 white paper, is no stranger in the room. Over a decade since the white paper, blockchain technology has found fame (and infamy) through cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum. But it doesn’t end with the coins. This tech has lived long enough to sire diverse blockchain companies , from Coinbase down to Chainalysis. But it’s not just about crypto. The true prowess of blockchain technology shines brightest in the programming arena. Let’s show you how these code warriors make this magic happen. Smart Contracts Remember pinky promises when growing up? Smart contracts are like that but on steroids. So, what moves them? Code cowboys work on these contracts specifying conditions and outcomes. And like

JFrog adds new ML model management and security capabilities

JFrog users can look forward to some new products across the company’s vast portfolio of DevOps products. At its SwampUP conference today, the company announced new management capabilities for machine learning (ML) models and released a new tool for writing and releasing secure applications. The new ML capabilities enable companies to detect and block malicious ML models, scan model licenses for compliance reasons, store models, and bundle models as part of software releases.  Also part of these new capabilities is a new integration with Hugging Face , which is a collaborative platform for building and sharing AI models, datasets, and applications. JFrog users will now be able to grab ML models from that platform and cache them.  “Increasing numbers of organizations are starting to incorporate ML models into their applications and with several government regulations requiring software vendors to list exactly what’s inside their software, we believe it won’t be long before thes

W3C releases new guidelines for web sustainability

The Sustainable Web Design Community Group of W3C has released a draft Community Group Report on Sustainable Web Design. The Web Sustainability Guidelines (WSG) 1.0 offer best practices for designing digital products and services with a focus on environmental and user considerations.  These guidelines are based on evidence-based research and target various stakeholders, including end-users, web developers, and policymakers.  They align with the Sustainable Web Manifesto and GRI Standards , aiding organizations in integrating digital products into sustainability reporting. Given that the digital industry contributes significantly to global emissions, W3C says the guidelines aim to reduce the environmental impact of web development and design by recommending practices like data minimization, image optimization, and the use of green hosting. In the WSG there are 93 guidelines and 232 success criteria, closely modeled after the structure of WCAG , which is the Web Content Accessibil

Google heads to court to defend itself in major antitrust case about Google Search

Google headed to court yesterday to defend its position in an antitrust case revolving around Google Search and its dominance over other search engines. Data from Similarweb shows that Google currently holds 90% of the market share for search engine use. “This case is about the future of the internet and whether Google’s search engine will ever face meaningful competition,” said Kenneth Dintzer, lead litigator for the case for the Justice Department.  According to the Associated Press, the trial is expected to run for the next 10 weeks. Over the course of the trial, federal lawyers and state attorneys will try to prove that Google got to where it is today by illegal means. The lawsuit was first brought forth by the Justice Department in October 2020, and says the point is to “restrain Google LLC from unlawfully maintaining monopolies in the markets for general search services, search advertising, and general search text advertising in the United States through anticompetitive