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The Android development team has announced the second beta of Android 15 , which is now available on more devices besides just Pixels, including those from Honor, iQOO, Lenovo, Nothing, OnePlus, OPPO, Realme, Sharp, Tecno, vivo, and Xiaomi. Android 15 will also support 16 KB page sizes (in addition to the standard 4 KB), which may require developers who use NDK libraries to rebuild their app to work on the larger page sizes. According to the Android team, 16 KB pages offer performance improvements such as lower app launch times when the system is under memory pressure, reduced power draw during launches, faster camera launch, and improved system boot time.  “As device manufacturers continue to build devices with larger amounts of physical memory (RAM), many of these devices will adopt 16 KB (and eventually greater) page sizes to optimize the device’s performance. Adding support for 16 KB page size devices enables your app to run on these devices and helps your app benefit from the a

JetBrains has announced that its test automation IDE, Aqua , is now generally available. Aqua makes it easy for testers to create automated tests for UIs, APIs, and other areas of an application. Like other JetBrains IDEs, it offers code completion and code refactoring capabilities.  According to JetBrains, Aqua supports every aspect of test automation, including database management for preparing application data, an HTTP client for running HTTP requests and assertions, an embedded Web Inspector to view web pages and capture elements of them for testing, and Docker support for configuring containers, downloads, and build images.  It is available in both commercial and free versions, with the free version designed to be used by beginner test engineers. JetBrains Aqua was first introduced as a preview in November 2022. It initially only supported the Selenium API and Selenide, and then was expanded in 2023 to include support for Playwright and Cypress.  Now, it supports most comm

The Open Source Initiative (OSI) is on a mission to define “Open Source AI.” It wants to be able to provide a framework that can be used to determine if an AI system is open source or not, as there is not currently a framework for doing so, the OSI explained.  According to OSI, having a standard definition is important because there are currently several companies claiming that their AI models are open source when they might not truly be.  “Just as the Open Source Definition serves as the globally accepted standard for Open Source software, so will the Open Source AI Definition act as a standard for openness in AI systems and their components,” the organization wrote in its announcement. The group has been working on the Open Source AI definition since 2022, and for the past several months it has been holding weekly town halls and has created several draft versions. OSI says it is almost at a stable version, and over the next several months it will travel across North America, Eur

NodeScript is a a low-code visual environment in which developers connect ‘nodes’ to create programs, announced today by automation platform provider UBIO. Developers use NodeScript to start projects, do research and development, or quickly bring on a new cloud service. According to the company, the toolset is feature complete and has all the power of a modern programming language. Among it uses, UBIO said in its announcement, are: Quickly prototyping application backends. Integrating LLMs like ChatGPT that can add AI power to any node in a program. Deploying at-scale backend services in one click. Connecting & consolidating APIs. Think ‘iPaaS-on-steroids’. Creating webhooks and performing flexible data transformations. “Like any complete programming language, NodeScript is fully extensible and capable,” the company wrote in its announcement. “Programs can be as small or large as need dictates. Code can be modularized and one NodeScript program can be embedded in another

At its annual developer conference Google I/O , Google announced several updates across Google Play that help developers optimize their apps and increase engagement with users. New features to improve app quality, trust The company is opening up the SDK Console to all SDKs that come from a verifiable Maven repository source. Previously it was only available for the most widely adopted SDKs.  The SDK Console provides usage statistics for SDKs that developers can use to improve their apps to increase adoption and engagement, as well as tools for fixing quality issues.  Developers can also now utilize pre-review checks before they release app updates. This new feature brings together several existing quality checks under a single interface to make it easier for developers to see potential problems at a glance.  Several new features were added to the Play Integrity API , an API that allows developers to check that their app hasn’t been modified in any way and that users are experi

Developer platform provider  Harness today announced $150 million in financing from Silicon Valley Bank (SVB), a division of First Citizens Bank, and Hercules Capital, Inc. The investment will be used strategically to support the expansion of the Harness platform, including the addition of new modules, further integrating generative AI into the platform, and additional investments in the company’s go-to-market engine. “At Harness, we’re building the next generation of intelligent tools and automation to supercharge developer productivity and reduce developer toil,” said Jyoti Bansal, CEO and co-founder of Harness. “This funding enables our company to continue innovating at a record pace, transforming the software delivery lifecycle for today’s modern enterprises. Every year, developers waste more than $1 trillion by spending 40%+ of their time working on mundane, non-code-producing work. Our platform empowers software teams to achieve excellence in velocity, quality, efficiency, and

ScaleOut Software today unveiled version 3 of its ScaleOut Digital Twins cloud service and on-premises hosting platform, with advanced capabilities for building large-scale digital twin simulations and adding connections to more messaging sources. Version 3 integrates with Amazon Dynamo DB, offering enhanced persistence capabilities, the company noted in its announcement. Digital twins, for the uninitiated, are virtual representations of system that can be worked on for testing or integration without affecting the original system. Among the new features in the release are a new user interface to make deployment and status tracking of digital twin models easier, the ability to aggregate statistics and enable tabular queries and automatic query storager, and the creation of recordings of messages during digital twin simulations and persist them to SQL Server. Version 3 also lets users connect digital twin models to Kafka, and persist digital twins to AWS Dynamo DB in addition to SQL S

Development tools company GitKraken today announced the acquisition of CodeSee, a developer observability solution provider, and launched a new Developer Experience platform. The addition of CodeSee’s code insights capabilities will enable GitKraken to help developers understand “even the most complex parts of their code base,” according to the company announcement. “The launch of GitKraken’s DevEx platform is a major milestone in our mission to make developers’ code – and their lives – materially better,” GitKraken CEO Matt Johnston said in the statement. “And with the acquisition of CodeSee, we’re raising the bar for developer experience, making code visibility, better PR reviews, and workflow automation available to 30 million devs around the world.” GitKraken today also announced support for Google Gemini, formerly Bard, which uses AI to help developers generate code from natural language prompts, analyze code for errors or vulnerabilities, suggest code completions, and more. Th

OpenAI today rolled out GPT-4o, its newest flagship model that is faster than GPT-4 yet maintains the same level of intelligence and builds on its voice, vision and text capabilities, according to the organization’s announcement. The new model takes understanding of images to a higher level. In its announcement, OpenAI gave this example: “You can now take a picture of a menu in a different language and talk to GPT-4o to translate it, learn about the food’s history and significance, and get recommendations.” Future features will improve its natural language, real-time voice conversations, and will add functionality to enable ChatGPT conversations over real-time video, OpenAI said, enabling ChatGPT to “see” a live sporting event and the user can ask it questions about such things as the rules of the sport, and more. A new Voice Mode will be rolling out in an alpha release within weeks. Among the features ChatGPT Free users will be able to access when using GPT-4o are, according t

The software industry is no longer functional. Last year alone saw over 28,000 new CVEs published, a record rise that perfectly illustrates the ongoing patching crisis facing security and development teams, which are under constant pressure to patch vulnerabilities or risk exposure. In the last 12 months, software vulnerabilities led to over 50 percent of organizations suffering 8 or more breaches . The same survey found that only 11 percent believe that they patch effectively and in a timely manner. This dilemma is the result of a software industry that is far too comfortable releasing insecure applications to end-users. Software vendors have long prioritized speed to market, with security becoming an afterthought addressed through updates and patches, and we can no longer accept it. Security leaders, regulators, and the industry itself must embrace a higher security standard, holding software vendors and developers to a higher standard of security from the outset, truly embracin

OpenAI is sharing the first draft of its Model Spec, a document that specifies how models should behave in the OpenAI API and ChatGPT, to be used as guidelines for researchers and AI trainers who work on  reinforcement learning from human feedback . The spec, according to OpenAI, is based on the organizations’ research into model behavior along with input from domain experts to inform development of future models. OpenAI said the spec will likely change over time, as more is learned. Among the objectives of the work is to give developers and users resources and to help them follow instructions, to consider benefits and harms to humanity, and to respect social norms and laws, according to an OpenAI blog post . The document also includes instructions that OpenAi says “address complexity and help ensure safety and legality,” such as follow the chain of command, comply with laws, respect creators and protect privacy. Some guidelines for default behaviors include assuming best intenti

SurrealDB is a multi-model database that offers scalability and adaptability so that developers can fit it to their use cases. The project maintainers call it “the ultimate cloud database for tomorrow’s applications.” It reduces development time by eliminating the need for a lot of server-side components required by other databases. The database can also function as an API backend service, making it easier for teams to collaborate in real-time, the maintainers explained. SurrealDB supports multiple querying languages and methods: SQL, GraphQL, ACID transactions, WebSocket connections, structured and unstructured data, graph querying, full-text indexing, and geospatial querying. Other key features include granular access controls, single-node or distributed mode, advanced JavaScript functions for customization, and the ability to store data in tables, documents, and graph.  “SurrealDB offers a dynamic and adaptable platform for business. With an integrated suite of cutting-edge da

In the ever-evolving landscape of software engineering, tools like GitHub Copilot are fundamentally changing how developers use Generative AI (GenAI) in coding. This shift is especially evident in the software testing realm, where AI-generated code is starting to impact customer environments significantly. It’s fascinating to observe how the software engineering world is transforming with the advent of GenAI—it feels akin to watching a science fiction movie become reality. GitHub Copilot and similar AI tools are revolutionizing the way developers approach coding, injecting an element of excitement into their routines. Interestingly, this development may lead developers to engage even less in basic testing, a task many already find mundane. The prevailing sentiment is that developers prefer crafting and refining code over testing it. To encourage the “shift-left” movement—which advocates for testing early and often—many test tool vendors are exploring Copilot-like methods for script-b

Data is often seen as the output of applications — but it’s so much more than that. Like code itself, data is a fundamental building block of the development process. It has the ability to drive application logic, improve user experience, and increase business value. Therefore, taking a data-first approach to software design is critical. Not only can data inform the evolution of software, but also, how that information is managed can transform organizations, accelerate timelines, and cut down on busywork. To prioritize data in a new way, organizations must be willing to overhaul long-held protocols and processes. However, the results are worth the headache. Why Data and Database Management Needs to Change Software development has changed a lot over the past two decades, but the use of data and database management hasn’t evolved alongside it. A  2021 Gartner survey  indicated that 61% of respondents said one of their goals was to optimize data for business processes and productivity

Broadcom today announced that its Automic   Automation solution is now available as Software as a Service (SaaS). Automic SaaS provides the same features as the market-leading Automic Automation on-premises solution with the added benefits of a service. With advanced workload automation and workflow orchestration capabilities, Automic SaaS will unify and simplify automation across mainframe, distributed, and hybrid cloud environments, while freeing up resources normally absorbed by infrastructure management so they can focus on more strategic automation projects. “Infrastructures are continuing to shift to the cloud, while organizations are struggling to operate multiple tools. This is driving a critical need for a centralized view of automated business processes,” said Serge Lucio, vice president and general manager, Agile Operations Division, Broadcom. “Automic SaaS helps organizations unify workload automation, gain critical observability, and simplify orchestration just like our