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The latest feature drop for Android Studio Ladybug is now available, adding in several new ways to interact with Gemini. Gemini Code Transforms can modify, optimize, or add code to an app by right-clicking in the editor and selecting the Gemini > Generate Code option or highlighting code and selecting Gemini > Transform Selected Code . Developers can describe the code they want to make and review the proposed changes before accepting them. “With Gemini Code Transforms, you can simplify complex code, perform specific code transformations, or even generate new functions. You can also refine the suggested code to iterate on the code suggestions with Gemini. It’s an AI coding assistant right in your editor, helping you write better code more efficiently,” Steven Jenkins, product manager of Android Studio, wrote in a blog post .  Other Gemini features added to the latest version of Android Studio include: Rename, which suggests appropriate names for single variables, classe...

CISA, the government agency tasked with securing the U.S.’ cyber and physical infrastructure, has released new Information Technology (IT) Sector-Specific Goals (SSGs) . According to the organization, the IT SSGs complement Cross-Sector Cybersecurity Performance Goals (CPGs) and offer “additional voluntary practices with high-impact security actions.” Organizations can use them to improve the security of their software development practices.  The list is broken down into goals for the process of software development and goals for product design.  The software development process goals include: Separate all environments used in software development Regularly log, monitor, and review trust relationships used for authorization and access across software development environments Enforce Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) across software development environments Establish and enforce security requirements for software products used across software development environments ...

Software testing company Code Intelligence today announced Spark, an AI test agent that can identify bugs and vulnerabilities without human interaction. In its beta period, for instance, Spark found a vulnerability in WolfSSL where the only human involvement was running a single command to launch the agent. The agent handled analyzing the code, generating a test case, and running the test case all on its own.  “The uncovered real-world vulnerability proves that AI can effectively take over manual tasks in software testing, such as analyzing code, identifying the most likely attack vectors, generating and running tests, and can thereby yield great results,” said Eric Brueggemann, CEO of Code Intelligence.” With Spark, Code Intelligence hopes to fully automate software testing, from identifying bugs to remediating them. It believes its solution will lower the barrier to entry for advanced testing techniques.  According to Code Intelligence, Spark can save up to 1,000 hours...

Google has announced the availability of a public developer beta for Android for its Home APIs, which enable developers to create experiences for Google Home devices, such as smart speakers, thermostats, lights, and plugs. The Home APIs were first announced last year at Google I/O, with the goal of opening up access to the ecosystem to any developer, not just device manufacturers. “Our homes have gotten more helpful with connected products, such as a smart door lock or Nest thermostat. Despite this momentum, it’s still too hard to develop for the home,” Matt Van Der Staay, senior engineering director for Google Home, wrote in a blog post at the time.   The Home APIs consist of: Device and Structures APIs, Commissioning API, and the Automation API. The Device and Structures APIs provide access to over 600 million devices connected to Google Home and an interface for managing and controlling those devices. The Commissioning API simplifies device set up by enabling Fast Pai...

The low-code company Qt Group has announced a new platform for creating software for use cases like manufacturing, mobility, consumer electronics, and more. According to Qt, this new offering, Qt Accelerate , is ideal for companies that must create proof-of-concepts and then deploy them quickly.  The new platform provides packages of pre-designed templates that users can take and customize to their needs and brand requirements using little to no code.  It also supports extensions that allow applications to add companion apps, real-time analytics, over-the-air updates, and more. The company also noted that Qt Accelerate was built with quality assurance in mind and was designed to comply with the requirements of the Cyber Resilience Act.  “Qt Accelerate is about empowering creators to turn ideas into innovative products in days, no matter the time or resource constraints,” said Petteri Holländer, senior vice president of Qt Ventures at Qt Group. “Sometimes you ne...

Companies are planning to invest more heavily in AI skills and security governance, risk, and compliance initiatives this upcoming year, according to new research from O’Reilly. The company’s Technology Trends for 2025 report analyzed data from 2.8 million users on its learning platform. The research shows significant increases in interest in various AI skills, including prompt engineering with a 456% increase, AI principles with a 386% increase, and generative AI with a 289% increase. O’Reilly also noted that there was a 471% increase in interest in content about GitHub Copilot. Some AI topics experienced a decrease in interest, however. GPT saw a 13% drop in usage and a downward trend in searches. According to O’Reilly, this may indicate that “developers are prioritizing foundational AI knowledge over platform-specific skills to effectively navigate across various AI models such as Claude, Google’s Gemini, and Llama.” Security also saw increased interest, with interest in govern...

Continuous Integration/Continuous Delivery (CI/CD) software – meaning solutions that teams use to build, test and deploy applications – has come a long way over the past decade. Whereas organizations once cobbled together CI/CD pipelines using disparate open source tools, they now have a plethora of end-to-end, vendor-supported enterprise CI/CD platforms that they can use instead. Because these solutions offer everything teams need to deliver software, they are simpler to deploy and manage. Yet, while there are clear benefits to adopting an enterprise CI/CD platform, migrating to one can be difficult. It poses a number of challenges, such as the risk of CI/CD pipeline downtime and security and compliance challenges. That’s why businesses migrating to newer CI/CD solutions should approach the process with a detailed, step-by-step plan. Here’s a look at the challenges to navigate, along with tips on how to make CI/CD migration as smooth as possible. To ground the discussion, I’ll focu...

AI has the potential to speed up the software development process, but is it possible that it’s adding additional time to the process when it comes to the long-term maintenance of that code?  In a recent episode of the podcast, What the Dev?, we spoke with Tanner Burson, vice president of engineering at Prismatic, to get his thoughts on the matter. Here is an edited and abridged version of that conversation: You had written that 2025, is going to be the year organizations grapple with maintaining and expanding their AI co-created systems, exposing the limits of their understanding and the gap between development ease and long term sustainability. The notion of AI possibly destabilizing the modern development pipeline caught my eye. Can you dive into that a little bit and explain what you mean by that and what developers should be wary of? I don’t think it’s any secret or surprise that generative AI and LLMs have changed the way a lot of people are approaching software develo...

Artificial intelligence is very effective at answering questions, based on the data upon which it was trained. It is, however, still quite limited in what it can do. For instance, you could ask AI to book a flight reservation to Paris, with a seat in economy plus, and to give you an itinerary once you arrive. AI will list out all the steps to get those things done, but cannot yet of itself carry out those steps. This is where cognitive computing comes in, with the ability to mimic human-like behavior. Cognitive computing is not a new term or practice, having been coined in the 2010s, but the advances in technology since then have moved it to the foreground. These platforms bring together such things as AI and ML as well as speech and object recognition and natural language processing. “You can start to stitch the natural language understanding that these [AI] models bring to the table with the traditional programming that we are able to carry out workflows and actions based on those...

A number of companies have announced major changes to their executive leadership last month. Here are a couple of the moves across the industry this past month. Intel names two interim co-CEOs after ousting of Pat Gelsinger It was reported that Intel’s board was unhappy with the results Gelsinger was bringing for the company, such as an inability to compete with NVIDIA.  David Zinsner and Michelle (MJ) Johnston Holthaus have been brought in as co-CEOs in the meantime while a permanent replacement is founded.  Both were already leaders in the company, with Zinsner as executive vice president and CFO and Holthaus as executive vice president and general manager of the Client Computing Group.  Frank Yeary will step in as interim executive chair of the board during the transition period. The board has already formed a search committee to find a successor.  GitLab appoints Bill Staples as CEO Staples will replace Sid Sijbrandij, who also co-founded the company in ...

High-quality data is the key to a successful AI project, but it appears that many IT leaders aren’t taking the necessary steps to ensure data quality. This is according to a new report from Hitachi Vantara, the State of Data Infrastructure Survey , which includes responses from 1,200 IT decision makers from 15 countries.  The report found that 37% of respondents said that data was their top concern, with 41% of U.S. respondents agreeing that “‘using high-quality data’ was the most common reason provided for why AI projects were successful both in the U.S. and globally.” Hitachi Vantara also predicts that the amount of storage needed for data will increase by 122% by 2026, indicating that storing, managing, and tagging data is becoming more difficult.  Challenges are already presenting themselves, and 38% of respondents say data is available to them the majority of the time. Only 33% said that the majority of their AI outputs are accurate 80% said that the majority of their...

Platform engineering involves creating and managing a set of tools, services, and processes that enable developers to focus on building applications without worrying about the underlying infrastructure. The specific definition of a platform can vary depending on the needs and goals of an organization. The Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF) has played a significant role in shaping the platform engineering landscape. The CNCF ecosystem offers a wide range of tools and projects, including Kubernetes, Prometheus, Envoy, and many more. However, the complexity of the CNCF landscape can make it challenging for teams to select the right tools and build a cohesive platform. An opinionated platform approach involves making deliberate choices about the tools and technologies to be used, providing a more streamlined and predictable experience for developers. By adopting an opinionated platform, organizations can reduce complexity, improve consistency, and accelerate development cycles. Th...

The concept of “shift left” is fundamentally sound. Integrating security earlier into the software development life cycle (SDLC) seems like the obvious move. Instead of leaving security as an afterthought, why not address it before it becomes a problem? It sounds ideal: Faster remediation, fewer vulnerabilities slipping through the cracks, and developers becoming security heroes. Hooray! However, despite the appeal, shift left hasn’t quite lived up to its promise. The intention is clear, but the execution leaves much to be desired. While our industry has tried to move security earlier in the process, the way it has been done isn’t working for developers. I’ve experienced this firsthand, and I believe there’s a better way to fulfill the original promise of shift left. Where Shift Left Falls Short The whole premise of shift left is to put security into the hands of developers, empowering us to manage the risks associated with the code we write. In theory, this decentralizes security,...

While it’s often said that “time is money” when it comes to business, that phrase is now applicable to software development. Staying competitive in today’s world means staying current. Whether large or small, organizations need the ability to respond quickly to changing marketing conditions, business needs, security requirements, and more. And they can’t do that with a software development and deployment infrastructure that is slow to respond. At the same time, many organizations are adopting multiple cloud environments as well as edge use cases which create a more complex management requirement. This is making it harder than ever to streamline application development and deployment. Choices for software development, deployment, management, optimization and security tools have never been broader, and technology workers are dispersed across the globe. In short, modern operating patterns require teams to support an increasingly complex technology landscape across clouds – all of which ...

As we do every year, we’ve heard from folks around the software development industry who share their thoughts on which areas will thrive and which might not survive in 2025 and beyond. Here are some of their predictions for next year. Derek Holt, CEO of Digital.ai While Value Stream Management continued to lose steam in 2024, we also saw the fast emergence of Software Engineering Intelligence (SEI) to take its place. SEI will have a breakout year in 2025 as more and more businesses realize they need to measure the end-to-end business process of software development and delivery in order to drive continuous improvement, truly deliver improved developer experiences and ultimately realize the potential gains for an AI-powered Software Development and Delivery capabilities. SEI is the key to each.      Emily Nakashima, VP of engineering at Honeycomb While the current AI hype shows no signs of slowing, so much of the focus in 2024 was on AI code authorship rather than co...