The Insider News

Source: An OpenNews project[^]:

In our scenario, we are mapping census data to show how similar geographic areas compare to each other in terms of population, income, race, or education level. Before you start writing any code, you’ve got design issues that matter not just to aesthetics, but to the reader’s comprehension of the presentation. So how do you choose color? What colors are the “right ones”? The key is that color is relational. In any composition or layout, a single color does not exist in a vacuum, but is always comprehended in relation to the other colors present.

Victor Yurkovsky[^]:

FPGA technologies had 'leveled the playing field'. A kid can save up $50 to buy a devboard, load up some free software and create a never-before-seen brilliant new CPU design. And implement it, without a million-dollar fab cycle. And it will run at clock speeds of at least tens of MHz. So where are all the new brilliant CPU designs, from kids or grownups? Where are the original ideas and breakthroughs? Sure there are some improvements such as clever cache designs, branch prediction, out-of-order code execution. But most processors we see today are pretty much ripped from the pages of dusty old computer architecture books. I've been trying to find something new and exciting for a while. When I feel particularly clever I sit down with a clean FPGA and try to write 'The Great American Processor' (TGAP). It is a humbling experience, and I strongly suggest it to all of you, for those times you feel especially clever.

kellabyte[^]:

Regardless of programming language, if you’re doing a lot of CPU intensive tasks the more you can consider how the CPU and it’s memory operate the better performance you will get. Depending on language you may or may not have access to certain optimizations like SIMD (JVM and CLR don’t support the 15 year old instructions yet) but there are still a lot of decisions that can make a big difference especially when it comes to memory. Consider these numbers as you make your decisions.

The Verge[^]:

Stardock, creators of start menu replacement Start8, is introducing its latest Windows 8 app today: ModernMix. Windows 8's Metro environment, or however you refer to it, has been the source of focus for Microsoft and also a source of criticism around the way you interact with it. Unlike typical Windows apps, ones built to run in the Windows 8-style environment are designed to run fullscreen or as a snapped application to the side, but there's no other options for windowing. ModernMix aims to change this.

TechCrunch[^]:

I spent the day with the founding members of the Street View team to learn about how it went from a gimmick in someone’s mind to a utility that we use without thinking, and in some cases, wouldn’t want to live without. Starting out as a camera strapped to Page’s car, Street View technology has been added to vans, cars, tripods, backpacks, bikes and even a snow mobile. It has become the eyes of all of Google’s vision for how we view the world after launching on May 25, 2007. While the product has had its fair share of controversy, Google has forged ahead.

campaul [dot] net[^]:

Now it’s five years later and things aren’t so great. More than ever I’m having issues with general slowness in the browser. Memory usage is off the charts and I frequently have tabs become completely unresponsive. Moreover there seems to be a general lack of QA these days. The “disable cache” checkbox in the developer tools seems to do nothing and JavaScript errors occasionally disappear into the void instead of logging to the console. Chrome is starting to feel a lot like Firefox did in 2008.

SFGate[^]:

"Technology innovation in this country is somewhere between dire straits and dead," said the PayPal co-founder, later adding: "The solution is actually very simple: You have to aim almost ridiculously high." Late last month, Levchin began his latest venture, Affirm, which lets consumers buy things online using their Facebook profile. That follows his previous business, Slide, a photo-sharing service that also allowed people to take care of their virtual "SuperPoke! Pets." Neither, it's fair to say, is exactly the moon shot of our age.