The Insider News

Robot Square[^]:

The main difference between the NXT system (the Programmable brick, motors and sensors) and the EV3 system is the brick itself. The EV3 brick features a more powerful processor, 4 motor ports (instead of 3), a micro SD card slot, a USB host port and a Linux operating system. In addition, it has a slightly larger screen, more buttons, and it is possible to control the EV3 brick using both iOS and Android devices, as opposed to Android only for the NXT.

fogus[^]:

I’ve been programming for quite some time and have explored a variety of programming paradigms along the way. From time to time people will ask1 which is better: functional programming or object-oriented programming. Having done both extensively in my time I can exclaim a resounding: it depends.

Milano R net[^]:

Many people still save their data into Microsoft Excel files. This is an unhappy choice for many reasons but many was already written about this topic. Furthermore, unfortunately Excel become a de facto standard in many business environment and this routine seems to be difficult to strike out. Many solutions have been implemented to read Excel files from R: each one has advantages and disadvantages, so an universal solution is not available. Get an overview of all the solutions.

garysieling.com[^]:

“Natural Language Processing with Python”... has lots of motivating examples for natural language processing, focused on NLTK, which among other things, does a nice job of collecting NLP datasets and algorithms into one library. Let’s take one of Shakespeare’s sonnets and see if we can recommend alternate rhymes.

Regex Crossword[^]:

Regex Crossword is a game similar to sudoku or the traditional crossword puzzle, where you must guess the correct letters in the horizontal and vertical lines of a grid. In Regex Crossword you are not given a word to guess, but a pattern that tells you which letters are allowed.

Diary Of A Ninja[^]:

When maintaining applications built in ways that make unit testing them high friction, difficult or down right impossible, we often turn to integration tests or no tests at all. Poking around the outside of your logic to see that the outcomes our code produces is often fiddly, brittle and in most cases so time consuming it just doesn’t happen. Lucky for us all, if there has been a case in the past where we’ve been unable to test part of our business logic, Visual Studio 2012 Update 2 is here to offer an answer to your prayers...

Quartz[^]:

Here’s what’s holding back 3D printing, the technology that’s supposed to revolutionize manufacturing and countless other industries: patents. In February 2014, key patents that currently prevent competition in the market for the most advanced and functional 3D printers will expire... These patents cover a technology known as “laser sintering,” the lowest-cost 3D printing technology. Because of its high resolution in all three dimensions, laser sintering can produce goods that can be sold as finished products.

TechHive[^]:

Sometimes you just want to get away from it all—to escape the din of a busy office, or the roar of a plane, and enjoy your favorite album or podcast. Or maybe you just want the world around you to be a little quieter so you can concentrate or relax. Noise-canceling headphones aim to provide just such an aural refuge. I took a look at five models marketed as premium noise-canceling solutions to see if they live up to their hype (and price tags).

eclipse.org[^]:

In short, Orion is a set of components that together provide the server and client side code that make up an extensible browser based development platform. The components differ from many other Eclipse projects primarily because they’re written in JavaScript, CSS, HTML5 and target modern browsers such as Firefox, Chrome, Safari and IE10. This is the initial target for Orion, web developers.

iMore.com[^]:

London-based security researcher Ibrahim Balic has come forward, claiming he may be the one behind Apple's recent security threat. Following Apple's statement to developers earlier regarding a security threat to the developer portal, Balic posted a comment on TechCrunch's report of the story trying to set the record straight that no harm was ever intended. In the post, Balic explains that he uncovered 13 bugs while researching Apple's security, and reported them all through Apple's bug reporting site.

The Saint[^]:

My principal memory from that period was a meeting in which I, as the resident 3D expert on the DirectX team, was asked to choose a handedness for the Direct3D API. I chose a left handed coordinate system, in part out of personal preference. I remember it now only because it was an arbitrary choice that caused no end of grief for years afterwards as all other graphics authoring tools adopted the right handed coordinate system standard to OpenGL.

Pete Brown's 10rem.net[^]:

Like many of you, I spend the majority of my day on a desktop PC. My PC happens to have two 30" displays, neither of which is touch, and a Logitech Touch Pad that has some basic gesture recognition.... In the course of regular usage, I've found a bunch of desktop features which make huge difference in the usability of Windows 8.1, but which aren't talked about a lot. So here are the little things that matter. This isn't a rah-rah post, just things that *I* personally found useful as a long-time user of Windows (since Windows 3.0, in case anyone is counting).

Elegant Code[^]:

A while ago, I was thinking about which programming language I wanted to learn next. At first I was doubting between Scala, Ruby or perhaps Clojure. But I couldn’t really make up my mind. So I decided to pick up Seven Languages in Seven Weeks. This way I was able to take a small bite from a couple different cakes in order to decide which flavor I liked the most.

Robotron 2084 Guidebook[^]:

After reading the Edge article on the Making of Berzerk, you’ll learn from Mr. McNeil that the game went through 2 earlier phases before acquiring Mazes. "I figured I’d need barriers between the robots and the human. So I started looking at maze generators, and devised a super-simple scheme...."

TechHive[^]:

Scientists often talk about creating artificial intelligence, but how "intelligent" are these systems really? Researchers at the University of Illinois at Chicago came up with an answer after giving one of the top artificial intelligence (AI) systems an IQ test. The system, ConceptNet 4, was built at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and was determined to be about as smart as the average 4-year-old.

AllThingsD[^]:

Apple’s developer site was accessed by “an intruder” last Thursday, the company has disclosed, and Apple has not ruled out the possibility that developers’ names, mailing addresses, and/or email addresses were compromised.... Before it reopens the developer site, Apple is “completely overhauling our developer systems, updating our server software, and rebuilding our entire database,” the email said.

Ars Technica[^]:

An otherwise healthy earnings statement from Microsoft was overshadowed by a substantial $900 million charge attributed to "Surface RT inventory adjustments." The ARM-powered tablet, Microsoft's first foray into selling computers, recently had its price cut by $150 to $349 amid long-standing reports of poor sales. With this $900 million charge, those poor sales and price cuts are hitting Microsoft's bottom line.

Monday Note[^]:

The Microsoft surprise... has infused the discussions of the company’s future, what Ballmer will do with his new organization now that the Redmond Giant (finally!) seems to be aware that it’s playing catch up in a Post-PC era. As luck would have it, I got a draft of Ballmer’s memo to a small group of Microsoft execs. I can’t vouch for its authenticity — it was “regifted” through a series of contacts, friends and foes of old OS wars — but I hope you’ll find it interesting.