Developer tools

PicPlz, a photo-sharing start-up, has released a programming interface that lets applications tap into its tools for uploading and applying artistic filters to images.

"We think that allowing developers access to our upload and filter pipeline brings something different to the table than "just another photo-sharing API,'" the company said in a blog post yesterday. "We're pleased to announce that in the past 2 weeks we've had well over 100 developers apply to be part of our API (far exceeding our expectations)."

Opening an API lets programmers tap into the abilities of a … Read more

AT&T has officially opened its first Foundry facility aimed at increasing innovation in the mobile market. One of three such planned facilities around the globe, this one is in Plano, Texas, the company announced today.

The center will facilitate the company and mobile developers working together to "speed the pace of innovation to consumers and enterprises," the carrier said. The center is opening with expected development in rich media, HTML5, and location-based applications, among other areas.

Ultimately, AT&T's goal with its innovation centers is to get projects that might improve the use of … Read more

There was a day when exploring that famed fractal, the Mandelbrot set, took a supercomputer. Now Google has created a Web application that--while not the highest-performing or most subtly-shaded rendering of this surreal mathematical landscape--shows the browser can now outdo the supercomputers of yore.

The Julia Map project uses a newer Web standard called Web Workers that lets the browser perform background processing tasks in parallel with the more ordinary user-interface chore in the forefront of a browser's thoughts, so to speak.

The Mandelbrot set is a close relative of another fractal called the Julia set; Google's application … Read more

Facebook has released a benchmark designed to help developers test just how powerful desktop and mobile browsers are at running a new generation of games built with a new generation of Web standards.

One of the most important of those standards is the JavaScript programming language, which is ubiquitous on the Web and ever faster in browsers. Enter Facebook's JSGameBench, designed specifically for measuring game issues such as displaying "sprites," the graphics out of which animated characters are made.

"Although there are many other benchmark suites that measure JavaScript performance, we wanted to build one focused … Read more

The Khronos Group today released updates to two interfaces designed to make it easier for programmers to tap into the power of computing hardware.

First is OpenSL ES 1.1, an interface for C programmers to use sound hardware on mobile devices. The interface abstracts technologies such as graphic equalizer processing, reverberation or 3D spatial Doppler effects, playback and volume controls, and audio data recording.

The purpose of the interface is to liberate programmers from having to recraft their applications each time a new device arrives with a different, often proprietary interface. Khronos released profiles tailored for phones, music players, … Read more

BALI--Research In Motion is looking to harness the best of today's Web technologies including HTML5 and JavaScript, to bridge the gap between development efforts for its BlackBerry smartphones and the soon-to-be-released PlayBook tablet.

Tyler Lessard, vice president of global alliances and developer relations at RIM, said the Canadian smartphone manufacturer is intent on bringing the "Web to mobile" by incorporating existing Web technologies into its WebWorks SDK for Tablet OS.

Released today, the beta version of the software development kit will give Web and mobile developers skilled in HTML5, JavaScript, and CSS the tools to create apps … Read more

The ninth beta version of Firefox, due imminently, is set to get support for a standard called IndexedDB that provides a database interface useful for offline data storage and other tasks needing information on a browser's computer.

"IndexedDB allows Web apps to store large amounts of data on your local system (with your explicit permission, of course) for fast offline retrieval at a later time. We're hoping that Web mail, TV listings, and online purchase history will one day be as convenient to access offline as they are online," Ben Turner, who develops IndexedDB for Mozilla'… Read more

Choosing strategies based on what you believe to be long-term benefits is generally a good idea when running a business, but if you manage to alienate the world in the process, the long term may become irrelevant.

It was hard to miss the response that accompanied Google's announcement earlier this week that it no longer planned to support the H.264 codec for the HTML5 video tag in its Chrome browser in order to focus on the WebM technology. Depending on what you read, Google is either evil, brilliant, hypocritical, cunning, principled, or confused in dropping support for H.264, … Read more

Google just fired a broadside in the Web's codec wars.

With its alternative WebM video-encoding technology now entering the marketplace, Google announced plans today to remove built-in Chrome support for a widely used rival codec called H.264 favored by Apple and Microsoft. The move places Google instead firmly in the camp of browser makers Mozilla and Opera, who ardently desire basic Web technologies to be unencumbered by patent restrictions.

"Though H.264 plays an important role in video, as our goal is to enable open innovation, support for the codec will be removed and our resources directed … Read more