programming

Native Client has taken only baby steps in its first three years of existence, but Google evidently is hoping its browser-boosting technology will take larger strides soon.

The company has sent out invitations to a Native Client event on the evening of December 8 at Google's Mountain View, Calif., offices, where "we plan to share some news about Native Client," show some demos, and share some wine.

Native Client, aka NaCl, lets Web-based software run natively on x86 processors--and therefore run more quickly than traditional Web apps. That's what Office and Photoshop do, too, of course, … Read more

Angle, a Google graphics project for Windows computers, has passed an important certification milestone that could improve some browsers' graphics.

Google launched Angle in March 2010 as a way to help the fortunes of WebGL, the nascent 3D graphics technology for browsers. And yesterday, Google programmer Vangelis Kokkevis announced Angle has been certified to pass the OpenGL 2.0 certification test suite.

WebGL provides a low-level graphics interface that mirrors the OpenGL standard used on Mac OS X, Linux, iOS, and Android, but that's still a second-class citizen on many Windows machines. Windows comes with Microsoft's rival standard … Read more

Running a newly released version of Windows or Mac OS X on a 3-year-old personal computer is an unremarkable feat.

But it's a lot more difficult in the smartphone world, where hardware and software have been changing at a breakneck pace. That's why I recommend watching this brief demonstration of Ice Cream Sandwich, aka Android 4.0, on the first-generation Android phone, the T-Mobile G1 from October 2008.

XDA Developers forum member jcarrz1 posted the video and an alpha version of his OS build yesterday, nine days after Google released the Ice Cream Sandwich source code.

As you may expect, the new OS drags on the comparatively ancient hardware, with slow app launches and long lags between a touch action and the phone's response. But all the ICS apps work.

What doesn't work at this stage, jcarrz1 said: Wi-Fi networking, Bluetooth, and screen rotation. … Read more

Google hopes to better the Web with Dart, but Microsoft has declared itself an opponent of the programming language rather than a potentially valuable ally.

Google hopes Dart will address shortcomings in JavaScript, the programming language that endows Web sites with some brains. In a blog post yesterday, though, Microsoft said that improving JavaScript is the way to go.

Five members of Microsoft's JavaScript team said the Dart sales pitch argues "JavaScript has fundamental flaws, and to support these scenarios requires a 'clean break' from JavaScript...We disagree with this point of view."

Dart got off to a rough start, … Read more

In recent years, a software project called jQuery has spread far and wide across the Web, bringing sophisticated user interface features and easing the difficulties of working with multiple browsers.

Now the first version of the software has arrived for the mobile Web, with the release of jQuery Mobile 1.0. The software is prebuilt code to help programmers create Web sites--and even packaged Web apps--using standards such as HTML, JavaScript, and CSS.

The software, whose premier sponsor is Adobe Systems, smooths over differences among many mobile browsers it supports, including those of iOS, Android, Windows Phone, and BlackBerry, as … Read more

Google has released a plug-in that lets Flash Pro users convert Flash's SWF files into HTML code directly from the Adobe Systems developer tool.

The plug-in links to the Swiffy service Google operates to convert Flash to Web standards including HTML (Hypertext Markup Language), SVG (Scalable Vector Graphics), and CSS (Cascading Style Sheets). Those Web standards let people see the content in a browser without relying on Adobe's Flash Player plug-in.

"The extension enables you to convert your animation to HTML5 with one click," said Esteban de la Canal, a Google programmer, in a blog post … Read more

The Khronos Group announced version 1.2 of OpenCL today, an update that gives programmers tighter control over how they run software on graphics chips.

OpenCL is a standard interface that makes it easier for programmers to tap into the "GPGPU" idea--general-purpose graphical processing unit, which runs software such as game physics engines on a computing device's graphics hardware rather than on its central processing unit (CPU). With OpenCL, or with another technology such as Microsoft's rival DirectCompute, a programmer can use a GPGPU approach without having to worry about the particulars of individual graphics chips. … Read more

If you want to have a say in the design of Go, Google's lower-level programming language, you'd better act fast.

That's because Google plans to finalize the language in coming months and bake it into its Google App Engine service. The company released Go along with programming tools and other open-source assets almost exactly two years ago.

"The plan is to launch Go 1 in early 2012. We hope to bring the Go App Engine runtime out of 'experimental' status at the same time," said Andrew Gerrand, Google's Go developer advocate, in a blog post … Read more

Apple has begun a new replacement program for some of its first-generation iPod Nano units, which, the company says, contain batteries that can overheat.

In an e-mail sent yesterday to owners of first-generation Nanos, Apple said the batteries in Nanos sold between September 2005 and December 2006 could "overheat and pose a safety risk."

In its note, Apple said the issue can be tracked back to a particular battery supplier, and that the potential for such overheating behavior "increases as the battery ages."

The new program offers a free replacement unit to customers whose device carries … Read more