Software-Programming

When Apple announced the iPhone 4S on October 4, 2011, the headlines were not about its speedy A5 chip or improved camera. Instead they focused on an unusual new feature: an intelligent assistant, dubbed Siri. At first Siri, endowed with a female voice, seemed almost human in the way she understood what you said to her and responded, an advance in artificial intelligence that seemed to place us on a fast track to the Singularity.

Initial enthusiasm for Apple's newly introduced Swift language appears to have died down somewhat, based on two monthly programming language popularity indexes.

For the longest time, Microsoft had something of a poor reputation as a software developer. The issue wasn't so much the quality of the company's software but the way it was developed and delivered. The company's traditional model involved cranking out a new major version of Office, Windows, SQL Server, Exchange, and so on every three or so years.

An open-source project has released the first free application for the iPhone that scrambles voice calls, which would thwart government surveillance or eavesdropping by hackers.

Signal comes from Open Whisper Systems, which developed RedPhone and TextSecure, both Android applications that encrypt calls and text messages.

On July 22, Mozilla officially released the stable version for Firefox 31 for all supported platforms, integrating 11 security fixes, three of them being marked as critical.

One of the major vulnerabilities corrected would allow exploitation of a WebGL crash with Cesium JavaScript library. Details about this glitch are not available at the moment, but Mozilla notes that it cannot be leveraged through email in the Thunderbird client because scripting is disabled.

Mozilla's Firefox OS continues its slow march across the globe, with carriers set to begin shipping devices running the open source, browser-based smartphone platform in additional developed markets this week.

Spanish telecoms giant Telefónica has previously sold Firefox OS phones in Spain, but the bulk of its efforts have been focused on its subsidiaries in Spanish-speaking emerging markets, including Colombia, Mexico, Peru, Uruguay, and Venezuela.

The comments by a Microsoft engineer regarding the company dropping plans to allow for Xbox One consoles to be used for game development were "inaccurate," a Microsoft spokesperson told Polygon today.

"The comments today were inaccurate. We remain committed to ensuring the best possible solutions for developers and hobbyists to create games for Xbox One. We will share more details at a later date," said the Microsoft representative.

CyanogenMod is the most popular custom ROM for Android devices. While it’s an unofficial build of Android, it probably provides an experience closer to Google’s original vision than the software on your current Android phone or tablet does!

We used CyanogenMod 11 for this article. If it supports your device, it’s easier than ever to install thanks to the CyanogenMod installer app.

Google is steadily increasing Google Glass' cache of apps. The company announced Tuesday that it has made 11 new apps available on the device, including Shazam, Duolingo, Livestream, Runtastic, and more.

A handful of the new Glassware apps are exercise and sports focused, like 94Fifty Basketball, which helps people with their shots; Runtastic, which assists users with fitness goals; Zombies Run, which helps runners keep going; and Goal.com, which lets users keep up to date with the World Cup and other soccer events.

Sometimes things are serendipitous in the tech world. This past Friday, I received a Verizon Samsung Galaxy S5 to review for BetaNews. Yesterday, as part of my testing, I wanted to see how easily I could achieve root access. To my surprise, after many weeks on the market, root was still unachieved by anyone. I even learned that the xda community had raised $18,000 in pledges for whoever could achieve root for both the Verizon and AT&T variants.