Developers

Microsoft has opened up its Contacts application programming interface for the Windows Live platform, which will allow third-party developers to build applications that transfer and share contact information across various social networks. The move -- part of a larger strategy to adopt an open API s...

Google, Yahoo and MySpace are forming the nonprofit OpenSocial Foundation to support Google's OpenSocial platform, which allows developers to build software that can run on different social networks. The companies want to "ensure the neutrality and longevity of OpenSocial as an open, community-gover...

Have you seen that movie "Groundhog Day?" You probably have, but on the off chance that you missed it, it's the movie where Bill Murray's character -- who's kind of a jerk -- wakes up every morning to find that it's the same day over and over again. He's forced to relive the same day repeatedly, an...

Laying the groundwork for their continued business health, Intel and Microsoft have coughed up $20 million to fund research into desktop and mobile parallel computing for consumers and businesses. The money, to be paid out over the next five years, will be split evenly between new research centers a...

YouTube has opened up its application programming interfaces to the world. This will let developers build what amounts to their own mini-YouTubes on their Web sites, blogs or Wikis. "We now support upload, other write operations and internationalized standard feeds," wrote Stephanie Liu of the YouTu...

Microsoft has released Internet Explorer 8 beta 1, four months ahead of schedule. The browser is aimed at developers, the software giant said, but anyone can download the beta from its sites. It was originally scheduled to be released in June. Microsoft announced the release at its annual Mix 08 con...

EXPERT ADVICE

What Are All Those Logs Trying to Tell You?

Gaining more insights early and often into what vast arrays of servers, routers and software stacks are actually doing has long been on top of the IT wish list. Traditional IT management approaches force the trade-off between depth and comprehensive reach, meaning you can't get the full, integrated ...

Last December, Microsoft's Windows Internet Explorer group announced that Internet Explorer 8, the next iteration of its Web browser, would be standards compliant, interoperable and backward compatible when it's released in the second half of 2008. The group announced that IE8 has rendered correctly...

Continuing its departure from a largely hardware-focused history, Siemens Communications on Monday announced a new software-only unified communications server. The OpenScape Unified Communications Server can operate in virtually any existing IT or telephony environment, Siemens said, and is designed...

The function of IT is to support business, and every IT decision must be business-driven. So, what kind of business benefits can virtualization provide? It can increase server utilization; help cut costs; let users leverage the multi-core processors common in data centers; give applications mobility...

Adobe Systems on Monday released Adobe Integrated Runtime, a software tool that allows users to seamlessly interact with interactive content even when they aren't connected to the Internet. Adobe Air's runtime environment allows developers with access to API kits from companies to create customized ...

OPINION

Can HP Succeed Where IBM Failed?

Last week, HP turned in a financial report that seemed to provide a strong counterpoint to the view that the world was heading into a recession, or at least that tech was going to be sacrificed to that recession. However, this took me back to IBM and what stopped its turnaround in the '90s and wheth...

Microsoft will soon launch its Xbox Live Community Arcade service, which will allow anyone to create -- and distribute -- console games for the Xbox system. The move, announced at the Game Developers Conference, opens the doors for aspiring game creators to compete with big-name studios. To particip...

Microsoft on Monday announced a new student program Monday dubbed "DreamSpark." The new program will give college and high school students around the world access to the software giant's development applications at no charge. DreamSpark is now available to millions of college students in Belgium, Ch...

Androids March on Barcelona

Google's Android mobile phone platform has started to see the light of day. A handful of handset makers have been showing prototype mobile phones running Android at the GSMA Mobile World Congress show in Barcelona, Spain, this week. Android is heavily backed by Google, though it's actually being dev...

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