New Platform Allows Controlling Personal Data

Last week at the conference Web 2.0 developers presented the new platform Singly 1.0 that will allow users to control where and how to use their data. Singly lets users collect the information published about them on the Internet and choose the data that can be used by third parties. Singly 1.0, introduced in the framework of the Locker Project, is an open source platform and is financed by the WordPress general director Toni Schneider and the Best Buy technical director John Battelle.

It should be noted that Singly and Locker Project are Jeremy Miller’s developments who is the developer of the XMPP protocol used practically in all instant message exchange programs based on XML. Jeremy Miller started working on the Locker project in February. According to Battelle, the aim of these developments was to provide users with a possibility to control confidential information.

The release of Singly 1.0 will allow software development companies a possibility to create applications with the help of which it will be possible to search, sort and provide users’ contact data as well as the links used by users online. Moreover, the applications developed on the Singly platform will allow searching by the content of the links, sent to the users subscribed to some account in social services.

In future, software developers are planning to expand the functions of the new platform and let is gather financial information and data about the users’ state of health.

Microsoft Roslyn: New Type of Compilers

Microsoft has presented an interesting project named Roslyn. Within the framework of this project, all the concept of compilers and compilable programming languages itself has been reconsidered. Apart from the realization of completely new functions, such as .NET-tools, C#, Visual Basic and the Visual Studio development environment, the Roslyn project offers the completely new concept ‘compiler as a service’, laying a road to the .NET platform to the most promising area – into clouds.

Once Microsoft gave many professional software developers the hope for well-off and predictable future, having moved the development of its own and third party technologies on the .NET development platform. So far, the Visual Studio development environment and the .NET platform are the most popular and convenient development tools, having adopted the best features of java technologies and having made some important steps ahead. When Microsoft presented the new development tools for writing apps with the help of JavaScript and HTML5, many software development companies started to worry that the .Net development had been folded up. However, the reality has exceeded all expectations – the presented project Roslyn has proved that the .NET platform has exciting future.

The Roslyn technology can be described as ‘compilation by request through the providing service’, although this description is a bit complicated. Technically, the new technology is not a service in comparison with such cloud solutions as SaaS (Software-as-a-Service) or PaaS (Platform-as-a-Service). The Roslyn technology is more similar to the Windows system services that offer completely new principles of compiling .NET applications – each phase of compilation is presented in the form of service that can be requested by other applications.

Usual compilers throw away all intermediate data while getting ready-made files and in Roslyn compilers all intermediate data is available via standard .NET API-interfaces. For example, the request to one single API will retrieve the whole syntax tree for the given code fragment in the form of an object. The request to another API can return the number of methods in code.

So far, one can’t predict how soon the Roslyn technology will find its place among standard development tools  – now only the trial version for C# and Visual Basic is available.

Apple Launched iCloud.com

Nowadays software development services have received another one. Starting the launch of the iOS 5 platform and the iCloud service deeply integrated into it, Apple set up a special website iCloud.com. Now users can enter the new iCloud.com and create an iCloud account using their own Apple ID, the identifier used for purchasing in the Apple App Store.
After entering the system, the user will be offered to choose a language and a time zone, then they will have to choose from five options. A user can check its mail, view his contacts, calendars, use the function «Find My iPhone» and get the access to the web version of iWork.

With starting iCloud, the documents from the Apple iWork application for iOS (page layouts, tables, presentations) will be stored online and will be constantly updated. Thanks to this, users will be able to get access to the latest versions of documents irrespective of the device they are using at the moment.

The iCloud service will replace its predecessor MobileMe. In comparison with MobileMe, the usage of iCloud will be free for all iOS 5 and Mac OS X 10.7 Lion users who will be offered 5 5GB of free ‘cloud space’ (additional space is paid).

Software developers have been testing iCloud together with the apps for iOS 5 and Lion for the last several months. At present iCloud is available for wide usage.

The debut of iCloud took place simultaneously with the release of the iOS 5, however, iCloud started functioning a few hours earlier. The new operation system iOS 5 is available for downloading for iPhone, iPad and iPod touch users.

Dart: New Programming Language from Google

Recently the Internet has been buzzing on the news that Google is going to present the new programming language Dart in October. Google is developing Dart as an alternative to Javascript. In general, software developers agree that Javascript programming language has a number of ‘fundamental’ drawbacks which can’t be corrected by means of evolutionary development.

There are two solutions to the problem. The first one is to correct, if possible, the drawbacks of Javacript (Harmony project). The second variant is creating the new programming language Dart which will keep the dynamic nature of Javascript but will ensure better productivity and will be suitable for applying in big projects. At that, Google will provide the language openness and will contribute to its support by other browsers. Moreover, IT development companies will get a cross- compiler so as the Dart code can be transformed to Javascript for browsers which don’t support Dart natively.

Dart is developed with due account for three main goals: productivity, convenience, and code editors and additional tools support. Dart will also have to provide maximum security where this task isn’t in conflict with the three main goals.

The author of the new programming language is the famous programmer Lars Bak and his software development team. The additional sets of tools are being developed by Bruce Johnson’s team in Atlanta and the support of the Web Inspector level for Dart and Harmony is carried out by Pavel Feldman and his developers from the Google office in St. Petersburg.

Windows 8 Opens Its Own Application Store

In the MSDN blog Steven Sinofsky, President of Microsoft Windows Department, announced the list of software development companies employed for  developing the Windows 8 platform.

Apart from the teams, Steven Sinofsky mentions the App Store. The users have made a conclusion that Windows 8 will have the integrated tools for accessing the online application store.

Unfortunately, no details about the App Store service have been informed. But it is likely to be similar to the Apple Mac App Store service that offers a wide choice of various free and paid applications for Mac OS-based computers.

The preliminary version of Windows 8 will be released for software developers and testers in the nearest future. According to Mr. Sinofsky, the given software platform will let rethought Windows for the new generation of computing devices. Using this OS will be possible on x86-compatible computers and gadgets based on the processors with ARM architecture, in particular on tablets.

The final version of Windows 8 will be released in 2012.

Twitter Launches New Portal for Developers

The microblogging service is preparing a new special site for software developers developing third-party applications.  According to the representatives of the company, the site will be launched in July.

According to Ryan Sarver, the head of the Twitter platform development, the popular service is going to provide apps developers and their partners with a free access to the information.

The Twitter management expects that with the help of this new site they’ll be able to establish a contact with developers. The site will publish recommendations and tips on software development services. Moreover, the site will have a forum for developers where the microblogging service officials will leave their comments.

As one of the reason for launching a new site is a rapid growth in the number of developers interested in Twitter, connected with the service integration into the mobile platform Apple iOS.

On June 30 Twitter announced that the number of messages sent by users has increased three times for the last year. Every day microbloggers leave 200 mln messages in Twitter.