The latest news on technology topics, including operating systems, software, security, mobile, storage and Internet, emerging tech, and technology.

- Intro to Tauri: The Electron alternativeby mtyson@edit.com on March 23, 2023 at 9:00 am
Tauri is a cross-platform framework that turns JavaScript or TypeScript code into a native application for virtually any operating system. While it is similar to Electron or React Native, Tauri is able to handle a wide range of front-end technologies. It combines with the front end to derive a native application for the required operating system.Architecturally, Tauri runs the front-end application code alongside a Tauri process that generates the native application in parallel. As a result, you can develop the native application in tandem with the web application, and you can incorporate Rust calls in the native application to access operating system capability. This is a hybrid process and gives Tauri much of its power; the development process remains exactly the same no matter which stack you use. Tauri just decorates the existing process.To read this article in full, please click here
- How to work with EF Core migrations in ASP.NET Coreon March 23, 2023 at 9:00 am
An object-database mapper for .NET Core, Entity Framework Core is the open-source, cross-platform counterpart of the Entity Framework ORM (object-relational mapper) for .NET. Among the notable features of EF Core is the ability to carry out migrations to update your database schemas and ensure they are kept in sync with the data models of your applications.In this article, we will delve into the rudiments of using EF Core migrations in ASP.NET Core 7 applications. To use the code examples provided in this article, you should have Visual Studio 2022 installed in your system. If you don’t already have a copy, you can download Visual Studio 2022 here.To read this article in full, please click here
- Visual Studio Code 1.76 shines on usability, pytestby paul_krill@idg.com on March 22, 2023 at 9:00 pm
Microsoft has released Visual Studio Code 1.76, the latest monthly release of its open source programming editor. The upgrade, also known as the February 2023 release, brings usability enhancements to profiles and remote development and improves IntelliSense support for the pytest test framework within the Pylance extension.Profiles were stabilized in VS Code 1.75 last month. With VS Code 1.76, the editor makes switching between profiles easier and indicates the current custom profile on the Manage Activity bar icon. Profiles support multiple VS Code configurations depending on workflow and the current project. Developers now can switch between profiles with the Profile:Switch Profile command in the Command Pallette. Profiles also can be created that include remote extensions.To read this article in full, please click here
- Splunk adds new security and observability featureson March 22, 2023 at 8:36 pm
Splunk is adding new security and observability features to its Observability Cloud and Mission Control to identify threats and incidents more efficiently.The company’s Observability Cloud, which offers AIops-based infrastructure monitoring, application performance monitoring (APM) and intelligence, will get new features that will help IT operation and development operation teams troubleshoot faster and with increased visibility, to enable a unified approach to incident response, the company said.To read this article in full, please click here
- SAP to add more governance capability for low-code tool Buildon March 22, 2023 at 9:31 am
SAP will soon add new governance feature for applications developed on its low-code and no-code platform Build, a move that analysts say comes late in the game for SAP, as there are already well-established governance tools on the market.The governance feature inside Build will be intended for IT teams to have control over applications developed on its low-code platform as they will be accessed by a lot of other users in the enterprise, said Bharat Sandhu, senior vice president of AI and application development platform at SAP.To read this article in full, please click here
- How to test your B2B startup ideaon March 22, 2023 at 9:00 am
In the time of shedding and cold rocks, many developers branch out and work on their own startup ideas. It is not as crazy as it sounds. If you suddenly have time on your hands, and there are more candidates than open positions while shadowy hedge funds push for more layoffs, you might notice that some household name startups began during the last great recession.To read this article in full, please click here
- How to convert Python to JavaScript (and back again)on March 21, 2023 at 7:00 pm
Python or JavaScript? While we’re still arguing over which has the upper hand or the brighter future, little doubt exists as to which owns the web’s front end. Until WebAssembly advances to the point where we can transparently compile other languages to use in the browser, it’s JavaScript in the browser or nothing.To read this article in full, please click here
- JDK 20: The new features in Java 20by paul_krill@idg.com on March 21, 2023 at 3:00 pm
Java Development Kit (JDK) 20 is now available as a production release from Oracle. The latest upgrade of standard Java, JDK 20 features incubation or preview versions of seven new capabilities including virtual threads and structured concurrency.The seven features officially marked for the release, all of which are either in an incubation or in a preview stage, also include a vector API, scoped values, record patterns, pattern matching for switch statements and expressions, and a foreign function and memory API. [ Also on InfoWorld: 7 reasons Java is still great ] A short-term release supported for six months, JDK 20 follows the September 20 release of JDK 19. JDK 21, due in September, will be a long-term support (LTS) release, backed by multiple years of support. Java 20 can be downloaded from oracle.com.To read this article in full, please click here
- Oracle: Java subscribers can renew under old termsby paul_krill@idg.com on March 21, 2023 at 3:00 pm
Current Oracle Java SE licensees are not required to move to the company’s controversial new Java subscription plan, which charges based on the number of employees rather than the number of actual Java users. Their current Java SE licenses and related support offerings will continue as usual.While the new per-employee licensing, called the Java SE Universal Subscription, is offered to brand new customers, Oracle still has customers running the previous Java SE licenses, which are based on the number of users or processors, Georges Saab, Oracle senior vice president of development, said in an interview last week.To read this article in full, please click here
- How to babysit your AIby Michael Berthold on March 21, 2023 at 9:00 am
Despite the remarkable advancements made in the field of artificial intelligence over the last several decades, time and again the technology has fallen short of delivering on its promise. AI-powered natural language processors can write everything from news articles to novels, but not without racist and discriminatory language. Self-driving cars can navigate without driver input, but can’t eliminate the risk of stupid accidents. AI has personalized online advertising, but misses the context terribly every now and then.To read this article in full, please click here
- Observability will transform cloud securityon March 21, 2023 at 9:00 am
Security observability is the ability to gain visibility into an organization’s security posture, including its ability to detect and respond to security threats and vulnerabilities. It involves collecting, analyzing, and visualizing security data to identify potential hazards and take proactive measures to mitigate them.Security observability involves collecting data from various security tools and systems, including network logs, endpoint security solutions, and security information and event management (SIEM) platforms, and then using this data to gain insights into potential threats. In other words, it tells you what is likely to happen, not just what’s happening already, as with more traditional security operations tools. It’s a significant difference that makes security observability perhaps the most important improvement in cloud security technology that’s come along in recent years. To read this article in full, please click here
- ForgeRock, Secret Double Octopus offer passwordless authentication for enterpriseson March 20, 2023 at 6:45 pm
ForgeRock is adding Enterprise Connect Passwordless to its Identity Platform to provide no-code and low-code approaches for enterprises to add passwordless authentication to their IT infrastructure.
- What’s new in TypeScript 5.0by paul_krill@idg.com on March 20, 2023 at 5:30 pm
TypeScript 5.0, an update to Microsoft’s strongly typed JavaScript variant, is now available as a production release, Microsoft announced March 16. With the upgrade, TypeScript has been rebuilt to use ECMAScript modules. TypeScript 5.0 also modernizes decorators for class customization.ECMAScript modules reduce package size and boost performance. Decorators, an upcoming ECMAScript feature, allow for customizing classes and their members in a reusable way, Microsoft noted in a March 1 blog post.To read this article in full, please click here
- Oracle’s Container Engine for Kubernetes to offer managed virtual nodeson March 20, 2023 at 1:53 pm
Oracle on Monday said it is adding virtual nodes to its managed Kubernetes service, called Oracle Container Engine for Kubernetes (OKE), in an effort to let enterprises run development operations without having to manage any infrastructure.Nodes, which are one of the most fundamental building blocks of Kubernetes, are physical or virtual machines that make up clusters that in turn run Kubernetes and the containers managed by that particular instance of the orchestration system.OKE’s new virtual nodes, which were first announced by the company in October last year, will eliminate the operational overhead of managing, scaling, upgrading, and troubleshooting worker nodes’ infrastructure (servers), said Vijay Kumar, vice president of product marketing, app development services and developer relations at Oracle.To read this article in full, please click here
- Docker’s bad weekon March 20, 2023 at 9:00 am
Docker had a bad week. What’s less clear is whether Docker deserved it.For those who haven’t heard, last week Docker announced that it was sunsetting Free Team subscriptions. Some in the open source world read this as “pay up or lose your data.” In light of the uproar, Docker was quick to apologize: “We did a terrible job announcing the end of Docker Free Teams.” Unsurprisingly, this failed to placate its most vociferous critics: “The open source community is not alarmed because of how you communicated, but because of what you communicated and how you implemented the transition,” one person commented.To read this article in full, please click here
- Developers, unite! Join the fight for code qualityon March 20, 2023 at 9:00 am
For software engineers, a vote for quality isn’t always on the institutional ballot. Sometimes (too often) the sole metric for success is speed. The directive goes: Get your code out the door ASAP and leave the pesky testing to quality assurance. In fact, in many organizations, QA exists as a separate office from development, with stilted communication stumbling sporadically between the two groups.But while the powers that be may have deemed this separation optimal for deploying at hyper speed, it ultimately works to the detriment of the software’s short-term readability and long-term extensibility. To optimize those two elements, quality must belong to everyone, perhaps even especially to developers. If you’re a software engineer and your organization doesn’t expect it from you, it’s still in your best interest to both prioritize and promote quality code.To read this article in full, please click here
- AWS Chatbot now integrated into Microsoft Teamson March 17, 2023 at 11:04 am
Amazon Web Services has integrated its AWS Chatbot into Microsoft Teams to allow enterprise users to interact with AWS cloud resources from within the chat application.AWS Chatbot, which was first showcased in 2019 and made generally available in 2020, is a service that lets enterprise development and IT teams receive notifications about their AWS infrastructure resources from within a productivity or chat application such as Slack.“When using AWS Chatbot for Microsoft Teams or other chat platforms, you receive notifications from AWS services directly in your chat channels, and you can take action on your infrastructure by typing commands without having to switch to another tool,” Sébastien Stormacq, principal developer advocate at AWS, wrote in a blog post.To read this article in full, please click here
- Sovereign clouds are becoming a big deal againon March 17, 2023 at 9:00 am
Cloud-using industries such as banking, insurance, healthcare, and the public sector face additional challenges complying with laws and requirements within specific regions. This has increased the demand for sovereign clouds. This cloud architecture approach seems to fly under everyone’s radar; thus, I’m bringing it up.Sovereign clouds are semipublic cloud services owned, controlled, and operated by a particular country, region, or sometimes a cloud provider serving a region. They may be owned by the local government outright or by a consortium of private and public organizations.In a few cases, they are owned by private companies that work closely with the government. The objective is to provide computing infrastructure that can support specific government services, especially protecting sensitive data and complying with laws and regulations specific to a country or region.To read this article in full, please click here
- Civet: A better TypeScript?by mtyson@edit.com on March 16, 2023 at 9:00 am
“There’s a rumor going around that Civet is the new CoffeeScript but maybe that’s a good thing. CoffeeScript brought classes, destructuring, async/await, arrow functions, rest parameters, and more to the official JavaScript spec. Maybe Civet will get the pipe operator, pattern matching, and more into ES2025.” —Civet creator Daniel Moore Civet is described as a kind of modern CoffeeScript for TypeScript, which may not sound promising if you remember CoffeeScript as I do. Before you write it off, though, consider what Civet has to offer. This is a compact, modern language that aims to give you everything you like about TypeScript with more power and simplicity, including early access to proposed ECMAScript language features. You could be surprised by some of the capabilities Civet puts into your hands with very little effort. To read this article in full, please click here
- Optimizing video for UX: What a developer needs to knowby Steve Lyons on March 16, 2023 at 9:00 am
More than 80% of content on the internet is video. But despite its popularity, the mechanics of building video into app experiences (along with related metrics) remains challenging for developers.If the extent of your familiarity with video is uploading to YouTube or a service provider like Vimeo, your first experience trying to bring video natively into your website, web application, or mobile app will present layers of UX considerations as you think about the video viewing experience. Just like with any other front-end experience, people have short attention spans, and the video user experience is “make or break” for your video assets.To read this article in full, please click here