Why is cloud-based AI so hard?
The public cloud market continues its explosive growth trajectory, with enterprises rushing to their cloud consoles to allocate more resources, particularly for AI initiatives. Cloud providers are falling over themselves to promote their latest AI cap...
Visual Studio Code stabilizes agent mode
Visual Studio Code 1.99, the latest release of Microsoft’s popular code editor, is now available. Highlights of the update center on GitHub Copilot agent mode, Next Edit Suggestions, and Copilot chat. Developers can access Visual Studio Code 1.99, a...
Try Firefox’s Experimental Link Previews with AI Summary
Hate having to read an article to understand what it’s saying and would rather read what an AI says it (potentially) says instead? Mozilla Firefox has your back. Saltiness aside, the latest nightly builds of Firefox 139 include an experimental web li...
Cloudflare unveils agentic AI development tools
Following on its February release of the Agents SDK JavaScript framework for building AI agents, Cloudflare began its Developer Week today by announcing a series of tools and features designed to accelerate agentic AI development. And to pull all of t...
Kotlin, Swift, and Ruby losing popularity – Tiobe index
The Kotlin, Swift, and Ruby languages have slipped from their top 20 positions in the Tiobe index of programming language popularity. All three seem to have lost traction and to be in decline, according to Tiobe CEO Paul Jansen. Published April 7, the...
The insanity of being a software engineer
Software gets more complicated. All of this complexity is there for a reason. But what happened to specializing? When a house is being built, tons of people are involved: architects, civil engineers, plumbers, electricians, bricklayers, interior design...
Apple’s Darwin OS and XNU kernel deep dive
Apple’s Darwin operating system is the Unix-like core underpinning macOS, iOS, and all of Apple’s modern OS platforms. At its heart lies the XNU kernel – an acronym humorously standing for “X is Not Unix.” XNU is a unique hybrid kernel that c...
Getting the firmware of a VTech/LeapFrog LeapStart/Magibook
This is a very small blog post about my first reverse engineering project, in which I don’t really reverse engineer anything yet, but I am just getting started! A family member asked me to add additional book data to the LeapStart he bought for his s...
10 Java-based tools and frameworks for generative AI
Java is not the first language most programmers think of when they start projects involving artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML). Many turn first to Python because of the large number of Python-based frameworks and tools for AI, ML, ...
Language models in generative AI – does size matter?
Generative AI applications revolve around the large language model, or LLM. From the launch of ChatGPT through to today, LLMs were the focal point for generative AI. They attracted billions in funding and innovation was rife. But are they as essential...
AI demands more software developers, not less
It’s time we officially bury the idea that AI means we won’t need software developers. For years, we’ve heard that generative AI and large language models (LLMs) are coming for our jobs. In software development, that supposedly means fewer human...
