Officials vowed that all of New York City’s underground subway stations would have WiFi by the end of 2016, and they’re meeting that goal… if only at the very last minute. As of New Year’s Eve, every one of the 279 stations now has internet access…
Source: Engadget – All New York City underground subway stations now have WiFi
Slashdot reader horrido shares an article that “has done more for Smalltalk advocacy than any other article in memory.” It was the second-most popular article of the year on the Hewlett Packard Enterprise site TechBeacon (recently passing 20,000 views), with Richard Eng, the founder of the nonprofit Smalltalk Renaissance, arguing that the 44-year-old language is much more than a tool for teachers — and not just because Amber Smalltalk transpiles to JavaScript for front-end web programming.
It’s a superlative prototyping language for startups. It’s an industrial-strength enterprise language used by businesses both big and small all around the globe… Smalltalk’s implementation of the object-oriented paradigm is so excellent that it has influenced an entire generation of OO languages, such as Objective-C, Python, Ruby, CLOS, PHP 5, Perl 6, Erlang, Groovy, Scala, Dart, Swift, and so on. By learning Smalltalk, you’ll understand how all of those useful features in today’s OO languages came to be.
The article also argues that Smalltalk pioneered just-in-time compilation and virtual machines, the model-view-controller design paradigm, and to a large extent, even test-driven development. But most importantly, Smalltalk’s reliance on domain-specific languages makes it “the ‘purest’ OO, and one of the earliest… It is often said that programming in Smalltalk or Python is rather like Zen; your mind just flows effortlessly with the task. This is the beauty and value of language simplicity, and Smalltalk has this in spades… Smalltalk, by virtue of its object purity and consistency, will give you a profoundly better understanding of object-oriented programming and how to use it to its best effect.”
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot – Can Learning Smalltalk Make You A Better Programmer?
Topps, the iconic maker of Star Wars, Frozen and various sports-related trading cards, has just notified its customers of security breaches that happened earlier this year. In it, the company has admitted that one or more intruders infiltrated its sy…
Source: Engadget – Trading card maker Topps hit by security breach in 2016
Today’s selection of articles from Kotaku’s reader run community: Final Fantasy XV: The TAY Review • Rockmandash Reviews: Steins;Gate 0 [Visual Novel – PS4/Vita] • My New Year’s Gaming Resolution For 2017
Source: Kotaku – Today’s selection of articles from Kotaku’s reader run community: Final Fantasy XV: The TAY Review •
At the end of every year, we take a look back at our most popular posts to reminisce (and to help you catch any stuff you might have missed). Here’s one last look at our best posts in 2016.
Source: LifeHacker – This Is the Best of Lifehacker 2016
Tesla didn’t roll out its Enhanced Autopilot in mid-December as initially reported, but it is giving drivers something right before 2016 comes to a close. Elon Musk has revealed that the new Autopilot software is reaching about 1,000 HW2-era (that is…
Source: Engadget – Tesla’s big Autopilot update reaches a handful of cars
In 2016, esports experienced even more highs and lows than the previous year. That’s what it means to be growing. But while the industry surrounding competitive gaming continues to expand on the backs of enthusiastic investors and hype-men, it’s important not to forget why anyone actually watches it in the first place: the people playing are really damn good.
Source: Kotaku – The Best Esports Plays Of 2016
After surveying over 9,000 Android and iPhone users, Nielsen’s “Electronic Mobile Measurement” has calculated the 10 most popular apps of 2016. Interestingly, the #1 and #2 most popular apps of the year were Facebook and Facebook Messenger.
BrianFagioli writes: Facebook holds the first, second, and eighth spots — remember, the company owns Instagram too. Google has the most number of spots in the top 10, with three, four, five, six, and seven [YouTube, Google Maps, Google Search, Google Play, and Gmail]. Rounding out the bottom of the list is Apple [for Apple Music] and Amazon. Google Play is sort of a weird inclusion, however, as it is the app which downloads other apps — it probably should have been excluded. Amazon saw insane growth, seeing a massive 43 percent year-over-year gain. Instagram comes in at second place with 36 percent. Facebook Messenger scores the third spot. The biggest surprise is that Apple Music is the top streaming music app, beating apps like Pandora and Spotify…because other music apps had huge head-starts.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot – Google and Facebook Dominate The List of 2016’s Top Ten Apps
Did any of you guys even vote? While the categories tried to be new and creative, the winners are largely what you’d expect.
…it turns out that that Steam users really like Valve games. Also Grand Theft Auto V. Of course, not all of Valve’s games managed to win. Dota 2 lost to Dark Souls III in the “Love/Hate” category, and Team Fortress 2 was passed over in favor of Skyrim for games that have stood the “Test of Time.” Scanning over the data for some of the most active games on Steam reveals a list not entirely dissimilar from the one above, except with games like Rocket League and Football Manager 2017 conspicuously absent.
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Source: [H]ardOCP – Winners For First Steam Awards Revealed
If your laptop is running hot, or you just want to elevate it a little a bit, grab a couple of forks.
Source: LifeHacker – Make a Simple DIY Laptop Cooling Stand With Two Forks
Model X owner Ji Chang Son filed a lawsuit against Tesla on Friday, claiming his vehicle suddenly accelerated as he was parking it in his garage. Filed in the U.S. District Court in the Central District of California, the suit “alleges product liability, negligence and breaches of warranty, and seeks unspecified damages,” according to Reuters.
Source: Gizmodo – Man Files Lawsuit Against Tesla Claiming His Model X Spontaneously Accelerated Into His Living Room
In technology, you’re always “standing on the shoulders” of those who came before you — and together, each individual’s contribution becomes part of a larger ongoing story. So as this year finally winds to a close, click through to see our list of some of the pioneers who left us in 2016. And feel free to share any memories and reflections of your own in the comments.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot – Let’s Raise A Glass To The Many Tech Pioneers Who Died In 2016
When the general public first learned about drones, the context was largely related to military applications and spy tactics, so the unmanned aircraft were cast with a bad rap. Years later, a number of creative technologists have found ways to use dr…
Source: Engadget – Six drones that do good for people and the planet
A portrait is often defined with a little depth of field of effect that makes the person in focus really pop. Most smartphone’s can’t produce this effect, but How-To Geek shows off a way to use a single Photoshop effect to create the same look.
Source: LifeHacker – Quickly Improve a Smartphone Portrait in Photoshop with a Simple Depth of Field Effect
The twelfth year is now in the books at Phoronix. In 2016 on Phoronix there were 3,336 original news articles and 248 featured multi-page articles and Linux hardware reviews. That puts our total now at more than 21.3k news articles and 3.3k Linux hardware reviews and other featured articles. Happy New Year to all and 2017 will hopefully be even better.
Source: Phoronix – Happy New Year! That’s A Wrap For 2016 With 3,336 New Articles + 248 Reviews/Featured Articles
Getting games on Linux and improving OpenGL drivers was the hardest challenge one veteran game developer has come across…
Source: Phoronix – Former Valve Developer: Steam Linux Project Was The Hardest
Casting Harry Potter wasn’t as easy as finding a cute kid who could stare wide-eyed as he was told he’s a wizard. It turns out, he also needed to have the rocks to get down and dirty in a multi-year franchise…even if the actor’s balls hadn’t dropped yet.
Source: Gizmodo – Daniel Radcliffe Was Picked for Harry Potter Role Because He Had ‘The Balls’
Casting Harry Potter wasn’t as easy as finding a cute kid who could stare wide-eyed as he was told he’s a wizard. It turns out, he also needed to have the rocks to get down and dirty in a multi-year franchise…even if the actor’s balls hadn’t dropped yet.
Source: io9 – Daniel Radcliffe Was Picked for Harry Potter Role Because He Had ‘The Balls’
This New Year’s Eve I finished up some benchmarks of the Linux 4.5 through Linux 4.10 Git kernels on a powerful Core i7 6800K “Broadwell-E” system. I found some improvements with 4.10 Git, but there are also some evident regressions…
Source: Phoronix – Early Benchmarks Of Linux 4.10 Show Some Improvements & Regressions For Core i7-6800K
