Seven Java projects that revolutionized the world

 

Over the last decade, several projects have traveled beyond mere adoption and had effects dominating the Java world, into software development in general, and some even further into the daily lives of users.

JUnit

Ported to Java by Kent Beck and Erich Gamma from Beck's work in unit testing in Smalltalk, JUnit has been largely responsible for popularizing test-driven development over the last decade. Many implementations have been created, in .NET, C, Python, Perl and just about every language in popular use.

Eclipse

As Java and its APIs matured in the early 2000s, the Eclipse IDE provided a way for programmers to be productive and negotiate the growing Java ecosystem. Eclipse was also the first major project to use the SWT UI toolkit, providing important competition to Sun's Swing and showing that Java programs can provide a rich native interface.

Spring

The Spring Framework has played an important role in enabling Java developers to be productive, managing a balance between simplicity and features. Spring gives Java developers a set of services providing commonly used application functionality such as data access and transaction management. As a competitor to Sun's Enterprise Java Beans system, Spring enabled an alternative and simpler path for Java applications.

Solr

The Solr server, and the Lucene search engine it encapsulates, has been for many years a simple and practical solution to providing search capabilities to web and enterprise applications. Solr's genius is in providing HTTP access to the powerful and fast Lucene search library, enabling it to become a part of any system, regardless of whether it is implemented in Java or not.

Hudson and Jenkins

Originally developed as Hudson, and now also as Jenkins, this continuous integration tool is a key part of a Java development setup. Jenkins provides automated build and testing of a software project, continuing in the footsteps of JUnit in enabling agile development on the Java platform. While both Hudson and Jenkins persist for now as forks of each other, it doesn't detract from the work of Kohsuke Kawaguchi in creating a world-class continuous integration platform and so enhancing the quality of much Java development.

Hadoop

This Java implementation of the famous MapReduce model is the powerhouse that has enabled most "big data" systems. By lowering the cost of extracting value from large data sets, Hadoop has made practical the personalization and advertising businesses of Facebook and Yahoo, and many other companies.Hadoop enables large-scale distributed computing by handling failure at the software level.

Android

Android programs undergo a further step to convert JVM bytecode to Dalvik bytecode — Dalvik being a virtual machine optimized for mobile devices. Google has been able to leverage Eclipse to provide software developers with a mature development environment for creating Android applications.
Oracle and Google are currently engaged in a lawsuit over a claim that Android infringes on multiple patents held by Oracle.

via [radar.oreilly.com]

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World's fastest supercomputer is finaly by Japan

TOKYO: A Japanese supercomputer has snatched the title of the world's fastest machine, ending China's brief reign at the top after six months.

The K supercomputer, built by the Fujitsu Company, is as fast as one million desktop computers connected together.

It has more than three times the power than the previous title-holder and is capable of performing eight quadrillion calculations each second

A quadrillion is one followed by 15 zeroes and in computer jargon the speed is known as 8.2 petaflops.

The previous fastest machine was the Chinese computer Tianhe-1A, which was clocked at 2.507 petaflops and highlighted the emergence of China's growing technological and economic power.

The Tianhe- 1A machine was the first time China had topped the speed list, wrestling the title from the U.S. who had four of the top ten supercomputers.

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Google shutting down Labs

 

SAN FRANCISCO: Google on Wednesday said it is shutting down its Labs website for creations-in-progress in order to better focus its resources and energy.

Google Labs was an online playground where people could dabble with early versions of new services or products being worked on by engineers at the Internet powerhouse.

"While we've learned a huge amount by launching very early prototypes in Labs, we believe that greater focus is crucial if we're to make the most of the extraordinary opportunities ahead," research and systems infrastructure senior vice president Bill Coughran said in a blog post.

Some Labs experiments will be incorporated into Google products or remain available as applications for devices running on Android software, according to Coughran. (AFP)

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MSI FX620DX: Solid, Well-Rounded Computing

The MSI FX620DX has a few nice features that help it stand out in a bleak, cost-conscious, all-purpose laptop world. Sure, it's no gaming superstar, but the 720p webcam and two USB 3.0 ports are sure to woo some shoppers on a budget.

New review model, which costs $760, comes packed with one of Intel's second-generation Core processors--the Core i5-2410M, to be exact. Alongside the CPU is 6GB of RAM, a 640GB hard drive, and an Nvidia GeForce GT540M graphics card.

Besides the built-in webcam, the FX620DX has a DVD Super-Multi drive, and 802.11n Wi-Fi, also built-in. The FX620DX runs the 64-bit version of Windows 7 Home Premium. That's pretty good power under the hood of such an affordable laptop: In our WorldBench 6 benchmark tests, the FX620DX scored a very reasonable 119.

The MSI FX620DX is a solid computer with a couple of nice bells and whistles, and it's portable to boot. Though the minimum weight is 5.7 pounds, it feels lighter and easier to carry than the 5.3-pound Lenovo Essential G570. The FX620DX lacks a little in battery life--it managed just under 4.5 hours in our tests--but overall it's a pretty good choice for someone who's looking for a well-rounded machine.

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What’s this Spotify thing all about?

Spotify works kind of like iTunes, but you stream songs from a "rented" catalog of online music.

It’s hard to escape buzz about Spotify this week — especially since Britney Spears and others are “so excited” about it.

The music catalog is huge

First, a little background: Spotify — the name is a combination of “spot” and “identify” — is a music streaming service, which means it lets you play songs off the Internet. So it’s kind of like Pandora, except that you can search for songs and create playlists from a catalog of 15 million tracks.

It’s free

Well, mostly. With an invitation, users in the U.S. can play songs with some ads sprinkled in for good financial measure. For $5 per month, the ads go away and you get unlimited streaming.

“I’ve been using Spotify for a year and a half here in England, and it’s been a real test: I left my CD collection packed up in boxes,”CNET’s Stephen Shankland says.

It works like iTunes

iTunes, Apple’s hugely popular music player, is easy to use. So is Spotify. In reviews, tech writers note how fast the system works, and how easy it is to find music and add songs to your playlists.

It lets you take music anywhere

If you pay $10 a month for the premium service, you can listen to all of your Spotify play lists. You can download Spotify songs into the company’s app and listen to them offline — for no extra charge.

Any drawbacks?

Some analysts say Spotify will have a hard time busting into the U.S. market, which is already full of music streaming sites that are popular. Pandora says it has 100 million users, which makes it a particularly formidable foe.

Artists earn only $0.004 when you listen to one of their songs,according to analyst Mark Milligan, quoted by the BBC.

But, as the Twitter chatter shows, some artists support this alternative.

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Pills prevent HIV in straight men and women

 ATLANTA: Two new studies found that daily pills prevented infection with the AIDS virus in heterosexual men and women in Africa, bringing new hope for someday offering a medical shield against HIV infection.

• ”This is good news. This is a good day for HIV prevention,” said Dr. Lynn Paxton of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, who has coordinated the agency’s research into HIV prevention. 
• Earlier this year, another study found the same pills did not prevent the AIDS virus among women in Kenya, Tanzania and South Africa. But researchers now say that study may have been flawed based on the success of the two studies announced Wednesday. 
• The study found 13 HIV infections among those on Truvada, 18 in those on Viread, and 47 of those on dummy pills. So the medications reduced the risk of HIV infection by 62 percent to 73 percent, the researchers said.

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