news|Mar 30, 2016

Build 2016 News: Redstone, Bash, Bots and More

Typing is so 2015. The future according to Microsoft will see humans interacting with artificial intelligence naturally through voice, touch, pens and holograms, aided by ever-more-sophisticated bots that can do everything from order you a pizza to message a friend about your travel plans. At least that’s the vision laid out by Satya Nadella and…
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news|Mar 28, 2016

Games, HoloLens, Cloud Services Highlight Build 2016 Schedule

It wouldn’t be a developer conference without some surprises, and Microsoft is already getting us in the mood for Build 2016 with a mysterious description in the event schedule of a session on ‘Something Awesome.’ We’ll have to wait until Build kicks off this Wednesday for details, but the rest of the schedule promises a…
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News|Mar 25, 2016

NPM Will Make it Harder to Unpublish Code After Left-Pad Fiasco

NPM, the JavaScript package manager, says it will update its policies after one developer’s removal of 11 lines of code crashed a chunk of the internet earlier this week. Thousands of software projects, including the popular Babel and React, broke down when developer Azer Koçulu yanked all his code from NPM following a dispute with…
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news|Mar 21, 2016

Apple Launches CareKit, a Platform for Building Healthcare Apps

Apple held its ‘Loop You In’ town hall in Cupertino today, and amid the often-inane product announcements (Apple Watch now comes with nylon bands!) was a tidbit developers may find interesting. The company is launching a new platform for building healthcare apps, called CareKit. The open-source platform, available in April,  will allow developers to take…
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news|Mar 17, 2016

Windows 8.1 Mobile Customers Can Finally Upgrade to Windows 10

Think Windows Phone is dead? Not so fast. Though the customer base for the mobile OS remains paltry compared to competitors iPhone and Android, Microsoft still seems to see the phones as important to its overall plan for Universal Windows Apps. And on Thursday, the company began rolling out over-the-air updates to Windows 10 for…
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news|Mar 15, 2016

Microsoft Begins Private Testing of Newest Visual Studio Version

A lighter, faster version of Visual Studio will likely be on its way to developers soon, perhaps by Build 2016, ZDNet reports. Code named “Visual Studio 15″—but not to be confused with the already-available Visual Studio 2015—the new version has already been released to some developers in private previews, according to ZDNet. Testers report that the…
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news|Mar 10, 2016

Six Things to Know About the Android N Developer Preview

Does the N stand for Nutella, as Google SVP for Android Hiroshi Lockheimer hinted on Medium? We’re not sure. But the Android N Developer Preview, which Google unexpectedly dropped on us earlier this week, is getting positive reviews for a few of its new features. Here are some things to know about Android N: The…
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news|Mar 3, 2016

An Easier Way to Access App Analytics

Tracking your app’s metrics—such as number of downloads and failure rate—is, of course, crucial to improving its performance. But the process can be cumbersome. Now, developers with apps in the Windows Store can access their analytics without having to log into Microsoft’s Dev Center, with a new Windows Store Analytics API. The API can be…
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News|Mar 2, 2016

Windows 10 IoT Core Now Supports Raspberry Pi 3

With the newest edition of Raspberry Pi now on the market, Microsoft has announced that it’s rolling out IoT Core support for the device, expanding the options for developers working on IoT projects. The $35 Raspberry Pi 3 board went on sale Feb. 29, and support is available via the most recent IoT Core Insider…
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news|Feb 29, 2016

HoloLens Development Kits Will Ship March 30

Ready to try your hand at building augmented reality apps? Microsoft will start shipping the first wave of its long-awaited HoloLens developer kits on March 30. Today is the first day to pre-order the $3,000 kits for developers who’ve already received invitations from Microsoft. (Haven’t received an invitation yet? Apply here. You must be a…
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News|Feb 26, 2016

Microsoft Scraps Android-to-Windows Bridge, Tells Developers to Use Xamarin Instead

It’s official: Project Astoria, Microsoft’s effort to create a bridge for porting over Android apps to Windows 10, is no more. Just one day after announcing its acquisition of multiplatform app development company Xamarin, Microsoft released an update to developers on the company’s bridge projects, which reads in part: “We…decided that we would focus our…
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News|Feb 25, 2016

Microsoft Buys Xamarin, Bets on a Cross-Platform Future

The past year has seen Microsoft take a number of strides towards realizing CEO Satya Nadella’s “cloud-first, mobile-first” vision. Once laser-focused on its own devices and operating systems, the company is increasingly platform-agnostic: It wants business customers and developers to use its cloud-based software, no matter what OS they prefer. On Wednesday, Microsoft took those…
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