Become a fan of Slashdot on Facebook

 


Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror

Comment byNotes uses OSM (Score 0) 46

by hierro (#26230213) Attached to: Smooth Open Street Maps For the iPhone
byNotes client for the iPhone uses a custom maps framework based on Open Street Maps and it's been available in the App Store since October 20th. It's not yet opensource, basically because it's just a personal project and cleaning the code for a release takes some time, but I plan to release it on January (yes, I wrote it).
Games

Getting Started In Android Game Development 43

Posted by Soulskill from the android-needs-tetris-too dept.
rbgrn writes "If you're interested in developing a game for the Android platform, there is a lot you need to know. If you have previous experience with game development, moving over to the Android platform won't be all that difficult. You will mostly just need to learn the architecture and API. If you're new to game development, here is a list of must-knows for getting started in Android game development. This is a good starting point for developers seeking to write any type of mobile game."

Comment Reuse as much as possible (Score 0) 429

by hierro (#25635581) Attached to: Reuse Code Or Code It Yourself?
The less code you write, the better. Keep in mind that a given computer program should always be measured by functionality, not by SLOC. Keep in mind that every line you write implies:
  • More possible bugs
  • More testing
  • More maintenance
  • More complexity

So my advice is reuse as much code as possible. However, as others have pointed out, check what you're basing your work on. There are a lot of shitty libraries and frameworks out there and for those cases you're better off rewriting the whole thing.
Security

New Attack Against Multiple Encryption Functions 130

Posted by kdawson from the think-harder dept.
An anonymous reader sends word of a paper presented a few days back by Adi Shamir, the S in RSA, that promises a new form of mathematical attack against a broad range of cryptographic ciphers. The computerworld.com.au report leans heavily on Schneier's blog entry from the Crypto 2008 conference and the attached comments. Shamir's paper has not been published yet. "[The new attack could affect] hash functions (such as MD5, SHA-256), stream ciphers (such as RC4), and block ciphers (such as DES, Triple-DES, AES) at the Crypto 2008 conference. The new method of cryptanalysis has been called a 'cube attack' and formed part of Shamir's invited presentation at Crypto 2008 — 'How to solve it: New Techniques in Algebraic Cryptanalysis.' The new attack method isn't necessarily going to work against the exact ciphers listed above, but it offers a new generic attack method that can target basically formed ciphers irrespective of the basic cipher method in use, provided that it can be described in a 'low-degree polynomial equation'... What may be the biggest outcome from this research is the range of devices in widespread use that use weaker cryptographic protection, due to power or size limitations, that are now vulnerable to a straightforward mathematical attack."
Handhelds

Geomicroblogging, Buzzword or Reality? 159

Posted by CmdrTaco from the or-maybe-a-little-of-both dept.
An anonymous reader writes "The iPhone 3G and Android devices are coming this year, opening the mobile world for rich applications, while sites like Fire Eagle and byNotes are ready to move your blogging habits into the geospatial world. Are we going to watch the next boom when those devices and geospatially enabled sites get combined? Sure, the posibilities this would open are endless, but are users going to embrace these services?" I don't see how it can't change the world ... it has 'Micro' and 'Blog' in the name, and I'll always know where I was when I twittered to tell everyone I was in the john.
The Internet

Submission + - Is geomicroblogging the Next Big Thing?

Submitted by
An anonymous reader writes: The iPhone 3G and Android devices are coming this year, opening the mobile world for rich applications, while sites like Fire Eagle and byNotes are ready to move your blogging habits into the geospatial world. Are we going to watch the next boom when those devices and geospatially enabled sites get combined? Sure, the posibilities this would open are endless, but are users going to embrace these services?

Google Moves From Search To Inventor 131

Posted by Zonk from the leaping-the-gap dept.
TubHarsh writes "The New York Times reports that Google continues to expand its scope from search engine to inventor. Google assembles the majority of the hardware it uses and deploys at such a large scale, that Google may be 'the world's fourth-largest maker of computer servers, after Dell, Hewlett-Packard and I.B.M.'. The article also states that Google may be entering the chip design market with new employees who were ex-Alpha Chip engineers."

Macs May No Longer Be Immune to Viruses 391

Posted by Zonk from the harsh-reality dept.
Bill writes "MSNBC reports that the combination of Apple's growing market share and their recent switch to x86 processors has made Mac OS X a new target for viruses. Unfortunately, it seems that many Mac users are in denial. '[Computer security expert Tom] Ferris said he warned Apple of the vulnerabilities in January and February and that the company has yet to patch the holes, prompting him to compare the Cupertino-based computer maker to Microsoft three years ago, when the world's largest software company was criticized for being slow to respond to weaknesses in its products.'"

Slashdot Top Deals

APL is a write-only language. I can write programs in APL, but I can't read any of them. -- Roy Keir

Close