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Featured Articles

The ESP32 S3 supports PWM, but it has features that go beyond the usual Ardunio core. This is an extract from Harry Fairhead's latest book on programming the ESP32 using C and the Arduino library.

The Harvard Mark I has an established place in the history of computing. However, without financial help from IBM it would never have materialized. The memorandum formalizing IBM's development of this iconic machine was written on January 18, 1938.

Programming News and Views

Google computer scientists have given details of the way in which Google is using AI to dramatically reduce the time required for code migrations. In the case of a switch between two Java time libraries, there was an estimated time saving of 89 percent compared to doing the job manually.

The nematode worm, C Elegans, is a hero of AI and now it can live on your desktop machine. The worm in the machine is too good a headline to pass up!

Apache has released Hudi 1.0, described as a landmark achievement that defines what the next generation of data lakehouses should achieve. Hudi pioneered transactional data lakes in 2017.

Meta has taken us a long way towards creating a Babel Fish, a tool that helps individuals translate speech between any two languages. This is thanks to SEAMLESSM4T which is open-source for non-commercial use and which Meta hopes will propel further research on inclusive speech translation technologies.

IBM has produced a cookbook of tips and methodologies on how to use RAG to power up any kind of business applications. Microsoft and Docling both provide tools for data ingestion from a range of document formats

Google has announced that the latest 'feature drop' version of Android Studio, Ladybug is now stable. The new version includes ways to interact with Gemini in Android Studio, Animation Preview support for Wear Tiles, and an App Links Assistant.

ELIZA was the world's first chatbot, more than 50 years before the term itself was coined. She was the brainchild of Joseph Weizenbaum who wrote the original program in the 1960s at MIT.  The original source-code for ELIZA was never published, and remained lost until rediscovered by researchers engaged in the Eliza Archaeology Project.

The developers at Modal have created the GPU Glossary to help themselves and others get to grips with termionology related to NVIDIA GPU hardware and software. They have managed to collect, clean, normalize and present the dispersed information on the subject.

ENRICH 2025, the European Robotics Hackathon, is open now for team entries. To be held at the Zwentendorf Nuclear Power Plant in Austria, the aim is to develop robots that can carry out tasks in a nuclear reactor.

Express.js 5 has been released, ten years after Express.js 4. The new release has dropped support for outdated versions of Node.js, addresses security concerns, and brings simplified maintenance.

Rust 1.84 has been released with changes including a move to a new trait solver and a set of Strict Provenance APIs.

Books of the Week

If you do make any Amazon purchases via our site, we may earn a few cents through the Amazon Associates program which is a small source of revenue that helps us to continue posting.

Full Review

Author: Sebastian Raschka
Publisher: No Starch Press
Date: April 2024
Pages: 264
ISBN: 978-1718503762
Print: 1718503768
Kindle: B0CKKXCK3T
Audience: Developers interested in AI
Rating: 4
Reviewer: Mike James
Q and AI, a play on Q&A is a clever title, but is the book equally clever?

Book Watch

This book is a succinct reference on the core components of Java. Doug Lowe and Paul McFedries get right to the point, eliminating review material and wordy explanations. Designed for supplementing classroom learning, reviewing for a certification, or staying knowledgeable on the job, this is a direct reference.

The book focuses on the basics of Python programming fundamentals and introduction to present-day applications in technology and the upcoming state-of-art trends in a comprehensive manner. The text is based on Python 3.x and Rakesh Nayak and Nishu Gupta cover the fundamentals of Python with object-oriented concepts having numerous worked-out examples.

This book contains tutorials, project showcases, guides, product reviews, and more from the writers of The MagPi, the official Raspberry Pi magazine. It includes guides for media centres, game emulators, and more, and covers Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W, Raspberry Pi 4, and other Raspberry Pi models.

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