Samsung Hosts Bada 2.0 Power App Race

Samsung Electronics is calling on all developers globally to develop their best app for its newly announced bada 2.0 Power App Race, which gives developers the chance of winning up to USD100 000 for creative app development. Now in its second year, the bada Power App Race competition will formally launch bada 2.0 to mobile applications developers, inspiring them to create innovative new applications using the bada 2.0 SDK. A total of 10 applications - including five game applications, and five non-game applications - will be selected and rewarded with prize money totalling USD1 million. Furthermore, winning applications will receive the "Power App" mark at Samsung Apps, exclusive marketing and promotion benefits.

The MDS Tribute to Steve Jobs

Mobile Developer Summit (MDS) 2011 will pay rich tributes to Steve through passionate discourses from real professionals and developers who have been touched by Steve's passion and creativity. They will provide their interpretation of how Steve did what he did, and most importantly how we can all learn to unleash our inner Steve.

Adobe Unveils AIR and Flash Player Incubator Program

Adobe has introduced the Adobe AIR and Flash Player Incubator program. Under this program, the Adobe Flash Runtimes team will share with developers features that are under development or experimental in order to get early participation, testing and feedback from the community.

Oracle Fills ASF Renounced JCP Seat with JavaMan Bruno Souza

Oracle has nominated Brazilian user group SouJava to fill the vacancy left by the Apache Software Foundation (ASF) on the Java SE/EE executive committee. SouJava, one of the oldest and largest Java User Groups (JUGs) in the world with 40,000 members, is headed by Bruno Souza who promotes himself as the JavaMan.

Google's Tablet-Geared Android Software Inches Closer with Honeycomb

Google Inc. is inching closer to releasing a version of the Android software meant for tablet computers with the release of its new tablet operating system, Honeycomb, which is now available for developers to tinker with. In a post Wednesday on Google's Android Developers blog, Xavier Ducrohet, the Android SDK tech lead, has suggested that a final version of the kit will be available "in the weeks ahead." This final version is expected to enable developers publish Honeycomb applications to Google's Android Market app store. Consumer tablets running Android 3.0 (aka Honeycomb) is still months away.

Decision Making In Software Teams

Alistair Cockburn has described software development as a game in which we choose among three moves: invent, decide, and communicate. Most of our time at technology conferences is spent learning how to be better at inventing. Beyond that, we understand the importance of good communication, and take steps to improve in that capacity. Rarely, however, do we acknowledge the role of decision making in the life of software teams, what can cause it to go wrong, and how to improve it.

Eclipse Unveils Orion for Web Developers

“Orion” is a brand new adventure for Eclipse, and one which we hope will interest and excite a whole new community: web developers, says Mike Milinkovich, President of the Eclipse Foundation. Orion is not a set of Java plug-ins which run in the existing Java IDE. It is browser-based open tool integration platform which is entirely focused on developing for the web, in the web. Tools are written in JavaScript and run in the browser.

Adobe Flash 10.1 Speeds Up Mac and Shows Love

In the midst of the Apple vs. Adobe war, a phoenix seems to have risen from the ashes. Enter Flash 10.1 on Mac OS X. After years of poor performance and the long raging Apple and Adobe battle, hardware acceleration for Adobe Flash finally got the green signal. The Adobe team seems to have really heard out the developer community this season. With the 10.1 release they have aimed to correct several of the previous Flash glitches. Adobe says developers can look forward to no more bogging down of browsers, CPU utilization reduction (up to two-thirds when GPU hardware acceleration is active) and eliminating the iPhone it runs on a gamut of handheld devices.

Google IDE for the Non-coder Android Developer

Good news for the non-coder developer - Google has released the App Inventor for Android. The dragging and dropping of visual blocks of code enable the developer to build applications. App Inventor "makes it easy for anyone -- programmers and non-programmers, professionals and students -- to create mobile applications for Android-powered devices".

Java, Open Source, SOA & WS* on Top of Indian Developer's Radar

Himanshu Goyal heads Academic Initiative, developerWorks and Globalization initiatives for IBM India/South Asia. Under these initiatives, he is responsible to evangelize, skill and certify on the IBM Software to Engineering Students, Faculties, Developers and senior IT professionals in the Industry. Under Globalization he is responsible for the availability of IBM software in local languages in India/South Asia. Himanshu spoke to DeveloperMarch about the 27-city road show ‘Develothon 2010’geared towards skilling the Indian developers on emerging technologies and trends, the mission for developerWorks going forward and the technologies that is keeping Indian developers excited in 2010.

Google Coming to your Idiot Box?

Google is set to invade your living room as the company puts its finishing touches on technology that lets software developers build applications for televisions in much the same way as they do for smartphones. Google is planning to unveil an Android-based 'Google TV' at the Google I/O conference, which open in May, San Francisco. Intel and Sony are also involved in the platform, which is rumoured to be open source, in keeping with the Android operating system. "(Google) hopes the move will spur the same outpouring of creativity that consumers have seen in applications for cellphones."