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  Why is Great Design so Hard?

I want to take a slight detour from usable privacy and security and discuss issues of design. I was recently at the Microsoft Faculty Summit, an annual event where Microsoft discusses some of the big issues and directions they are headed. In one of the talks, a designer at Microsoft mentioned two data points I've informally heard before but had never confirmed. First, the ratio of developers to user interface designers at Microsoft was 50:1. Second, this ratio was better than any other comp...

   Apple,Microsoft,UI design     2011-03-28 02:06:31

  Audio API in Android development

Mobile devices of the first generation were not capable of playing any sounds except monophonic ringtones. Today any smartphone platform supports playback, record and to some extent manipulation of digital sound, often up to CD quality.Android is no exception to that. Even older 1.5 devices can do a lot of things with digital audio. However, due to lack of guidance, a developer who is doing his first audio feature might miss some of the available API facilities, or might choose the approach that...

   Audio,Android,MediaPlayer,AudioTrack,Sou     2011-04-21 11:32:32

  Telecom elements in WeChat

As an engineer who spends much time on focusing on WeChat like applications(Skype, Fring, Viber, Kik Messenger, WhatsApp, Talkbox, LINE, Kakao Talk) , I would like to share with you the telecom element in WeChat to show the inheritance and integration of traditional telecom services in the Internet service and applications.First, WeChat is an application to send messages, the fully IP-based messaging capabilities may replace the traditional telecom services such as SMS, MMS and VMS ,This is ver...

   WeChat,Telecom operator     2013-04-13 20:29:46

  Supercolliding a PHP array

Did you know that inserting 2^16 = 65536 specially crafted values into a normal PHP array can take 30 seconds? Normally this would take only 0.01 seconds. This is the code to reproduce it: <?php echo '<pre>'; $size = pow(2, 16); // 16 is just an example, could also be 15 or 17 $startTime = microtime(true); $array = array(); for ($key = 0, $maxKey = ($size - 1) * $size; $key <= $maxKey; $key += $size) { $array[$key] = 0; } $endTime = microtime(true); echo 'Inserting...

   PHP,Array,hashtable,Slow,Colliding     2011-12-29 09:02:01

  Javascript Frameworks Are Too Small

A while back I stumbled upon a great post by Jean-Baptiste Queru. It describes the incredible depth of the modern technology stack. Layers upon layers of complex science, hardware, and software, each layer creating a simpler abstraction around the previous. This ultimately enables our paltry human brains to create amazing things that would otherwise be impossible (or really difficult). This is, in my opinion, the lifeblood of modern software development. For some reason, however, when i...

   JavaScript,Framework,Size,Small,jQuery     2012-01-10 07:20:59

  Speed Hashing

A given hash uniquely represents a file, or any arbitrary collection of data. At least in theory. This is a 128-bit MD5 hash you're looking at above, so it can represent at most 2128 unique items, or 340 trillion trillion trillion. In reality the usable space is substantially less; you can start seeing significant collisions once you've filled half the space, but half of an impossibly large number is still impossibly large. Back in 2005, I wondered about the difference between a checksum and...

   Speed hashing,Security,MD5     2012-04-07 10:35:15

  Silicon Valley engineers have something to say about work from home

Quitting from Google and joined Yahoo which was thought as a declining giant, Marissa Mayer has been trying to prove that she has the ability to lead this Internet giant to reverse the decline. In order to boost the low morale of the employees, Meyer tried to transplant Google's work culture to Yahoo with office decoration, free lunch and issuance of smart phones, these generous measures let her win the applause of the Silicon Valley.But a recent ban issued by Meyer has attracted a lot of contro...

   Work from home,Yahoo, Marissa Mayer     2013-03-07 02:39:23

  Microsoft is transforming XBox into a PC controlled by expressions

According to the Voice of China "News Coverage" report. When Apple products are changing  the world, the original computer giant Microsoft is also quietly looking for their new foothold in the field of electronics. This time the breakthrough is from its game console Xbox.Xbox was originally a single function console, there are signs that Microsoft may be planning for the Xbox into the computer with new functions. The selling point of this new product lies in its function of communic...

   Microsoft,XBox,New PC,China     2012-04-01 06:57:04

  How Can Android Win Over Developers?

We’ve heard a lot about Android’s popularity; it’s a machine that’s clearly outpacing its rivals like Apple’s iOS… in market share. It seems that, although Android is super popular and great at attracting customers, it loses support from other parties that are vital to the success of the OS, like developers. Why does Android have such a hard time winning over developers? More importantly, how can they win over the developers? Well, let’s take a qu...

   Android,Developer,Attraction,iOS,HTC     2011-08-07 23:34:50

  printf("goodbye, Dennis");

Dennis Ritchie, a father of modern computing, died on October 8th, aged 70EVERY time you tap an iSomething, you are touching a little piece of Steve Jobs. His singular vision shaped the products Apple has conjured up, especially over the last 14 years, after Jobs returned to the helm of the company he had founded. Jobs's death in October resembled the passing of a major religious figure. But all of his technological miracles, along with a billion others sold by Apple's competitors, would be mere...

   Memory,Dennis Ritchie,C,Father of C     2011-10-22 12:42:22

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