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API, Development, Google, Graph, Networks, Social
Google - Social Graph API
02.01.08 | Permalink | Comment?

The public web is made up of linked pages that represent both documents and people. Google Search helps make this information more accessible and useful. If you take away the documents, you’re left with the connections between people. Information about the public connections between people is really useful — as a user, you might want to see who else you’re connected to, and as a developer of social applications, you can provide better features for your users if you know who their public friends are. There hasn’t been a good way to access this information. The Social Graph API now makes information about the public connections between people on the Web, expressed by XFN and FOAF markup and other publicly declared connections, easily available and useful for developers.
Apple, Blogs, Development, Einstein, Innovation, iPhone
The iPhone SDK Key Leaked?
01.28.08 | Permalink | Comment?
Data in the Cloud, Development, Facebook, Networks, Social
The Facebook JavaScript Client Library
01.26.08 | Permalink | Comment?
The Facebook JavaScript client library allows you to make Facebook API calls through JavaScript code from any Web site and makes it easy to create AJAX Facebook applications. Since the library does not require any server side code on your server, you can now create a Facebook application that can be hosted on any Web site that serves static HTML.

Applications that use this client library should be configured to load in an iframe, not be rendered with FBML. This applies to either iframe Facebook applications that users access through the Facebook Web site or applications that users access directly on the application’s own Web site. The library supports every Facebook API method, except:
1. Photos.upload is not supported.
2. profile.setFBML can only set FBML on the current user’s profile.
Using this client library is easy. Just follow these two steps:
1. Download and save the content of http://api.facebook.com/static/xd_receiver.htm somewhere on your Web site. For example, you can use http://www.foo.com/xd_receiver.htm for a Facebook application that’s hosted on http://www.foo.com.
2. Reference the Facebook JavaScript http://static.ak.facebook.com/js/api_lib/FacebookApi.debug.js in your HTML page.
That’s all. Now you start to call the Facebook API through JavaScript…
Convergence, Development, Google, Motivation
The Ten Million Dollar, Google Android Developer Challenge
11.12.07 | Permalink | Comment?
Cool apps that surprise and delight mobile users, built by developers like you, will be a huge part of the Android vision. To support you in your efforts, Google has launched the Android Developer Challenge, which will provide $10 million in awards — no strings attached — for great mobile apps built on the Android platform.

How It Works

The award money will be distributed equally between two Android Developer Challenges:
- Android Developer Challenge I: We will accept submissions from January 2 through March 3, 2008
- Android Developer Challenge II: This part will launch after the first handsets built on the platform become available in the second half of 2008
In the Android Developer Challenge I, the 50 most promising entries received by March 3 will each receive a $25,000 award to fund further development. Those selected will then be eligible for even greater recognition via ten $275,000 awards and ten $100,000 awards. (more…)
Blogs, Convergence, Development, Google, YouTube
Google Android - Open Handset Platform
11.05.07 | Permalink | Comment?

Where’s my Gphone?

Posted by Andy Rubin, Director of Mobile Platforms

Despite all of the very interesting speculation over the last few months, we’re not announcing a Gphone. However, we think what we are announcing — the Open Handset Alliance and Android — is more significant and ambitious than a single phone. In fact, through the joint efforts of the members of the Open Handset Alliance, we hope Android will be the foundation for many new phones and will create an entirely new mobile experience for users, with new applications and new capabilities we can’t imagine today.

Android is the first truly open and comprehensive platform for mobile devices. It includes an operating system, user-interface and applications — all of the software to run a mobile phone, but without the proprietary obstacles that have hindered mobile innovation. We have developed Android in cooperation with the Open Handset Alliance, which consists of more than 30 technology and mobile leaders including Motorola, Qualcomm, HTC and T-Mobile. Through deep partnerships with carriers, device manufacturers, developers, and others, we hope to enable an open ecosystem for the mobile world by creating a standard, open mobile software platform. We think the result will ultimately be a better and faster pace for innovation that will give mobile customers unforeseen applications and capabilities.

We see Android as an important part of our strategy of furthering Google’s goal of providing access to information to users wherever they are. We recognize that many among the multitude of mobile users around the world do not and may never have an Android-based phone. Our goals must be independent of device or even platform. For this reason, Android will complement, but not replace, our longstanding mobile strategy of developing useful and compelling mobile services and driving adoption of these products through partnerships with handset manufacturers and mobile operators around the world.It’s important to recognize that the Open Handset Alliance and Android have the potential to be major changes from the status quo — one which will take patience and much investment by the various players before you’ll see the first benefits. But we feel the potential gains for mobile customers around the world are worth the effort. If you’re a developer and this approach sounds exciting, give us a week or so and we’ll have an SDK available. If you’re a mobile user, you’ll have to wait a little longer, but some of our partners are targeting the second half of 2008 to ship phones based on the Android platform. And if you already have a phone you know and love, check out mobile.google.com and make sure you have Google Maps for mobile, Gmail and our other great applications on your phone. We’ll continue to make these services better and add plenty of exciting new features, applications and services, too.
Apple, Development, Hack, iPhone
144,000 iPhone Jailbreaks
10.31.07 | Permalink | Comment?

crave >_ The release of an easy-to-download method of opening up the iPhone to third-party applications prompted almost 150,000 downloads of the software in three days.

Our friends over at iPhone Atlas spoke with Nicholas “Drudge” Penree, one of the programmers of the AppSnapp “jailbreak” application, who provided the number. AppSnapp was released Sunday to allow iPhones and iPod Touches running the latest version of Apple’s iPhone firmware to run third-party applications. Penree thinks the 144,000 downloads of the program reported since Sunday translates into around 100,000 devices that are now free to run applications developed outside of Apple. (more…)
Blogs, Development, Images, Motivation
Evidence Based Scheduling
10.27.07 | Permalink | Comment?

JoelOnSoftware >> Software developers don’t really like to make schedules. Usually, they try to get away without one. “It’ll be done when it’s done!” they say, expecting that such a brave, funny zinger will reduce their boss to a fit of giggles, and in the ensuing joviality, the schedule will be forgotten.Most of the schedules you do see are halfhearted attempts. They’re stored on a file share somewhere and completely forgotten. When these teams ship, two years late, that weird guy with the file cabinet in his office brings the old printout to the post mortem, and everyone has a good laugh. “Hey look! We allowed two weeks for rewriting from scratch in Ruby!” (more…)
Apple, Development, iPhone
iPhone SDK For Third Party Apps Coming Soon
10.17.07 | Permalink | Comment?

Let me just say it: We want native third party applications on the iPhone, and we plan to have an SDK in developers’ hands in February. We are excited about creating a vibrant third party developer community around the iPhone and enabling hundreds of new applications for our users. With our revolutionary multi-touch interface, powerful hardware and advanced software architecture, we believe we have created the best mobile platform ever for developers.

It will take until February to release an SDK because we’re trying to do two diametrically opposed things at once—provide an advanced and open platform to developers while at the same time protect iPhone users from viruses, malware, privacy attacks, etc. This is no easy task. Some claim that viruses and malware are not a problem on mobile phones—this is simply not true. There have been serious viruses on other mobile phones already, including some that silently spread from phone to phone over the cell network. As our phones become more powerful, these malicious programs will become more dangerous. And since the iPhone is the most advanced phone ever, it will be a highly visible target. (more…)
Blogs, Development, Future
The Future of Software Development
10.16.07 | Permalink | Comment?

ReadWriteWeb >>>> In 1975, Frederick Brooks wrote a classic book on software project management called The Mythical Man-Month. In the book, he famously argued that adding more people to a development project will hinder rather than help to get things done faster. The reason is that having more people working on the project introduces a non-linear overhead in communication.Five years before Brooks’ book, a software development methodology called the Waterfall Model was coined. This approach applied the insights from mature engineering disciplines (mechanical, civil, etc.) to software. The idea was to construct systems by first gathering requirements, then doing the design, then implementing it, then testing, and finally getting it out the door in one linear sequence. (more…)
Beta, Blogs, Development, Internet, Travel
Web 2.0 Entrepreneurs, move to California.
10.11.07 | Permalink | Comment?

Why to Move to a Startup Hub by Paul Graham…”After the last talk I gave, one of the organizers got up on the stage to deliver an impromptu rebuttal. That never happened before. I only heard the first few sentences, but that was enough to tell what I said that upset him: that startups would do better if they moved to Silicon Valley.This conference was in London, and most of the audience seemed to be from the UK. So saying startups should move to Silicon Valley seemed like a nationalistic remark: an obnoxious American telling them that if they wanted to do things right they should all just move to America.

Actually I’m less American than I seem. I didn’t say so, but I’m British by birth. And just as Jews are ex officio allowed to tell Jewish jokes, I don’t feel like I have to bother being diplomatic with a British audience.

The idea that startups would do better to move to Silicon Valley is not even a nationalistic one. [1] It’s the same thing I say to startups in the US. Y Combinator alternates between coasts every 6 months. Every other funding cycle is in Boston. And even though Boston is the second biggest startup hub in the US (and the world), we tell the startups from those cycles that their best bet is to move to Silicon Valley. If that’s true of Boston, it’s even more true of every other city.

(more…)