NVidia ha rilasciato il SDK 3.1 di PhysX, download a partire da questa pagina del PhysX Developer Support

General

• VC10 support has been introduced.
• VC8 support has been discontinued.
• Namespaces cleaned up.
• Extensions, Character Controller and Vehicle source code made available in binary distribution.
• Added x86,x64 suffix to PxTaskCUDA.dll
• Removed boolean return value from PxScene::addActor(…), and similar API calls.
• Added Mac OS X, Android and Linux to the list of supported platforms. See Supported Platforms below for details.
• Upgraded GPU tech to CUDA 4.
• Cleaned up a large number of warnings at C++ warning level 4, and set SDK to compile with warnings as errors.
• Removed individual sample executables in favor of SampleAllInOne from PC and console builds.
• Fixed alpha blending in samples.
• Simplified some code in samples.
• Improved ambient lighting in samples.
• Made samples work with older graphics cards.
• Renamed some XBOX 360 specific files and folders.
• Improved and added more content the user’s guide.
• No longer passing NULL pointers to user allocator to deallocate.
• Various improvements to Foundation and classes shared with APEX.

Rigid Bodies

• Rigid Body: High performance alternative convex narrow phase code available to source licensees. See PERSISTENT_CONTACT_MANIFOLD in the code.
• Significant advancements in the continuous collision detection algorithm.
• Optimizations and robustness improvements for articulations.
• Added some helper code to the API.
• Added sleep code for articulations.
• Added support for vehicles with more than one chassis shape.
• Solver iteration count for articulations.
• Articulation limit padding configurable.
• The reference count of meshes does now take the application’s reference into acount as well and thus has increased by 1 (it used to count the number of objects referencing the mesh only). Note that a mesh does only get destroyed and removed from the list of meshes once the reference count reaches 0.
• Fixed autowake parameter sometimes being ignored.
• Constraint solver optimizations.
• Improved behavior of character controller on steep slopes.
• Binary serialization now saves names.
• Removed some descriptors from API.
• Removed the angular velocity term in the joint positional drive error formula.
• Fixed bug in capsule sweep versus mesh.
• Fixed a crash bug in the tire model.
• Fixed crashing of single link articulations.
• Fixed bug related to removing elements of an aggregate.
• Fixed swapped wheel graphs in sample vehicle.
• Fixed some slow moving bodies falling asleep in midair.
• Fixed missing collisions after a call to resetFiltering.
• Fixed broken autowake option in setAngularVelocity.
• Fixed D6 joint linear limits being uninitialized.
• A large number of misc. bug fixes and optimizations.
• Improved documentation and error messages associated with running out of narrow phase buffer blocks.
• Added articulation documentation.
• Expanded manual sections on joints.
• Improved reference doc for PxSceneQueryHitType.
• Added reference doc for PxSerializable.

Particles

• Particle index allocation removed from SDK. Added index allocation pool to extensions.
• Replaced GPU specific side band API PxPhysicsGpu and PxPhysics::getPhysicsGpu() with PxParticleGpu.
• Memory optimizations on all platforms and options to reduce memory usage according to use case with new per particle system flags:
  • PxParticleBaseFlag::eCOLLISION_WITH_DYNAMIC_ACTORS
  • PxParticleBaseFlag::ePER_PARTICLE_COLLISION_CACHE_HINT
• Fixed rare crash appearing with multi-threaded non-GPU particle systems and rigid bodies.
• Fixed particles leaking through triangle mesh geometry on GPU.
• Fixed fast particles tunneling through scene geometry in some cases.
• Fixed erroneous collision of particles with teleporting rigid shapes (setGlobalPose).
• Fixed particle sample behavior with some older GPU models.
• Fixed a GPU particle crash bug.

Cloth

• A new solution for simulating cloth and clothing.

Deformables

• Deformables are deprecated and will be removed in the next release. There is a new optimized solution for clothing simulation (see documentation on PxCloth for details).

Rilasciata la versione beta di Fedora 16

This release of Fedora includes a variety of features both over and under the hood that show off the power and flexibility of the advancing state of free software. Examples include:

• Cloud Updates. Fedora now includes a number of new and improved features to support cloud computing, includingHekaFS, a "cloud ready" version of GlusterFS, including additional auth*/crypto/multi-tenancy; pacemaker-cloud, application service high availability in a cloud environment; and IaaS implementations such as Aeolus andOpenStack.

• Virtualization. Once again Fedora raises the bar on virtualization support, including expanded virtual network support, an improved Spice for managing virtual machines, restored Xen support, a new virtual machine lock manager, and improved ability to browse guest file systems.

• System Boot. Fedora 16 introduces GRUB2, the long-awaited next-generation boot-loader for Linux. GRUB2 automatically recognizes other operating systems, supports LVM2 and LUKS partitions, and is more customizable than the previous version. In this release, only x86 systems with a BIOS uses GRUB2 by default. Work is ongoing for making GRUB2 the default for other architectures and systems.

• Services Management. Fedora 15 introduced the Systemd services management program. This release features better integration of Systemd via conversion to native systemd services from legacy init scripts in many software components -- for desktop users, this means faster boot times; for system administrators it means more powerful management of services.

• Desktop Updates. The two major desktop environments have been updated to the latest releases: KDE Software Compilation 4.7 and GNOME 3.1 development release. GNOME 3.2 is available in the updates testing repository, enabled by default in this release.

• System Accounts. Fedora now standardizes on login.defs as authority for UID/GID space allocation, and has moved boundary between system and user accounts from 500 to 1000 to match conventions followed by several other Linux distributions. Upgrading from a existing release will not be affected by this change and you can use kickstart to override this change during installation if necessary.

• Developer Improvements. Developers get many goodies with Verne, including updated Ada, Haskell and Perlenvironments, a new Python plugin for GCC and a number of new and improved APIs.

La lista completa delle nuove features è disponibile a questa pagina. Download della versione beta di Fedora 16 da questa pagina.

Oracle ha rilasciato JavaFX 2.0. L'annuncio è stato dato al JavaOne 2011 in corso a San Francisco, tre anni dopo la presentazione di JavaFX al JavaOne 2008, e due anni e mezzo dopo il rilascio della prima versione di JavaFX.
JavaFX è una famiglia di prodotti basati sulla tecnologia Java che consentono lo sviluppo di Rich Internet Application (RIA).

Oracle ha intenzione di continuare lo sviluppo della piattaforma JavaFX come un progetto open source che sia parte di OpenJDK. Il codice sorgente di JavaFX sarà rilasciato sotto licenza GPL v2 con l'eccezione Classpath, come per gli altri progetti in OpenJDK. JavaFX runtime e il SDK continueranno ad essere rilasciati sotto la Java binary code license.
Il download di JavaFX 2.0 è possibile da questa pagina per sistemi Windows. Il rilascio di JavaFX per Linux è stato pianificato per la fine del 2012.

La documentazione relativa a JavaFX 2.0 è disponibile a partire da questa pagina, in particolare la documentazione sulle API è disponibile a questo indirizzo.

Poco meno di due mesi dopo il rilascio di Firefox 5 Mozilla ha rilasciato la successiva versione del suo browser Firefox 6.

The latest version of Firefox has the following changes:

• The address bar now highlights the domain of the website you're visiting
• Streamlined the look of the site identity block
• Added support for the latest draft version of WebSockets with a prefixed API
• Added support for EventSource / server-sent events
• Added support for window.matchMedia
• Added Scratchpad, an interactive JavaScript prototyping environment
• Added a new Web Developer menu item and moved development-related items into it
• Improved usability of the Web Console
• Improved the discoverability of Firefox Sync
• Reduced browser startup time when using Panorama
• Fixed several stability issues
• Fixed several security issues

La lista completa dei cambiamenti è disponibile a questa pagina. Note di rilascio disponibili a questa pagina, download da questa pagina.

Come anticipato Oracle ha rilasciato Java SE 7 (Java Standard Edition 7) a fine luglio. Java 7 è la prima versione di Java gestita interamente da Oracle, ed è stata accompagnata da vivaci polemiche. Download della nuova versione di Java (JDK e JRE) a partire da questa pagina.

Java SE 7 delivers:

• Language changes to help increase developer productivity and simplify common programming tasks by reducing the amount of code needed, clarifying syntax and making code easier to read. (JSR 334: Project Coin)
• Improved support for dynamic languages (including: Ruby, Python and JavaScript), resulting in substantial performance increases on the JVM. (JSR 292: InvokeDynamic)
• A new multicore-ready API that enables developers to more easily decompose problems into tasks that can then be executed in parallel across arbitrary numbers of processor cores. (JSR 166: Fork/Join Framework)
• A comprehensive I/O interface for working with file systems that can access a wider array of file attributes and offer more information when errors occur. (JSR 203: NIO.2)
• New networking and security features
• Expanded support for internationalization, including Unicode 6.0 support
• Updated versions of numerous libraries

Il rilascio di Java 7 EE (Enterprise Edition) è previsto per il terzo trimestre del 2012.

Annunciato il rilascio di Apache Lucene, API open source per il recupero di informazioni in formato elettronico scritta in Java, e Solr 3.1. Per Lucene changelog disponibile a questa pagina, note di rilascio disponibili a questa pagina, download a partire da questa pagina.

Hewlett-Packard ha rilasciato il SDK (software Development Kit) per webOS 2.1, sistema operativo per dispositivi mobili. È possibile effettuare il download del SDK da questa pagina, le note di rilascio sono disponibili a questa pagina.

New webOS Features & APIs

• Just Type. Integrate into the webOS Just Type interface, enabling users search within your app or use your app to perform quick actions.
• Exhibition. Implement support for Exhibition to inform, entertain and delight your users when their devices are docked on the Touchstone charger.
• JavaScript Services with Node.js. Write background services in JavaScript. Services run in the popular Node.js runtime environment, which is built into webOS 2.
• Synergy APIs. Integrate deeply into the webOS user experience by developing Synergy connectors for Contacts, Calendar or Messaging.
• HTML5 Enhancements. CSS gradients, enhanced Canvas support, Web Storage and more. Web sites can also take advantage of HTML5 Geolocation and Application Cache.
• Key Manager. Utilize new key management and cryptographic functionality.
• Media Capture. New APIs for capturing photos, videos and audio recordings.
• Bluetooth SPP. Implement wireless data transfer to and from Bluetooth-enabled devices, using the Bluetooth Serial Port Profile (SPP).
• Zeroconf (Bonjour). Discover devices on a local network.
• Media Indexer. Access the index of audio and video files stored on the device.

 

Mozilla ha annunciato il rilascio di Firefox 4, la versione finale arriva dopo il rilascio di 12 versioni beta e due release candidate.

Mozilla, a global, nonprofit organization dedicated to making the Web better, is proud to release Mozilla Firefox 4, the newest version of the popular, free and open source Web browser.

Secondo Mozilla la versione 4 è la versione più veloce di Firefox, Firefox 4 è da due a sei volte più veloce di Firefox 3.
Firefox 4 è dotato anche di un nuovo add-ons manager, supporto per HTML5, App Tabs. Il motore JavaScript incorpora il nuovo compilatore JägerMonkey JIT. Con Firefox 4 un eventuale problema con Adobe Flash, Apple QuickTime o Silverlight di Microsoft non causerà il blocco del browser. Se uno di questi plugin si dovesse bloccare non influenzerebbe il resto di Firefox, sarà sufficiente ricaricare la pagina per riavviare il plugin.
Firefox 4 è disponibile in oltre 80 lingue per sistemi Windows, Linux, Max OS X. Il download è possibile da questa pagina.

What’s New in Firefox 4:

Fastest Firefox Ever

• Performance: Firefox is up to six times faster than the previous release. With improved start-up and page load times, speedy Web app performance and hardware accelerated graphics, Firefox is optimized for rich, interactive websites.

Streamlined Interface

• App Tabs: give a permanent home to frequently visited sites like Web mail, Twitter, Pandora, Flickr.
• Switch to Tab: easily find and switch to any open tab from your Awesome Bar without opening duplicate tabs.
• Panorama: drag and drop tabs into manageable groups to save time while navigating many open tabs.

Private and Secure Synchronization

• Firefox Sync: access your Awesome Bar history, bookmarks, open tabs, passwords and form data across multiple computers and mobile devices.

Most Customizable

• New Add-ons Manager: easily discover and install more than 200,000 add-ons to customize the features, functionality and look of Firefox.

Private and Secure

• Do Not Track: Firefox is leading the Web towards a universal standard Do Not Track feature that allows users to opt-out of tracking used for behavioral advertising.
• Firefox puts privacy first, fixing flaws in some Web standards to prevent others from accessing your browser history.
• HTTP Strict Transport Security (HSTS): automatically establishes secure connections to stop "man in the middle" attacks and keep sensitive data safe from interception during the log-in process.
• Content Security Policy (CSP): prevent cross-scripting attacks by allowing sites to explicitly tell the browser which content is legitimate.

Cutting Edge Tools for Web Developers:

• The JavaScript engine incorporates the new JägerMonkey JIT compiler, along with enhancements to the existing TraceMonkey JIT and SpiderMonkey’s interpreter for faster page-load speed and better performance of Web apps and games.
• HTML5 support in Firefox includes hardware accelerated, high-definition video (WebM), 3D graphics, offline data storage, professional typography, touchscreen interfaces and the Mozilla Audio API to help create visual experiences for sound and more.
• Firefox 4 also improves existing tools like CSS, Canvas and SVG to enable developers to make exciting Web pages.
• Firefox provides uninterrupted browsing when there is a crash in the Adobe Flash, Apple QuickTime or Microsoft Silverlight plugins. If one of these plugins crashes or freezes, it won’t affect the rest of Firefox. Simply reload the page to restart the plugin.

Il team di sviluppo di JRuby ha annunciato il rilascio di JRuby 1.6, una implementazione in Java del linguaggio di programmazione Ruby

This release fixes hundreds of user issues and brings compatibility with Ruby 1.9.2 to a very high level. We have made Windows a primary supported platform by adding it to our continuous integration environment. JRuby 1.6 will provide Windows-based Ruby users with the best experience yet. This release integrates experimental support for C extensions based on Ruby’s C API.

JRuby è rilasciata sotto licenza CPL, GPL o LGPL, ed è possibile scaricarla da questa pagina.

Rilasciati i nuovi driver, versione 11.1, Catalyst. Note di rilascio disponibili a questa pagina, download da questa pagina.

Highlights of the AMD Catalyst™ 11.1 Windows release include:

New Features:

The new AMD Catalyst Control Center™ user interface

• The new AMD Catalyst Control Center enables a simplified user experience to help you get the most out of your AMD graphics product
  • Easily enable/configure 3D settings to enhance game image quality
  • Desktop and displays to setup AMD Eyefinity multiple displays to help increase productivity
  • Control your video image quality, color and playback capabilities
  • Adjust power settings to help increase battery life
  • Support of two unique views – for mainstream and advanced users
  • User Interface dynamically updates based on available AMD hardware

Support for OpenGL 4.1

• New features introduced in OpenGL 4.1 
  • Full compatibility with OpenGL ES 2.0 APIs for easier porting between mobile and desktop platforms
  • The ability to query and load a binary for shader program objects to save re-compilation time
  • The capability to bind programs individually to programmable stages for programming flexibility
  • 64-bit floating-point component vertex shader inputs for higher geometric precision
  • Multiple viewports for a rendering surface for increased rendering flexibility