If you added Google Sign-In to your application over the last eight years, you probably followed the advice given to developers at the time to use the Google+ People API. This was recommended even if you just wanted profile or email address of your users, something usually served by the ID token provided by the Google Identity service. You'll want to make the change below, or you could start seeing failures in the next few months.
Thanks To Siri and Kinect, Web 3.0 can now happen
The last year has given us huge advancements in NUI interfaces such as Siri, TellMe, and Kinect. These interfaces allow for us to interface with knowledge either locally or world wide through voice and motion gestures. This has proven to be a lot of fun for customers, and opens up technology to more people in a new and engaging way. However it was not long until customers discovered the limitations of the first generation of these NUI devices.
Facebook, Data Durability, and hacking HBase
The debate around using Hardoop, and in particular the distributed file system HDFS and HBase, vs. existing file system and SQL databases has been heating up in the past year. This is an interesting fight. Microsoft says SQL Server Datacenter is just fine, and Dryad uses it along with its distributed file system Cosmos. Oracle says they've been doing parallel dataset analysis and storage since 2001 using SQL with no problem. Meanwhile NoSQL is gaining traction and people are wondering if you need object relational mapping solutions at all.
Haskell: Generative Type Abstraction and Type-level Computation
I haven’t had lunch with Simon for awhile (it’s hard since he’s in Cambridge and only visits main campus occasionally) but he publishes papers at an amazing pace, and every time his language, Haskell, and the world gets a lot smarter. Here he introduces the concept of “roles” to aid in the problems that occur with type-level computation.
What I’ve Been Working On: Office365 in Beta!
Our team has been working very hard on Office 365, the successor to BPOS, almost before BPOS was released two years ago. Combined with constant improvements to the existing service, such as the addition of PowerShell, speed and reliability improvements, and an introduction of a more refined service dashboard, it has left our team panting from the exciting but exhausting pace.
What I’ve Been Working On: Microsoft Online Now Supports BlackBerry In The Cloud
For the first time businesses and consumers who prefer BlackBerry® devices will be able to purchase both Exchange Online services and Hosted BlackBerry® services together in the cloud without needing any additional servers or software. This feature provides the full range of BlackBerry features such as push email, calendar and address book through their device.
Un-PC Reality
I think in some there is real fear of this new reality- fear that needs to be addressed - a way forward clearly communicated for them. That I believe would help Microsoft regain its spirit - which never relied on the current products - but always the future. We should aspire to make our customers fans - fans of the brand and the innovation, not of just the PC.
The Rise Of Functional Programming: F#/Scala/Haskell and the failing of Lisp
Common Lisp showed its failure as a community by sitting out this enthusiasm that has been generated around functional programming languages. It didn't have to be that way. Even more, I believe long suffering Lisp deserves to be back in favor again, it's certainly spent its time in purgatory. Yet, it didn't happen. You can blame the old 50 year old men sitting on IRC channels for that. It was the most thorny and un-inspiring community I've ever participated in, despite my extreme interest in the language. It's jaw dropping that a language with such promise has sat out the resurgence, and speaks to what an un-friendly and un-inviting community can do a technology platform. I would be the first to march it off to the grave.