Spotlight Features

Tailoring language translations for software documentation and GUIs can make or break an open source project. Localizing language is a unique undertaking, with a number of moving parts. Developers often have to choose between tight development cycles or less harried ones that might let competitors a...

It's natural to reach for a pad and pen when you need to take notes, but the end result can be frustratingly limited. On the other hand, clicking away on a keypad doesn't quite cut it for all situations. "The cool thing about using the pen with the computer is that it gives you choices," said Doug L...

Lexicographer Erin McKean gave a TED talk in 2007 called "The Joy of Lexicography," in which she pointed out the limitations of print dictionaries. After that talk, she decided to make her vision of a new kind of dictionary a reality. Thus was born Wordnik. "Our mission with Wordnik is to put all th...

The Heartbleed vulnerability in OpenSSL has sent just about everyone who uses the Web for fun or profit gibbering madly in search of a solution, creating fertile ground for spammers, scammers and marketing types. Canada is in an uproar following a disclosure by the Canada Revenue Agency that a hacke...

Open source software continues to gain momentum -- but what is not growing is an open desire among individual software developers to port their commercial Windows wares to Linux. Open source support is not a mere in or out decision. Some software makers shape their business models to take advantage ...

Mark and Lesleyann Coker wrote a novel, Boob Tube, based on her experiences as a soap opera reporter. They found an agent, who shopped it around to traditional publishers to no avail. Rather than give up, however, they decided to start their own e-book publishing company, Smashwords, to give their b...

The uproar that erupted over Mozilla Foundation cofounder Brendan Eich's appointment as CEO of its subsidiary Mozilla Corp. and resulted in his stepping down earlier this month perhaps was symptomatic of the troubles the foundation is going through, in that opposition to his taking the post had both...

Nearly 120,000 people in the United States are on the waiting list for an organ transplant that may save their lives, according to the American Transplant Foundation. "In the short term, we need many more people to register to be a potential organ donor," said Jordan Miller, assistant professor of...