The newest version of the Oracle NetBeans IDE (integrated developer environment) will come with support for the latest versions of PHP and C++.

The Japanese word Muda loosely translates as waste. The core element of lean manufacturing is to eliminate waste--or, in more North American terms, to "cut the fat." While applying lean concepts to manufacturing may seem straightforward, there is little agreement on what that term even means for software, or if it applies.

In the past decade, application development has undergone a revolution: the Agile Manifesto, cloud computing development platforms and the explosion in the iPhone, iPad and Android device markets have changed everything.

Sencha describes Sencha Architect 2, the latest incarnation of its visual Web development tool, as "a massive upgrade to Ext Designer," the previous version. The name change from Designer to Architect reflects the product's new focus. Instead of a tool for building Web UIs, Sencha says the new version is suitable for creating complete Web applications, both for UI designers and back-end developers. That's true up to a point.

Vint Cerf once wore a shirt that read "IP on Everything," a wry comment on the versatility of the Internet Protocol he helped invent, a protocol that underlies all Internet communication. Now a University of California Berkeley researcher has put Cerf's maxim to the test, running an IP network over a set of xylophones, played by human participants.

Wouldn't it be cool if you had a "magic" folder on your PC, one that automatically synced its contents with the Web, your other PCs, your cell phone, and other devices?

You wouldn't let your kids walk the streets of Amsterdam's Red Light District, but giving them unrestricted access to the Web is practically the same thing. The problem is, how do you block out all that inappropriate Web content?

What is Facebook's secret to keeping the world's largest user base content? Sticking to well-proven software design principles, one study has concluded.

Microsoft and Google are fighting yet another public relations battle, this time over the HTML5 video standards to be used in the next generation of Web browsers.

Some people just don't like change. Less than a week after Digg released version 4 of its social news-sharing site, fans have rebelled, flooding Digg with links from a rival sharing site, staging a "Quit Digg Day," and prophesying a major drop-off in traffic if the site doesn't return to its roots. Has Digg dug its grave, or is this yet another kneejerk neophobic reaction?

Now that SAP's roughly $US6 billion acquisition of Sybase has gained clearance from European regulators, it may not be long before the deal is finalised. With that in mind, users and partners of the companies have much to consider during the next few months, analysts say.

Yahoo has created a technology that simplifies and automates for developers the process of identifying geographical references in the content that their applications process.