Google has updated its Text-to-Speech and Speech-to-Text APIs with a range of feature improvements alongside support for more languages.

For many developers, the addition of 17 new WaveNet-based voices for a variety of languages will be the highlight of today’s update.

WaveNet is Google’s technology which uses machine learning to create a natural-sounding voice when performing text-to-speech.

GitLab is shifting from Azure to Google Cloud but says its decision was not due to users who migrated from GitHub following its Microsoft acquisition.

Following the news of Microsoft’s acquisition of GitHub, traffic spiked of people using GitLab’s tool for importing projects from the world’s biggest Git service. It’s clear developers still have very...

Google Cloud has announced support for the popular cross-platform Node JavaScript runtime in the standard App Engine environment

Node.js allows server code to be written in JavaScript. With the support added today, Google is seeking to make this process as simple for developers as possible.

To ensure simplicity, Google is not putting any limitation on the Node.js packages that developers can use — and it will not have any language or API restrictions.

Here are the benefits Google claims its...

If the rumours of a 5G-enabled PSP (PlayStation Portable) are true, it would be a defining moment in proving the next-generation of cellular technology has unlocked the potential for the cloud streaming of apps and games to mobile devices.

The rumours of a 5G PSP started after Sony released its FY2017 financial results. In its results, the company pointed towards 5G as being the reason it should remain in the...

What do enterprise developers want? A cloud-native Java, according to a new consultation from the Eclipse Foundation.

The study, which polled more than 1,800 Java developers – 44% of whom categorised themselves as senior developers with a further 24% as architects – put cloud-native as an ‘imperative’ for enterprise Java going forward.

‘Two critical gaps in Java EE are now top priorities for Jakarta EE’, the foundation notes – lest we forget, Jakarta EE is the new...

Email and data security provider Mimecast has rolled out a new application programming interface (API) developer portal to extend business and cyber resilience for email with a constant, scalable and uniform API.

The Mimecast API developer portal is already processing a huge number of requests every day and is a key enabler for multiple Mimecast services and applications. Mimecast customers and partners need to visit the portal to take advantage of Mimecast security and archive data and integrate to existing...

Google has unveiled a public beta version of the Google Cloud Video intelligence API and has introduced enhancements in the Google Cloud Vision API by updating existing features.

The Google Cloud Video intelligence API, first released in March 2017, uses machine learning to make videos searchable and discoverable, by extracting metadata which is also used to index video content. Since the API contains a library of 20,000 labels, those not possessing extensive knowledge in machine learning or computer vision...

Sumerian is a new service from Amazon which aims to help developers build AR, VR, and 3D applications in AWS.

The low-code tool offers a point-and-click user interface for building scenes and applications which should help to make AR and VR development more accessible without the need for years of coding and design experience.

Sumerian has a built-in library of pre-built assets and templates, but users can...

Microsoft has unveiled several new AI development tools during its annual Connect(); developer conference.

The tagline for this year’s event was ‘Putting AI into the hands of developers’ and it’s clear that Microsoft is working hard to be a leader in this emerging space.

Puppet, an open-source software configuration management provider, has announced the acquisition of Distelli, a Seattle-based infrastructure automation company, to combine its global reach and DevOps leadership with the latter’s container and application deployment offerings.

The acquisition of Distelli gives Puppet an ability to provide enterprises end-to-end visibility into and control over application delivery regardless of what the application is running on, whether it is VMs or containerised...

CloudBees, the hub of enterprise Jenkins and DevOps, has introduced CloudBees Jenkins Advisor, a new free service that analyses Jenkins environments continuously to identify potential issues.

The service then advises on corrective actions before they impact business-critical software delivery, ensuring improved uptime, performance and productivity.

CloudBees has developed an expansive knowledge base and diagnostic tools to detect issues ranging from simple configuration issues to security and best practices...

The impressive cloud processing technology which powers the upcoming installment of the hit Crackdown franchise has been shown off in a new proof-of-concept.

Cloudgine has shown off its technology with a new game, They Came From Space, which should push even the best local hardware alone to its limits. By using the cloud technology, it renders at 90fps despite being available in VR, offering fully-destructible and dynamic environments, and online multiplayer battles.

“Our team...

Cloudflare has launched a $100 million developer investment fund alongside the launch of its Cloudflare Apps platform.

The company itself raised $110 million of investment from companies including Fidelity, Google, Microsoft, Baidu, and Qualcomm last year, and with good reason. Cloudflare has grown from a team of 37 operating a network in 23 cities and 15 countries in 2012, to now employing over 200 and having a presence in 62 cities and 33 countries.

“When we started Cloudflare we needed two things: a...

Day one of BUILD, Microsoft’s developer conference, saw a variety of announcements and discussion around Azure, artificial intelligence (AI) and the Internet of Things (IoT), as well as something of a shift in strategy.

First, the numbers. Satya Nadella, Microsoft CEO, announced yesterday that Windows had reached 500 million Windows 10 monthly active devices, up from 400 million devices in September, while also stressing the 12 million organisational entities in Azure Active Directory and the 100...

(Image Credit: iStockPhoto/dem10)

Several references to ‘Windows 10 Cloud’ have appeared in recent Windows test builds and insiders believe it’s Microsoft’s answer to Chrome OS.

Reports claim Windows 10 Cloud will drop support for Win32/64 and rely on UWP apps similar to Google’s ongoing roll-out of Android support in Chrome OS. There was a time when Chromebooks were only useful for web browsing or putting together a quick...

(Image Credit: iStockPhoto/nicescene)

The growth of AR hit Pokémon Go was staggering and far exceeded the humble expectations of developer Niantic Labs. Within just 15 minutes of launching in Australia and New Zealand, player traffic surged well past Niantic’s expectations and created a range of stability issues. 

While it was a troublesome launch period, it could have been much worse if...

(c)iStock.com/Danil Melekhin

The growth and use of big data continues to dominate nearly every business enterprise.

Forbes reports that “making enterprises more customer-centric, sharpening focus on key initiatives that lead to entering new markets and creating new business models, and improving operational performance are three dominant factors driving analytics, big data,...

(c)iStock.com/Sjoerd van der Wal

Since Docker burst on to the scene in 2013, container technology has gone from strength to strength, with an increasingly vocal community of fans in the dev community.

As with any new tech, there were the usual accusations of ‘over-hype’. As much as we love to evangelise about a new technology, we also love to shoot it down.

However, the adoption of containers has also been helped by the rapid growth in the ecosystem, with tooling, scheduling and orchestration...

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To require an internet connection for mobile applications is to live in the past. If apps rely on a connection, odds are high that the experience will be sluggish and unpredictable.

To avoid reliance on the network, providers of databases and cloud services have started to add synchronization and offline capabilities to their mobile offerings. Solutions like Couchbase’s Couchbase Mobile, Microsoft’s Azure Mobile Services, Amazon’s Cognito, and Google’s Firebase...

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A new study from analyst house VisionMobile has looked into the global developer landscape – and found Java to be the most popular language while devs are increasingly working across multiple sectors, including mobile, IoT, and cloud.

The latter makes sense – as tools and languages work across sectors, the developers using them do as well – yet the research, which polls more than 30,000 developers each year, found some other interesting findings.

The figures, which are...