TypeScript 5: A look at the major changes

In this article, we’ll take a look at some of the major changes in TypeScript 5.

TypeScript 5 was released earlier this month. The latest version features numerous improvements to make the language smaller, simpler, and faster.

Here are the biggest changes in the latest release:

Variadic tuple types

Variadic tuple types allow developers to define tuple types with a variable number of elements. 

In previous versions of TypeScript, the number...

27 March 2023 | Languages

Copilot X heralds a new era of AI-powered coding

GitHub has unveiled Copilot X, an upgraded version of its AI-powered coding assistance tool.

Copilot X adopts OpenAI’s latest GPT-4 model and now features chat and voice interfaces, support for pull requests, command-line support, and can generate answer questions from documentation:

https://twitter.com/marktenenholtz/status/1638549603753795584

Unlike traditional coding assistance tools that rely on simple code templates or pre-defined snippets, Copilot X uses...

24 March 2023 | Artificial Intelligence

Microsoft intends to launch a mobile app store

Microsoft is planning to launch a mobile app store that will compete against the App Store and Play Store.

According to Microsoft’s Xbox head Phil Spencer, Microsoft will take advantage of an upcoming EU law that will break up the monopoly held by the two major smartphone platform holders.

"We want to be in a position to offer Xbox and content from both us and our third-party partners across any screen where somebody would want to play," Spencer told the...

21 March 2023 | Android

Developer demos GPT-4’s coding skills

A developer has shown off GPT-4’s prowess in creating mobile apps.

If you’ve been living under a rock, GPT-4 – OpenAI’s latest multimodal large language model – was released earlier this week.

GPT-4 now exhibits “human-level” performance on several benchmarks.

In a simulated law bar exam, GPT-3.5 scored around the bottom 10 percent. GPT-4, however, passed the exam among the top 10 percent.

OpenAI said in a blog post that GPT-4 is "more...

17 March 2023 | Artificial Intelligence

Google offers ML-powered translation for Android apps

Google has announced that it will offer free machine-learning translation for Android apps.

The service will enable developers to bring their apps to as many people as possible, without incurring significant additional costs.

At launch, seven languages are supported:

Chinese (Simplified) French German Indonesian Japanese Portuguese Spanish

Google Translate’s transformer-based language models will be used for accurate translation into...

15 March 2023 | Android

Go re-enters TIOBE’s top 10 programming languages

Programming language Go appears to be making a resurgence as it re-enters TIOBE’s top 10 list.

TIOBE creates its programming language popularity list using search data across 25 different engines. The methodology has been regularly criticised but suffices as a rough guide of the interest in each language.

Go was created by Google and often lingers just outside of the top 10 on the TIOBE Index. The language was last in the top 10 in July 2017.

In the March...

14 March 2023 | Go

Microsoft inflates Bing Search API fees

Microsoft is introducing massive price hikes for developers using the Bing Search API.

“We periodically assess the value and pricing of our services to meet market demands and align the pricing of our products and services with customer consumption trends and preferences,” wrote Microsoft.

“The new pricing model reflects more accurately the technology investments Bing continues to make to improve Search.”

Dependent on your needs, some of the prices have...

20 February 2023 | API

iOS 16.4 supports web app notifications

Users will be able to receive push notifications from web apps they’ve added to their homescreens starting with iOS 16.4.

iOS users have been able to add shortcuts for their favourite web apps to their homescreens since 2008. Over the years, Apple has unlocked further capabilities for web apps on iOS—but push notification support has remained a major omission.

As of iOS 16.4, Progressive Web Apps (PWAs) take a big step closer to being able to offer a native app...

17 February 2023 | API

Clipper malware found in over 451 PyPI packages

Phylum security researchers have discovered over 451 packages on the Python Package Index (PyPI) that are infected with “clipper” malware.

Clippers replace the contents of a victim’s clipboard with something which benefits the attacker. The most prevalent clippers today look for cryptocurrency addresses and modify them to steal funds.

Starting on February 9th, Phylum was alerted by its automated risk detection platform to a long series of suspicious publications to...

15 February 2023 | Hacking & Security

Twitter pushes API changes back further as concerns mount

Twitter will now introduce its API changes over a week later than planned while concerns over the impact continue to grow.

Elon Musk’s social network first announced on 2 February 2023 that it was ending free access to its API (both v2 and v1.1) a week later on February 9th.

Twitter later pushed back the API changes to February 13th. Now, the company says it will take a bit longer again:

https://twitter.com/TwitterDev/status/1625234161010343941

Despite...

14 February 2023 | API