While Windows 8 already supports development using a number of programming languages, Microsoft wants developers to bring even more to the new Windows runtime (WinRT) at the heart of the next version of Windows. Martyn Lovell, Development Manager for the WinRT team, made the pitch for more language support for Windows 8 on April 3, during his Lang.Next conference session at Microsoft.
Android 4.x "Ice Cream Sandwich" is making gains, though Gingerbread still takes the lion's share, according to a snapshot of data provided to Android developers. Ice Cream Sandwich (ICS) had about a 2.9 percent share and Honeycomb had more than a 3 percent share, according to Android Developers, which describes the data as "the relative number of active devices running a given version of the Android platform."
Mozilla has moved one step closer to its goal of delivering a “Metro style enabled browser.” In a status update earlier yesterday, Mozilla’s Brian R. Bondy announced that his team had produced a “working Firefox Windows 8 Metro prototype”: As of last week, we have a working browser in Metro. It currently looks and feels the same as the Android browser. You can navigate the web, create tabs, bookmark pages, build history, retain cache, adjust preferences, and more.
Microsoft's Internet Explorer regained some of the browser usage it's lost in recent years, holding Chrome, Firefox, Opera, and Safari at bay in March. IE rose from 52.8 percent of worldwide browser usage in February to 53.8 percent in March, a relatively large monthly jump in the statistics.
Google Chrome 18 brings two methods of improved graphics support to both newer and older computers. Released yesterday, Google Chrome 18 stable for Windows, Mac, Linux, and Chrome Frame improves both WebGL and Canvas2D.
For better or worse, IE10 is one of those Windows 8 apps with a split personality--part Metro and part desktop. Microsoft dubs it a "Metro style enabled desktop browser," which means that technically it's a single app that offers two different "experiences."
Opera ports its WebGL hardware acceleration from Opera Mobile to the Android version of Opera Mini 7, which first debuted last month at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain. Opera Mini 7 for Android improves the lightweight browser's compressed browsing feature called Turbo with hardware acceleration, and expands the Speed Dial landing page beyond nine Web sites.
While past versions of Adobe's products have offered a decent spectrum of support for existing operating system and computing environments, new features and development directions in the program suite have had Adobe making some adjustments to the platforms that will support the new software.