Test Center Tracker: x86 isn’t just for games

Leveraging x86: Application developers can learn from the example set by game developers and media editors insofar as how they use , opines InfoWorld Chief Technologist Tom Yager. “Despite the fact that every living PC has SIMD extensions by now, I am sure that [x86] extensions aren’t used where they could make the greatest difference.” By taking better advantage of x86, developers could inject cryptography, compression, and real-time business analytics in their wares.

Second Life, third dimension: Blogger in Chief Jon Udell observes the striking similarities between building HTML Web pages in the 1990s and constructing 3-D artifacts in online 3-D environment Second Life today. “Just as Web page authors were scarce and expensive then, Second Life builders are now. ” But the similarities end when it comes to difficulty. Web pages are 2-D pages. whereas “you build Second Life objects using two-dimensional gestures that render in a simulated 3-D space. I used to be handy with 3-D CAD software, and let me tell you, that third dimension is a doozy.”

Java does Vista: Contrary to rumors, Java Client Group Architect Chet Haase asserts that Java runs quite well on Vista, thank you, particularly Java SE 6. He notes that adapting Java to the ever-evolving Vista platform has been no easy trick, though. ” [S]ince Vista has been a moving platform during the Java SE 6 development process, we’ve been in this development cycle continually with every new drop of Vista (they are still releasing weekly builds for us to test; we just found a bug in RC1 that has since been fixed in the latest release we got yesterday).”