Tales from the bits

According to Julia Angwin and Jennifer Valentino-Devries, reporters of The Wall Street Journal, Google bypassed user privacy settings for the Safari web browser. In simple words, Google was able to drop tracking cookies even when the user has set Safari to block cookies. Microsoft confirmed that Google was using similar techniques to bypass privacy settings  for IE. [...]

Skype and other Internet-based phone systems have flaws that could potentially disclose the identities, locations and even digital files of the hundreds of millions of users of these systems. The research was conducted by Chao Zhang and Keith Ross of NYU-Poly; Stevens Le Blond of the Max Planck Institute for Software Systems (MPI-SWS), Germany; and Arnaud [...]

What is it better to do, code reviews or testing? Code review or software inspections are used to spot software errors, omissions and anomalies. The code review as the name implies is to look at the source code for errors and defects. To successful perform a code review a team of at least four people [...]

Open standards are standards that are available to the public and anyone either a developer or a corporation can add them into their software program. Open standards come to fill the need for interoperability. The problem that computer industry had before open standards was how to communicate two systems of different vendors. Each vendor was [...]

What is a software prototype? A prototype usually simulates a few aspects of the functional requirements of the system under development and may be completely different from the eventual implementation. Why do we use software prototypes? As software engineers it is possible to use prototypes in order to be able to investigate concepts, visualize design [...]

Uncertainty exists in every project. Where there is uncertainty there is risk. For a project, risk is an event or condition which if occur has an effect, either positive or negative, on at least one of the project dimensions. A risk event can affect scope, schedule, cost and quality of the project. There are two [...]

Software system requirements are describing: the system to be build its functions its purpose Requirements are used to define these constraints and articulate beyond any misinterpretation the software system to be build. The term “requirement” is used very broadly in software systems. It includes: the Functional Requirements, the non-Functional requirements the domain requirements. The Functional [...]

UC Berkeley, Stanford, MIT, Harvard, Yale and many other schools have partnered with YouTube to make an official channel under the banner YouTube EDU. There is interesting content from classrooms or lecture halls with subject from almost all the fields of science. It is a great opportunity for learning or reviewing material of high quality. [...]

Brain is one of the last frontiers standing. Only recently scientists have the technology to begin recording and documenting brain activity accurately. Brain Computer Interface (BCI) is a field that has great to offer in mankind if treated with caution. In my opinion there are many implications involving the ability to “read” and interpret brainwaves. [...]

The time has come for your Job interview. Are you prepared? Usually most companies, from my experience, adopt a three round interview, especially if you are not located near the company you want to work for. This happens equally to the USA and EU. Basic Tips 1. Know your CV inside out. 2. Get to [...]