#dev
- Google's MUM Wants to Kill the Multi-Search Habit
Google unveiled MUM at I/O, an AI model spanning ~75 languages built to answer complex search questions that used to take several separate searches.
- Windows 10X Is Officially Dead
Microsoft confirms it has cancelled Windows 10X after 18 months, folding its ideas into other Windows and Microsoft 365 products.
- Epic v. Apple Goes to Trial, and Python 3.10 Quietly Hits Beta
The Epic Games v. Apple antitrust trial opened in Oakland today, the same week Python 3.10.0b1 shipped and froze the language's next feature set.
- Dev Conference Season Is Back: What to Watch at I/O and Build
A preview of Google I/O and Microsoft Build, both landing this month with a heavy focus on AI-assisted and low-code developer tools.
- Epic v. Apple Goes to Trial Next Week, and the App Store's Rules Are on the Stand
As Epic Games v. Apple heads to a bench trial starting May 3, both sides are locked in a fight over the App Store's 30% cut and payment lock-in.
- Async-First Beats More Meetings
A year into remote work, teams are trading video-call fatigue for Notion docs, Slack huddles, and Loom clips instead of piling on more Zoom.
- Why ARM Laptops Are Suddenly a Serious Idea
Six months after the M1, Apple has forced Qualcomm, Microsoft, and the whole PC industry to take ARM laptops seriously.
- The GPT-3 App Store Nobody Officially Built
OpenAI's widening GPT-3 API access has spawned copywriting, chatbot, and code tools that look like early drafts of an AI pair programmer.
- Google I/O Is Back — Virtually — May 18-20
Google confirmed I/O 2021 will run May 18-20 as a free, fully virtual event, a year after the pandemic scrapped the show entirely.
- Python Ships 3.9.4 and 3.8.9: Boring Releases Are a Feature
The Python core team quietly shipped 3.9.4 and 3.8.9 maintenance releases, bundling security and bug fixes while 3.10 alpha work continues.
- Rust 1.51 Lands the Minimum Viable Const Generics
Rust 1.51 ships const generics, a new Cargo feature resolver, and faster macOS builds -- one of the language's biggest additions in years.
- The No-Code Boom: Who's Actually Using Airtable and Bubble
A look at why no-code tools spread through pandemic-strained teams in 2020-2021, and where they genuinely replace custom software versus where they hit limits.
- WebAssembly Is Quietly Changing What Browsers Can Do
Wasm has moved past its gaming and CAD roots and is now running production tools like Photoshop and Figma at near-native speed.
- One Year of Remote-Work Software: How Dev Tools Held Up
A year into the pandemic shift to remote work, looking at how collaboration and dev tooling scaled - and what habits might outlast the office return.
- One Year Into the GPT-3 API: What Are Developers Actually Building?
A year after OpenAI opened commercial access to GPT-3, a look at the copywriting tools, chatbots, and code helpers developers are shipping.
- TypeScript Is Eating JavaScript, One Codebase at a Time
Static typing is winning over plain JS as remote teams lean on TypeScript to catch bugs the code review chat can no longer catch.
- Git-First and Loving It: What a Year of Remote Work Taught Us About Dev Tooling
A year into distributed work, pull-request-centric, async-friendly workflows are quietly replacing centralized dev processes.
- A Year Into Remote Work, Developer Tools Are Having a Moment
GitHub's 2020 Octoverse data shows Git-centric tools climbing the ranks as distributed teams lean on async collaboration.
- GitHub's Release Radar Wraps a Big Month for Dev Tools
GitHub's January 2021 Release Radar rounds up Fastify, ECharts-GL 2.0, and VS Code 1.53 in a month packed with open-source shipping.
- GPT-3-Style Models Are Sneaking Into Everyday Developer Tools
As access to GPT-3 stays limited to a waitlist, developers are already prototyping code suggestions, writing aids, and image generation on top of it.
- Microsoft Says the Pandemic Just Created 150 Million Future Tech Jobs
Microsoft's new report ties 2020's remote-work shift to a projected 150 million tech and tech-adjacent jobs over the next five years.
- Google Puts $350K Behind the Python Software Foundation
Google is funding malware detection on PyPI and a full-time CPython developer role, a small but telling move toward securing open-source supply chains.
- SolarWinds Has Everyone Staring Hard at the Software Supply Chain
In SolarWinds' wake, package registries and security researchers are pushing code-signing, provenance, and MFA for publishing to the front of the conversation.
- Kubernetes Won. Now the Fight Moves Up a Layer
With Kubernetes now the default for container orchestration, 2020's cloud-native attention is shifting to service meshes and developer-experience tooling.
- Firefox 84 Ships as the Last Browser to Say Goodbye to Flash
Mozilla's Firefox 84 drops native Apple Silicon support and wider WebRender rollout, while quietly becoming the final Firefox release to carry Flash support before its industry-wide death.
- Python 3.9.1 Lands as Developers Get Comfortable With the New PEG Parser
Python 3.9.1 shipped as a bugfix release, giving developers their first patch cycle since October's parser and typing overhaul.
- Money Is Pouring Into No-Code, and It's Not Slowing Down
Unqork, Starburst, and OneTrust all landed huge rounds this month as VCs bet big on tools that let non-engineers build software.
- Salesforce Buys Slack for $27.7 Billion — And the Cloud Wars Get Real
Salesforce announced a $27.7 billion deal to acquire Slack, one of the biggest software acquisitions ever, right as AWS wrapped re:Invent.
- AWS re:Invent 2020 Kicks Off as a Three-Week Virtual Marathon
AWS re:Invent 2020 opened today as a free, three-week online conference, with Andy Jassy's keynote unveiling GA EC2 Mac instances and new ECS/EKS Anywhere tooling.
- How a Year Stuck at Home Turbocharged Cloud-Native and DevOps
The pandemic pushed enterprises toward containers, CI/CD, and Kubernetes faster than any roadmap would have, right as AWS re:Invent looms.