Google has announced its latest AI model, Gemini, which was built from the start to be multimodal so that it could interpret information in multiple formats, spanning text, code, audio, image, and video. According to Google, the typical approach for creating a multimodal model involves training components for different information formats separately and then combining them together. What sets Gemini apart is that it was trained from the start on different formats and then fine-tuned with additional multi-modal data.  “This helps Gemini seamlessly understand and reason about all kinds of i ..read more

Apiiro, a leading application security posture management (ASPM) solution, today announced the addition of integrated software supply chain security (SSCS) into its platform. Now, Apiiro’s ASPM is extended to natively provide source control manager (SCM) and CI/CD pipeline visibility, risk detection and assessment, and governance.  Apiiro’s ultra-connected and holistic approach to software supply chain security also uniquely enables the detection of chained risks—known as toxic combinations—across application and software supply chain components and unifies context across code, developer ..read more

Vercel is releasing new features in its Developer Experience Platform to enable development teams to “move fast, don’t break things.” “As organizations grow, it can become hard to sustain fast release cycles without diminishing code health and letting errors slip into production. It shouldn’t be this way. We should be able to move fast without breaking things—making quick updates and innovating while retaining great performance, security, and accessibility,” Brody McKee and Cody Brouwers, software engineers for Vercel, wrote in a blog post.  Conformance is a new feature that automatically ..read more

A couple of weeks ago, Microsoft announced it would be bringing together several of its separate AI products —  including Bing Chat and the AI capabilities in Microsoft 365, Microsoft Edge, and Windows — under the single umbrella of Microsoft Copilot to provide a more unified experience.  Now the company is announcing it has started testing several new features that will be coming to Copilot soon, and is sharing a sneak peak. Microsoft Copilot will soon be able to use GPT-4 Turbo, OpenAI’s latest AI model, which allows it to handle more complex tasks. The integration is expected to r ..read more

The database company MongoDB has announced new capabilities to enable companies to better leverage generative AI.  MongoDB Atlas Vector Search is now generally available, which allows customers to build generative AI into their applications based on their own data. This enables the AI to provide accurate, relevant responses for a specific organization or domain.  Customers can build AI features, such as semantic search or image comparison, into their applications. It uses a “flexible and scalable” document-based data model, which, according to the company, enables customers to combin ..read more

I‘ve found that building and maintaining a high-performing Agile product development team is a challenge, whether in startups or large enterprises. I have been in companies where, despite having highly skilled developers and PMs, some teams fail to deliver high-quality work at a good pace. We tried everything to improve performance, but nothing worked. But once in a while, you do find magic.  I’ve seen a team of average individuals from middle-of-the-road companies thrive. We pushed each other respectfully, iterated on our process, and made tweaks as needed. Velocity, throughput, and qual ..read more

The Android development team has announced the latest stable release of its IDE for building Android apps, Android Studio. This update aims to enhance app performance and battery life, facilitate easier application upgrades to the latest Android version, and speed up development using Jetpack Compose. The release, known as Android Studio Hedgehog, is designed to boost developer productivity, according to the company in a blog post.  The App Quality Insights feature now incorporates Android vitals data from Google Play Console in addition to Firebase Crashlytics SDK. This enhancement allow ..read more

The Object Management Group (OMG) is trying to provide support and direction to its members by launching a new community where they can receive insights and best practices for the latest technologies.  The Managed Communities Program will include a number of communities around specific interests, the first of which is the OMG Systems Modeling Community (SMC). SMC provides a forum for sharing best practices around Model Based Systems Engineering (MBSE), with guidance for using OMG standards like SysML v2 and UAF.  “OMG Managed Communities will help companies simplify processes, elimin ..read more

Artificial intelligence (AI) is changing how software engineering teams design, build and test applications. AI can automate much of today’s mundane software development tasks. It can also help software engineers produce code more quickly.  AI coding assistants can reduce the amount of time and effort software engineers spend on programming tasks, such as typing boilerplate code, as well as documenting, understanding, refactoring, debugging and fixing code. These tools continue to improve, enabling more complex activities to be performed. Gartner has found that by 2028, 75% of enterprise ..read more

Dify.AI is an open-source platform for developing generative AI applications. According to the GitHub page, one core aspect of Dify.AI is it supports model neutrality and developers can use any LLM with it.   “Users can effortlessly connect Dify with their existing workflows or other open-source systems through its API, which facilitates quick data sharing and automates workflows. The flexibility in the code also allows developers to make direct changes to Dify’s code, enhancing service integration and customizing user experiences,” the maintainers wrote in a blog post.  It also ..read more