Tom Radcliffe - Tom Radcliffe has over 20 years experience in software development and management in both academia and industry. He is a professional engineer (PEO and APEGBC) and holds a PhD in physics from Queen's University at Kingston. Tom brings a passion for quantitative, data-driven processes to ActiveState.

Tyler Edell is a technical marketing manager at Oppkey, a developer relations company in San Francisco. He holds degrees in writing and literature from Emerson College and San Francisco State University. Songdo, South Korea began its life as tidal marshland. Now it’s leading the charge into the future of smart cities.

APIs have been exploding in popularity as a new way to generate enterprise revenue. Huge companies like Salesforce, Expedia and eBay receive at least half of their total revenues through intelligent API utilization. Enterprises with public APIs saw 300% growth from 2014 to 2015. Companies are looking to take advantage of the API economy, and Forrester predicts that almost US$3 billion will be spent on API management by 2020.

Almost every modern business and application uses open-source modules. It’s misleading to spend time distinguishing between open-source and proprietary software, because modern applications include third-party software components. Many of those components are open source, and very few companies have a solid understanding of the security vulnerabilities that come with the code.

Communication is always important, but during a disaster it becomes paramount. Hard phone lines are an afterthought, if they’re still standing. If phone lines go down, we’re left with cellular networks that quickly become overloaded. Indeed, the internet is the backbone of contemporary communications, from email and Twitter to Instagram and WhatsApp.

City-wide WiFi initiatives have been springing up around the world. Close to me, in San Francisco, the city has rolled out free WiFi in 32 parks within the city limits, as well as in open plazas and along one of the main thoroughfares, Market Street. In other cities, though, the extent of free WiFi is even more impressive.

That we're on the edge of widespread SDN (software-defined networking) adoption has been rumored for years, now. It seems there's always a new report on when SDN will catch on and how big of a success it will be. While these reports are usually over optimistic, they have me thinking about when the tipping point of SDN will be reached – when the momentum and notoriety the SDN movement is gaining will finally pass the threshold separating isolated experimentation from widespread adoption.

How important are APIs in today’s digitally driven economy? They’re plenty important, and Paul Doscher (seen here), CEO of Restlet, has put some metrics on the concept. Restlet offers a comprehensive and integrated set of capabilities to design, develop and deploy APIs, including doing so in the cloud, easily and hassle-free.

Named Data Networking (NDN) may be in the early stages of development, but the strides being made are compelling. Gartner predicts NDN won't hit the “Plateau of Productivity” on their Hype Cycle for more than ten years, but when it does, a monumental shift in data organization and retrieval will come with it.

The C/C++ programming languages dominate embedded systems programming, though they have a number of disadvantages. Python, on the other hand, has many strengths that make it a great language for embedded systems. Let's look at the pros and cons of each, and why you should consider Python for embedded programming.

Red Hat is a superlative example of how to create revenue and maintain an organization through the monetization of open source technology via subscriptions and support. And yet, as the entire tech industry transforms with a dramatic shift toward the cloud, Red Hat will have to modify its business structure in order to stay ahead of the game.

In 2011, the UN declared internet access a basic human right. Unfortunately, that declaration hasn't resulted in the rapid expansion of internet access. In fact, the internet growth rate has been declining over the past several years and, while developing countries have improved their internet capabilities, they're still hard-pressed to turn that access into opportunities.