Never content with good enough when it comes to speed, Facebook has taken its open-source, PHP-boosting HipHop technology to the next level for programmers. With the new HipHop Virtual Machine, Facebook claims it has improved upon HipHop interpreter performance by 60 percent, meaning PHP developers can be even more productive. Looking forward, HipHop VM will help improve PHP performance on the Facebook website.

In its original form, HipHop converted PHP to AST to C++ to x64. Not only has it boosted performance for Facebook, but also for a variety of other PHP-based sites, including Drupal, MediaWiki and WordPress. But Facebook wanted to make HipHop even better, so it undertook the HipHop VM effort.

In a blog post introducing HipHop Virtual Machine, Facebook software engineer Jason Evans describes it as an experiment in just-in-time translation of PHP to native machine code with the ultimate goal of further boosting performance over the original HipHop incarnation. The execution engine consists of a new interpreter that turns standard PHP into HipHop bytecode, and a dynamic translator that turns the HipHop bytecode into x64. The dynamic translator aims to replace Facebook’s existing HipHop compiler, which Evans says is somewhat problematic because it’s a static compiler while PHP is a dynamic language.

“For perspective on why this matters, consider that many Facebook engineers spend their days developing PHP code in an endless edit-reload-debug cycle,” Evans said.  ”The difference between 8-second and 5-second reloads due to switching from hphpi to the hhvm interpreter makes a big difference to productivity, and this improvement will be even more dramatic once we enable the translator.”

Presently, Facebook uses the new interpreter for day-to-day development, but is working on narrowing the performance gap between the existing HipHop compiler and the new dynamic translator, as well as generally stabilizing that component. However, the company thinks HipHop VM “will eventually outperform statically compiled binaries in Facebook’s production environment.”

Evans’ post describes the technical details of HipHop VM, as well as Facebook’s plans for making it ready for production. Although HipHop VM is relatively Facebook-specific right now, one has to assume it will become more widely adopted as it matures, and will gain traction among a number of large-scale PHP deployments.

Image courtesy of Flickr user jpctalbot.

Disclosure: Automattic, the maker of WordPress.com, is backed by True Ventures, a venture capital firm that is an investor in the parent company of this blog, Giga Omni Media. Om Malik, founder of Giga Omni Media, is also a venture partner at True.

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Each year, several dozen smartphones land on our collective desks. They come in different shapes and sizes, boast different features and sell at different price points. We take each of them for a spin and review most of them, but only a handful really stand out. This is especially true with Android handsets, where incremental updates appear to be the modus operandi. Every now and then a device comes along that we really look forward to getting our hands on. Google’s line of Nexus smartphones falls into this category, setting the new standard for Android each year.

In early 2010, the Nexus One became the yardstick for all future Android handsets and, later that year, the launch vehicle for FroYo. A year ago, the Nexus S introduced us to Gingerbread on the popular Galaxy S platform. Now, a few weeks after being unveiled with much fanfare, we’re finally able to sink our teeth into Ice Cream Sandwich with the Galaxy Nexus, arguably the latest addition to Samsung’s critically acclaimed Galaxy S II family. So, does this highly anticipated device live up to our expectations? Is the Galaxy Nexus the smartphone to beat? Most importantly, is Ice Cream Sandwich ready to take Android to the next level? In a word, yes. Read on for our full review.

Continue reading Galaxy Nexus HSPA+ review

Galaxy Nexus HSPA+ review originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 24 Nov 2011 12:40:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Welcome to the Engadget Holiday Gift Guide! We’re well aware of the heartbreaking difficulties surrounding the seasonal shopping experience, so we’re here to help you sort out this year’s tech treasures. Below is today’s bevy of curated picks, and you can head back to the Gift Guide hub to see the rest of the product guides as they’re added throughout the holiday season.

Yeah, yeah… we know — paper is so 20th century. But truth be told, there are still a lot of us that have use for the old-fashioned printed page. Whether you’re a student who needs to output seven copies of that term paper, or an aspiring photog looking to cut down on professional printing costs, we have some thoughts on what to look for this holiday season. Perhaps you’re ready to take those homemade Christmas cards to the next level? Print them yourself! Who doesn’t love an early present? Read on past the break to see just what caught our eye this year.

Continue reading Engadget’s holiday gift guide 2011: printers

Engadget’s holiday gift guide 2011: printers originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 18 Nov 2011 12:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Engadget

Welcome to the Engadget Holiday Gift Guide! We’re well aware of the heartbreaking difficulties surrounding the seasonal shopping experience, so we’re here to help you sort out this year’s tech treasures. Below is today’s bevy of curated picks, and you can head back to the Gift Guide hub to see the rest of the product guides as they’re added throughout the holiday season.

Yeah, yeah… we know — paper is so 20th century. But truth be told, there are still a lot of us that have use for the old-fashioned printed page. Whether you’re a student who needs to output seven copies of that term paper, or an aspiring photog looking to cut down on professional printing costs, we have some thoughts on what to look for this holiday season. Perhaps you’re ready to take those homemade Christmas cards to the next level? Print them yourself! Who doesn’t love an early present? Read on past the break to see just what caught our eye this year.

Continue reading Engadget’s holiday gift guide 2011: printers

Engadget’s holiday gift guide 2011: printers originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 18 Nov 2011 12:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Pageonce was one of the first iPhone apps and built a following of more than 5 million users as a mobile financial service letting people track their bills from their smartphones. But the service has been missing one big thing until today: mobile bill pay.

Now, Palo Alto, CA-based Pageonce is adding the feature, helping the app fulfill its aspirations to become more of a digital wallet for users. But that comes at a price: .99 a month for the bill pay service on Pageonce’s iPhone and Android apps.

With Pageonce, users will now be able to view credit card, utility, cell phone, rent and other bills and easily pay them from the app using various funding sources. Users can pay from bank accounts or credit cards, decide how much they want to pay and then get a confirmation for the transaction.

Pageonce is betting that people will be willing to pay for the convenience of settling all their bills from one app. Currently, almost half of consumers pay their bills in person or by mail and a quarter of payments are made at the individual sites of billers, said Steve Schultz, chief operating officer at Pageonce. He said providing a one-stop resource should prove appealing to consumers, especially the ability to pay not just from one bank account, which many banking apps allow, but also from multiple banking accounts and credit cards. Schultz said Pageonce is also unique in that it provides a much fuller look at bills through a mobile app so users can get more information on their charges before deciding to pay.

“We think it’s time to take the app to the next level and really enable people to do their finances, not just view them from a phone,” Schultz said. “Most people think of bill pay as a chore. Here you can pay it on the fly on public transit or on your down time. The goal is to make bill pay less stressful so people can move on with rest of their lives.”

Pageonce has done a lot of work on the back end to enable mobile bill payments and has also worked on security to ensure payments are safe and meets bank requirements. Users can lock their app with a PIN, designate access from only one mobile device and block mobile access from the web if a device is stolen or lost.

I’m not sure how popular the .99 fee will be with users, who are already getting hit up for more fees from banks. But Schultz said Pageonce will tinker with the pricing to see what’s popular. He said 1,000 users participated in a beta and 96 percent of users surveyed said they wanted mobile bill pay. And, 34 percent said they were willing to pay to monthly for the service.

If Pageonce can get mobile bill pay right, it will be another sign of momentum for the service, which competes against Mint and newer competitor Manilla. The company has raised million including million in May led by Morgenthaler Ventures. And it will show that more mobile centric services can thrive by providing valuable tools to mobile users.

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