Software

IS&T plans to retire Windows XP, recommends upgrading to Windows 7Will phase out support for XP by Aug. 1, 2013.

UC Berkeley joins edXUC Berkeley joins Harvard and MIT not-for-profit online-learning collaborative; edX broadens free course offerings into public health, computer science and solid-state chemistry; opens registration

Macintosh and Windows Users: Keeping Current with Microsoft OfficeIS&T plans to end support for Microsoft Office 2007 for Windows and Microsoft Office 2008 for Macintosh at the end of 2012. Upgraded versions offer better performance, integration, and compatibility.

ARTEMiS brings art to teaching of science and engineering conceptsART for Engineering, Mathematics, and Science an initiative launched last summer through MIT’s Office of Educational Innovation and Technology (OEIT).

Casper Suite centralizes Macintosh managementIS&T is planning a multistage rollout of the Casper Suite — a comprehensive platform for managing Mac OS X computers. This software will enable IT administrators at MIT to oversee inventory, software distribution, settings and security.

New mathematical framework formalizes oddball programming techniquesLoop perforation — speeding up programs by skipping instructions — is just one method that gets rigorous mathematical treatment in a new paper.

Excel programming for nonprogrammersA new system allows Excel users to create customized functions for their spreadsheets simply by offering a few examples of how data should be manipulated.

Testing unbuilt chipsA new software-simulation system promises much more accurate evaluation of promising — but potentially fault-ridden — multicore-chip designs.

New tool for analyzing solar-cell materialsWebsite offers a way of optimizing solar cell materials and production.

An oracle for object-oriented programmersBy automatically cataloging connections between software 'objects,' a new system orients programmers joining large software projects in midstream.