First Prize

£10 Amazon.co.uk gift card for each member of team

Second Prize

Smashing Magazine CSS bundle (3 eBooks)

Programming & Development

Question 1

If you add the two binary numbers 0111 and 0110, what is the decimal equivalent of the result?

Question 2

What is the difference between array pop and push?

Question 3

Can you determine the output of  the very badly written piece of code provided?

Question 4

According to craigslist.com, in 2011, most job posts required which programming language?

Question 5

What does BASIC stand for?

Question 6

Which programming language released version one first, PHP or Ruby?

Question 7

This piece of code (next slide) was required for a first stage interview with a well known social network:

i.  What is the name of the sorting algorithm used in sortMe($binaryNumbers)?

ii.  In what order do the binary numbers appear in the variable $output at the end of execution?

Question 7

Question 8

What is the name of the person who originally founded PHP?

Question 9

What letter option is used to 'invert the sense of matching' in the command line tool grep?

Question 10

What is the highest value an unsigned 32-bit integer can store?

The Google Interview

Question 1

A parking spot is unoccupied 1/3 of the time, but, you find it empty for nine consecutive days in a row.

Find the probability that it will be empty on the tenth day.

Question 2

A book has N pages, numbered the usual way, from 1 to N.

The total number of digits in the page numbers is 1,095.

How many pages does the book have?

Question 3

A man pushed his car to a hotel and lost his fortune. What happened?

Question 4

10, 9, 60, 90, 70, 66,

What number comes next in the series?

Question 5

When can you add 2 to 11 and get 1 as the correct answer?

Question 6

I am the beginning of the end, and the end of time and space. I am essential to creation, and I surround every place. What am I?

Question 7

A woman shoots her husband, then holds him under water for five minutes. Finally, she hangs him. Five minutes later they enjoy a wonderful dinner together. How can this be?

Question 8

I live above a star but never burn. I have 11 neighbours but they never turn. My initials are p, q, r and sometimes s. What am I?

Question 9

I'm not the sort that's eaten, I'm not the sort you bake, don't put me in an oven, I don't taste that great, but when applied correctly, around me you will find, problems are so simple when my digits come to mind.

Question 10

3 men are buried in the sand all facing the same way with only their heads above ground. Each man has a hat placed on his head which is either red or blue, but they can't see it. The men know that their hats were selected from a bag containing 3 red hats, and 2 blue hats. The man at the back (who can see the hats of the two men in front of him) is asked what hat he is wearing. He answers: "I don't know". The middle (who can see the hat of the man in front of him) man is asked what hat he is wearing. He also replies: "I don't know". Finally, the man at the front is asked what hat he is wearing. He answers: "I am wearing a red hat". How did he know?

Geek News: Hot off the press

Question 1

Olympic spectators at the London 2012 games were asked not to use their phones at the events.

Why?

Question 2

A team from the Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR) printed a colour photo, measuring just 50 micrometres across, the width of a human hair.

What was the photo of?

Question 3

Who was the most mentioned athlete on Facebook during the whole of the Olympic Games?

Question 4

Which image hosting service recently contributed to science when a new species of insect was identified in one of its posts?

Question 5

Yahoo have employed Marissa Mayer as their new CEO.

According to Wired.co.uk, she should take one simple action if she wants the company to succeed. What is it?

Question 6

 US TV broadcaster NBC were at the centre of controversy recently after it persuaded Twitter to suspend journalist Guy Adams for a message he posted during the Opening Ceremony. In a statement, NBC said: "We filed a complaint with Twitter because a user tweeted the personal information of one of our executives."

Who was the executive in question?

Question 7

Microsoft recently revealed they are axing their web-based email service Hotmail after 16 years of business.

What are they replacing it with?

Question 8

The Japanese recently unveiled a giant robot at the Wonder Festival in Tokyo. Kuratas is 4m high, weighs 4.5 tonnes and is capable of firing 100 rounds a second – or even working as a cleaner or firefighter. It can be controlled in 2 ways. The first is a human pilot in a mid-torso cockpit. What is the second?

Question 9

Nintendo Wii have announced they are to release an exclusive new game that will give players the chance to sing, dance and even duet with world-renowned musical theatre stars in some of their favourite musicals. But which famous composer is the star of the game?

Question 10

Apple have recently been granted a patent for a Smart Cover with an integrated display.

What revolutionary new way could it be powered?