Our first product is about the size of a USB key, and is designed to plug into a TV or be combined with a touch screen for a low cost tablet. The expected price is $25 for a fully-configured system.
The blade can include up to 512GB of RAM and 2TB of internal storage. OS options include Windows Server, Red Hat Enterprise Linux or Novell Suse Linux Enterprise Server. The blade will be available worldwide at the end of May starting at US$3,500.
NVIDIA's Optimus multi-GPU technology now works under Linux. Well, at least for some notebooks, it's been hacked together by an open-source developer and in fact is working to use both Intel and NVIDIA graphics processors simultaneously with the respective drivers. This is the best Linux implementation we've seen yet with NVIDIA Corp still not announcing plans to officially support this technology under non-Microsoft operating systems.
Alexander “motorsep” Zubov is the founder of Kot-in-Action Creative Artel, whose new independently produced game, Steel Storm: Burning Retribution, is set to be released this May. He took the time to answer a few questions about his project for me.
The long winter is ending, and the spring flowers are blooming, so it must be time for an Amarok release. In this version 2.4.1, we fixed many bugs and corner-case crashes, so your Amarok will be more rock-steady than ever. Lyrics iPod handling both got some love, along with remote collections. Also, you can now better preview your changes in the Organize Collection feature. The changelog below gives a fairly complete overview of the changes since the last major release.
I had skipped Slackware 13.0, because it had still no support for virtual screens in X/xrandr, and the KDE 4.4 in Slackware 13.1 crashed a few times while playing around with it. So I stayed with 12.1. For building current KDE, it doesn't matter what desktop you're running, so that was fine for me.
KDE provides a great oportunity for students interested in computer science, designers, translators, etc., to improved their skills in a worldwide, structured and organized libre software community project. The result of their work could be used by millions of users.
Season of KDE is the program our community has built to give new contrinutors the chance to get involved in KDE in a smooth way, supported by experienced contributors. Coordinated by Lydia Pintscher, we are being really successful in getting potential contributors to join the program. After all the effort done in the past, and the great opportunity we have in front of us to increase our community, it is KDE's time to give all these young students the opportunity to become part of our journey.
We need you to join the program by mentoring these new contributors.
GNOME 3.0 / GTK+ 3.0 was released just over one month ago, but already work is well under-way into developing GNOME 3.2 and with that the GTK+ 3.2 update for release later on in the year. GTK+ 3.1.2 was released in mid-April, but GTK+ 3.1.4 was released yesterday as the second development snapshot. This tool-kit update does provide more features.
Slackware 13.37 has been proven to be a stable and secure release. But that won't stop Slackware development towards next release (even though we might not see the next release in short time). Slackware is evolving as the upstream goes since it tries to deliver a complete Linux distribution that is up to date without sacrificing it's motto of keeping it simple, secure, and stable. I have no idea what will the next Slackware codename be. It could be 14.0 (back to the old Slackware naming style) or probably it will use the current SLACKWARE_VERSION.KERNEL_VERSION naming just what we have in Slackware 13.37. What i'm quite positive is that it will be a major upgrade, so it will have a Slackware version of 14.
While Slackware-Current development has not publicly visible, Eric keeps maintaining KDE 4.6.x series in his KTown repository and now releasing KDE 4.6.3 series for Slackware 13.37 and -Current (basically they are still in the same level for now). It's another monthly maintenance version of KDE, so it's safe to upgrade since there are no new features on this update, only bug fixes and translations updates.
I’ve lately noticed an increase in what I call “Drive by reviews”. They say that “first impressions are lasting impressions” and I can understand that. Everyone wants to make a good first impression and it takes a lot to overcome a bad one. However, I’ve seen more folks of late instead taking a first impression of something as a only impression, or over-generalizing based on one first impression.
[...]
Which brings me to the Fedora/Linux tie in here. Every few months I see a sad tale of someone who tried the Fedora {mailing lists|forum|irc channel} and had a bad first impression, which leads to a “I am never going to use {Linux|Fedora} again!”. Please take a few moments to think logically and not judge an entire Linux distribution or Operating system based on one forum post, email or 5 minutes in an IRC channel. Do some research, work on explaining your problem better or in a different way, try a different support channel, or at the very least note that your impression is based on only one single drive by. It’s hard to overcome a bad first impression, but do consider giving more than a single chance.
Zenwalk Live version (ZenLive) 7.0 RC2 is available for testing!
We are happy to announce the long awaited Zenwalk Live 7.0 RC1, which will allow more people to try out Zenwalk without having to install it first.
Red Hat, Inc. (NYSE: RHT), the world’s leading provider of open source solutions, today announced that it has expanded its relationship with Amazon Web Services (AWS). In addition to being able to bring their own licenses to AWS, customers can now quickly and easily purchase supported Red Hat Enterprise Linux via AWS’s on demand, pay as you go Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2). This new offering will be available in the coming weeks, to customers worldwide in every AWS Region.
Mark Shuttleworth, the founder of the world's most popular GNU/Linux based operating system Ubuntu has won accolades by showing what the technology leaders need to understand today. He said that he prefers GNU GPL v3 over V2, as it has 'a calming effect on software patents'. He hopes soon more and more FOSS companies and communities will realize the dangers of software patents and choose GNU GPL v3 over other licenses.
I mean, minimum wage for a community member to do superstar-level work for that month is going to be far less then the cost of a t-shirt, mug or other random bit of SWAG.
Samsung has a smart phone not yet released with 3 million pre-orders. That’s the Galaxy S II.
Opensource Project Management Apps are the key to success in many an organization and in personal life for task management too. Open source provides the right platform for development of project management apps that are highly adaptable, flexible and ensure the project renders all deliverables. Introduced here are some of the popular open sources Apps for Project Management.
I just got back home from Fosscomm 2011 and I must admit it has been one of the best organized events of this kind I’ve seen in Greece ever. The single most important fact was that presentations and workshops were always _on time_. They started on time, they finished on time. The organizers had to face even a power cut by the national energy company but they still managed not to fall behind on schedule. My only remark would be about the selection of the presentations that took place in the big room (called BA). Most of them gathered far less people than other presentations which took place in smaller rooms (B3 for example) and those rooms got extremely crowded from time to time. Maybe the organizers thought that generic open source presentations would attract more people than the technical ones but, unfortunately for them, and fortunately for “the greater good”, they were very wrong. This doesn’t reduce their achievement though. Another thing I would like to see on the next Fosscomm is less material given out to participants and instead spend this money on paying for travel expenses of people coming to speak on Fosscomm from abroad. Giving one (or even more) of the phones that HTC kindly provided to the voted by the participants best talk/presentation/workshop would also be very nice. My sincere congratulations to the organizing committee.
The 9th annual Ohio Linux Fest is an open source conference held in Columbus Ohio. The conference this year will be September 9-11, 2011.
Mozilla is building an army of volunteers in Indonesia to help customize Firefox and recommend add-ons, as the U.S.-based non-profit organization seeks to retain its massive share of the browser market in the country.
Community groups in eight cities and drawing about 1,000 tech-savvy volunteers, with more expected, are meeting this month to brainstorm ways Firefox can be further localized, said Gen Kanai, Mozilla’s contributor engagement director for Asia.
Then we shipped Firefox 4.
Almost immediately after Firefox's first 24 hours stomped the IE numbers into the dirt, Microsoft and their friends tried to change the subject with a lot talk about how it wasn't the downloads but the usage that mattered. So I posted this chart showing that Firefox was not only crushing IE in download numbers but it was also off to a much stronger start on actual browser usage.
Quickly the Microsoft reps and fans returned with "But we haven't even begun to fight. Just wait until Windows Update starts pushing IE out to the full installed base." I responded with this post and its accompanying chart showing that even well after Microsoft started pushing their browser through Windows Update, Firefox 4 was still lapping IE9 and I reminded people that Mozilla still had not flipped it's big Firefox Update switch.
The world of open source software -- with its flexibility, aggressive release cycles, and tendency to integrate with other software to perform complex tasks -- is an ideal place to look for improvements in your enterprise IT infrastructure. So what kind of free and open source software is available for cloud computing? Compute stacks, distributed storage software and management tools, just to name a few.
Retired Justice John Paul Stevens said Supreme Court decisions have given local prosecutors impunity for violating constitutional rights, and urged Congress to respond by authorizing victims of misconduct to sue.
In a speech Monday night to the Equal Justice Initiative, which advocates for indigent defendants, Justice Stevens criticized the court’s March decision overturning a jury’s $14 million award to an innocent man who spent 14 years on death row after prosecutors concealed evidence that could have cleared him. (Click here to see the full text of Stevens’ speech.)
The new, improved PlayStation Network is in the "final stages of internal testing," Sony announced yesterday on the official PlayStation blog –– an important step toward bringing PSN back online. Patrick Seybold, the director of corporate communications at Sony, said in a previous post that Sony had predicted PSN would be restored by the end of this week.
Senator Levin candidly describes the banks as replete with conflicts of interest and greed. He is reluctant to used the words "lie" or "fraud" and is content to let the justice system decide whether those terms are applicable. However, he does use the word "mislead" which seems rather a tame term to use when you know what Goldman Sachs did to its clients and to the investors that trusted GS's judgement when buying the securities they underwrote and sold to them.
American democracy is withering on the vine. Not because of any basic flaw, but because democracy is incompatible with the malignant capitalism that that has come to shape our society and control our political system. As citizens, we have a choice: we can do nothing and watch our democratic traditions die out, or we can act together to regain control of our country. We have a long and honorable revolutionary tradition, so we do not have to be victims. This manifesto is a call to action from one ordinary American to all others who love liberty. It is a call to unite and determine our future by taking it out of the hands of those who value only money and power. It is a call to rescue our democracy.
Today our country exhibits clear signs of a nation in peril, bogged down in needless, costly wars abroad and beset by economic stagnation at home. Terrorist attacks of 9/11 triggered an expanded military Empire and an intrusive national security state. Financial institutions driving a casino capitalism crashed and burned in 2008. The worst economic meltdown since the Great Depression followed. Collectively, these events have distorted our political economy and wounded our democracy. Voters are angry, confused and divided not only over policies but over the very role of government. An imperial presidency, a dysfunctional Congress and a corporate-oriented Supreme Court have aggravated existing problems and created a cynical and distrustful public.
Plutocrats, taking advantage of a society in crisis, have tightened their hold on the economy and reshaped governance. The political economy, rooted in advanced capitalism, is now geared to serve the minority of Americans who control most of the wealth. Although our Republic retains the trappings of democracy, it has morphed into a Corporate State where ultimate authority is in the hands of a ruling class. Its operatives – in and out of government – determine domestic and foreign policy. They prop up an economic and military Empire that spans the globe, but is reeling from recession, debt and seemingly permanent military occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan.
It was Tuesday, and the U.S. attorney in Manhattan was proudly unveiling a lawsuit against Deutsche Bank that his office had filed that morning. As he took reporters through the legal complaint, Bharara spoke sternly about how the bank had defrauded the Federal Housing Administration, which had insured hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of bad loans that the bank then sold to investors, reaping handsome fees.
Listening to Bharara, one could easily think that prosecutors were finally — finally! — getting tough on the bad behavior that helped bring about the financial crisis. Alas, it was mainly an illusion.
Upon closer inspection, it turns out that the main target of Bharara’s wrath was MortgageIT, a smallish division that Deutsche Bank bought in 2007 — eight years into an alleged fraud that ended in 2009. In the complaint itself, not one MortgageIT executive was singled out as a wrongdoer; it was as if this faceless corporation had somehow defrauded the government without human help.
A 20 year chart of the US 30 Year Treasury Bond vs. a broad commodity index is the occassion to make several macroeconomic observations. The comparison reveals how the purchasing power of the long-dated US Treasury Bond has fared against a basket of commodities over the period. Tracking the ability of the US Treasury bond, denominated in US Dollars, to maintain its viability as a capital storage unit is not arcane. Rather, it is central. All institutions and individuals eventually use financial assets to purchase energy, natural resources, and labor. | see: 30 Year Treasury Bond by Price vs. The Reuters CRB Index–CCI Continuous.
Comboman writes "It's taken a couple of weeks, but libraries are starting to take action against publisher HarperCollins' plans to make their eBooks self-destruct after 26 reads. I'm happy to report that my home city of Halifax appears to be the first in Canada to boycott HarperCollins' eBooks (though libraries in other cities are likely to follow shortly).
Public Knowledge and the New America Foundation say they've sent the FCC a letter urging them to investigate AT&T's new usage caps. AT&T this week imposed a new 150 GB cap on DSL users and a 250 GB cap on U-Verse users, with those exceeding those caps paying AT&T $10 per every 50 GB thereafter. While many companies now impose caps to help differentiate residential and business class services, AT&T is the first major U.S. ISP to begin charging users per byte overages -- a practice that is very common in Canada, but extremely unpopular among consumers across North America.
"While broadband caps are not inherently problematic, they carry the omnipresent temptation to act in anticompetitive and monopolistic ways," notes the letter. "Unlike competitors whose caps appear to be at least nominally linked to congestions during peak-use periods, AT&T seeks to convert caps into a profit center by charging additional fees to customers who exceed the cap," the groups insist. "In addition to concerns raised by broadband caps generally, such a practice produces a perverse incentive for AT&T to avoid raising its cap even as its own capacity expands."
Then, of course, there was Star Wars Day -- which, as it turned out, coincided with the Free Software Foundation's Day Against DRM. Even more than weak Jedi allusions, in fact, Digital Rights Management -- or should we say Digital Restrictions Management? -- has been a popular focus of conversation over the past few days as a result.
Back in January I was asked by the Brooklyn Museum to create a set of 11 iconic Vishnu avatars for an exhibit they’re planning in June. They didn’t offer a whole lot of money – an “honorarium,” they called it – but said the images could be under a Free license (they said CC-BY-SA was fine). I chose to do it because it was a cool gig, right up my alley; and I love the Brooklyn Museum and was excited to have my art be part of one of their exhibits. It turned out to be more work than I expected, but I was very pleased with the results.
Ubuntu 11.04 Nvidia & Xorg Bug