Microsoft's new verification system for Windows 8 - OA 3.0 - which will add complications toward the upstream ODM's production lines and relatively generate significant extra cost, is raising controversy between notebook ODMs and brand vendors as to which side will pay the increased cost, according to sources from PC ODMs.
I was very excited when Chris Forster agreed to participate, because the academic perspective, especially the humanities perspective, isn’t always very visible within the Linux community. Chris does more than get academic work done, though. He does it with a fairly hardcore setup that might make some computer science faculty gulp in fear and wonder.
Over at openbenchmarking.org/linux I have been experimenting with some improvements to OpenBenchmarking.org for the past few weeks. What's shown at the user-interface level is quite simple: it's serving as just a directory of Linux hardware (right now the public version just shows motherboards and processors, but the graphics card category will be enabled next). It's similar to the OpenBenchmarking.org Performance Index where it lists all detected hardware components of a certain type, as it discovers new hardware from the crowd-sourced benchmarking process. From there you can explore the product, find benchmark results, etc.
To do that, it’s time to break out the crayons and markers, Photoshop or GIMP, or anything else your creative minds can use to make this happen. Where will Pengroid show up next? What will he look like? Only you can decide. And you might even win a T-Shirt with your Pengroid image on it! If you can’t come up with your own image, don’t worry. You can still participate by going to our Facebook page and voting for your favorite Pengroid submissions from other people.
While the open-source Radeon Linux driver is MIT-licensed and could be forked into a proprietary Windows driver, it appears that AMD intends to make this WEC7 graphics driver available as open-source, at least to their device partners. In response to a comment whether taking code written in part by the Linux community (a "form of cheap labor") and porting it to Windows embedded with some "proprietary sauce" was part of AMD's original open-source Linux strategy plan, Bridgman responded with: "Nope. This is a fairly recent project, conceived and started years after we got back into supporting open source graphics drivers, and the request was for a driver that could be released in source code form."
Intel's Juan Zhao has written and published some new documents on Wayland. In particular, a step-by-step guide for building and setting up Wayland under Ubuntu 11.04 and also a document briefly going over the Wayland architecture and API.
Increasing number of scientists are enthusiastic about using free, open source software for their research purposes. Authors'specific goal was to examine whether a Linux-based operating system with open source software packages would allow to prepare a submission-ready scientific manuscript without the need to use the proprietary software.FindingsPreparation and editing of scientific manuscripts is possible using Linux and open source software.
The Mageia project has announced that version 2.0 of its Mandriva Linux community fork will be delayed. In a post on the Mageia Blog, the developers say that they have decided to postpone the final release of Mageia 2 following more details about the release dates for other major projects, such as GNOME and KDE, allowing them to integrate the most current stable versions into their distribution.
Back in July Mageia announced the developmental schedule for its second release. At that time Mageia 2 was planned for release on April 4. Now it appears developers and management are pushing back developmental and the final releases in order to "integrate the last stable versions and provide better quality for your favorite distribution."
...a new record-setting SPECvirt_sc2010 virtualization performance benchmark in collaboration with long-time partner HP based on the powerful Kernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM) hypervisor and HP ProLiant systems.
THE demand in South Africa alone means Fiji cannot get the Vodafone Webbook until next year.
This week, Vodafone South Africa announced that it was the first Vodafone operating company to launch the Vodafone Webbook. The device is extremely compact and lightweight, weighing less than one kilogram.
The Vodafone Webbook is presented with a 10 inch LCD (liquid crystal display) screen, 512MB (megabytes) of memory and an additional 4GB of storage space.
More than a year ago, Canonical began betting Ubuntu users would be willing to pay for certain software titles. The company has now taken that belief one step further, expanding the for-purchase section of the Ubuntu Software Center to include ebooks and magazines as well as applications. Will Ubuntu become the new publishing hub of the open source channel? Read on for thoughts.
Earlier this month some concerns were expressed in a Community Council meeting about some aspects of the Ubuntu community experience. Based on this feedback I released a survey that went out to all Ubuntu Members to gather some data about views on motivation, pride, leadership, and more. I also invited feedback via other means such as email and I was keen to reach out to many community members on the phone to continue to explore these concerns further.
Casio Computer announced an Android 2.2-based Point-of-Sale (POS) terminal built around a 533MHz dual-core ARM Cortex-A9 processor. The VX-100 business support terminal offers a 10.4-inch, 800 x 600 touchscreen, a secondary 2 x 20 subdisplay, a thermal printer, a sales management application, and the ability to be remotely controlled via email.
Web-enabled TVs are coming in various forms. But it doesn't look like they will be using x86 cores anytime soon.
Call it delayed gratification, but it looks like developers will be able to get their hands on Android 4.0 source code (code-named "Ice Cream Sandwich") after all. Just not right away.
Students from India have a reason to celebrate the highly anticipated “Sakshat Tablet” was successfully launched in India on Wednesday. The tablet is called “Akash” and was jointly developed by India in collaboration with the Datawind, and can easily be obtained for ($ 45) 2,200/- in Indian rupees.
Akash tablet was developed jointly by India, with the UK Based company Datawind. The tablet will run Google’s Android 2.2 (Froyo) and a 7 “inch LCD, 800Ãâ480 resolutions. Akash tablet has 256 MB of RAM and 32 GB of expandable memory with two USB ports. Akash Tablet also comes with a 12 months replacement warranty.
The day ICS(Ice Cream Sandwich – Android 4.0) will be made open-source is not too far. Once it is out, developers around the world(including OEMs like HTC, Samsung, Sony Ericcson) will start building the source code and start rolling out the update for android devices. But what bewilders me is the need for workstations with no lesser than 16 GB RAM to build the source code(I am not kidding). Ice Cream Sandwich is a Vampire ;) that requires twice the amount of blood that GingerBread needed.
Verizon Wireless has disabled the bootloader unlock feature in the software on the Droid Razr, the Android smartphone that Motorola unveiled last week.
“The tablet PC and notebook PC markets are on a collision course as both product categories continue to evolve and improve on their respective weaknesses,” said Richard Shim, DisplaySearch Senior Analyst. “As such, each product category will influence the other over time. Still, the incumbent platforms have inherent advantages in the early years.”
ViewSonic has begun selling a $200, seven-inch tablet that runs Android 2.3. The ViewPad 7e is equipped with a 1GHz Cortex-A8 processor, 4GB internal storage, 800 x 600 pixel screen resolution, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, dual cameras, and a micro-HDMI port, says the company.
The Toronto-based maker of the electronic book readers is entering the increasingly-crowded market for cheap tablet computers, releasing a touch-screen, colour device that runs on Google Inc.’s Android operating system. The device allows for e-reading of books, magazines and newspapers, and also allows users to watch movies, listen to music and play video games such as Angry Birds, like they do on other tablets.
Meet Scott Nesbitt. He's a freelance writer and consultant in Toronto, Canada. He uses open source tools for more than 85 percent of the work he does. He's idealistic about more getting more open data from our governments. Nesbitt also contributes to FLOSS Manuals (FLOSS stands for Free/Libre open source software) by helping to document open source projects. Documentation for the win!
Consider, for example, software for processing DNA samples in some way. Such software is highly specialised. It is tempting to look for other people who are working in the same area and seek to share code with them.
What does the future hold for eager, talented software developers, and people with related essential skill sets? The overriding trend, as in all industries, is you're on your own, chum. But free/open source software (FOSS) offers considerably more richness of opportunity than anything else. Let's peer into the crystal ball and see what the future holds.
The International Centre for Free and Open Source Software (Icfoss) is being revamped with an amended vision document and functionalities.
The decision was taken at the fourth meeting of the Icfoss governing body held here chaired by Mr P. K. Kunhalikkutty, Minister for Industries, IT and Urban Affairs.
JavaScript should win the Golden Mummy award! Or so believes Bastian Feder, an open source addict who gets talking with LFY about his journey from struggling-with-Linux days to being a speaker on Symfony 2 at OSI Days! He also tells us how communication is the key in open source and why he'll also give a talk on the most hated topics of a developer, 'documentation' at the Summit.
The Linux Foundation is organising its first LinuxCon in Europe this year. If you can't make it to Prague this week for LinuxCon Europe 2011, you can now watch it online. The foundation will be streaming the conference on the web. We, Muktware, will be there providing daily reports on the conference.
’ve been watching OpenStack, the emerging open source cloud standard, for more than a year now. Without a doubt, open source cloud projects generate buzz on TalkinCloud. But where exactly do VARs and MSPs fit into the OpenStack conversastion?
Since the OpenStack project’s mid-2010 launch, the community of open source developers and solution providers building on the platform has grown from just two — Rackspace and NASA — up to more than 110 today. And technology titans like Dell, Citrix, and HP have all signed on, with even traditionally hardware-focused Intel submitting code to the OpenStack community.
Actually, I wouldn't be surprised at all if MySQL is the top open-source database around the world. But that doesn't justify using a sample of users of a single Java cloud company as a sample set to reflect all open-source database users around the world. After all, data that confirm our own beliefs and prejudices is information that requires more skeptical analysis, not less.
Oracle (ORCL) is using its strategy with open source as a template for its approach to cloud: First you dismiss it. Then you buy into it. Then you muddy it up. Wash, rinse, repeat.
In open source, this meant that Oracle first charged it was theft; then bought the largest player, Sun Microsystems; then used its control of key projects to muddy the industry's waters, while it monetized what it could.
That process has now begun again with the purchase of RightNow. (RNOW). The price, $43/share, is not far a huge premium over Friday's close of $36. But it's still a nice pop for RightNow shareholders, and for those who got in exactly a year ago, it's a near doubling of their money.
Open source enterprise CMS providers Alfresco is expanding its operation in the Asia-Pacific region, enhancing its partner programme on the back of ‘spectacular’ revenue growth.
Barry Costin, sales director for Alfresco APAC, says the company has added 13 new customers and appointed three new partners in the last 12 months, as open source software gains momentum in the market.
While open source as a concept and philosophy is not new, it's not well publicised either. Peter Ward talks to Jan Wildeboer, open source evangelist at Red Hat about how open source can be used by small businesses and start ups to dramatically lower costs.
What does it take to build a successful business in the open source channel? That’s a question with no easy answer, but it’s also one the staff at Talend, one of the open source world’s largest commercial organizations, knows something about. I recently spoke with them about the importance of open source to their work. Here’s what they had to say.
First, a little background: Founded in 2005, Talend focuses on delivering data-integration solutions based on an “open core model,” in which the core technology is open source but value-added components, provided by both Talend and partners, may be proprietary.
Talend isn’t the very biggest open source business in existence, but with 400 employees and offices in 13 countries, it represents a powerful force within the open source channel. It also counts 2,500 paying commercial customers for its data-integration products and about 750,000 users of its free tools, making it one of the most important software vendors in its niche.
The Web site http://www.kickstarter.com is an interesting place. Basically, it's a site that allows people to invest in various projects, giving people real money to develop an idea. Those ideas vary from film-making to programming video games, but the concept is the same regardless of the project.
The FreeBSD project has announced the arrival of the first release candidate (RC1) for version 9.0 of its FreeBSD operating system. The developers say that 9.0 RC1 was delayed due to a bug that the team encountered during the initial testing of the images, as well as problems related to FreeBSD-Update.
What is really sad about this lack of acknowledgement is that many people and writers who do recognise events that are newsworthy in the field of computing have turned a blind eye - or else issued something that's similar to weak tea.
Take Richard Stallman, the head of the Free Software Foundation, for example. Stallman has much to thank Ritchie for; were it not for the C programming language that Ritchie developed, Stallman would not have been able to create any of the GNU tools that he did, in his quest to create a free operating system.
Stallman had time to comment on the passing of Steve Jobs. Yet, to date, neither him nor anyone else at the FSF or the GNU Foundation have said a word about Ritchie.
The two hope that local online news organizations will use the software as a way to improve their publishing systems without having to spend lots of money.
The package is a “content management system,” or CMS, named Armstrong. The two nonprofits say they themselves have been using the Armstrong CMS since 2009.
The UK government is about to start publishing data on all current roadworks in progress, so we may stand a chance of actually arriving at a destination on time and relatively free of rage and desires to kill.
As part of a new attempt to be more open, accountable, transparent and so on and so forth, the transport department will soon begin to “publish useful raw data on road works, cycle routes and car parks, to help travellers use our transport networks better.”
If you are like me then you were very excited about HTML 5's video tag. Simplistic, great functionality, and now it is even supported by all of the latest browsers. Video is just a source away, and easier than ever to portray high quality videos right on your website. HTML 5, like anything else, doesn't have everything we want. For example the biggest problem is a "full screen command." Even though you are able to specify the dimensions appropriately, you still want to be able to save space, and provide that option. Early on there were a number of options available to have a deluxe video player. There seems to be a frontrunner in this battle, and that is VideoJS.
Today's teenagers are probably the most savvy generation yet when it comes to filtering out advertising, but that is no worry for junk food and drink companies who steadily deploy stealthier and more sophisticated interactive promotions that specifically target teens and exploit their emotional and developmental vulnerabilities. The newest generation of internet-based junk food promotions uses cutting edge marketing techniques with names like "augmented reality," "virtual environments" and "neuromarketing" -- the use of scientifically-devised digital marketing techniques that trigger teens' subconscious emotional arousal.
Members of Congress and the Obama administration have assured us that on January 1, 2014, junk health insurance plans -- which offer only the illusion of adequate coverage to the millions of Americans enrolled in them -- will become a thing of the past.
Among those who clearly don’t believe those plans are headed for extinction are the insurance companies that market these highly profitable plans, and the employers that buy them -- primarily restaurant chains and retailers with high employee turnover.
If I were President Obama, I would send one of my aides to the Chicago suburbs later this week to see first-hand just how determined these companies are to continue selling these plans -- which are euphemistically called “mini-med” and “limited-benefit policies” -- long past 2014.
Brent oil price have remained stubbornly above $100 a barrel in 2011. Part of the reason why has been the decline in days supply of OECD Total Oil Stocks. Following the financial crisis of 2008, total oil inventories in the OECD climbed steadily, rising above 60 days supply. However, after the low in oil prices in 2009, inventories started a gentle decline which has now seen levels fall below 59 days supply. Over the years it has been my observation that while the level of days supply influences oil prices, changes in direction matter more.
In September the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget (CRFB), a bipartisan deficit-hawk group based at the New America Foundation, held a high-profile symposium urging the Congressional "supercommittee" to "go big" and approve a $4 trillion deficit reduction plan over the next decade, which is well beyond its $1.2 trillion mandate. The hearing began with an alarming video of top policy-makers describing the national debt as "the most serious threat that this country has ever had" (Alan Simpson) and "a threat to the whole idea of self-government" (Mitch Daniels). If the debt continues to rise, predicted former New Mexico Senator Pete Domenici, there would be "strikes, riots, who knows what?" A looming fiscal crisis was portrayed as being just around the corner.
The event spotlighted a central paradox in American politics over the past two years: how, in the midst of a massive unemployment crisis -- when it's painfully obvious that not enough jobs are being created and the public overwhelmingly wants policy-makers to focus on creating them -- did the deficit emerge as the most pressing issue in the country? And why, when the global evidence clearly indicates that austerity measures will raise unemployment and hinder, not accelerate, growth, do advocates of austerity retain such distinction today?
Earlier this month, hundreds of New Yorkers received an unusual dinner invitation from the Lower East Side People's Federal Credit Union.
The Credit Union, a small lender serving New York's poor, was holding a fund-raiser to celebrate its 25th anniversary. Among the chief sponsors listed on the invitation was Goldman Sachs Group Inc.