01.08.10
Posted in News Roundup at 9:53 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Contents
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Linux is still a strong player in the little laptop market. MSI has announced that Novell’s new mashup of Moblin and SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop will be available as an option on the upcoming 10-inch MSI U135 netbook. Smartbooks have finally arrived and are making a big splash at CES. HP has an Android-based smartbook with a 10-inch resistive touchscreen, and Lenovo announced its slim Skylight with a Web-oriented Linux OS. Both products ship with the 1GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon ARM processor.
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I use my Lenovo T400 Thinkpad as a work laptop but also as an experimental machine on which I put and delete various Linux distributions and software. At various times I’ve had Ubuntu, Fedora, and openSUSE on the computer, though most often Ubuntu, and that’s what is there now.
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What are the ten characteristics of a Linux Guru?
1. Knowledgeable in all major Linux distributions.
2. Configures Samba, DNS, Sendmail and Apache with no Googling.
3. Helps others solve their problems with Linux.
4. Blogs or writes about personal experiences with Linux.
5. Donates time and resources to at least one Linux project.
6. Uses Linux on a variety of computing hardware.
7. Hacks Linux-based devices for fun and/or profit.
8. Finds innovative ways to use Linux at work.
9. Is a Linux Evangelist.
10. Has a collection of very early (Kernel 1.x or older) Linux CDs.
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Linux
91% (210 votes)
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Kernel Space
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Linux 2.6.33 will have new and improved drivers for Wi-Fi chips by Intel, Ralink and Realtek. Several drivers for old Wi-Fi hardware have been moved to the staging area and will probably soon be discarded. New additions include various LAN chip drivers and several improvements to the network stack.
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It retails at USD99 (GBP62) and includes a CD containing example programs and installation software for both Windows and Linux operating systems.
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Graphics Stack
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Version 1.7.4 of the X.Org Server has been released this morning. This point release continues to bring new bug-fixes to the X Server 1.7 series branch since its release last year. All major development work continues to be focused on X Server 1.8, which is expected for release in March.
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There’s just one month left until the Free and Open-source Software Developers’ European Meeting (FOSDEM) takes place once again in Brussels, Belgium. Like in past years, there will be an X.Org development room where various talks about X will be held, but this year it has turned into a one-day affair. Even with having half the time as past years to talk about X, the schedule is not even full at this point.
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Applications
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Even though in the world of Twitter there are a lot of fantastic, feature-full programs for the Twitter power user, that’s not exactly what I, a simple Twitter user, is looking for.
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Opera is aiming for broader adoption on Linux set-top boxes with some new features in its Web Widgets system, which has been enhanced on Linux to support interaction from TV remote control devices. The Linux SDK also supports hardware accelerated rendering and DirectFB.
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Atom Developers’ Program — a way for developers to adapt old applications to take advantage of the netbook explosion. Consumers will be given beta to first storefront of AppUp Center, one-stop shop for users to find netbook apps for Windows and Linux.
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Intel is taking the same approach with netbooks, most of which are powered by its Atom processors. AppUp, which was launched here at CES 2010, has a number of different applications, and more will be added every day. The AppUp software will now be installed on every Atom-equipped netbook, and for those who already have an Eee PC or Wind, you can download the software for Windows or Linux.
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Instructionals
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Desktop Environments
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K Desktop Environment (KDE SC)
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Today, KDE has released the first release candidate of the next version of the KDE Software Compilation (KDE SC). KDE SC 4.4 Release Candidate 1 provides a testing base for identifying bugs in the upcoming KDE Software Compilation 4.4, with its components the KDE Plasma Workspaces, the Applications powered by KDE, and the KDE Development Platform.
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So, I needed an application that could load a couple of pictures, showing two pictures side-by-side for visual comparison and at the same time presenting the more important meta-data attributes such as focal length, exposure time, ISO and aperture.
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I’m Mathias, a new contributor to KDE Games. During the last year I spent some time to code on Granatier, a new game which will be released with KDE SC 4.4 and I would like to give a short introduction.
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GNOME Desktop
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Contributors to the WebKitGTK+ project recently gathered for a hackfest to improve the open source HTML renderer’s integration with the GTK+ toolkit. They added some cache control APIs, improved support for HTML5 video, form persistence, and other features.
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some guys over at TechCrunch UK (or something like that) made a review of 8 linux distributions which ships KDE as their default graphical desktop.
the first one? Slackware…
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New Releases
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The Elive team announced today another unstable release of their Elive Live CD Linux distribution, now at version 1.9.56. Being powered by Debian, the Enlightenment E17 desktop environment and Linux kernel 2.6.30, the new development version of Elive brings support for 3G phones, the latest version of Adobe’s Flash Player and installer fixes. Without any further ado, let’s take a closer look at the changes brought by Elive 1.9.56:
· Updated Linux kernel packages to version 2.6.30;
· Added 300 new operators in order to support more 3G phones;
· Automatic connection of a 3G phone, at boot;
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Red Hat Family
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The project chair has appointed Red Hat employee Colin Walters to the board. John Poelstra begins the year with open feedback to the board’s work.
With Red Hat developer Colin Walters, the last open position on the Fedora board has been filled. John Poelstra, who was appointed to the board by chair Paul Frields in June of 2009, nevertheless regretted in his blog the less than enthusiastic participation of the board. Halfway through his term, he writes, he wanted to evaluate its accomplishments. The two big themes were the Fedora trademark (as we reported) and the question of Fedora’s mission, vision and target audience. Poelstra opened the discussion on the board mailing list in October 2009 after the issues apparently emerged in a board meeting shortly before.
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Debian Family
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Social media and social networking are huge now-a-days, with Twitter, Facebook and the like being hugely successful at keeping friends and family in touch. Now only that, but social networks are huge for charities, with many causes being supported and heavily promoted via social networking. Corporations and business use social networking too to promote their products and services to users in a manner which is so relevant that they tend not to annoy as is generally the case with more corporate advertising.
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To that end, Wind River has duly launched VxWorks 6.8. VxWorks is Wind River’s home-grown real-time operating system. It stands beside Wind River Linux 3.0, the company’s real-time Linux variant, and the new commercialized variant of the Android Linux-for-handsets that Wind River announced a month ago.
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At this year’s Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas, Sony has introduced its new dash “personal application viewer” featuring built in Wi-Fi, stereo speakers, a USB port and a 7-inch touch screen. According to Engadget, the Dash runs the Chumby OS, an open source Linux-based operating system.
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Sony says the Linux-based wireless device will have access to over 1,000 applications including YouTube and other social apps – it also seems the company is intending to open app development up, too.
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EMC subsidiary Iomega is readying a WiFi-enabled, Linux-based network-attached storage (NAS) device that costs $100. The Iomega iConnect Wireless Data Station has no storage of its own, but acts as a wireless hub that shares data stored on devices hooked up to its four USB 2.0 ports.
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As such, Skiff showed us a total of four different devices accessing its content: a color e-reader prototype as well as Skiff apps running on a Palm Pre, Viliv MID, and of course the Linux-based black and white e-reader launching sometime this year.
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Texas Instruments (TI) announced an e-book reader development platform for Linux and Android, based on its OMAP3621 system-on-chip. The eBook Development Platform is equipped with an E Ink electrophoretic EPD display, TI’s new TPS6518x EPD power management IC, plus an integrated WiLink chip (WiFi, Bluetooth, and FM) and 3G support.
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The GENIVI alliance, of which Visteon is a part, aims to provide a standard Linux automotive infotainment platform, so developers can easily build for multiple cars. Visteon showed off a GENIVI system running off an Intel ARM processor, and powering four different LCDs, an instrument cluster, navigation, and two rear seat monitors, simultaneously.
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Korenix Unveils JetBox 3300 series Compact Embedded Linux Computers with DIO, Isolated Serial Ports and -40~80oC wide operating temp. for Front-End Controller Applications in Severe Industrial Environments!
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By contrast, the Picowatt lets individuals set up a home energy monitoring themselves. The smart plugs, which fit over existing outlets, are essentially mini Wi-Fi routers running Linux, each capable of gathering data and controlling devices. People can view data, such as historical energy usage, from a Wi-Fi-enabled PC or through a Facebook application that can be operated from a smart phone.
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The Rochester, New York start-up says the smart plug, about the size of an Apple AirPort, will be available in April of this year for $79 and will be sold directly to consumers. The smart plugs fit over existing outlets, act as tiny Wi-Fi routers running Linux.
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Phones
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While the Edelweiss didn’t find a “suitor” and just faded into the night without any success, the Monolith has some promise. Especially now that it is being exhibited at CES under the name “Else Emblaze”, or “Else Intuition”. It was built by Sharp and has a Linux-based touchscreen OS licensed by Access, and offers quite a few respectable features, not to mention adding in the uniqueness factor.
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The Maemo 5 OS experience to me is no longer a minimalist thing, but is rather a clear canvas to paint your entire digital lifestyle.
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Android
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The new Nexus One is a sleek, awesome handset, but the most important ingredient in touchscreen smartphones is software. The screen is just a canvas that software paints on, and Android 2.1 is a work of art.
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Lenovo unveiled a Qualcomm Snapdragon-based Android smartphone aimed for a 1H 2010 release in China, says eWEEK. Meanwhile, Dell officially announced a version of the Mini 3 Android smartphone aimed at AT&T’s U.S. network, and showed off a MID-like Android “slate” prototype.
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Sub-notebooks
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The way the company both hits the $99 price point and makes a little profit at the same time is to a) ship with free, open-source Linux and b) offer minimum specs but actually build the laptops with whatever the cheapest components are at any given time.
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Over the last 12 months, netbook and mobile Linux has made massive advances in features and install base. This is primarily thanks to two netbook distributions – Moblin and Canonical’s Ubuntu Netbook Remix (UNR).
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All laptop users have something in common: we want our device’s batteries to last longer. Whether it’s for the daily commute or a long flight, an extra 30 minutes of power means an extra 30 minutes of entertainment.
If you’re running a Linux-based distribution on your netbook, there’s a lot you can do to squeeze every last negatively charged ion from your power source. Here we’re going to cover the best techniques that we’ve discovered.
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In terms of overall performance, I am intensely happy with Ubuntu on this machine. I was worried about the Atom CPUs being sluggish, but I’ve had no problems whatsoever. Having 2 gigabytes of memory probably helps, but this netbook can even run Windows XP in VirtualBox without flinching. That’s a lot more than I can say for the circa-2004 Pentium IV Inspiron laptop that my Latitude is replacing.
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In its laptop incarnation, the device behaves as a conventional PC running Windows 7, the particular flavor of which (Home, Professional, or Ultimate) was not specified. But the entire viewiing screen can be completely detached from the keyboard base – smoothly, by hand, no tools required! – and restarted in a Linux-quick 3 seconds. It is then an independent touch-screen tablet operating on the Skylight OS, with the laptop base as a wi-fi hotspot.
This is certainly a spectacular way to bring new meaning to the term “dual boot,” but I’d like to suggest it’s a whole lot more than that. Lenovo is an independent manufacturer now, but it was not long ago that it was simply the PC hardware arm of IBM, presumably fully ordained as an OEM for Microsoft Windows.
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The Linux user interface looks a bit like Google Android thanks to the widgets that pop up on your desktop. But the Freescale tablet is designed to be used with a stylus, not a fingertip.
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No self-respecting geek enjoys dealing with closed-standard Word documents or Exchange servers. What kind of bizarro world is this where engineers are not only going crazy over Microsoft’s latest proprietary API, but actively denouncing its open-standard competitor?
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VMWare appears to be positioning itself to provide the virtualized or cloud-based alternative to Oracle, Microsoft and IBM. This is a very interesting approach, and it will be interesting to see it play out over time. With Oracle and IBM taking a more systems-centric approach, meaning they are both providing the storage, computing and software stacks in the form of a system, this leaves Oracle’s traditional hardware partners out in the cold (HP, Dell, EMC, Netapp, etc.) along with budding potential partner Cisco. VMWare may envision themselves providing the Linux-based alternative to Microsoft in this game of strategic positioning.
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EtherPad is a collaborative in-browser text editor. AppJet launched the product in the fall of 2008 with both commercial and free (limited to eight concurrent editors) versions, and it quickly gained popularity in the first half of 2009. When Google unveiled its own real-time collaboration system Wave in June, comparisons were inevitable. Many users found EtherPad’s interface simpler to use and easier to understand, however, so it was no great surprise when Google announced that it had purchased AppJet and EtherPad on December 4. The AppJet engineers would work on Wave, ostensibly making it as easy to use as EtherPad itself.
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It’s my pleasure to introduce to you the single greatest Launchpad planning achievement for 2010: the roadmap.
For the last few months we’ve been working on bridging the gap between the Ubuntu distribution and the upstreams that it’s made from: making it easier for patches, translations, and bug reports to flow between Ubuntu users, Ubuntu developers, and upstream developers.
We’ve been asking users what they want and trying really hard to listen to them. And, of course, since we’re Free Software now, all of our discussion, development and planning is out in the open.
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Fog Computing
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I have a feeling that the desktop operating system as we know it is on its last leg. The reason I make such a bold statement is that cloud computing will replace our fat, bloated, virus-riddled, failure-prone desktop with something far more agile and elegant: A lightweight browser-based system. This sounds like good news to me. I’ve waited for a server-centric world for several years now and the time is almost upon us. In this brave new cloud world, you’ll have access to all of your documents, music, data, pictures and applications regardless of the device in your hands.
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An open-source Web-based operating system called eyeOS is getting a big boost from IBM. The computer giant has begun selling high-end mainframe servers with eyeOS pre-installed, hoping the operating system will entice customers who are hesitant about using cloud computing.
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Mozilla
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This add-on allows you to edit text from any “textarea” on a Web page in an external editor. Once it’s installed, you can configure the extension to use whatever your favorite editor happens to be. In my case Vim (GVIM, in this case), but you could also use Gedit, Kate, or any other editor that you prefer.
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Want to help the Mozilla Project produce the best Firefox possible, but have no developer skills at all? Can you point? Click? Read instructions? Then you’re ready to suit up as a Firefox Test Pilot. Crashes not required.
If you’ve ever felt like you want to give back to the Firefox project, or if you feel like Firefox needs improvement, the Test Pilot project is the the easiest way to provide useful feedback to Mozilla and put those browsing hours to work.
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For the last few years, Firefox has been the alternative browser of choice. But could it be running out of steam, wonders Simon Brew…
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2009 wraps up another year of terrific Firefox growth! Roughly keeping pace with previous years, Firefox grew 40% worldwide. Two regions in particular continued adopting Firefox at a breakneck pace — South America (64%) and Asia (73%).
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Databases
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As you can see, he believes the GPL is sufficient, that the community can develop powerful programs with the license, and that there is an important difference between the GPL plus exceptions and changing to an Apache license, which is what Monty has been suggesting. So if you see further FUD from Monty about the GPL or how rms allegedly agrees that the GPL is insufficient, here is your rebuttal.
I trust Monty will remove or rewrite the misrepresentation on the Save MySQL page, so people are not misled into signing this petition due to the false belief that Mr. Stallman supports the campaign.
Some of you may have signed that petition thinking Mr. Stallman wanted you to do so. A lot of people would sign a petition if they thought Mr. Stallman wanted them to. If so, you may wish to let Monty know you have changed your mind and wish to remove your name. You may also wish to let the EU Commission know about the change.
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This tweet from former MySQL AB CEO Mårten Mickos caught my eye. It shows a trend of increased demand for MySQL and PostgresSQL expertise while job postings on job websites for those with Oracle and Ingres expertise declined.
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The new year has barely started, but it’s already become apparent that at least one dire prediction about 2010 isn’t going to come to pass.
IPv4 address space will not be exhausted in 2010 as the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) had once forecast. But that doesn’t mean that network managers or even consumer electronics vendors should sit on the sidelines. This week at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, the American Registry for Internet Names (ARIN) is advocating that vendors start making the move to IPv6 now.
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Security
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A TSA agent was arrested on January 3rd in Terminal One at LAX, a source told NBCLA. He had just gotten off duty and was behaving erratically, saying, “I am god, I’m in charge.”
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If you’re wondering who the strange looking fella’ to the right is; he is the new face of/logo for the Identity and Passport Service’s latest ID card marketing campaign.
The fact that he appears to be a fingerprint leaves Big Brother Watch in the strange position of not being sure whether to laugh or cry.
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Yet another domino in the RSA encryption scheme has fallen with the announcement Thursday that cryptographers have broken 768-bit keys using the widely used public-key algorithm.
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Heartland Payment Systems will pay up to US$60 million to issuers of Visa credit and debit cards for losses they incurred from a 2008 data breach at the large payment processor.
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Environment
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This year will be one of the top five warmest years globally since records began 150 years ago, according to figures compiled by the Met Office.
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Finance
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The Federal Reserve Bank of New York, during its $180 billion bailout of American International Group, Inc., instructed AIG to omit details of its purchase of certain toxic assets from a December 24, 2008, Securities and Exchange Commission filing, according to e-mails between the company and the Fed released Thursday.
Using bailout money provided by the Fed, AIG paid a number of banks 100 percent of the face value of credit-default swaps, contracts tied to subprime home loans, at a time when other institutions were negotiating deep discounts for the paper. The names of the banks were also omitted from the SEC filing.
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The Federal Reserve Bank of New York, then led by Timothy Geithner, told American International Group Inc. to withhold details from the public about the bailed-out insurer’s payments to banks during the depths of the financial crisis, e-mails between the company and its regulator show.
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The problem with such a game is that non-cash “earnings” aren’t money and while they look good on the balance sheet if they don’t materialize later on you’re sunk! My call at the time was that they wouldn’t materialize and WaMu would indeed be sunk, and it was.
This is a bit different, in that nobody is (yet) claiming that Goldman doesn’t have the money. What’s being alleged here is that they have effectively pilfered the public Treasury and then paid that out as bonuses, rather than doing with it as Treasury intended and their shareholders were entitled to, which is to use the capital to rebuild the firm’s foundation and strengthen it against future potential losses.
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PR/AstroTurf
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Glaxo says they won’t have control over the content of the film and won’t even be pushing to make sure Alli gets mentioned.
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Censorship/Civil Rights
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The body responsible for the .uk internet addresses disconnected over 1,200 websites without any oversight from a court. The much-publicised action last month was based only on police assertions about criminal activity on the sites.
Two Nominet executives have told technology law podcast OUT-LAW Radio that it severed the connection between 1,219 domain names and the sites that lay behind them without the kind of court order that web hosting companies would usually demand.
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Yeah. Like that will work. Trying to suppress information online doesn’t work, no matter what law you put in place. I’m reminded of the convicted German murderer, who is demanding that information on his conviction be removed from Wikipedia under a similar type of law. All that did was call a lot more attention to the story.
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Last year, we wrote about the rather troubling situation in Chicago, involving prosecutors who were given information from the famed Medill Innocence Project (which consist of journalism students who examine potential wrongful conviction cases) indicating a wrongful conviction. Rather than use the new evidence, the prosecutors began a campaign against the Innocence Project subpoenaing a ton of information that has no bearing on the case whatsoever, but seem designed to intimidate the journalism students.
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Intellectual Monopolies/Copyrights
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Generally speaking, the subject of a photograph does not have copyrights therein. These accrue to the photographer, unless there is a contract to the contrary.
Actress Vanessa Hudgens has apparently been shocked to find full frontal, nude images of herself on the Internet, specifically on the site of moejackson.com, but as tends to happen with such things, the images are already available more widely.
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That a U.S. senator must ask a federal agency to share information regarding a proposed and “classified” international anti-counterfeiting accord the government has already disclosed is alarming. Especially when the info has been given to Hollywood, the recording industry, software makers and even some digital-rights groups.
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During the last two decades, the Swedish band Rednex have sold more than 10 million records, with number one hits in eight countries including Germany and the UK. Today the band, known by most people for the single “Cotton Eye Joe,” released their first single in 18 months. They chose to share it via The Pirate Bay.
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The Pirate Bay is currently promoting the new Rednex single on its frontpage, which guarantees exposure to millions of downloaders. Rednex believes that new forms of distribution will eventually make the record labels redundant.
“We think that this is undoubtedly the future method of releasing music. Within 12 years all the record companies will be extinct and the copy-free system will rule, no matter what anyone tries to do about it. It is inevitable and we are simply adapting to the coming reality. We admire the file-sharing communities and the unrestricted spread of information, as this will ultimately lead to great all-round benefits,” they add.
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According to TorrentFreak, last summer’s Star Trek movie was the “most pirated movie of 2009.” So it seems that Paramount Pictures was prescient when it gave testimony before the FCC that used Star Trek as an illustrative example of how “Internet piracy” is poised to devastate Hollywood and (though the nexus here is less than clear) undermine residential broadband in America.
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Buskers at SkyTrain stations in Vancouver are about to get an Olympic-sized price hike as TransLink negotiates a deal with the Society of Composers, Music Publishers and Authors of Canada – the Canadian body that collects licensing fees on copyrighted music.
The arrangement, set to be finalized by Feb. 1, will cost the transit service $880 per station per year and the hefty price hike will almost certainly result in higher licensing fees for buskers. Right now, TransLink buskers pay an annual licence fee of $75.
Dwayne Bailey, Founder and Managing Director of Translate.org.za (2004)
Digital Tipping Point is a Free software-like project where the raw videos are code. You can assist by participating.
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Posted in News Roundup at 12:18 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
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1. Windows – 58.70%
2. Linux – 19.45%
3. Macintosh – 18.32%
4. iPhone – 1.70%
5. SunOS – 0.75%
6. (not set) – 0.43%
7. Android – 0.20%
8. iPod – 0.20%
9. SymbianOS – 0.07%
10. BlackBerry – 0.06%
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Linux has its own advantages. It sure is geeky, it is powerful and now you can even do your bit to help the deteriorating environment. The folks at lesswatts.org have devised a number of ways to save power with Linux. The results have been obtained from continued stress-testing on all mobile, desktop and server machines and have been favorable so far. The kernel used for these tests are the 2.6.22 version but they are hoping that the power-saver features will go into the kernel 2.6.23.
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In some respects, it is a little surprising that, given the intense business interest in free and open source software, Australia’s national Linux conference only took up the topic as a separate mini-conference last year.
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Server
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The first thing that jumps out at you is that they’re almost all based on open-source software. For example, the operating systems behind Twitter, LinkedIn, and MySpace are all Linux. Facebook uses F5 Big-IP, which is a family of Linux-based appliances that also perform network management.
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If asked to name significant Linux organizations, Fujitsu Ltd. might not be a company that comes immediately to mind. But to underestimate the value Fujitsu brings to the Linux ecosystem would be erroneous: the world’s fourth-largest IT services provider and Japan’s top IT company has a big stake in Linux, and some big-name Linux customers.
Just how big? Currently, Fujitsu is the number-two server vendor contributor to Linux kernel development, behind IBM. Their Linux deployments include the replacement of existing mainframes at the Japan Ministry of Justice and the Tokyo Stock Exchange–systems that are recognized as being among the strongest Linux deployments in the world in terms of size and reliability.
So how did Fujitsu, a company with a strong history selling mainframes with proprietary operating systems, become such a leader in the Linux ecosystem? Like many other vendors, it was the customer who guided the way.
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Kernel Space
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In this podcast comprookie attempts to describe, the relationship between Pulseaudio and Alsa.
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Graphics Stack
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Nouveau is now used by default as the driver for NVIDIA cards, when proprietary driver is not in use [2].
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Instructionals
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KDE
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The challenge here for KDE is: what do we have that can also be spread out across the spectrum?
Not everything will move very much. I don’t see Digikam making the leap to smart phones, for instance, nor should it try to in my opinion. That’s not the point of Digikam, and trying to do so would probably ruin it.
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As we move from 2009 to 2010, KDE’s source code is in a sort of odd limbo itself. The majority of our code is in a subversion revision control installation hosted on svn.kde.org, but more and more of the code we produce is ending up on gitorious.org. The idea is to eventually have everything moved over, with the exception of translations (and documentation?) which will stay in svn for the sake of the translation teams workflow.
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This one should be really short, because it’s more of an open ended question and some food for thought than a long exploration of a tangly topic. That question is: are we doing enough to ensure that projects that start to wobble a bit don’t fall off the rails, crash and burn on us?
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Creating your own OS can be quite a daunting task that requires a lot of computer knowledge. I found a site that may interest you, Custom NimbleX2 is an open-source project that allows even newbies in computing to create their own Linux OS.
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Debian Family
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One of my actions from the recent Ubuntu UK team meeting was to organise a evening out on the Real Ale Train.
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To enjoy Spotify on an Ubuntu PC, first install the Wine software. Left-click on the Applications menu and then Add/Remove. Select All available applications in the Show menu and type wine in the box to the right.
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The manual is first expected to appear on the 10th of February, with the Alpha release of Ubuntu 10.04 Lucid Lynx. The Final release will be ready on the 29th of April. The manual will be released and revised every six months and will be available as a pdf file.
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The second Alpha release of Ubuntu 10.04 Lucid Lynx is due for release next Thursday (14th January) but what can you expect to find inside it?
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Sony’s Dash, unveiled at the Consumer Electronics Show on Wednesday, typifies the increasing number of hybrid products being made possible on small screens with internet connectivity.
Its mother is the digital photo frame (DPF) and its father could be a bedside alarm clock, but it has an elder brother in the Chumby , which seems to have had a big influence on the Dash.
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In addition to embedded database expertise, Trident Infosol offers services for popular embedded development tools and operating systems, such as Linux.
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Q: What does the choice of ARM over x86 mean in practical terms?
A: Well, it affects the software selection, most obviously. Most Linux distributions’ support for the ARM chipset is minimal: Ubuntu, for example, only supports two flavors of ARM chips, and the known issues list is grim reading. Which is likely why Qualcomm (who’s been hiring for this), Lenovo or both seem to have created their own flavor of Linux, with “widgets” and a task oriented interface.
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Android
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We are already aware that Android is likely to enter our home as the back-end software running our appliances but it would be more interesting to see the development of Android on MIPS as it would let Android drives more “home entertainment” appliances.
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Google open source guru Chris DiBona has acknowledged that the company’s freewheeling approach to building a mobile operating system can cause a few headaches for developers, with unfamiliar versions of its Android OS appearing on new phones with little warning. But, he says, that’s not developers’ main concern – nor Google’s.
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I’m trying to figure out just what “principle” that might be, because there doesn’t seem to be any legal principle. It’s hard to argue that there’s any moral principle either, since “nexus” is a word that’s been around since well before Philip K. Dick used it. In fact, the only matter of principle I can think of is the one where someone demands money for something where they clearly have no right to it and have done nothing to deserve it. Like demanding a big company pay up because it has a product named sorta similar to something your dad wrote decades ago.
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Last night, during his keynote address at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer showed off a prototype for a new HP Slate computer running on Windows 7. It was supposed to be an Apple-stealing moment and it was Microsoft’s moment, which is probably why Hewlett-Packard has not yet publicly mentioned that it is working on another tablet/slate computer that is running on Android. You know, Google’s mobile operating system.
HP did announce an Android-powered netbook yesterday, but that has a keyboard. A source who has seen a prototype of HP’s Android Slate says it looks just like the Windows-powered one Ballmer held last night (see image below), maybe a little smaller. “It is almost identical in every respect to the one he showed off except for the OS,” says my source.
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Unfortunately, by simply shoehorning the Windows 7 interface (albeit a great desktop/notebook UI) into an interesting and relatively novel form factor, the announcement of HP’s slate was just a big yawn.
[...]
On the other hand, the use of Ubuntu opens up these slates to a wide variety of free educational software with a growing body of touch- and stylus-enabled software. Add to that (or, more correctly, subtract from that) the licensing cost of Windows 7 and suddenly these tablets get cheaper, more robust in terms of software offerings, and easier for digital natives to use given a more appropriate interface for the device and suddenly a somewhat disappointing device becomes far more compelling.
I’m convinced, as are most other tech bloggers, that the tablet form factor is here to stay. This is a good thing. However, what we really need are interfaces that exploit the tablet rather than highlight its compromises. Moblin and NBR are mighty fine places to start.
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Even Google’s involvement with its own open-source Android operating system could inhibit free development around it going forward. For Google, one of the big benefits that all Android phones bring is steering users into the company’s lucrative search-and-ad ecosystem. With the release of today’s Nexus One Android-based phone — which takes the company’s commercial stake in Android handsets to two (Droid being the first) — could Android itself be increasingly influenced by Google’s proprietary interests? Just as Microsoft leverages Windows for the benefit of its own applications, Google could do the same with Android. The Open Android Alliance is already developing versions of Android devoid of Google applications due to these types of concerns.
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Dell today announced it has chosen AT&T as its exclusive U.S. carrier for its upcoming lineup of Android-based smartphones, known as the Mini 3. Dell has already chosen China Mobile, Vodafone and Claro Brazil as partners outside the U.S.
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One of the cooler software announcements to already come out of CES 2010 is from Chevy and OnStar regarding the upcoming 2011 Chevy Volt, their all electric vehicle. The new Android-based application gives Volt owners added control over their vehicles with options like monitoring charging status, unlocking doors, and more. There have been rumors for some time that these types of applications would be coming but now those rumors have been confirmed with their unveiling at CES 2010.
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It appears Android-equipped devices are enjoying a coming out party at this week’s Consumer Electronics Show. Major hardware manufacturers, including Dell, HTC, MIPS Technologies and Motorola, have announced plans to launch consumer products, including smartphones and TV set top boxes, which feature the Android mobile operating system.
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Palm
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Palm announced today that it will jump from Sprint to Verizon when it releases two new phones on January 25.
Speaking to reporters at the Consumer Elelctronics Show in Las Vegas, Nevada, Palm Chairman and chief executive Jon Rubinstein said the new phones – the Pre Plus and Pixi Plus – “will be available exclusively on the Verizon wireless network.”
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Palm’s CES 2010 press conference didn’t offer nearly as much fanfare as last year’s event, where the company unveiled the Palm Pre. But Palm did announce new phones, a software update, and new partnerships, proving that this once-struggling handset company is not just a one-trick pony.
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Verizon Wireless will start selling improved versions of Palm’s Pre and Pixi smartphones later this month under an exclusive arrangement with the handset maker.
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This morning Palm announced a slew of product updates, including two new handsets, updates to the webOS platform, and a carrier relationship with Verizon. This afternoon I got some hands-on time with the Palm Pre Plus and Pixi Plus and tested the new video capture app.
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It’s speedier, thanks to the double RAM that’s been added, and noticeably easier flipping between apps and programs. The screen is responsive, but no more responsive than it was before. All in all, it’s the same Pre experience you’ve had before, just faster. Oh, and guess you’ll have to fork out for a TouchStone now.
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2009 was a year of intense renovation. Many of the projects we began in 2009 will launch in the first half of 2010. Our goal with these projects is to make the Second Life user experience more intuitive, more accessible, more reliable and more connected to the social web. We must reduce dramatically the “Time to Delight” (i.e., the time it takes to get to that wonderful “AH HA!!” moment in Second Life) from several hours to several minutes. This will benefit both user acquisition and retention. We’ve also been working on improving the support we give to the ecosystem of content creators, merchants, landowners and solution providers since they/you are the lifeblood of Second Life. Finally, we’ve been working on platform projects to improve stability, reliability and quality of the Second Life experience which is top-of-mind for all Residents.
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The idea of Grendel is to provide an internal (behind-the-firewall) REST-based web service to keep a user’s data encrypted and ensure its integrity when the user isn’t using it. Grendel uses OpenPGP to store data, with the user’s password encrypting an OpenPGP keyset. That model makes it easy for a web site to store data safely and only decrypt it when the user is logged into the site. Since only the user has their password, once they log out, their data is safe, even if the web site’s database is compromised or stolen. Of course this isn’t an infallible protection — there is no such thing — and in particular it doesn’t protect against web site developers acting in bad faith. It does, though, protect against an attacker getting access to all the secrets stored by users in one step.
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Boxee
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Media center software maker Boxee announced the public launch of its Boxee Beta software, today, after only a month in private beta.
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In addition to releasing the first full beta of the application, the company is announcing several new content partnerships. New partners include TV.com, Blip. tv, gaming powerhouse IGN, and the upcoming film The Wolfman.
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Now that the Boxee Box by D-Link is officially official, and the NVIDIA Tegra 2 chipset is the same, Boxee can finally confirm that yes, they’ve used the low-power 1080p-capable Tegra T20 chip in their upcoming media streamer. According to a new post on the Boxee blog, the dual-core ARM Cortex A9 CPU means the Boxee Box is capable of Adobe Flash 10.1 decoding, HD streaming and local 1080p playback.
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Databases
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When I co-signed the letter objecting to Oracle’s planned purchase of MySQL 1 (along with the rest of Sun), some free software supporters were surprised that I approved of the practice of selling license exceptions which the MySQL developers have used. They expected me to condemn the practice outright. This article explains what I think of the practice, and why.
Selling exceptions means that the copyright holder of the code releases it to the public under a free software license, then lets customers pay for permission to use the same code under different terms, for instance allowing its inclusion in proprietary applications.
We must distinguish the practice of selling exceptions from something crucially different: proprietary extensions or proprietary versions of a free program. These two activities, even if practiced simultaneously by one company, are different issues. In selling exceptions, the same code that the exception applies to is available to the general public as free software. An extension or a modified version that is only available under a proprietary license is proprietary software, pure and simple, and no better than any other proprietary software. This article is concerned with cases that involve strictly and only the sale of exceptions.
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In fact, PostgreSQL as a project is pretty healthy, and shows how vulnerable projects like MySQL are to the winds of change. PostgreSQL could die tomorrow, if a huge group of its contributors dropped out for one reason or another and the remainder of the community didn’t take up the slack. But that’s exceedingly unlikely. The existing model for PostgreSQL development ensures that no single entity can control it, it can’t be purchased and if someone decides to fork the project, the odds are that the remaining community would be strong enough to continue without a serious glitch.
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BSD
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FreeNAS 0.7 is based on FreeBSD 7.2 and includes a lot of file sharing protocols. This way it can talk to all major operating systems: GNU/Linux, the BSDs, Windows, and Mac OS X. FreeNAS also supports several types of media streaming protocols and can act like an iTunes server. In addition, it supports iSCSI and different levels of software RAID. All of this can be managed from the web interface so users don’t have to know the FreeBSD commands under the hood.
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Openness
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The Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, will on Thursday launch a website hosting hundreds of sets of data – including previously unreleased information – about the capital, as part of a new scheme intended to encourage people to create “mashups” of data to boost the city’s transparency and accountability.
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What had changed? His contact told him that Google was placing a new emphasis on getting the social web right, in a way that is good for the web. That month Google publicly launched a campaign that had run informally inside the company for two years, called the Data Liberation Front. It works across departments to enable users to remove their data from Google services, a key part of the vision of an Open Distributed Web that Messina has been working toward.
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SINCE its economic reform began in 1978, China has gone from being a poor developing country to the second-largest economy in the world. China has also emerged from isolation to become a political superpower. Its meteoric rise has been one of the most important global changes of recent years: the rise of China was the most-read news story of the decade, surpassing even 9/11 and the Iraq war.
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Security
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Home Secretary Alan Johnson has confirmed that the National Identity Register contains National Insurance numbers and answers to ‘shared secrets’.
In a revelation that is likely to intensify the arguments over the privacy implications of the database, Johnson claimed the NI numbers have been included to “aid identity verification checks for identity cards and, in time, passports”.
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The vetting and barring scheme – requiring millions of adults to be given criminal records checks before being allowed to work with children – risks giving schools “false confidence”, according to Sir Roger Singleton.
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Anti-terrors laws are still being used by a Lancashire council to snoop on residents.
In the past year “static surveillance” including video was used five times by Preston Council to spy on families suspected of housing benefit fraud and to gain evidence of the “illegal dumping of waste” at a city supermarket.
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Environment
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A new, comprehensive analysis of mountaintop mining shows that it radically alters the hydrology of its surroundings, ruining streams and the people and ecosystems they support.
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Climate sceptics are failing to understand the most basic meteorology – that weather is not the same as climate, and single events are not the same as trends
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Finance
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Goldman Sachs Group Inc was sued on Thursday by an Illinois pension fund seeking to recover billions of dollars of bonuses and other compensation being awarded for 2009, saying the payouts harm shareholders.
In a lawsuit filed in New York state supreme court in Manhattan on behalf of shareholders, the Central Laborers’ Pension Fund said Goldman had by September 25 set aside nearly $17 billion for compensation and might pay out more than $22 billion for the year. It said this “highlights the complete breakdown” of corporate oversight.
The lawsuit contends that Goldman’s revenue for the year was artificially inflated by government bailouts of the banking industry and the insurer American International Group Inc, as well as a change in Goldman’s fiscal year.
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In what is the most ridiculous move yet in this ongoing saga, the CFO of AIG is resigning over pay. That dumb thing thinks she is not paid enough? For presiding over the GS fiasco? For being the turkey of the industry? the laughing stock of a generation?
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Censorship/Civil Rights
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Authorities in the northwestern Chinese province of Qinghai have handed a six-year jail sentence to a Tibetan filmmaker who returned from exile to make a documentary about his homeland, Tibetan sources say.
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People who post intimate details about their lives on the internet undermine everybody else’s right to privacy, claims an academic.
Dr Kieron O’Hara has called for people to be more aware of the impact on society of what they publish online.
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Internet/Web Abuse/DRM
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Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski came to our office today to talk about broadband (check it out), and during both the event itself and the conversations I had with people before and after, it became clear to me how optimistic many of us should be about the New FCC.
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Jelli has raised $2 million from a group of angel investors for its service, which lets users dictate what songs they want to hear on traditional radio stations. With Jelli, radio listeners can vote online on what songs they want to listen to; participants can also earn virtual points which gives them more control over the selection process.
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Intellectual Monopolies/Copyrights
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U2 frontman and humanitarian Bono had a page-long op-ed in this past Sunday’s New York Times, where he describes what he calls “10 ideas that might make the next 10 years more interesting, healthy or civil. Some are trivial, some fundamental. They have little in common with one another except that I am seized by each, and moved by its potential to change our world.” So let’s look at some issues that made the list…. a twist on cap and trade, fighting the rotavirus, new cancer research, the rise of Africa and… limiting the scourge of file sharing.
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Copyright holders would have to tell ISPs how much financial damage they suffer from alleged digital copyright infringements, under an amendment proposed to the Digital Economy Bill.
The amendment, proposed by Lord Lucas, says that “copyright infringement reports” – which record labels and movie studios would send to to ISPs, detailing instances of alleged abuse by a customer – must also “set out the value of the infringement on the basis described in the initial obligations”.
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The Mexican government says it has notified Starbucks Corp. that Mexico is owed intellectual property rights for a line of coffee mugs showing pre-Hispanic images.
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La Quadrature du Net has submitted its response to the European Commission’s consultation regarding “Online Creative Content”. La Quadrature calls on the Commission to reconsider the EU’s coercive and repressive copyright policies, while encouraging it to match words to deeds by fostering the rights of the public in the digital creative ecosystem.
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The University says it doesn’t matter if the University’s name or logo isn’t on the clothing at all. Even a shirt that says “Go Cats!” needs a license. Even worse, they’re not just looking to stop people from selling such clothing, they’re happily putting them in jail for it.
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An anonymous reader sent over yet another example of copyright being abused for monopolist reasons that have absolutely nothing to do with “promoting the progress,” and actually represent a serious healthcare issue. I had no idea, but apparently the various “codes” used by doctors to classify every visit are actually covered by a copyright held by the American Medical Association, which refuses to allow any free or open distribution of the codes (known as Current Procedural Terminology (CPT)). That’s because the AMA makes about $70 million per year “licensing” the codes.
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Apparently Nicolas Sarkozy will get “the last word” on whether or not to adopt this policy, which means that it’s pretty likely. Sarkozy — who has a long history of copyright infringement by his own party — seems to believe that stronger copyright means defending French culture, when it really just means handouts to a few failing businesses who haven’t wanted to adapt.
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Google and other net firms could be taxed under plans being considered by the French government.
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A key ingredient of Eat’n Park’s case is the lawsuit’s Exhibit A, which shows a circle with two round eyes, a dot for a nose and a perky smile.
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The thing is, I’ve spent a lot of time learning how to make art. I have spent no time learning how to negotiate the licensing of music. These are very different skills! It’s bizarre that in order to share my art, I need to have the latter skill set, or hire someone who does. The lack of that skill set results in my work being kept secret.
It’s really backward. I would love to talk to artists directly, and negotiate something that’s mutually beneficial. Right? My work calls attention to their work. I’m a big fan of their work. I want to support their art and their livelihood. I want everyone to know about and support their work. It’s such a natural alliance, but it’s perverted by this system we have now.
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And if this is true, why are they lying to legislators, in an attempt to get these laws enacted?
Greed.
Enric Teller assembles chairs for CitizenSpace (2009)
Digital Tipping Point is a Free software-like project where the raw videos are code. You can assist by participating.
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Send this to a friend
01.07.10
Posted in News Roundup at 9:01 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Contents
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Audio
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Open Source SOA, a methodology for developing applications using accessible, discrete, reusable components.
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On the first show of the decade, the Linux Outlaws bring you a KDE 4.3 review, VLC releasing a video editor, Year 2010 bugs, lots of discussion of Google and Microsoft and much more as usual…
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Desktop
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It is surprising that HP is keeping itself away from GNU Linux. Considering the amount of R&D, expertise, and talent that HP has, it makes more sense for HP to create their own customized version of GNU Linux.
Debian based Ubuntu would be a good start. Software is not a big issue any more. Most of the Free and Open Source software is more popular that ‘bounded’ or ‘locked’ software. Look at Firefox, Thunderbird, Chrome, OpenOffice, GIMP, VLC and many more.
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Finally, partitioning lets you try out other operating systems–like Linux, for example. Generally, two operating systems can’t coexist on the same volume without stepping on one another’s toes, so you won’t be able to dual-boot Linux or ease into Windows 7 if you’re on a single-volume system.
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That’s the big news so far from CES on pre-installed desktop Linux. I’m sure there’s more news coming though. Tune in tomorrow to see what else develops.
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Operating System
Windows 74.57% 61.83% 61.82% ↓ 64.68%
Linux 10.81% 21.17% 21.95% ↑ 17.59%
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DeviceVM has unveiled SplashTop 2.0. SplashTop 2.0 introduces a completely redesigned application dock, the ability to customize the desktop (e.g. different wallpapers), instant search, and visual navigation of favorite sites and history. SplashTop 2.0 will initially appear on a new Lenovo netbook, but it will make its way to other vendors as well, including ASUS.
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As well as the touchscreen capability, the 5102 will also have facial recognition software, Linux based QuickWeb which allows near instant access to Internet and files and will house Intel’s new Atom processor – the Pineview.
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Server
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When it comes to the Internet, Linux is a big win.
Mail and web servers, databases, computational clusters and supercomputers all belong to the domain of free software. When it comes to embedded devices, Linux is also king of the roost.
[...]
Now, meet ClearOS, a free and open source Linux distribution which does just that. ClearFoundation released the stable version of ClearOS 5.1 just before Christmas and it is available for download.
It might sound like a new kid on the block, but actually ClearOS has a long history going back to the turn of the century. It was previously known as ClarkConnect, a very popular distribution for setting up a Linux server quickly and conveniently. ClearOS is now built on CentOS, which is in turn built from the source code of Red Hat Enterprise Linux. As such, ClearOS has a solid and reliable foundation.
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Apache gained approximately 3M hostnames compared to the December 2009 survey, bringing their total to 111.3M.
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Graphics Stack
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AMD’s Alex Deucher has just committed initial support for Embedded DisplayPort (eDP) connectors/monitors to the xf86-video-ati DDX display driver. Traditional DisplayPort monitors are already supported by this open-source ATI driver, but now Embedded DisplayPort connectors should begin to work as well. Here is the Git commit that provides the initial support.
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Applications
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On the way to GNOME 2.30 and Moblin 2.2, the Clutter project has released a new developers snapshot version of its 3D toolkit with many improved details.
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Right now I’m pretty much only using it for podcasts, and I’ve followed the lead of Fab and Dan of Linux Outlaws in using gPodder.
GPodder is fast, cross-platform (Linux, FreeBSD, even Windows), supports both iPods and “regular” MP3 players, and provides a most excellent way to “catch,” listen to and load up podcasts on your favorite audio device.
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Written in the Java Programming Langauge, Art of Illusion is a cross platform, open source 3D rendering and modeling studio that aims at giving a new meaning to 3D modeling.
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One of the big advantages of The GIMP is the fact that it can be easily extended with new functionality.
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Instructionals
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K Desktop Environment (KDE SC)
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So tonight, release-team-hero Dirk has branched off KDE SC 4.4 from trunk. Let quickly explain what this means. Trunk/ is a directory in KDE’s SVN repository, the central place holding where all the code from different contributors spread across our planet comes together. In a big team like KDE, we need some coordination to be actually able to release our software packages once in a while. Since the release of KDE 4.0.0, a typical KDE release cycle takes 6 months. Roughly 4 months of development, followed by about 2 months of stabilization and testing towards a release. In the stabilization period, which starts with the feature and string freeze, only bugfixes and code improvements are allowed. This is also the period where we release regular test releases, in our case a beta1, right after the feature freeze, and a second beta (happened shortly before christmas). The next test release is coming soon, which is -rc1.
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Back a few mere months ago, we wrote about how to make Firefox 3.x look at home in KDE Software Compilation 4.X. To date, this has been the most-viewed article on The Blue Mint. The reason is clear: People like Firefox. Be it the extensions, familiarity, general responsiveness (that gets better with each release), or the cross-platform compatibility, Firefox is here to stay. And it remains the flagship web browser of choice within the GNU/Linux playing field.
[...]
To install, simply download the theme, open Dolphin (or Konqueror) and drag the downloaded file into the Firefox Add-ons window. Take a look at the screen shots to see what you think.
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All kinds of apps that I have some idea about, but only from “the other side of the fence,” things I’ve only read about in the gtk+ world. On the other hand . . . as long as my existing gtk+ apps are integrated visually into KDE (thanks to QtCurve) and “just work,” maybe I don’t need to duplicate my entire Xfce environment?
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With the fact that everything run in RAM and the low number of packages in the online wok, I doubt you’d want to install SliTaz as your main desktop OS, but I don’t think that’s what it’s for. I’ve used distros similar in design philosophy (such as Damn Small Linux) to do things like system recovery, partitioning and virus scanning, and that’s just the place SliTaz would shine as well. Grabbing some additional packages and rolling a new USB flavor could easily add some power to any tech toolkit.
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Red Hat Family
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Whitehurst sees more and more open source firms being acquired by major companies because of the quality of the code produced in open source projects. But he thinks it is better for both the project’s developers and the community if an open source company remains independent. Red Hat is such a company, he said, and issued a departing jab at Oracle. “I like the strategic clarity of being pure open source. I do worry about the mindset you have to have as part of a large company,” he said.
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As European regulators drag their feet in deciding whether to approve the merger of Oracle and Sun, rivals – including Red Hat – are continuing to feast on the remains of Sun’s business.
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All of us who help support people of any kind, regardless of experience level, should have a somewhat regular checkpoint of introspection, where we honestly think about our own effectiveness at listening and empathy. Then we can adjust our dealings with those we support to maximize the constructiveness of our interactions, and thereby have a direct, positive effect on the culture of free software.
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Debian Family
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For those of you who have read the recent Slashdot article announcing Ubuntu’s new membership programme, this is clearly a mistake.
Ubuntu has had the concept of membership for many years, helping us to identify those who have made a significant and sustained contribution. This is nothing new and nothing is changing.
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It’s certainly a clever beast. The four-bladed “quadricopter” uses an onboard Linux-based computer to process information from its cameras, accelerometers and gyroscope to ensure level flight, while direction and speed are controlled by tilting an iPhone, iPod Touch or any other device with a camera, screen and wi-fi connectivity.
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Embedded Linux TrainingFor the third year running, the UK Embedded Masterclass will be running a half-day workshop that offers an “Introduction to Embedded Linux”.
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“VxWorks and Wind River Linux are complementary offers, allowing Wind River to serve customers who need Linux or VxWorks,” Brown said. “These can be used separately, and there certainly are vertical sub-markets better suited by one or the other. In addition, we can offer them together as a single solution.”
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This blog post starts with a strange question: What would you have if you stuffed a wall wart with a 32-bit Linux computer complete with wired and wireless Ethernet, Bluetooth, one USB port, and an optional hard drive? The simple answer is you’d have a “Plug Computer.”
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In addition to remote access, it’s also possible to duplicate the contents of one drive to another (complete with a one-touch QuikTransfer button on the front panel) and share up to two printers. It also offers UPnP DLNA media streaming, simple photo slideshows and Iomega throw in some backup apps too.
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With the Ease, TomTom has trimmed the fat from its more elaborate GPS devices to offer a small and simple navigator. Its 3.5-inch LCD touch screen presents users with two oversized buttons: “Plan route,” and “Browse Map.” Enough said.
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But Google, who announced their Nexus One iPhone killer yesterday, is sitting pretty as its Android version of Linux appeared on numerous products. Oddly, they don’t make much money on Android, but what they do get is a developer network that has an increasing number of platforms to purvey their products on.
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Phones
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Lenovo CEO Yang Yuanqing introduced the handset by saying he believed the “Lephone is the best device in this category.” The handset is a looker, with an 800×400 pixel screen and a proprietary Linux-based OS.
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Dell’s smartphone further strengthens Linux’s position in the smartphone segment. Dell already has deals with major mobile operators around the globe including the world’s largest, China Mobile. Dell has similar deals with Claro in Brazil.
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AT&T followed up the announcement that it will soon offer five Android-based smartphones with another piece of news: the carrier will offer two Palm webOS phones “soon.”
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Android
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At long last, AT&T customers can experience some of the Android madness. At the AT&T Developer Summit at CES in Las Vegas, the carrier announced that five Android-based smartphones are debuting on the network in the first half of 2010.
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AT&T is embracing the Google Android and Palm WebOS operating systems–adding a total of seven new handsets in 2010 built on the new mobile operating systems. With speculation that its iPhone exclusivity will soon end, AT&T is expanding its portfolio, but AT&T is at a disadvantage and it may be too late to start hedging bets.
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The gadget teardown experts at iFixit have forked out $530 for a Google Nexus One smartphone, taken it to bits and posted their thoughts online.
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Google wasn’t the only company announcing new Android-based devices this week. At this year’s Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas, several handset and mobile device manufacturers also announced new models and partnerships with mobile carriers for their Android devices, ranging from various mobile phones and tablets, to eBook readers.
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Certainly Google is a good open source citizen and they contribute back to Linux and the broader open source community (so I’m not knocking them on that front, cause they’re awesome there). But nexus one grows the Google Android community first and foremost and Linux only by association. It’s not the bold vision of the Linux phone world that existed a few years ago, it’s a Google vision.
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Yesterday, Google accomplished something I’ve wanted to see for a very, very long time: A Linux-based personal computing device getting enormous mainstream coverage. Granted, you weren’t hearing the word “Linux,” much in the coverage, but it’s still a good thing in my book.
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The wave of announcements appears to validate earlier predictions that the open-source Linux-based Android would become a major player in the mobile market, although market acceptance of the Google-backed OS may have taken longer than first expected.
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The phone runs on Android 1.5 with Motorola’s cloud-based Motoblur user interface.
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This machine’s presence at the show isn’t nearly the big deal it might be, for one simple reason: HP says it’s just experimenting with Android. This is a concept PC, and there’s no news about its chances of turning into a shipping product you can buy. Still, you gotta figure that if HP has gone through the bother of building this prototype, there’s a real chance it’ll commercialize it in 2010.
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This review is of the Star Trek Tricorder open source Android project by Moonblink. I’ve used the popular Tricorder theme with my previous phone, a Windows Mobile device, but I never imagined that a day would come when I would be able to use an actual Tricorder application which could actually sense environmental factors like magnetic flux, acceleration, sound waves and even solar activity. Ladies and gentlemen and starship cadets, I would like to present to you an application that does just that, not only for the Droid, but for any Android mobile device with at least most of the appropriate sensors.
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Sub-notebooks
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HP announced three netbooks using Intel’s N450 “Pineview” processor that support SUSE Linux: the Mini 210, Mini 2102, both with 10.1-inch screens, and the Mini 5102, which offers 10-hour claimed battery life. Meanwhile, at CES the company unveiled a prototype Qualcomm Snapdragon-based Android “smartbook,” says Engadget.
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CHIP MAKER Marvell has launched a quad-core ARM processor at CES 2010 in Las Vegas.
The chip is based on the same CPU architecture as Marvell’s Armada 500 and 600 processor series and uses the ARMv7 architecture.
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It uses a Lenovo build of Linux which includes simple application switching and an application dock similar to the one in Mac OS X.
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Jaspersoft CEO Brian Gentile (pictured), like many of his open source peers, has some lofty goals for 2010. With the help of SaaS and on-premise channel partners, Gentile says Jaspersoft — which specializes in business intelligence software — can grow 50 percent and generate positive cash flow in 2010. Here’s the scoop, including a FastChat video with Gentile.
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Development tools vendor JetBrains caused something of a stir in October last year with the news that it was releasing an open source Community Edition of its popular IntelliJ Idea Java IDE using the Apache License.
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Programming
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“Invent Your Own Computer Games with Python” is a free e-Book that teaches you how to program in the Python programming language. Each chapter gives you the complete source code for a new game, and then teaches the programming concepts from the example.
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The Python programming language community figured out how to put up-to-date Python programs and Python interpreters on old (like first generation) iPods. This has the same advantage as the LISP on your junk-yard Atari. It is taking stuff that the rich people think is trash and using it in new and productive ways. The under developed nations get old computers anyway, but they are putting them in toxic waste dumps. Most western teens do not want an iPod from 2001, and this Python interpreter allows them to be reused in a productive way.
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A beta for the third iteration of the wildly popular Ruby on Rails is due later this month or in early February.
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The Federal Trade Commission worries that consumers don’t really understand the privacy implications to storing some of their most crucial data in the cloud, and it wants the FCC to think about such issues when finalizing its national broadband plan.
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A 2010 software bug has left millions of German debit and credit card holders unable to withdraw money or make payments in shops, and thousands stranded on holiday with no access to cash.
About 30m chip and pin cards – a quarter of those in circulation in Germany – are thought to have been affected by the programming failure, which meant that microchips in cards could not recognise the year change to 2010.
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More than 200 data sets detailing life in London are to be put online by the capital’s governing body.
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Security
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On Tuesday, hacker Samy Kamkar demonstrated a way to identify a browser’s geographical location by exploiting weaknesses in many WiFi routers. Now, he’s back with a simple method to penetrate hardware firewalls using little more than some javascript embedded in a webpage.
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To judge from the news accounts, Umar Abdulmutallab did everything to get himself caught except wear an Osama bin Laden T-shirt onto that Northwest Airlines flight Christmas Day. Yet the danger didn’t dawn on anyone until he allegedly set himself on fire while trying to detonate the explosives hidden in his underwear.
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A binman from Ormskirk says he has been taken off his round of 34 years as ‘punishment’ for taking waste left at the side of wheelie bins. Albert Stewart, 60, of Scarisbrick Street, works as a refuse collector for West Lancashire Borough Council.
He told the Advertiser: “I have done the same round in Aughton for over 30 years, and just because I took some side waste, I’m being punished – they’ve taken me off my round.
“They weren’t just people I took rubbish from – they were my friends too.”
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Police officers have been told to avoid talking about crime to members of the public – after Home Office chiefs found it ‘upsets them’, it can be revealed today.
The report, called Improving Public Confidence in the Police Service, states that when officers highlight crime and anti-social behaviour problems at community meetings it can lead to ‘feelings of fear’ among the public.
One officer from Thames Valley Police, who did not want to be named, said the report sounded like a ‘bad joke’. ‘What the hell do they expect us to talk about at a public meeting? The price of tea in China or how much a pint of milk costs?’ he said.
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The problem with all these measures is that they’re only effective if we guess the plot correctly. Defending against a particular tactic or target makes sense if tactics and targets are few. But there are hundreds of tactics and millions of targets, so all these measures will do is force the terrorists to make a minor modification to their plot.
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Last week, I wrote an article that detailed just how exceedingly rare terrorist incidents aboard commercial airlines are. What I didn’t do is to compare the current situation to that of previous eras. Fortunately, there is quite a lot of data on this subject, particularly from the matter-of-factly named website PlaneCrashInfo.com. From their database, I compiled the number of passenger fatalities resulting in each decade from three types of incidents: sabotage (i.e. bombings), hijackings, and pilot shootings (which are much rarer than the other two types; just three in the database). Collectively, I term these Violent Passenger Incidents or VPIs; they are the things we might hope to prevent via tighter airport security.
In the 2000s, a total of 469 passengers (including crew and terrorists) were killed worldwide as the result of Violent Passenger Incidents, 265 of which were on 9/11 itself. No fatal incidents have occurred since nearly simultaneous bombings of two Russian aircraft on 8/24/2004; this makes for the longest streak without a fatal incident since World War II. The overall death toll during the 2000s is about the same as it was during the 1960s, and substantially less than in the 1970s and 1980s, when violent incidents peaked. The worst individual years were 1985, 1988 and 1989, in that order; 2001 ranks fourth.
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Can you spot a terrorist?
You’ve probably already tried it.
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Nicolas Sarkozy and 20,000 of his French government lieutenants will be equipped with specially-commissioned encrypted smartphones, following fears over the security of BlackBerries.
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Finance
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Bailouts and political connections go hand in hand according to a just released academic study. The study, which was conducted by the Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan researchers, shows concretely that lobbying, campaign contributions, and the finance/federal government revolving door has helped the most damaging banks despite the dangers they pose to our economy.
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Ben Bernanke, chairman of the Federal Reserve, gave a speech this week that made headlines and raised eyebrows: “Lax Oversight Caused the Crisis, Bernanke Says.” Finally, many thought, the Fed Chairman would fess up to his role in the crisis! Alas, 98 percent of the speech is dedicated to justifying what the Fed did right over the last decade, and the “lax oversight” apparently had more to do with other agencies charged with regulating mortgages and underwriting practices, not his own.
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PR/AstroTurf
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What is Cheney saying about this whole myth that President Obama won’t say the word “terrorism” Well, his speech writers helped kick off this little myth with a speech more cleverly worded than his minions can mimic on the talk shows, but the gist is the same. But-for the purpose of proving my point on the origin of the echo chamber, I would not quote this criminal at all; his line was that the president “seems to think if he gets rid of the words, ‘war on terror,’ we won’t be at war.”
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A GOP lawmaker suggested that President Barack Obama could improve his response to security threats by using the word terrorism more often. MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann took the congressman’s suggestion Wednesday and used the word terror 27 times in a single paragraph to show how Republicans exploiting it as a “brand name” are “doing the terror work of terrorists.”
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Censorship/Civil Rights
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On the journalistic front, the raw figures speak for themselves: in 2009, 76 were killed (vs. 60 in 2008), 33 were kidnapped, 573 were arrested and 1456 physically assaulted. The most dangerous places to be a journalist were war zones and disputed elections.
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Intellectual Monopolies/Copyrights
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It’s one thing to speak from a position of ignorance, but admitting it and still then taking a strong position? That’s something special. U2′s Bono kicked off quite a firestorm by insisting that having ISPs monitor everything was a good way to deal with unauthorized file sharing online, citing China’s success with internet censorship (failing to realized that it hasn’t been that successful in reality). This resulted in widespread criticism of Bono and it appears that Nirvana’s bass player, Krist Novoselic, has stepped up to defend Bono (found via Karl Bode).
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A report commissioned by the French Minister of Culture Frédéric Mitterrand urges the introduction of a tax on online advertising such as that carried by Google, which would be used to pay the creators of artistic and other works who lose out to online piracy.
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A new proposal to tax internet advertising revenue was among the recommendations offered by the government-appointed panel. Money raised would finance the availability of cultural material online and fund the protection of artists losing out to piracy.
[...]
Zelnick’s recommendations follow the French government’s efforts to pass its controversial “three strikes” law that would disconnect internet users repeatedly accused of illegal downloading. His reports also taps into fears of the growing influence of major internet companies.
Margaret Aranyosi, Executive Director of KITE, Inc. 003 (2004)
Digital Tipping Point is a Free software-like project where the raw videos are code. You can assist by participating.
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Posted in News Roundup at 8:51 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Contents
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Where are the accolades for Linux?
A review of the company that made the Linux computer graphics happen, known as WETA Digital (Wellington, New Zealand, a Peter Jackson spin off company), is notoriously absent from the articles.
The underlying operating system, Linux RHEL (hundreds of HP blade servers running as Linux cluster) is also utterly absent from even the more technical news sources.
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In this episode: Google releases the Nexus One and Mark Shuttleworth has announced he’s going to relinquish control of Canonical. Freescale unveils a Linux touch tablet and we ask whether 2010 could really, honestly, be the year of Linux on the desktop.
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This is the Monet Frame-puter booting Ubuntu 9.10
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Desktop
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If you can do all you want and be all you can be and have the battery last all day using ARM and GNU/Linux, is there really any need to prop up the monopoly any longer? This could be an excellent year, again.
I have to wonder at the price of this particular gadget, though. How can Lenovo justify a premium price for the world’s least expensive processor and OS??? It could be the first-to-market price bulge. That could make sense, but why did they miss the Christmas season? Was the product just not ready on time or the deals not made? Perhaps folks who value mobile phones will pay a price for this. I know some people pay many hundreds of dollars for phones that are not this smart. I expect later devices will share the upswell of ARM and eventually compete by lowering prices. It’s all good.
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The Lenovo Skylight is looking to do two things: Be your constant companion and be always on. Lenovo has put their own custom version of Linux on it, along with their own custom GUI. The experience is built to provide seamless shuffling between videos, web pages, multimedia, and work space. No one has gotten their hands on it yet, but after CES 2010, I’m sure there will be a considerable buzz whether this new gadget is worthy. It’s an interesting offering from Lenovo, who’s been trying to differentiate themselves from the rest of the computer manufacturing masses. If successful, it could mean big things for their custom OS and their new product. Will it be a Lenovo-only distro, or will they unleash it on the masses? More on this latter…
Dell is still shipping their Mini 10V’s with Ubuntu Linux, and that’s good news for the Linux world. Since netbook hardware can be hit-or-miss with big name Linux distros, it’s nice to see Dell officially supporting the product. Although the reception to the Ubuntu Netbook Remix has so-so, it’s still a move in Linux direction.
The new HP Mini 210 is working on the Windows platform still, and aims to provide an easy to use experience. But for some reason HP has abandoned the Linux model. Once upon a time, they had a fancy GUI for their Linux distro, but it never went anywhere. So now HP is sticking with what they know. Will the success of Windows 7 differentiate themselves?
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There are two possibilities, either you create a door for yourself, or if you see a door, then just open it and walk in. We will talk about the door thing later, first tell me: what do you use for your computing? Did I hear Microsoft Windows? GNU/Linux? Some might be using Apple Mac as well.
Windows is passe nobody seems to be talking about it any more. Except for Microsoft, and even they may shy away if you say something that sounds similar to ‘Vista’. Now, the rage is Mac and GNU/Linux.
Apple Mac has increased its share in the market post Vista release. The market was there and Vista disappointed people. Windows 7 is nothing, but Microsoft’s re-polished Vista promises. GNU/Linux is fighting but, it has more yards to cover.
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Apple’s long-trailed tablet computer had better be good. Semiconductor maker Freescale will this week announce the outline of a cheap rival device it hopes will be adopted by computer makers to boost its in-house chip technology.
The concept is not something people will be able to buy immediately, but will be shown in the form of a reference design, a sort of blueprint for other companies to adopt as they see fit. But it appears to have been thought through and there is plenty in it to worry Apple as it ponders marketing for its own tablet system, rumoured to cost as much as $1,000 a pop.
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While I enjoy mocking Microsoft’s Jabba-ware, Linux is an offender as well. Too many Linux devs are all jazzed about GUIs and flashy junk, and ignoring or even trying to do away with the CLI. Dear ones, when your GUIs are as fast and efficient as the CLI, then I will quit crabbing at you. Where ever did you get the idea that I want to waste my life wading through poorly-organized menus, and waiting for lardy slow-ware to actually do something when I click, when I can accomplish the same task in one second on the command line?
So there is my computing wish for the new decade: I want something to happen when I click.
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No problem to install Mandriva 2010.0 on this new (for me !) HP mini 110. However, at reboot time, blocked on udev.
I found a similar bug report for another system that gave me the hint: Add ssb.blacklist=1 at boot prompt. And indeed it did the trick 
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Microsoft continues to sell consumers an operating system that needs anti-virus protection.
It’s not like they keep it a secret: if you install Windows 7, there’s three things splashed up on the screen for users towards the end of the process: configure the OS, activate the OS, and get anti-virus software.
To me, there’s something fundamentally wrong with knowingly send out a piece of software that’s vulnerable–so vulnerable that you have to tell users your product is unsafe until they get third-party protection.
[...]
With the wave of new Linux-based smartbooks, netbooks, and phones hitting the market, there are still critics who complain about an alleged lack of features in Linux. Even if this notion were accurate, and I am very sure it’s not, let me put the question to them: why would you rather have the latest gadget installed on your system as opposed to personal data security?
As a group, computer and electronics users need to reset their priorities. It’s not about the nifty toys and Easter eggs you can find in Windows. It’s about what personal information malicious users can find in your Windows.
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Applications
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After two years of work, the GCompris development team is happy to share with you the release of the version 9.0.
GCompris is almost 10 years old and it required some deep code restructuring. This release brings many mandatory changes to make it easier to enhance, maintain and distribute.
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Its Web site states that OpenMovieEditor has been “… designed for basic movie making capabilities… [and] to be powerful enough for the amateur movie artist, yet easy to use”. In fact I found OpenMovieEditor to be a surprisingly capable NLE, modest in its stated goals yet possessing some features not commonly found in Linux NLEs.
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Instant Messaging client ‘Emesene’ slipped a new release out on Monday but what’s new in it?
Aside from bug fixes all round – which even the team themselves admit “we’re too lazy to write ‘em all” – there are a few GUI changes that you’ll likely come across…
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Iron Browser is an enhanced version of the excellent Google Chrome browser. Google, however, has been criticized heavily by the data protection specialists for the fact that it creates a unique user ID for each of its Chrome user and sends entries to Google to generate suggestions. Iron Browser offers same wonderful browser experience as it is build on the Chome’s source and offers and looks the same. But it protects your privacy.
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Instructionals
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This is again a wonderful demonstration of the flexibility of GNU/Linux. This technique respects the EULA of that other OS in that any number of XP machines can connect to the GNU/Linux server without exceeding the 5 or 10 access limit an XP machine has.
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Desktop Environments
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K Desktop Environment (KDE SC)
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I’d like to talk about KDM and Plasma combining forces. Well, since I always need to be coding something, regardless of whether or not I have any free-time, I have (begun to plan out and create(began today), a Plasma frontend for our login manager, kdm. Before anyone begins shaking their fists in the air and such, I must stress this…The Plasma frontend will be *optional*. So if you dislike Plasma *that* much for some reason or are close-minded (perhaps mutually inclusive?): the regular, currently used frontend can be used.
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Industry Linux overview by Linux experts Aaron J. Seigo, Community leader at the KDE Foundation and Arnaud Laprévote, CTO Chief Technology Officer at Mandriva Linux. They analyse the influence of Linux on the Laptop industry with the advent of the Netbooks.
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- Alt+F3 will bring up the menu for right clicking on the title bar of the Konsole’s window.
- Right clicking on the Desktop area where the Konsole lies will not present the Desktop menu but the menu for right clicking in the terminal.
- An option to hide the Konsole Window when hitting Alt+Tab doesn’t seem to exist. If you have a workaround on this do tell.
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Hot on the heels of my Phonon PulseAudio integration, here is another set of patches for kdemultimedia that adds PulseAudio support to KMix \o/
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Here’s the next instalment of the graphics performance blog series. We’ll begin by looking at some background about how OpenGL and QPainter work. We’ll then dive into how the two are married together in OpenGL 2 Paint Engine and finish off with some advice about how to get the best out of the engine. Enjoy!
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GNOME Desktop
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Just in time for the holidays, GNOME received an awesome surprise!
While many people probably listed computers in their letter to Santa, I bet not many of them got one like this.
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GNOME’s Summer outreach program and FSF’s LibrePlanet conference highlight women’s participation in free software
Today, the FSF announced the dates for the 2010 LibrePlanet event, a conference for the free software community that expresses a vision for solidarity amongst developers, activists and users who are working towards the shared goal of a fully free software world–a world without reliance on proprietary software.
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Compare this gentleman’s reflection and consideration of RMS’ points with the enthusiastic ignorance we saw earlier on the very same point.
Examples like this are exactly why I have come to the conclusion that the noisy people that disagree with RMS (and, by extension, the “Free Software” concept) fall into one of two camps: ignorant or malicious.
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New Releases
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After the Christmas release of the new KahelOS Desktop installers 12-25-2009, there’s no stopping this citrusy fresh Linux Distribution.
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Red Hat Family
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SmarTrend identified an Uptrend for Red Hat (NYSE:RHT) on November 17, 2009 at $28.67. In approximately 1 month, Red Hat has returned 9.2% as of today’s recent price of $31.30.
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Debian Family
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A few people have been asking why IBM is promoting Ubuntu at the Young Scientist Exhibition when it is not an IBM product. In fact there are a number of good reasons:
1. IBM supports the concept of freedom and we would hate to think that students (or anyone) would feel locked in to using a particular brand of proprietary software just because it came with the PC when they bought it. Click here to view Bob Stutor explain in detail why IBM cares about software freedom.
2. Ubuntu provides an excellent quality stable desktop operating system for free, so we don’t want to see people wasting valuable money on purchasing licenses for software when they don’t have to
3. We think that Ubuntu is cool and we think that the students attending the exhibition will agree when they see for themselves.
4. IBM employees use Ubuntu internally for their work and IBM also partners with a Canonical and Verde to provide the Ubuntu based IBM Client for Smart Work.
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after some discussion in the MIR team and on ubuntu-devel@ [1], we simplified the Main Inclusion Request process to require much less bureaucracy.
What we really want is reporters to go through the checklist and discuss the violations of the MIR requirement standards in the bug report with the MIR team, not write lengthy wiki pages with boilerplate text (especially not for trivial packages like perl bindings).
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One of the nicest features of Pardus is the Kaptan application. What Kaptan is is a first-time, welcome application that gives a user the opportunity to customize a fresh installation of the distro. It can also be called up at any time after installation. mintWelcome, Linux Mint’s welcome application, is an attempt at that, but it does not offer the same features that you’ll find on Kaptan. In addition to the list of items on mintWelcome, here are three that I’ll love to see added:
* Customize your desktop
* Enable Network Time Protocol
* Enable Gufw, the graphical firewall manager
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Broadcom announced that it has ported Android and Windows CE to a ARM-based CPU described as “a PND [personal navigation device] on a chip.” The BCM4760 includes a GPS receiver and baseband, an ARM11 processor, a touchscreen controller, and an OpenGL ES 1.1/OpenVG 2.0-compliant graphics processor, the company says.
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ZiiLabs announced an HD-ready media hub reference design incorporating its 1GHZ, ARM Cortex-A8-based ZMS-08 system-on-chip (SoC). The Zii SiVo Digital Home Platform provides 1080p Blu-ray quality HDTV and 3D graphics UI for low-power connected home devices, and offers a development kit for Android or ZiiLabs’ Plaszma Linux stack.
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The Oregon State University Open Source Lab’s data center hosts some of the Linux community’s heaviest hitting projects including the Linux Master Kernel and the Linux Foundation. It is also the primary location for the Apache Software Foundation and Drupal, open source content management software. The lab, aka OSUOSL, also hosted the core infrastructure for Mozilla’s Firefox project, and currently host’s six of Google’s servers.
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Mozilla
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It’s been a long time coming but Mozilla has finally released Firefox 3.6 RC1. The first build is now ready to download from Mozilla’s FTP servers and is available for Windows, Mac, and Linux.
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The Flock developers have released version 2.5.6 of their social web browser based on Firefox 3, addressing several security issues. Flock is a popular cross-platform browser that automatically manages updates and media from several popular social services, including MySpace, Facebook, Bebo, Digg, YouTube and Twitter.
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Databases
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If you sell something, you don’t own it any longer. MySQL is now SUNs business. And if SUN decides to sell themselves to Oracle – it is their business. If the MySQL founders and fanboys don’t like this, they simply shouldn’t have sold MySQL to SUN in the first instance.
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What does “Help MySQL” advocate, in a nutshell? It claims that if Oracle were to merge with Sun, MySQL customers would be trapped in a market that would be pretty much controlled and captured by Oracle, both through its existing propietary databases offerings and the acquisition of MySQL. Another issue explained on the web site is that the inherent free and open source nature of MySQL will not be enough to grant effective freedoms to the market since Oracle would be the sole copyright owner of the code and trademarks.
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Is Oracle keen on MySQL because of the market control? Or is it because Oracle sees MySQL as a means to possibly defeat Microsoft’s ambitions in the database market, where its SQL Server product is used for similar purposes as MySQL?
The only person I’ve noticed who mentioned this is Eben Moglen , a well-known legal figure in free software circles.
But anyone who knows anything about the history of the computer industry is aware of the intense animosity between Oracle supremo Larry Ellison and Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates.
At the level at which these men operate, money isn’t a consideration. Power is, rubbing one’s competitor’s face in the mud is, especially when there is past animosity. Here is just one example of how much Ellison dislikes Microsoft.
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The two primary interface standards for storage devices are SATA (Serial Advanced Technology Attachment) and SAS (Serial Attached SCSI). Both have been around for a number of years, SATA first appearing in 2003 and SAS appearing in 2004. Also, both of them have similar throughput performance currently at 3 Gbps (SATA started at 1.5 Gbps while SAS started at 3.0 Gbps). However, lately both protocols had been showing their age, particularly with the advent of SSD (Solid State Drives). However, the committees that oversee the protocols have not been idle and have created the next generation for each protocol – 6 Gbps.
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Security
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Foreign footballers face having to carry an identity card to prove who they are, it was announced today.
Professionals from outside the EU playing in the UK will have to apply for a card when they renew their visas, the Home Office said.
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Finance
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According to The New York Times, Goldman Sachs has set aside at least $16.7 billion for employee compensation in 2009, or an average of about $700,000. Goldman’s bonuses are on track to break the record they set in 2007. The firm has decided their top 30 executives will receive bonuses in long-term stock, rather than cash.
In addition to the $10 billion that Goldman received in Treasury-issued TARP funds, the firm got $13 billion from the government’s bailout of AIG and $22 billion worth of government guarantees on its debt.
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PR/AstroTurf
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Following the failed Christmas Day terrorist attack, many on the right have used the incident as a political football, trying to score partisan points on the issue of terrorism.
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Intellectual Monopolies/Copyrights
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Because of all of the above, I have an enormously strong interest in copyright. I’ve been reading everything I could get my hands on, and based on what I’ve seen, the WIPO Internet Treaties, which are supposedly about artists rights, are instead one of the worst attacks on artists ever written.
Ratification of these treaties, will damage Canadian artists, will damage Canadian culture, and will destroy the very things that the treaties purport to support.
The recent Canadian legislation which ‘died on the order paper’ was a disaster. It too, in it’s attempts to enact the flawed WIPO Internet treaties, would have damaged artists badly.
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I thought the post might be one of those blog posts that reminds us how frequently everyone “technically” infringes on copyright incidentally and how this demonstrates how screwed up copyright law is. But, no, instead, this appears to be a serious “warning” claiming that most bloggers are risking the potential of $150,000 fines by using images they find online.
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Everiss simply hated the fact that Evony — the company trying to sue him — came up with a business model that involves exactly the sort of thing we like: giving stuff away for free, and coming up with more advanced reasons to buy. That still doesn’t excuse the libel claim, but Everiss does seem to have a bit of trouble understanding basic economics of digital goods. A whole bunch of you have sent in his recent rant about how many people “stole” Modern Warfare 2. It’s the sort of thing we had thought went out of style years ago, when people realized that every download wasn’t a lost sale, and there were lots of reasons that people might download other than a lack of “moral fiber.”
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In December 2009, Ultimate Fighting Championship CEO Lorenzo Fertitta testified at a hearing of the US House Judiciary Committee, claiming that the UFC is losing millions to online piracy. Now, in an RIAA-style escalation, the company says it will not only start suing sites, but also individual downloaders.
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Oh boy. Here’s a fun one. You had to expect that there would be more defamation lawsuits about Twitter following the first one involving Courtney Love, but this one is quite impressive, considering of all the twists and turns that must be followed. It involves some company promoting something called “The Cookie Diet” (which appears to be exactly what you would think) suing Kim Kardashian for libel. If you don’t keep up with pop culture, Kim Kardashian is one of those people famous for being famous. The details of the lawsuit, though, are somewhat complex, and it’s difficult to figure out who to side with in this trainwreck in progress (and, yes, it seems pretty likely that the whole thing is a publicity stunt for all involved, but that doesn’t mean it’s not worth covering).
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Angelyne claims that the biopic, about the life of the late hip-hop star Notorious B.I.G., featured a 12-second shot of one of Angelyne’s billboards without her prior consent or authorization.
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The National Music Publishers’ Association said Tuesday that it has won its latest copyright infringement battle against the operator of an illegal free-lyric Web site.
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Here’s the backdrop: Last week I was in Toronto for the holidays, visiting family and friends, and I decided to take my four-year-old son Gabriel and two-year-old son Zev to the Art Gallery of Ontario to see works by the Group of Seven. Zev was pretty entranced by the Lawren Harris paintings — that’s him above, checking out one of Harris’ works. (I didn’t note the name of that painting; does anyone know?)
[...]
Ah well. My line of logic here is, I admit, rather loose and rambling. Jamie’s video-game paintings do not actually impinge on any copyright from earlier paintings; they’re using the style of a former generation of artists, not their specific content. Still, the whole thing made me think a lot about the way art builds on art — and how copyright law can actually get in the way of art appreciation.
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The strange aspect of ACTA is that we don’t have public access to the shared documents. But is access to the drafts really necessary?
Margaret Aranyosi, Executive Director of KITE, Inc. 002 (2004)
Digital Tipping Point is a Free software-like project where the raw videos are code. You can assist by participating.
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01.06.10
Posted in News Roundup at 5:05 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Contents
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I thought I’d also put this out there to the Linux community and see what they think of it. I’ve never done anything like this before so I’m not even sure if I should take on this idea, but I’d be interested in hearing what people think of it and any advice on how to make it happen.
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Remember how you’re not supposed to ask for something unless you really want it? I predicted, a few short years ago, that we would cease to bind ourselves to a particular platform or operating system. Now that the future is here, I’m looking to it with a tinge of trepidation. I’m not sure that I’m ready for what’s to come: a world without local operating systems. And one where everything is virtual. Windows, Linux, Mac OS, Solaris, HP-UX, AIX and will cease to have any significance to the end user. The end user will only see services or applications but not operating systems. For the end user, the operating system will not exist.
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People looking for traditional desktop operating systems can choose between Windows 7 and Ubuntu 9.10 today.
Towards the end of the year users will be able to use cloud-based operating systems such as Google Chrome OS, or Linux, Symbian and Windows Mobile on a variety of devices.
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Before I start: this is for Linux. Specifically, it’s for Ubuntu and Debian, but it’ll probably work on other Linux distros if you know what you’re doing. With that out the way, I give you rTorrentWeb, the best BitTorrent client for Linux.
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Server
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But here’s something strange: Just before Christmas IBM announced Korea’s largest credit card company, BC Card, had decided to go with an IBM System z mainframe to support its payment system, rather than alternative products from HP and Oracle. “We chose System z for its continuous operation, service quality made available through IBM’s mainframe software solutions and economic returns for the years ahead,” Jeongkyu Lee, BC Card’s Chief Information Officer, is quoted as saying.
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So it was a strange feeling this New Year’s Day to have to part with a server that has been important to me for the past four years. At 12:01 a.m. 2010, the data center operations staff of The Planet reclaimed a Linux box that I had been using to run my company’s Web site and wiki. This reclamation ended an important chapter of my life.
The staff that takes the box off the rack will never know how it hosted a wiki that helped write more than 10 books, and that hundreds of people used the processor, memory and disk during the writing process. The people who strip this server down for parts won’t have any idea that the Web sites powered by this server took my company, Evolved Media, through several stages of evolution.
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Google
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When Google noted that Chrome OS is being launched, everyone from Microsoft to Apple to Linux based OS providers took notice. It’s not because of what was being presented in terms of the OS, but the general direction Google is heading is what terrified them. Within years they can put their fingers in every aspect, moving up the chain until there is no more room for competition.
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Kernel Space
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It’s been quiet due to the holidays, so -rc3 is reasonably small despite being a few days over the normal one-week mark. And most of the changes are pretty trivial, although both ext4 and reiserfs had some trouble in -rc2, hopefully all fixed now.
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Applications
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The download linked from this article is for Ubuntu 9.10 32bit. Other versions can be found on the Linux download page. There are downloads for both 32-bit and 64-bit versions of Ubuntu 9.10, 9.04, 8.10, 8.04 and 7.10, and Fedora Core 10 and 9. The source code can also be downloaded from this page for use with other versions of Linux.
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The Opera Devices SDKs are built on the same engine as the company’s flagship browsers for desktop computers and mobile phones, offering browsing capabilities and tools such as user interfaces and application environments to be deployed on TVs, set-top boxes, portable media players, tablets and mobile devices, said the firm.
[...]
The SDK for Linux also boasts hardware acceleration and Open IPTV Framework for the development of Hybrid Broadcast Broadband TV and Open IPTV Forum clients.
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Instructionals
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With the beginning of this new year it’s time for a new release. 
Many people asked me whether there is a 64-Bit version, too?
Now i can say: Yes, it is!
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Debian Family
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Just a quick note that tomorrow (Wed 6th Jan 2010) at 7pm UTC/ 11am Pacific / 1pm Eastern, I will be starting back up with At Home With Jono Bacon: my series of videocasts about community growth and building, and sharing work and approaches with the communities that I am involved in, namely Ubuntu, Shot Of Jaq, and the Community Leadership Summit.
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FOR more than three years, I’ve been using Ubuntu, a popular distribution of Linux, on my home PC for work and play. As a long-time Windows user, I appreciated the freedom from crashes and system slowdowns that plagued my computing life before I made the switch. The notion that I would have to reinstall my operating system, so common in Windows when something went terribly awry, now seems so foreign to me as a Linux user.
I also enjoyed not having to put up with Microsoft’s intrusive and heavy-handed licensing practices, and not worrying that some malicious piece of code would get past my anti-virus software and wreak havoc on my files.
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And that’s an important thing to remember when talking about glitches in Linux: Yes, they exist, but they can crop up in Windows, too. In Linux, they don’t cost you anything — at least in terms of money. Time is another thing … especially if you’re not accustomed to the vocabulary and grammar of Linux.
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The top of the line Copia Ocean eReader features a 9-inch ePaper capacitive touchscreen, 768 x 1024 pixels resolution, 4-directional tilt-sensor, 3G connectivity (optional), WiFi (802.11b/g), Linux 2.6.21, 2GB internal memory, stereo speaker and 3.5mm stereo jack.
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Next up, there will be much more virtual Linux, particularly in Microsoft and Windows shops that are enjoying greater integration and support of Linux from Redmond. This — along with the growing base of enterprise Linux users leveraging virtualization and additional commercial support from Red Hat, Novell, Canonical and others — will help fuel more virtual Linux traction and growth. However, don’t expect Microsoft to talk too loudly about virtual Linux options and keep in mind we are still, even now in 2010, relatively early on in the enterprise adoption of server virtualization.
Moving on, what better place for Linux to hide inconspicuously than in cloud computing? We’ve covered the significance of community Linux in the enterprise and also community Linux in the clouds. With more support for community software and growing desire to build private and hybrid clouds, Linux (both commercial and community) figures prominently into the equation as a basic, flexible yet scalable building block. The end result is both use of Linux to build cloud infrastructure and availability of Linux in the clouds, even though it is likely to be labeled or branded something other than ‘Linux.’
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FPGA software provider PetaLogix has just introduced its PetaLinux SDK, a new system development software product to allow designers to build, customize and employ Embedded Linux on Xilinx FPGA-based embedded processor applications.
Introduced in conjunction with a design kit from Xilinx, the company claims that its PetaLinux SDK is the first commercially available Embedded Linux development environment specifically designed for FPGA-based embedded systems.
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The screen is detachable from the keyboard, and behind the screen you have a Qualcomm Snapdragon ARM-based processor, the Skylight Linux operating system, 512MB of RAM and 16GB of flash storage.
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I’ve been let down by my fair share of remote-control flying toys in the past, but the Avatar-chic, iPhone-controlled, Linux-based, Wi-Fi-ready, augmented reality-enhanced, dual video camera-wielding Parrot… well, you get the picture.
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AUGMENTED REALITY DRONE
A flying UFO-like device that can be controlled by an iPhone using WiFi. The quadricopter has two cameras that can stream video.
It was created by Parrot, a global leader in wireless devices for mobile phones. The company will make the software open source so programmers can create augmented reality games for the drone.
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The quadricopter is controlled by accelerometers and an embedded Linux platform originally designed for mobile phones, according to Parrot. The open-source platform is being made available to software developers at CES, the company said. In unveiling the AR.Drone, Parrot said that software for controlling the copter would be available on a number of platforms, not just the iPhone and iPod Touch.
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Android
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So we rooted the Nexus One. Before it was out. Without a device. Neat, but many knowledgeable commentators in the Android community noted that the root was only possible due to the engineering bootloader shipped on the devices distributed by Google, and that retail devices would likely have locked bootloaders. We told them not to worry… and here’s why.
[...]
It’s easy too! Google WANTS you to be able to do whatever you please on your Nexus One, but they also want you to be aware of the consequences.
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Google is such a large company, and with increasingly large ambitions, that it is often hard keeping tabs on all of its activities. That’s particularly the case at the moment, when most of the tech world is understandably focussing on the imminent launch of Google’s own Android phone.
But important as these events are, we shouldn’t overlook some of the less well-publicised, but nonetheless strategic, moves it is making elsewhere. Perhaps the best example of that can be found in the field of open spectrum.
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Google leads with the fact that this is as much about *how* people buy phones, as what that phone is. As many commentators have noted, that’s a reflection of Google’s long-term plans to break the grip that the current mobile phone companies have on this sector, but it needs to proceeds cautiously, step by step, so as not to frighten the animals – hence the very limited scope of the present announcement.
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As the tech world readies itself for the unveiling of Google’s Android-based — and much-hyped — Nexus One, MIPS Technologies Inc. this morning said it will team with a host of partners to showcase new Android-based offerings at this week’s CES. Among them are set-top boxes, a netbook and a social media center designed to enable consumers to consume and share TV content.
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MIPS Technologies is hoping Google’s Android OS can find fame and fortune outside the mobile world where Google hasn’t set its sights on making a device of its own (yet).
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MIPS Technologies has announced plans to design set-top boxes running the Android platform. Linux is already a popular embedded software option for device makers. However, building a device around Android — which is based on the Linux kernel — could enable set-top boxes to run a wide variety of extra applications.
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Android: Last year saw the launch of nearly two dozen Android-powered phones, including the Verizon Droid. In a few days, Google’s Nexus One will launch as the first Android phone which can be unlocked from any given carrier (it is launching with T-Mobile). Android is Google’s answer to the iPhone, and as it reaches critical mass across multiple carriers and handsets it is becoming increasingly attractive to developers. There are already more than 10,000 apps on Android, next year there will be even more. And other devices running on the mobile OS are launching as well.
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It’s long been argued that FLOSS advocates should be looking at the next generation of computing devices. That strategy is paying off. More than 1.4 million Google Android (that’s Linux) devices shipped in the third quarter of 2009. It’s too early for numbers in the fourth quarter, but you can bet that they’re even higher. In three months, that’s 1.4 million users adopting Linux for personal computing. Granted, still a minority next to other smartphones, but the Nexus One looks ready to give other smartphone vendors a run for their money.
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For others, the move into equipment will in time fragment the Android OS world, so that some handset makers could develop their own Linux kernel based on Android, or put a middleware layer on top of Android, while remaining compatible with Android apps.
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Sub-notebooks
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And with the release of Microsoft Corp.’s streamlined Windows 7 a couple of months ago, netbook users can finally run a new version of Windows instead of the aging Windows XP. (Some netbooks ship with the free, open-source Linux operating system, but many users unwisely rule out that option.)
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Other features include Wi-Fi, webcam, and various operating systems including Windows 7 Starter, XP and Ubuntu.
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Hopefully, you’ll find something to learn from here, and the good news is that everything found in this post is free.
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The Beta release of the app will deliver not only tons of bug fixes, but also performance improvements, all-new features and official support for Snow Leopard and Ubuntu Karmic, according to the developers. An early access is also available to the beta, slated for launch tomorrow.
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The January issue of the Open Source Business Resource is available, with a focus on “success factors.” “The authors in this issue explore: the importance of well defined processes, the value of documentation to end users, the diverse tasks of a community manager, the value provided by participants who don’t contribute code, and how a community can assist in creating training materials. Each concentrates on a particular success factor, and as a whole, provide a fuller picture of what to look for in a successful open source project or company.”
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The recent international recognition of local developer Ken Kasina has boosted the country’s profile. Mr Kasina was presented with the Global Achievement Award for Open Source award last year for his work on open source platforms.
Last year, local software developer CompuLynx raked in Sh400 million in software development, with a portion gained from exporting solutions.
The company is now targeting Sh1 billion over the next year on the back of increased interest from foreign companies and countries.
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The worldwide community around OpenClinica, the rapidly growing open source clinical trial software, will gather on March 22nd, 2010 in Bethesda, Maryland (USA) for the first ever OpenClinica Global Conference.
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Participating in this panel were:
Anthony Gold, Open Solutions Alliance (OSA) President, Open Solutions Alliance
Joe McKendrick, Contributing Editor and Analyst, ebizQ
Pierre Fricke, Director of Product Management for the SOA & Business Rules Management System products, Red Hat
Debbie Moynihan, Director, FUSE Community & Marketing, Progress Software
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People seem to forget that Firefox is open source. They see it as a browser and probably don’t even contemplate it anymore. But I haven’t forgotten, and thankfully millions out there haven’t either. My experience with the Linux-based Maemo operating system on the Nokia N900 opened my eyes to open source and Linux.
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Winner: OpenOffice 3.1 — Thanks to some serious third-party and open-source community support, OpenOffice can handle almost any format you throw at it, including Office 2007. More to the point, OpenOffice can save to virtually any format it opens, and it has a top-notch native PDF output option. This versatility extends to both spreadsheets and presentations, too.
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Mozilla
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Mozilla’s Firefox 3.7 looks set to take a step closer to competing with Google’s Chrome and Microsoft’s Internet Explorer 8 in the speed stakes, according to results of a pre-release version tested by a browser enthusiast.
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GNU
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Other than the open-source community’s GNU GCC, there isn’t really an alternative to the Intel compiler — and for some applications the Intel compiler is the only option.
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Mr. T loves using Photoshop at work, but it’s just too darn expensive to buy for his home computer.
That’s why he uses GIMP, which stands for GNU Image Manipulation Program.
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Macraigor Systems has ported their proprietary On-Chip Debug Technology (OCDemon), GNU Tools Suite and Eclipse Ganymede/Galileo platform to the ARM Cortex-A8 processor.
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Open Access
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Stan Peirce had been looking for new pursuits after a long career as an electrical engineer with Eastman Chemical Co. in Kingsport, Tenn. Then, last year, while searching the Internet, he stumbled on nearly 2,000 academic courses that the Massachusetts Institute of Technology had put online. Peirce saw MIT’s offerings—its OpenCourseWare project complete with syllabuses, assignments, exams and, in many cases, audio or video lectures—as nothing short of an educational gold mine.
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We are pleased to announce the release of MapOSMatic, a set of tools to automatically generate cities’ map from OpenStreetMap data. MapOSMatic takes care of generating a labelled grid over the map, a list of street with references matching the grid as well as a nice layout of the city if its administrative boundaries are known. For now, it only supports rendering French metropolitan cities’ maps, but it will soon be extended to other parts of the world. MapOSMatic is Open Source / Free Software licensed under AGPLv3.
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OpenStreetMap Founder Steve Coast has announced that the OpenStreetMap (OSM) Project now has more than 200,000 registered users. The project, originally started in August of 2004, has become increasingly popular in recent months. The new milestone comes less than ten months after the project reached 100,000 registered users back in March of 2009. OpenStreetMap is an open source project, run by the OpenStreetMap Foundation, that builds free online maps, not based on any copyright or licensed map data.
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While this is currently experimental, in the future he plans to make it easy to export data in XML/JSON as well as to create more sophisticated visual representations of the data.
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Abstract: Articles whose authors make them Open Access (OA) by self-archiving them online are cited significantly more than articles accessible only to subscribers. Some have suggested that this “OA Advantage” may not be causal but just a self-selection bias, because authors preferentially make higher-quality articles OA.
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Other Openness
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“One of our hopes is that the open-source community will speed up development of the fuel cell and electrical network, as well as other key technologies,” said Hugo Spowers, a key partner in the Riversimple project and the man behind Morgan’s Lifecar fuel cell prototype.
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What commanders want and need is information regarding the local population. Because of this need, the report encourages collecting data from “open-source” channels such as civilian sources, NGOs, and other groups.
“The Cold War notion that open-source information is ‘second class’ is a dangerous, outmoded cliché,” the document says. “Lieutenant General Samuel V. Wilson, former director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, captured it perfectly: ‘Ninety percent of intelligence comes from open sources. The other 10 percent, the clandestine work, is just the more dramatic. The real intelligence hero is Sherlock Holmes, not James Bond.’”
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But software engineering is where the rubber meets the road. Few people care whether P equals NP just for the beauty of the question. The computer field is about doing things with computers. This means writing software to solve human problems, and running that software on real machines. By the Church-Turing Thesis, all computer hardware is essentially equivalent. So while new machine architectures are cool, the real limiting challenge in computer science is the problem of creating software. We need software that can be put together in a reasonable amount of time, for a reasonable cost, that works something like its designers hoped for, and runs with few errors.
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Storage
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Good things come in small packages–and when it comes to storage, the saying couldn’t be more true. No matter what size your data set is, you can find a stylish, pocketable wonder of modern miniaturization to store it and transport it.
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Seagate has upped its BlackArmor external drive interface from USB 2.0 to the faster USB 3.0.
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NVerzion, a leading provider of digital broadcasting and television station automation solutions, and Open Source Storage today announced Southern Illinois University, Carbondale station WSIU has completed installation of its new NVerzion automation package that will control 24/7 operation of the station’s three channels, unattended overnight operations, server interface and master control interface, as well as provide a complete media database and interface to the station’s existing traffic system. WSIU has also added Open Source Storage’s award-winning OSVault™ Network Archive, providing a powerful, yet economical data management appliance ensuring the station’s ability to maintain high-speed file exchange, portability, data preservation and longevity in a non-proprietary, open network environment.
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Security
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A few days later the TSA, to its credit, rolled back some of the more arbitrarily punitive restrictions — in-flight entertainment systems can now be turned back on, and passengers are, at the airline’s discretion, again permitted to use the toilets during the last hour of flight.
But while a degree of sanity may have returned to some of the rules, the TSA’s new security philosophy appears to yield significant advantage to attackers. The current approach may actually make us more vulnerable to disruption and terror now than we were before.
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An unidentified man breached airport security at Newark Airport on Sunday, walking into the secured area through the exit, prompting an evacuation of a terminal and flight delays that continued into the next day. This problem isn’t common, but it happens regularly. The result is always the same, and it’s not obvious that fixing the problem is the right solution.
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Those who do cross the Albanian border, for whatever odd reason, will probably find, besides the aforementioned stolen Mercedes, a beautiful country, filled with wide quiet beaches, rough mountains, and disarmingly friendly and helpful people.
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One of the Bush administration’s most pernicious legacies is the never-ending War on Terrorism, a perpetual state of emergency that supposedly authorizes the president to break the law, abridge civil liberties, and ignore due process, all under a cloak of secrecy. Last week former Vice President Dick Cheney accused the Obama administration of forsaking Bush’s War on Terrorism. If only it were true.
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On Christmas Day, police in the U.K. rounded up tourists taking photos of the royal family at Sandringham church and confiscated their cameras. At The Independent, Dominic Lawson’s dismay subsides to confusion: Britain’s police are “descending into obvious madness,” he writes. ” …Their explanation of their behaviour is usually much harder to understand than the errors they seek to mitigate.”
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Married couples could be arrested and charged for insulting each other under a new law in France banning ‘psychological violence’.
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Airport security is a big deal these days. But since when has reporting your income been a matter of national security?
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Animals
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Director Louie Psihoyos talks about his film “The Cove,” which won the Golden Space Needle award for best documentary at the Seattle International Film Festival. The film is about a cove on the Japanese coast where for generations residents have survived by killing and processing dolphins. It opens Aug. 7 for a regular run.
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Dolphins are almost as clever as people and should be given human status, according to a zoologist at Emory University.
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Since the summer of 2003, I’ve crisscrossed the country speaking at colleges and theaters and bookstores, first with The Weather Underground documentary and, starting in March of this year, with my book, Underground: My Life with SDS and the Weathermen (William Morrow, 2009). In discussions with young people, they often tell me, “Nothing anyone does can ever make a difference.”
[...]
Aha! Activism = self-expression; organizing = movement-building.
Until recently, I’d rarely heard young people call themselves “organizers.” The common term for years has been “activists.” Organizing was reduced to the behind the scenes nuts-and-bolts work needed to pull off a specific event, such as a concert or demonstration.
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Environment
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Saudi Arabia says it is “satisfied” with the conclusion of last month’s UN climate summit in Copenhagen.
However, the country’s lead negotiator Mohammad Al-Sabban told BBC News that the UN climate process may be heading for stalemate, like world trade talks.
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This research note is an attempt to map out the range of reasons for governments’ silence on peak oil. These reasons can be seen along a continuum, from ignorance (“we don’t know”), to disbelief, to conspiratorial silence (“we know well, and have plans, but we’re not sharing them”). This post surveys some of the more common ideas regarding governments’ lack of attention to the issue, in the hope of spurring comments from readers regarding which of the scenarios is more plausible in light of available evidence.
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An Australian father and son team are going global with new power board technology designed to cut household energy use by automatically switching off electronics devices when they are not in use and eliminating “standby” power consumption.
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Finance
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In early 2008, while federal investigators were busy investigating disgraced financier Robert Allen Stanford for his part in an alleged $8 billion fraudulent investment scheme, Eastern European hackers were quietly hoovering up tens of thousands customer financial records from the Bank of Antigua, an institution formerly owned by the Stanford Group.
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Asian capitalism, notably China and South Korea are competing with the US for global power. Asian global power is driven by dynamic economic growth, while the US pursues a strategy of military-driven empire building.
One Day’s Read of the Financial Times
Even a cursory read of a single issue of the Financial Times (December 28, 2009) illustrates the divergent strategies toward empire building. On page one, the lead article on the US is on its expanding military conflicts and its ‘war on terror’, entitled “Obama Demands Review of Terror List”. In contrast, there are two page-one articles on China, which describe China’s launching of the world’s fastest long-distance passenger train service and China’s decision to maintain its currency pegged to the US dollar as a mechanism to promote its robust export sector.
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In a twist to the island nation’s much-watched struggle to cope with its massive debt, Mr. Grimsson blocked a $5-billion (U.S.) deal to pay Britain and the Netherlands for losses suffered by depositors in one of Iceland’s banks.
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Arianna Huffington has a solution: Change to a community bank. In a post written with economist Rob Johnson at The Huffington Post, she advocated that people close their accounts at the big four banks and open accounts at small community banks.
The idea is simple: If enough people who have money in one of the big four banks move it into smaller, more local, more traditional community banks, then collectively we, the people, will have taken a big step toward re-rigging the financial system so it becomes again the productive, stable engine for growth it’s meant to be. It’s neither Left nor Right — it’s populism at its best. Consider it a withdrawal tax on the big banks for the negative service they provide by consistently ignoring the public interest.
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Intellectual Monopolies/Copyrights
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While warning that consumers could get ripped off if they don’t shop around when buying music, an expert on saving money says that if it’s serious about winning over pirates, the music industry must wake up and embrace price competition.
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The controversial French ‘three strikes’ law has hit yet another delay – it has failed to win approval from the French data protection agency.
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The good news is that Americans spent more money at the movie theater in 2009 than the year before. The bad news is that they spent less on DVDs—a lot less.
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MP3 players given as presents have helped boost UK single sales to an all-time high in the week after Christmas.
According to Official Charts Company figures, 4.22m singles were sold in the last week of 2009, beating the previous record of 4.03m over Christmas 2008.
Margaret Aranyosi, Executive Director of KITE, Inc. 001 (2004)
Digital Tipping Point is a Free software-like project where the raw videos are code. You can assist by participating.
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Posted in News Roundup at 9:21 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Contents
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The top 3 make 64%. Where are you team Linux and Apple?
4 Linux 17%
5 Mac OS X 14%
6 Unknown 3%
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Microsoft legal has decided to react passively to the news of Ylmf OS, a Linux distribution that clones the look and feel of Windows XP.
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Some argue that Windows is inherently easier to use than Linux, while that may have been true 15 years ago before the Graphical User Interface became increasingly popular for Linux distros, nowadays there are new advantages to the less-savvy computer to really like about Linux.
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Updated: We’ve had a number of reader requests to make available some of the imagery we use in Linux Format magazine. Naturally we’re happy to share with you all, so we’ve put this page online where we’ll upload artwork as it’s requested.
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This something I never had with windows. Confidence in my operating system. What do I mean by this? Well let me explain. Just recently I was doing a remote upgrade of Ubuntu Jaunty to Ubuntu Karmic. Everything was going along as easily as a hot knife through butter. Configuration files were changed, packages were downloaded and were in the process of being installed. Then it happened.
Halfway through the upgrade. At the most sensitive part where the packages were being installed. The computer was rebooted. This could easily happen to anyone if there is a power glitch and you are not using an UPS. In this case, if you remember I was connected remotely, the end user decided to reboot the computer. After I had specifically told them not to touch it. I don’t blame them. These sort of things happen.
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Applications
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Summary: Hulu Desktop for Linux is a great option for Linux users who don’t want to use the web version and who want to sit back, away from their computer and use a remote control to watch Hulu content.
Rating: 3.5/5
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It’s here! Enna, a media center application made for Linux is finally ready for public release. Yay? If you’re not sure what this is, you’re not alone. First, GeeXbox is a Linux app that turns your computer into a media center that can work on a lot of software configurations. Enna is a nice graphical interface for GeeXbox that adds some cool new features and makes it a lot more usable.
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Instructionals
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Desktop Environments
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K Desktop Environment (KDE SC)
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In my last blog entry about 2009 achievements and events I said that I had a “looking forward” entry to come this week. This is the start of that entry, or rather, entries. As I was working on it, it became apparent that it was a big big for one entry. Yes, even too long for me. I also realized that having a list of topics in one blog entry was probably going to lead to chaos in the comments section. The solution seemed evident: address each topic up in it’s own small blog entry and publish them in sequence over the course of several days. So that is what I am going to do.
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I have been invoked by John Layt to explain some bits of the KDE licensing policy. It’s related to my recent writing on copyright assignment in the sense that it discusses reasons for picking particular licenses and how licenses interact. The back story is the KDE Licensing Policy, which lays down which licenses are acceptable in the various parts of the KDE platform technologies and applications. Roughly, the libraries need to be liberally licensed (which means they can be taken proprietary or shipped with otherwise closed devices — a common choice of GUI libraries nowadays). More concretely: (LGPL 2.1+) or (LGPL 2.1 or LGPL 3 or later approved) or BSD or MIT or X11. The idea is that you can either go for any version of LGPL from 2.1 onwards, or only selected versions of the LGPL which have been approved by the membership of KDE e.V. (if you don’t want to give a blanket permission to the FSF to update the license terms) or something very liberal.
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GNOME Desktop
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Vincent Danen walks you through the easy steps for changing the application defaults associated with certain file types in the Gnome desktop.
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Red Hat Family
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I love the fact that in addition to the millions of Fedora fans around the world, we also have in our community a very special group of hundreds upon hundreds of individuals known as Fedora Ambassadors. These contributors give of their free time to represent Fedora in schools, governments, businesses, and other community groups, and at events of all shapes and sizes.
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Debian Family
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Warren Woodford has announced that SimplyMEPIS 8.4.96, the beta4 of MEPIS 8.5, is available from MEPIS and public mirrors. The ISO files for 32 and 64 bit processors are SimplyMEPIS-CD_8.4.96-b4_32.iso and SimplyMEPIS-CD_8.4.96-b4_64.iso respectively. Deltas, requested by the community, are also available.
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Maybe you have been thinking about becoming an Ubuntu Member? If so, 2010 can be your year. Let’s find out how. I had the opportunity to interview Nathan Handler who lead a session on Ubuntu Membership during the last Ubuntu Open Week. Nathan is a member of the Ubuntu IRCC (Internet Relay Chat Council). Nathan is very versed in the community aspects as he is an active contributor in many areas. Nathan was also feature in the Ubuntu Hall of Fame. Let’s get started!
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As the new owner of a Dell Latitude 2100 netbook, I’m eager to get as much performance out of my little machine as possible. One of the most pressing issues in my life over the last week, therefore, has been to decide whether to use the i386 or lpia build of Ubuntu on my new computer. Here’s the decision I came to, and why.
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Trust me to miss the memo, but somewhere along the line Canonical started selling support services to home users as well as businesses and enterprises via the official Ubuntu Store.
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Phones
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So this guy buys a Dell Inspiron Mini 10.1-inch netbook but either isn’t happy at its lack of cellular coverage, or just has a severe phone fixation and decides to rip it apart and turn it into a Dell Mini 3i phone, complete with Android-based OS.
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Nexus/Android
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As the smartphone wars continue to heat up the Nexus One is entering a marketplace that is currently dominated by the iPhone 3GS with and gaining popularity of the Droid by Verizon Wireless.
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We first executed on this vision a little over a year ago, when we launched Android on one device with one operator in one country. Today, we have 20 devices with 59 operators in 48 countries and 19 languages. And because Android is free and open source, it continues to flourish. Android allows devices to be built faster, and at lower cost. And anyone can build anything on top of the platform. This ultimately benefits users.
[...]
Well, today we’re pleased to announce a new way for consumers to purchase a mobile phone through a Google hosted web store. The goal of this new consumer channel is to provide an efficient way to connect Google’s online users with selected Android devices. We also want to make the overall user experience simple: a simple purchasing process, simple service plans from operators, simple and worry-free delivery and start-up.
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Google has surprised no one by unveiling the Google-branded and Google-sold Nexus One phone at a press event in Mountain View.
Manufactured by Taiwanese manufacturer HTC, the phone will be sold through an online store operated by Google at www.google.com/phone. The phone can be purchased unlocked for $529 or in tandem with wireless service from T-Mobile USA at prices beginning at $179.
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It’s a clear win for Google on the specs. However, specificationists should beware. The iPhone was far from the cutting edge spec-wise when it launched in 2007. In fact, Nokia’s N95, which was launched almost five months before the iPhone, had higher specs in almost every category. The iPhone beat it with usability, attention to detail and features such as integration with iTunes. And that was before the App Store. The Google Nexus One is a worthy opponent for the iPhone at last but this battle is far from won.
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The Nexus One smartphone, which was manufactured by HTC, is Google’s first attempt at making its own device that runs on its open source Android operating system. The phone’s official unveiling comes just a couple of months after the similarly hyped Motorola Droid came to market as the first Android-based phone available on the Verizon network.
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Overall, the phone is good enough that it’s conceivable in a way that it wasn’t a few months ago that we’ll see a replay of Apple’s experience in the PC market twenty-five years ago, in which Apple’s fit and finish was unquestionably superior, but a commodity platform that was “good enough” and available to the entire industry ended up taking the lead.
(Henry Blodget makes this case in Hey, Apple, Wake Up — It’s Happening Again. On the other hand, Mark Sigal raises a different historical analogy, Novell vs. Microsoft, asking whether Google’s release of its own anointed phone might end up blunting adoption by other vendors, while Google takes the eye of its core business. A lot depends on whether Google holds back anything from the platform available to others. At today’s press conference, Google emphasized the open platform aspect of Android, so they are trying to address that fear. The model seems to be to work with individual partners to push the ball forward, but to return those innovations to the pool available to all partners.)
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Google took the wraps off its Nexus One phone today, and by all accounts, this device will help spread Android further and faster than ever. But new data from AdMob shows that the mobile operating system was already on quite a roll.
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Google’s Android 2.1 OS is now available on the HTC Nexus One phone. Here’s an early look at the new device.
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Spring Design, the makers of the Alex eReader device, announced it has entered into an agreement with Google, which will see it gaining access to over a million Google Books. Alex users will be able to read these books online or download them using the Android-integrated browser and search applications.
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Skiff LLC announced a Linux-based e-book reader optimized for newspaper and magazine content, delivered via Sprint’s 3G network. The Skiff Reader’s display is claimed to be the largest (11.5 inches) and highest-resolution (UXGA) among e-readers, and the first to offer LG Displays’ stainless-steel foil display technology, touted for greater durability.
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Skiff and telecom giant Sprint said they will team up to provide newspapers, magazines and e-books over 3G networks for the Skiff Reader, an e-reader with an 11.5-inch flexible touchscreen created by Skiff and LG Display. Another company, Spring Design, said its Alex eReader, which uses Google’s Android OS, will have access to over 1 million books online through a deal with Google. Other companies have announced new e-readers, too, including Interead’s Coolreaders.
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Sub-notebooks
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Proprietary laptop battery packs can cost 100 a pack however one company has come out with a Linux based Laptop computer which is available for only 200 dollars and can run off of AA Batteries.
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A new version of SoaS was released early last month but I found a video interview with Walter Bender talking about it that I thought I would share.
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Luckily, Microsoft’s behavior is also pushing more and more companies to adopt other open source software. Before years, Linux and free software were worthy only to open source fanatics and geeky IT managers, but now they become more than a valid option in contrast with expensive software licensing and intellectual property illegalities.
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Lesson 1: No need to restrict membership in the community. Many foundations might initially decide to limit membership to certain designated experts or focus attention on those experts. I’ve certainly heard those conversations among foundation executives. (How can we be comfortable handing off grant decisions to people who are not qualified experts?) ON had no such concerns. At its peak, the community had more than 19,000 registered members. They ranged from stay-at-home moms to entrepreneurs to renowned experts to potential grantees. With the self-moderation tools baked into the platform, the community policed itself. Kriese says some of the most passionate contributors came from among the people who were not professionals in the field. He also says many of those people were motivated by the chance to work side-by-side with the big-name experts.
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Leading the pushback is skeptic Larry Ellison, Oracle CEO, who Barron’s quotes as unloading this torrent of sarcasm in an analyst’s meeting: Cloud computing “is the future of all computing, but more impressively, it is the present of all computing and the past of all computing…Everything is cloud computing.”
Wow, and I thought I was smart-aleck.
Alas, now even Oracle is making joyful noises about the cloud. The database titan touts its Cloud Computing Center and has launched a new, semi-comprehensible acronym: OaaS, Oracle as a Service. (Seriously? OaaS? Someone suggested that in a meeting, and no one giggled?)
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Databases
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Last month, SpringSource, a division of VMware, and the community of volunteer developers behind Groovy released a new version of the dynamically compiled language. The new features include some old Java functionality that may help Java programmers work more easily with Groovy. It also includes some additions that ease the burden of working with SQL-based databases.
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FSF/SFLC/GNU
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This is so wrong, I can only assume Mr. Lustfield means to say that the “GNU system” does not exist without Linux. Which of course, is still wrong. Been wrong for a long time, in fact. (This isn’t counting GNU/Hurd of course)
I’m not sure if the problem is because Mr. Lustfield is ignorant of other kernels, if he doesn’t understand what a kernel is, doesn’t understand what GNU is, doesn’t understand what an operating system is, or simply doesn’t care and just wants to rag on the FSF and GNU. I’m of the opinion it’s all of the above.
Of course, the supreme deliciousness is that Mr. Lustfield is so very involved in (surprise, surprise) Ubuntu, which of course is a derivative of …. Debian GNU/Linux:
Debian is a free operating system (OS) for your computer. An operating system is the set of basic programs and utilities that make your computer run. Debian uses the Linux kernel (the core of an operating system), but most of the basic OS tools come from the GNU project; hence the name GNU/Linux.
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After carrying-on for many years an on-again, off-again email-only relationship with Free Software Foundation president and founder Richard Stallman (or “Chief GNU-isance” according to the FSF staff), I finally met him today for a face-to-face interview. While the interview was actually for a larger project we’re working on here at InformationWeek, we spent a considerable amount of time talking about the issues he wrestles with every day. One of them is GNU and the highly misguided usage of the term Linux to describe what is really GNU/Linux. Stallman, GNU, and the FSF deserve some credit and we (including distributors such as Red Hat and Novell) should all pay it to them.
[...]
After the interview’s conclusion, Stallman said I was particularly nasty in the way I started to ask my question to which I responded that I understood the issue well, that I have understood it for many years, and that I meant no disrespect. He admonished me to go back to the recording and listen to the way in which I phrased the question. He was right. Stallman chooses his words very carefully. I didn’t. If you compare his request in email to the question I started to ask, you can see how my question essentially endorses “Linux” as the accepted name of an operating system that should be called “GNU/Linux.”
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The Free Software Foundation (FSF) has announced the 2010 dates for its LibrePlanet international free software community conference. The three day event will be held in Cambridge, Massachusetts, at the Harvard University Science Center, from March 19th to March 21st, 2010.
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Karen and Bradley interview this show’s first-ever second-time guest, Richard Fontana, who is an Open Source Licensing and Patent Counsel at Red Hat.
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Standards/Consortia
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This service allows you to watch and listen to Flash-based videos without the need to Flash technology. This gives you speed, safety, control, freedom and openness.
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Imeem users, bloggers and web users are in for another nasty surprise following MySpace’s acquisition of “certain parts” of the service. MySpace has replaced Imeem songs and playlists embedded on blogs and elsewhere on the web with advertisements for generic ringtones and the MySpace Music service.
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Are you tired of living in public, sick of all the privacy theater the social networks are putting on, and just want to end it all online? Now you can wipe the slate clean with the Web 2.0 Suicide Machine. (Warning: This will really delete your online presence and is irrevocable). Just put in your credentials for Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, or LinkedIn and it will delete all your friends and messages, and change your username, password, and photo so that you cannot log back in.
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Reader comments on Pantagraph.com often are informative, sparking serious dialogue on an issue of local or national interest. At other times, they are offensive and devoid of civility, the worst of which include personal attacks and/or assertions that have nothing to do with the story.
In recent weeks, we have seen too much of the latter on some local stories. Far too much. So, effective immediately and through the New Year’s holiday weekend, no comments will be allowed on new local content posted on Pantagraph.com.
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Security
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As you might imagine, this idea of TSA employees looking at what are essentially images of naked people has not gone over well in some circles. It’s not just EPIC and other civil libertarians. Rep. Jason Chaffetz, a Republican from Utah, introduced legislation in the House of Representatives to ban both kinds of scanners. Of course, that was before the near disaster over the skies of Detroit.
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Much of the criticism has been contemptuous and hysterical. Various experts have gathered bits of Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab’s biography. Since they can string the facts together to accurately predict the past, they thunder, the intelligence services should have been able to connect the dots to predict the future.
Dick Cheney argues that the error was caused by some ideological choice. Arlen Specter screams for more technology — full-body examining devices. “We thought that had been remedied,” said Senator Kit Bond, as if omniscience could be accomplished with legislation.
Many people seem to be in the middle of a religious crisis of faith. All the gods they believe in — technology, technocracy, centralized government control — have failed them in this instance.
In a mature nation, President Obama could go on TV and say, “Listen, we’re doing the best we can, but some terrorists are bound to get through.” But this is apparently a country that must be spoken to in childish ways. The original line out of the White House was that the system worked. Don’t worry, little Johnny.
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Finance
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The first lesson is that markets are not self-correcting. Indeed, without adequate regulation, they are prone to excess. In 2009, we again saw why Adam Smith’s invisible hand often appeared invisible: it is not there. The bankers’ pursuit of self-interest (greed) did not lead to the well-being of society; it did not even serve their shareholders and bondholders well. It certainly did not serve homeowners who are losing their homes, workers who have lost their jobs, retirees who have seen their retirement funds vanish, or taxpayers who paid hundreds of billions of dollars to bail out the banks.
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Britain warned Iceland that it would be frozen out of the European Union after its President abruptly vetoed the repayment of a £3.6 billion loan.
The Treasury expected Reykjavik to rubberstamp the terms of repayment for the loan extended by Britain and the Netherlands at the height of the financial crisis. The loan meant that 400,000 savers with deposits in Icesave did not lose their money.
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In the early 1980’s, before the three decade long debt induced frat party, the National Debt was between $900 billion and $1.6 trillion. Today, the National Debt is $12.3 trillion, up 1,250% in three decades. The US dollar was phenomenally strong in the early 1980’s versus a trade weighted basket of foreign currencies, reaching 145 in 1985. Today it has sunk to 77, a 50% decrease in 24 years. Enormous deficits and a plunging currency are a precursor of the unavoidable breakdown of a onetime economic powerhouse. A courageous act by our leaders would be to dramatically decrease government spending and increase interest rates to encourage savings, which would result in a strong dollar. The short term pain would be intense, but it would put our country back on a sound fiscal path. Instead, we will throw our children and grandchildren under the bus with continued financial malfeasance. More spending, more debt, and a cheaper dollar are the drugs of choice.
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Of course, there is no good reason that banks should consistently earn 20 percent and more on their equity, particularly when interest rates are at zero. During the 1970s and the 1980s, when interest rates and inflation were much higher, the return on tangible equity for the British banking industry averaged 10 to 11 percent, according to Credit Suisse research. This changed only in the 1990s, when looser regulations permitted large banks to increase leverage and take on more risk.
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Goldman Sachs (GS) has joined JPMorgan Chase (JPM) in threatening to hotfoot it out of London over the U.K.’s proposed “supertax” on banker bonuses.
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Obviously, like nearly all right-wing frothers nearly all the time, they’re talking complete and utter bollocks.
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As you may have noticed over the last year or so, Charlie Gasparino is no fan of anonymous bloggers. Usually he’s content to let them live in their holes, like bums, but they step into his den, they step too far.
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Censorship/Civil Rights
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Author and warblogger Michael Yon says (via Facebook) “Got arrested at the Seattle airport for refusing to say how much money I make.” I presume he was entering the US from overseas, not clear to me yet who the agents were.
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Hey, everyone. We just wanted to let you know that Dec. 31 was the last day that The Hero of Time was available for viewing. We came to an agreement with Nintendo earlier this month to stop distributing the film. In the spirit of the holiday season they were good enough to let us keep the movie up for you to watch and enjoy through the end of 2009, but not past 2009. We understand Nintendo’s right to protect its characters and trademarks and understand how in order to keep their property unspoiled by fan’s interpretation of the franchise, Nintendo needs to protect itself — even from fan-works with good intentions.
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Intellectual Monopolies/Copyrights
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The panel will tackle important questions like: Will ACTA preserve the existing balance in intellectual property laws, providing not just enforcement for copyright holders but also appropriate exceptions for technology creators and users? Will it undermine the legal safe harbors that have allowed virtually every Internet service to come into existence? And will it encourage governments to endorse “three strikes” penalties that would take away a user’s access to the Internet?
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The UK Government discusses the lack of transparency in an EU access to information request:
“More broadly with respect to ACTA the UK considers that transparency is crucial to ensure the legitimacy of the agreement and to stop the spread of rumours. We believe the lack of transparency is unhelpful and do not believe that it is in the public interest.”
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Despite this, there will also be labels that perform badly for unrelated reasons. How convenient is it then, to blame evil file-sharers for your disappointing results. The Finnish hard rock label Lion Music is doing just that, with rather dramatic consequences.
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Still, the more interesting battle may be shaping up elsewhere. Some consumer groups are asking the Justice Department to investigate cable companies for their “TV Everywhere” effort, which they claim is almost certainly an antitrust violation of collusion to keep certain content from going on the internet. Not surprisingly, the cable industry and their lobbyists have hit back hard, claiming that the whole thing is ridiculous.
Claudio Menezes, a UNESCO official uniting international Free Software communities 05 (2004)
Digital Tipping Point is a Free software-like project where the raw videos are code. You can assist by participating.
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Send this to a friend
01.05.10
Posted in News Roundup at 6:23 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Contents
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I am pleased to announce a new world record for the computation of the digits of Pi. The following number of digits were computed:
2242301460000 hexadecimal digits (base 16)
2699999990000 decimal digits (base 10)
[...]
The Linux Operating System was used with the 64 bit Red Hat Fedora 10 distribution. The 7.5 TB disk storage was managed using software RAID-0 and the ext4 filesystem. Files of up to 2.5 TB were manipulated during the computation.
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Top Operating Systems
* Windows: 62.1%
* Linux 26.8%
* Mac 9.7%
* Mobile 1.4%
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Digital entertainment services firm RealNetworks has acquired Linux-based solutions provider Varia Mobile, which spun out of AOL-owned Tegic Communications three years ago.
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For the Linux fans out there, today is a great day! Up until now, blu-ray playback support in Linux has been very complicated and quite an aggravating experience. First you would have to hope you had the right BD-ROM drive and that there was a hacked firmware for you to flash it with. Then you had to hope the correct AACS keys were out on the interwebs for the blu-ray disc you wanted to watch. Once you had the right drive and the right keys, you had to dump the entire blu-ray disc to your hard drive and play it from there.
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Clutter 1.2 is expected in time for the release of GNOME 2.30 in March.
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We’ll go even further and suggest that the dedicated computer use Linux, FreeBSD, or even Mac OS X, if that suits you better. We’re not trying to start a controversy over which operating system is better or more secure. In fact, this has nothing to do with the security of the operating system itself, but the fact that 99.9% of these trojans were constructed for Windows and will fail to run on anything else.
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Graphics Stack
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Intel has just put out its quarterly update to their X.Org DDX driver. This new driver is xf86-video-intel 2.10.0 and it delivers on dropping all support for user-space mode-setting (using kernel mode-setting is now a must),
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Applications
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Many of you are probably curious to see Lernid in action, so tomorrow I will be giving a short presentation (around 20 minutes) to talk about Lernid…using Lernid! I will talk about the project, it’s direction, show off a few features and answer questions.
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If you’re planning a re-install of your Linux system that might involve being offline, free utility “Sushi Huh?” (actual name) can grab your software, and all the nagging dependencies, for easy installation without internet access.
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Instructionals
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Games
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Are you a Zelda fan ?
If so then you would be happy to know that a new FOSS project to clone Zelda and fix the “flaws” released it’s first “demo version” .
Mystery of Solarus DX is licensed under the GPL and is available in 4 languages : English, French, German and Dutch !
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X-Plane contains subsonic and supersonic flight dynamics, allowing users to predict the flight characteristics of the slowest aircraft to the fastest. X-Plane includes thirty-five aircraft on its master disk, spanning the aviation industry (and its history), sporting aircraft from the Bell 206 JetRanger and Cessna 172 to the supersonic SR-71 and the Space Shuttle.
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In February 2009 Debian released version 5.0, “Lenny” with more than 25 000 packages including many security enhancements such as PHP’s Suhosin system.
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Everyone was waiting for this, so… we are proud to announce that the upcoming release of the popular Ubuntu operating system, due for launch in late April this year, will come with a comprehensive manual! The manual is created as we speak and it will be ready to accompany the final release of Ubuntu 10.04 LTS. The Ubuntu manual will be designed for beginners in Linux and Ubuntu (of course) and it will contain essential how-tos, guides, basic information about Linux and its components, and everything one needs to know after installing Ubuntu.
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I recently purchased a Kodak Easyshare Wireless Digital Picture Frame off woot for an amazing price of $49.99. Infact, I bought two. The model number is W820, which is an 8″ frame, but there is also a 10 inch version as well. These picture frames have built in WiFi and can grab content off the internet.
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AE Linux is a package that is targeted to developers who want a fast and easy solution to run an embedded Linux kernel on their Intel-based platform. This distribution uses the standard Linux build flow and is made from unmodified public distributions so that migration to newer or different Linux components is unencumbered.
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It’s hard to differentiate a NAS product with software features because the majority of NAS boxes are Linux-based and so come with features that are largely the same (although executed to varying degrees of success). On the hardware front, though, Thecus makes the N4200 stand out with its 2.8″ OLED display.
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Some of our readers will remember the tiny Linux PC, the Marvell SheevaPlug that we featured on the site last year, Marvell has added a new tiny PC their range with the launch of the Marvell Plug Computer 3.0.
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IGEL Technology, the world’s largest Linux thin client vendor and the third largest thin client vendor (2008 by revenue, IDC), today announced that all of its Universal Desktop thin clients running Linux and Windows® Embedded Standard will be equipped with the new software client for VMware View™ 4, which includes support for the PCoIP® display protocol.
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The devices underpinning today’s communications networks grow increasingly powerful in their speed, throughput, features and supported services. That’s great for users—but it presents a significant challenge for manufacturers.
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Phones
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Emblazed unveiled its Linux OS for mobile phones a couple of months ago in London. Now it will demo the first ELSE device at CES 2010 in Las Vegas. The first ELSE has a 3.5-inch touch screen with tactile feedback running at 854 x 480 resolution, up to 32 gigs flash storage, a 5 megapixel camera and built-in GPS.
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That “new-ness” came in the form of a new mobile phone and the new operating system that ran on it: the Palm Pre, a phone that channeled the Zen-like beauty of a smooth black pebble; and webOS, the Linux-based OS with deep hooks to the modern phenomenon of social networking via a technology Palm has dubbed Synergy.
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Android
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Taiwan-based ODM handset maker Arima Communications may see its handset shipments expand to 20-25 million units in 2010 compared to 12 million units in 2009, thanks to new orders from Motorola, according to industry sources.
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The smartphone market it already awash with Android devices from the likes of HTC, Motorola and Samsung, but this moves sees Google take a greater role in the design process. According to a report in the Guardian the firm decided to oversee the development of the phone itself and has been testing it behind closed doors for a number of months.
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Ever since the launch of Android, Google’s open-source operating system, rumours of a Google smart-phone have surfaced as quickly as they have been denied by the search engine giant.
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The ASTRO File Manager helps you get the most out of your Android-powered phone. The Android operating system is designed to be very open and flexible, giving its users the chance to do more things on their phone than ever before. ASTRO helps your phone reach its full potential by giving you the tools to manage your phone.
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Google’s upcoming Tuesday press conference is likely to mark the debut of the Nexus One, the search company’s own Android-based smartphone.
Nexus One should showcase the latest generation of the Linux-based open source Android operating system. It’s also the first phone that is expected to be directly marketed by Google, setting higher expectations for the phone.
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CNET has reported that iPhone users and Google Android users have much in common in terms of their usage patterns and demographics. Their developer audiences, however, are increasingly different, and that’s to Apple’s hurt, especially as Android grows in market share.
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Sub-notebooks
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A few years ago, Asus was one of the first vendors to introduce a netbook, with the launch of its Eee PC Linux-based product. Shortly after, other vendors such as Acer, HP (NYSE: HPQ) and Lenovo, also followed suit.
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Lenovo’s Skylight has a customizable user interface (UI) built on a Linux shell. “The gadgets consist of live Web gadgets like Facebook, Gmail and Twitter,” said Ninis Samuel, director of global marketing for Lenovo’s Idea product group. These gadgets are always connected to the Web and update automatically. The gadgets also let users buy and download videos and movies from the Web.
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Lenovo has introduced the IdeaPad U1 Hybrid, a device which features a notebook base and a detachable tablet. The tablet integrates an LED-backlit 11.6-inch display and Qualcomm’s Snapdragon ARM CPU running the Skylight Linux interface. Users can easily browse the internet and perform other basic functions with the tablet alone. A 16GB flash drive, 512MB of RAM, and Snapdragon integrated graphics round out the tablet specs.
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Skylight could emerge as an alternative in the low-cost laptop space to netbooks, which are mostly powered by Intel’s Atom chips. Atom-based netbooks have a leg up because of support for both Microsoft’s popular Windows operating systems and Linux. Arm-based chips do not support a full Windows OS, so smartbooks usually come with the Linux OS.
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It has all the features of PC, including a Linux-based OS and Qualcomm’s Snapdragon chip.
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Lenovo has launched its Skylight smartbook, a mobile device with 10 inch screen and integrated 3G in a clamshell laptop format. Powered by a 1Ghz Qualcomm Snapdragon processor, the Skylight uses Lenovo’s own “web-optimised” interface. Users are presented with six “web gadgets” in the simplified, gadget-based user interface displayed on the 1280 by 720 resolution display.
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We’ve survived 2009 with a couple of solid releases of Moblin–the 2.1 release has 14 languages! Thanks for all your hard work. We are busy trying to get a handle on what’s in the pipeline for the 2.2 release, which is tentatlvely targeted for April
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CyberLink Corp. (TSE: 5203), an innovative solutions provider for the connected media lifestyle, today announced that they have developed a Linux version of PowerDVD to support Intel’s Linux-based Moblin 2.1 operating system. Moblin 2.1 operating system is specifically designed to run on the Intel Atom processor delivering minimized boot times and efficient power consumption on netbooks, Mobile Internet Devices (MIDs) and embedded devices.
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Scheduled for official release at the end of this month, the Plasma Netbook Interface (PNI) is being developed concurrently with the standard KDE Desktop. However, it is already well-known, thanks to some stable beta releases.
PNI offers a somewhat different experience from the standard KDE desktop. However, there are some obvious analogies. The panel is little changed in PNI, and the button on the upper right is functionally similar to standard KDE’s desktop tool kit. Even the floating favorites and menu bars in the top middle of the screen are less of an innovation than they first appear, since they recall KRunner, the floating command center that many advanced KDE users prefer to the menu.
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As I said, it looks to me like Jolicloud has in many ways the kind of “Social” orientation that Moblin has (see Facebook, Twitter etc. in the Apps shot above), but in my opinion they are doing a much better job of integrating it with Linux, keeping the whole thing much more familiar and accessible to experienced Linux users. Even more importantly, they have avoided the juvenile graphics that Moblin is riddled with, and they have actually produced an original and appealing interface. Their blog pomises that the “new UI” will be significantly better than this pre-Beta version, and if that is true it should be magnificent.
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Open Source is not necessarily anti-capìtalist. There are many capitalist firms, including very large corporate firms that practice open source. But it is a-capitalist, meaning that Open Source is compatible with different social logics and values. It does not need the incentive of profit to work, and does not rely on the private appropriation of the exclusive right to use and enjoy the product. It is based on a form of social organization that has profound political implications and may affect the way we think about the need to preserve capitalist institutions and hierarchies of production to manage the requirements of a complex world.
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The Apache Software Foundation has arguably been the leading force for open-source software over the last 10 years and promises to continue being a force in the new decade.
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At its peak, the Second Life economy had more money swilling about than several third-world countries. It had even produced its own millionaire, Anshe Chung, who made a very real fortune from buying and selling property that existed only on Second Life servers.
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The LiMux project, which oversees Linux migration in Munich, the capital of Bavaria, has reached another milestone. According to a 2009 development review that the deputy project leader Florian Schießl has posted on his blog, open source OpenDocument Format (ODF) is now the main document exchange standard, with PDF being used for non-editable files. According to Schießl, the city administration’s standard desktops now consist of the free OpenOffice.org office suite, Mozilla’s Firefox browser, the Thunderbird email client and several other open source applications, such as the GIMP image editor.
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According to Sander Van Hooft, a blogger familiar with the SugarCRM literature, not all books are the right choice for all user types and offers his opinions based on experience with the CRM how-to must reads.
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One market area in particular – open source PBX – will experience a complete change in composition. As a speaker at ITEXPO East 2010, Gal plans to show unmatched high-availability open source telephony systems. As for why customers may want Xorcom to provide its telephony solution, Gal promises a unique solution that delivers scalable and flexible with complete integral support both in IP telephony and all common standards of traditional telephony.
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In a world of vanishing commercial Java IDEs, JetBrains’ code-centric IntelliJ is something of an anomaly. Among the relatively few such tools to survive intact the advent of the Eclipse juggernaut, IntelliJ continues to innovate, adapt and, among its devoted users, thrive.
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Eucalyptus is based on an open source platform which aggregates servers, storage and network infrastructure into a private cloud that allows self-service provisioning of computing resources. Eucalyptus is compatible with Amazon’s Elastic Compute Cloud, providing an easy bridge between internal and external cloud resources.
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Zenoss Inc., a leading commercial open source provider of Unlegacy enterprise IT management products and VDEL GmbH, the world’s first IT services distribution company, today announced a partnership under which VDEL has become a Master Distributor of Zenoss solutions in the territories of Eastern Europe, Russia, and CIS.
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Chad Behling, of open source software company RockBochs, said there will be significant market growth in the VoIP sector over the next few years as bandwidth increases and the use of analogue lines declines.
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TV Guide Magazine, the nation’s premier television entertainment magazine with over 20 million readers, has partnered with Kaltura, developer of the first open source online video platform, to power video on www.tvguidemagazine.com.
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According to a report on Techcrunch, Philips is to bundle the open source media player Songbird with its portable MP3 players. Reportedly the deal will be be officially announced at CES in Las Vegas this week.
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And it’s about to become a whole lot more recognizable: Philips has just agreed to ship branded version of Songbird with millions of GoGear portable media players.
The news is a major win for Songbird and open source software in general. It’s also the kind of distribution deal that you don’t often hear about for a piece of OSS. I’m still waiting for the day when laptops start showing up on retail shelves with Firefox preinstalled…
It’s also a win for Philips, since lower-price MP3 players like theirs are often saddled with substandard software. Songbird gives them a sexy, extensible, and feature-rich application to ship.
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RandomStorm has announced the acquisition of the open source vulnerability testing application Damn Vulnerable Web Application (DVWA).
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What concerns me in this example is not so much what Oracle or VMWare may do with their asset. It’s what people who have invested time and money in open source communities may now decide to do.
What’s next? Wikipedia bought by the Encyclopedia Brittanica? Firefox gets gobbled by Microsoft?
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Databases
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A quick review of Save MySQL online petition stats shows that the results are still in line with the results I reported previously. Over 90 percent of petition signees would require Oracle to divest MySQL to a “suitable third party.”
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CMS
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When I began using The Vancouver Observer’s new drupal open source software on October 2, I quickly realized that I had a platform at my fingertips that was powerful enough to push the work of hundreds of reporters and bloggers into the world.
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Openness
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Interestingly he says that 90% of intelligence work these days is what he calls “open source”, and quotes a former head of intelligence saying that the job should be more Sherlock Holmes than James Bond.
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Programming
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Much has happened in the Perl 6 land in 2009. Here is my humble attempt to summarize some of it; If you find something that I missed, feel free to contact me, I’ll try to add it.
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Remember the format wars? Ars looks back at the heated battles between VHS and Betamax as well as HD DVD and Blu-ray, wondering if, now that the dust has settled, the end of the format wars is nigh.
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Opera (and Proprietary Software on GNU/Linux)
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Opera Software ASA announced Tuesday that co-founder and CEO Jon von Tetzchner has stepped down following 15 years at the helm of the Norwegian software developer.
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In addition to the introduction of the Opera 10.50 Pre-Alpha Build for Linux users, the latest testing version also brings to the table a few enhancements designed to improve the browser’s stability. However, the biggest addition by far to the new testing build is support for the video element.
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Collaboration between Adobe, Freescale, and Movial (Helsinki, Finland) is bringing Adobe Flash Player 10.1 to the i.MX platforms, enabling the creation of consumer products running either the Linux or Android operating systems and providing improved video and graphics capabilities.
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Security
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The government lawyer who wrote memos authorizing the Bush administration to engage in torture and warrantless surveillance says he was just doing his job, according to a recent interview.
Asked by The New York Times if he regretted writing the torture memos, former Deputy Assistant Attorney General John Yoo replied, “No, I had to write them. It was my job. As a lawyer, I had a client. The client needed a legal question answered.”
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Police and Security Intelligence Service agents in New Zealand have been granted new powers to monitor any and all aspects of someone’s online life, according to this news report in the Sunday Star Times:
The measures are the largest expansion of police and SIS surveillance capabilities for decades, and mean that all mobile calls and texts, email, internet surfing and online shopping, chatting and social networking can be monitored anywhere in New Zealand. In preparation, technicians have been installing specialist spying devices and software inside all telephone exchanges, internet companies and even fibre-optic data networks between cities and towns, providing police and spy agencies with the capability to monitor almost all communications.
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Prosecutions linked to CCTV have fallen in parts of Britain, raising questions about the true impact of the security cameras.
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Just 33,000 of the 4.9 million crimes committed in Britain each year are solved using the DNA database, it has emerged.
Chief Constable Chris Sims of West Midlands, the Association of Chief Police Officers’ (Acpo) lead on the issue, cited the figure as he gave evidence to the Commons’ home affairs committee.
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Environment
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Preparing our children for their future is the most awesome responsibility we can bear. As we discuss global warming, the first thing we can do is listen. It is they who are preparing us – if we choose to hear.
[...]
It is really not helpful to ignore or suppress the problem. The only thing we should withhold from children is our anxiety — but not withhold our concern. Sharing our thoughts, and speaking to the issue is an expression of our love and our faith in them and their future. Denying facts, avoiding the issue, and steering them away only makes their lives more difficult. This is an important choice.
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Finance
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The Arab states of the Gulf region have agreed to launch a single currency modelled on the euro, hoping to blaze a trail towards a pan-Arab monetary union swelling to the ancient borders of the Ummayad Caliphate.
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Intellectual Monopolies/Copyrights
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MUSIC INDUSTRY MAFIAA WHIPPING BOY Joel Tenebaum has asked for a new trial and remittitur from the same judge who presided over the original trial. A ‘remittitur’ is apparently grey-suitspeak for “we can’t afford the ridiculously dispropportionate damage award… can we have another go please m’lud, or at least reduce the damages?”
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What entered the public domain in the US this year? Thanks to several decades of copyright term extensions, not a single major work.
Claudio Menezes, a UNESCO official uniting international Free Software communities 04 (2004)
Digital Tipping Point is a Free software-like project where the raw videos are code. You can assist by participating.
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Posted in News Roundup at 6:32 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Contents
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Also important for graphics art re-use is that the license for the use of the original image of Tux is very liberal, with Larry Ewing, the copyright holder, giving people permission to use the image as long as the user acknowledges him as the author and the GIMP as the creator of the image “if someone asks”. The last phrase is probably enough to give most lawyers shivers, but it has allowed Tux to show up in the original unmodified form in areas as diverse as Plumbing supply trucks, air-conditioning repair services, lottery tickets and fireworks.
Of course Wikipedia has an extensive listing on Tux, so I will not go into all of the history behind him, but I do want to pass on one story:
When Tux made his first appearance in 1996 I was at a trade show, and a friend of mine who ran a Linux business selling distributions, T-shirts, and other Linux “things” came up to me and declared his disgust with the choice. I asked him why he did not like it, and he said that Tux was “fat and silly looking” and that we should have had as a mascot a tiger or shark, something with teeth and fangs to rip Microsoft apart.
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The exact same freedom is there for Linux. The information on Linux processes are readily available and you can do what you wish with them. In fact, the licenses associated with Linux are designed to provide and protect that freedom. Linux distributions are the end product of the application of Linux information and can be given away or sold according to the whims of those who prepared the distribution. Generally the Linux distribution is free as in cost and support contracts are what make money.
So how does this effect the end user of Linux? Doesn’t this mean that the only benefit is that they have a quality operating system to use for free? No, that is not the only benefit although it is the benefit most often hawked by Linux advocates. What this does mean for the end user is they have the freedom to independently verify whether the chosen Linux distribution actually does what is claimed and that there are no hidden nasties.
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Server
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Sources at IBM say that this is the first Unix-to-mainframe application migration in nearly a decade. That obviously does not count any workloads that were moved from Unix systems to Linux running natively on z/VM partitions on IBM’s big iron. Neither IBM nor BC Card would provide details about the Unix systems being replaced or the capacity of the System z mainframes being dropped in to assume their role at BC Card.
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Google
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Google and HTC, its bosom buddy hardware manufacturer, have spent the last 18 months developing touch-screen tablets, according to a report out of Australia.
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Applications
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Since it is still under heavy development, the Arora web browser is lacking in features, although it does at least now have built-in Flash plug-ins. It’s a decent lightweight browser that integrates well with desktop environments, while the Web Inspector tools are useful for web developers.
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I mentioned byobu the other day, and a few days before I mentioned a slew of audio players for the console. Here’s a mis-mash of those ideas, with three audio mixers running inside the Ubuntu version of byobu.
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In my Web Winners and Losers column a few weeks ago, I noted that Opera had failed to bring much to the table in 2009. Opera 10 was a solid release, but didn’t do much bump its market share on the desktop. That hasn’t stopped the Opera team from trying, though. They released an alpha of Opera 10.5 on December 22nd that gives a sneak peek into what to expect from Opera in 2010.
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Admittedly, “BURG” may sound like something from the depths of Star Trek mythology but the letters actually stand for “Brand-new Universal loadeR from GRUB” and is based on the GRUB bootloader. A bevvy of cool features and enhancements make it an option well worth considering if you like to beautify your system.
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Instructionals
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Games
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Zec is a client for Empire (http://www.wolfpackempire.com/), a real time, multiplayer, internet-based game, featuring military, diplomatic, and economic goals.
Currently there are two incarnations of zec: zec, and zecsh.
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GNOME Desktop
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But I bet if you polled all 400 members of the GNOME Foundation and a few 1000 GNOME fans, you’d get a lot of different visions of what that means. And while I think that’s normal and I think that’s good, I thought it might be an interesting conversation to have.
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Now that we are entering the year 2010, I thought that it would be interesting to give you some quick follow-up on how many updates were done during the last few years.
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Debian Family
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So, it seemed clear. Debian was in fact not changing the default behavior of cron, but it was Red Hat who was doing the changing. Further, despite what the documentation says, I could find no site-wide configuration file to modify this behavior- even referenced in the source code. The only way to make the change was to change the code before compilation (so maybe we should submit a bug on the man page).
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The Ubuntu wiki points out that a new complete beginners manual for Ubuntu is on its way. The manual will include information on anything you need to know after installing Ubuntu and very useful how-to’s for beginners, all written in a user-friendly way in a PDF file.
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An on-line friend suggested downloading Ubuntu Linux, burning a boot CD for that and starting up up under a run-time instance of that … it worked well enough that I was able to rescue my files (such as my “TheJobStalker” folder!).
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Windows has gotten too expensive to compete with virtually free offerings from Linux vendors like Ubuntu, which is gaining ground in the ultra low-cost netbook space.
Dell, for instance, now offers the Ubuntu-based Inspiron Mini netbook starting at $299 — a price that is less than what one copy of Windows 7 Ultimate costs. The fact is, most consumers no longer care what OS their PC uses, as long it’s priced right and they can reliably send e-mail, surf the Web, and get to their Facebook page.
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Chennai, India, 30 December 2009 – Now, Desktop as a Service (DaaS), similar to Software as a Service (SaaS), for low-cost personal computers (PCs), which can be nearly 60 per cent cheaper than the conventional Windows-based PCs, is the in-thing.
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Chennai-based Zylog Systems Ltd has partnered with IBM and Canonical Ubuntu to offer the DaaS-enabled Desktop Computer Services called ‘PowerCube’, which was launched recently in the US to address the needs for low-cost computing.
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So, first start off by installing uShare on your Ubuntu system. Open up your terminal screen and type the following:
sudo apt-get install ushare
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System76, Zareason and Dell all provide solid options. In the end, however, I ended up choosing a Latitude 2100 netbook from Dell’s education and business line–which was not among my initial considerations but was brought to my attention by readers.
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Syabas Technology has posted specs for an upcoming IP STB (set-top box) that supports streaming Netflix downloads. The UPnP-ready “Popbox” offers Ethernet, WiFi, Component video, and HDMI connections, runs embedded Linux on a MIPS-based Sigma Designs SMP8643 processor, and will ship in March for only $129, according to DeviceGuru.
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Following closely on the heels of the December announcement of D-Link’s BoxeeBox, Syabas Technology today said it will ship a $129 Internet-based A/V streaming set-top box (STB) in March. Both new gadgets have the potential to give Roku’s popular Netflix-streaming STB a run for its money.
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The newest handheld gaming system about to hit the public is entering its final stages of testing. The Pandora, built by a bunch of Linux-loving game geeks, has been in development for about 3 years now. And judging from the OpenPandora blog, it is about to be ready for prime time.
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Phones
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Palm has released a new version of its Linux-based WebOS operating system for its Palm Pre and Palm Pixi phones, with a variety of improvements including App Catalog downloads. Meanwhile, eWEEK reports on rumors that Verizon Wireless will soon offer modified versions of the phones called the Palm Pre Plus and the Pixi Plus.
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Android
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A “monstrous” jump in demand for Android-equipped smartphones has turned the market upside down, a retail pollster said today.
Of the people who told ChangeWave Research in a mid-December survey that they planned to buy a smartphone in the next 90 days, 21% said they expected to purchase a handset powered by Google’s Android operating system. That number represented a 250% increase over the 6% that pegged Android as their mobile OS of choice when ChangeWave last queried consumers’ plans in September.
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Google’s Android mobile operating system is finally picking up a little steam, according to a recent survey. ChangeWave Research polled over 4,000 consumers in mid-December and found that 4 percent of respondents who own a smartphone now use Android–that’s up from a measly 1 percent in the previous September 2009 survey.
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The study, based on a survey of about 4,000 consumers, shows interest in Android nearly tripling from September to December of 2009. In September, about 6 percent of respondents said an Android phone was in their future. By December, that number was up to 21 percent.
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There has been a frenzy of rumors circulating about Google’s foray into the mobile handset market since it was first discovered that Google might be working on such a device. Based on the prevailing rumors and speculation, here are five predictions for what we can expect from the Nexus One.
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Sub-notebooks
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There’s been a lot of technology predictions for the upcoming year, with Linux playing a big part in the future direction of tech. Fortunately, we won’t have to wait long to see how some of those predictions will play out: it’s just a mere three more days until the start of the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas.
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Some commercial BI vendors have noticed the encroachment on their turf and are countering by offering free “starter editions” of their software, the report said.
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Mozilla
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Mozilla is building a number of features into the upcoming Firefox 3.7 browser–but the organization now has begun stewing over whether to introduce some of them in a significant update, as planned, or to rewrite some sooner for a variation of the current browser.
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Firefox uses its own notification system for alerting users to various events. These can easily be missed on an Ubuntu system as users are used to seeing notifications appear in the top right-hand corner.
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Databases
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Out of line unless you think this might be a preparatory step in anticipation of the Oracle takeover. It could be. And, if that’s the case, is it a bad sign for everyone’s favorite open source database? I’m not so convinced that non-enterprise end-users of MySQL (you know the ones – those that use MySQL for Drupal, Joomla, and other DB-dependent applications) will have any worries. Let’s see if we can collectively draw that same conclusion.
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CMS
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My new book, Drupal for Dummies, is now available. My intended audience is non-technical, so if you’ve got a friend who wants you to build a Drupal site for them, this might be worth mentioning to them. The companion Web site, http://drupalfordummies.com was created using only the information presented in the book.
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Licensing
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One or two points of fact, though: the FSF does not require assignment — not for all GNU projects, at least. For some, yes. I made this exact same mistake at the GNU hacker’s meeting in Gothenburg last month. After all, it’s easy to find articles stating that the FSF requires assignment — even on the FSF site — and not so easy to find ones that do not. After all, it’s hard to search for the absence of a document. Andy Wingo can probably point out some.
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In all, I can buy a lot of paper, toner and binders for the $300 the unit cost me. Sure there is the bulk of paper. But I do not have to wait for the unit to decide to show me the page I want to read. I do not have to ramp up the magnification to be able to read the document, angle the light and wait seconds for the page to render, completely or otherwise.
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Finance
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The vigorous Pecora commission interviewed hundreds, including financial magnates, their underlings, brokers and analysts, compiled 12,000 pages of testimony and paved the way for a major financial services overhaul. The 1933 Glass Stegall Act, the 1934 Securities and Exchange Act of 1934 and other legislation protected the economy for the next 60 years. When these reforms unraveled in the 1980s and 1990s, the ground was laid for a “boom and bail” economy.
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Goldman Sachs is among the most visible financial parasites. Their executives have a revolving door through the US Treasury Department. They profit through “trading,” much like Enron did; including selling investments represented as AAA while simultaneously betting the value of those investments tank. Their CEO says they’re “doing God’s work,” as Enron’s CEO said, “We are on the side of angels.” A US Senate report puts the parasitic cost to Americans at $2 to $4 trillion every year. To put that figure into perspective, that’s an almost unbelievable $20,000 to $40,000 added cost per US household every year. Goldman Sachs is so happy with their “trading,” they’ll pay out a record of $23 billion in bonuses to their top employees for their 2009 work.
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Remember that $10 billion loan Goldman Sachs returned to the U.S Treasury, the move that allowed it to pay out record bonuses this year? Turns out the refund was a wash for the greediest firm on Wall Street.
Under tax laws that have been on the books for years — this is what happens when we don’t pay attention — banks are permitted to deduct bonuses from their federal taxes. According to Robert Willens, an accounting and tax analyst in New York who runs a consulting firm, Robert Willens LLC, Goldman Sachs will get a nifty $9 billion tax break for the $23 billion is will hand out in bonuses for 2009.
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Taxpayer losses from supporting Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac will top $400 billion, according to Peter Wallison, a former general counsel at the Treasury who is now a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.
“The situation is they are losing gobs of money, up to $400 billion in mortgages,” Wallison said in a Bloomberg Television interview. The Treasury Department recognized last week that losses will be more than $400 billion when it raised its limit on federal support for the two government-sponsored enterprises, he said.
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The article fails to mention is Goldman like other firms was changing its stance on the economy and mortgage market as time passed. Goldman did not start hedging when it started selling CDOs, it only started to do so when it saw the markets were going sour by the end of 2006. Gllian Tett writes in her book Fool’s Gold that Goldman turned so bearish on the mortgage market that it started to sell its mortgage positions even at a loss. She quotes a senior Goldman executive as saying quote “We could tell the markets were getting overheated, so we took a position in the ABX [to bet against the mortgage market] and other ways”. Goldman was not the only bank to take this action. Deutsche bank started betting against the mortgage market as far back as October 2005.
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It’s the prime example of why these banks are the epitome of capitalism gone wrong, a perfect example of overwhelming greed. These types of institutions will just continue doing what they’re doing until someone stops them.
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The rest of the government is complicit in this because, for much of 2009, the Treasury owned preferred shares in these companies and so it needed the banks to be profitable lest the taxpayer got robbed yet again. So the government rigged the game to make it so easy that even Citigroup ( C – news – people ), the weakest of the big banks, can start to pay the government back and leave behind the onerous restrictions of Troubled Asset Relief Program membership.
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PR/AstroTurf
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The truth is that Obama was never nearly as free of dependence on big money donors as the reporting suggested, nor was his movement as bottom-up or people-centric as his marketing implied. And this is the big story of 2009, if you ask me, the meta-story of what did, and didn’t happen, in the first year of Obama’s administration. The people who voted for him weren’t organized in any kind of new or powerful way, and the special interests–banks, energy companies, health interests, car-makers, the military-industrial complex–sat first at the table and wrote the menu. Myth met reality, and came up wanting.
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James Cameron’s new blockbuster movie Avatar won a “black lung” rating for gratuitous smoking from the Web site Scenesmoking.org, which rates motion pictures according to the amount of smoking they show.
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Some of those who oppose smoking in movies have just seen the future, and they are not happy about it.
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Scenesmoking.org, which monitors tobacco mentions in films, gave the PG-13 rated “Avatar” a rating of its own: A “black lung.” Still, Mr. Cameron’s movie, distributed by 20th Century Fox, is not the only holiday picture to earn that distinction, which indicates unacceptable depictions of tobacco.
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Censorship/Civil Rights
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Just as Bono is claiming that the world should look to China’s success in censoring the internet as a good example of how other countries can fight unauthorized internet file sharing, the Wall Street Journal is reporting on just how badly China’s “war” against the internet is going, noting that the more it tries to censor, the more trouble it’s having in doing so:
The Internet has enabled more Chinese to have more access to information today, and given them greater ability to communicate and express themselves than at any time since the founding of the People’s Republic.
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An Australian held in a Danish prison for three weeks for organising a protest during the Copenhagen climate change conference has been released.
Natasha Verco was arrested on December 15, a day before the biggest protest march during the United Nations talks in Copenhagen.
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Ministry of Justice says wide-ranging review will look at the issue of libel tourism, and whether British courts are being exploited
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Internet/Web Abuse/DRM
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An unnamed official from the Commission responds to good and deep ACTA questions from journalist Rosalie Marshall.
They say the secrecy of the mandate of the EU-Commission is crucial:
We can’t make the mandate public because it defines the limits of where the EU is prepared to go with the agreement. If it is made public and other countries gained access to it they would know how far we will go or not go with the negotiations. This could make their tasks a lot easier. It’s like if you are buying a used car and you already know how low the seller will go with the price.
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Supporting existing and new wireless broadband providers is key to encouraging broadband competition, the U.S. Department of Justice advised the U.S. Federal Communications Commission on Monday.
In a filing submitted in response to an FCC request for comments on its national broadband plan, the DOJ said that it’s unrealistic to try to promote “textbook markets of perfect competition” since the provision of broadband services is so costly. “Rather, promoting competition is likely to take the form of enabling additional entry and expansion by wireless broadband providers,” among other activities, the DOJ wrote.
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Intellectual Monopolies/Copyrights
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Accept No Substitutes: The Pirated Version of “Woverine” is Not Nearly as Good There is a mind-blowing cover story by Jonah Lehrer in the January 2010 issue of Wired that suggests that scientists, instead of being neutral observers searching for objective “truth,” actually begin do experiments to prove that their preconceptions are right. When they find contrary evidence, they either ignore it, or figure their equipment or methodology is faulty. To paraphrase Paul Simon in “The Boxer,” they see what they want to see and disregard the rest.
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In SONY BMG Music Entertainment v. Tenenbaum, defendant has filed a motion for new trial, attacking, among other things, the constitutionality of the jury’s $675,000 award as being violative of due process.
Claudio Menezes, a UNESCO official uniting international Free Software communities 03 (2004)
Digital Tipping Point is a Free software-like project where the raw videos are code. You can assist by participating.
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