OSnews

OSnews

	KDE Software Compilation 4.5.1 Released
"KDE has released a series of updates to the Plasma Desktop and Netbook workspaces, the KDE Applications and the KDE Platform. This update is the first in a series of stabilization updates to 4.5.0, coming every month, as if delivered by a cronjob. 4.5.1 brings bugfixes and translation updates on top of KDE SC 4.5.0."
	Autodesk Reintroduces Its AutoCAD Design Software for Macs
"When it comes to Apple products, the iPad and the iPhone get all the headlines. But in recent years, the company's Macintosh line of computers has enjoyed a remarkable revival that has been vital to Apple's emergence as the most valued technology company on Wall Street. In the latest sign of that comeback, Autodesk plans to announce on Tuesday that it is bringing its flagship AutoCAD design and engineering software to the Mac for the first time in nearly two decades."
	Obama Administration: Piracy Is Theft
Despite doing what I think are some great things for the American people, the Obama administration has a dark side. Joe Biden and many others on staff come straight from the RIAA camp, and it shows. Today, the Obama administration disregarded every US law relating to theft and copyright by stating that piracy is "flat, unadulterated theft".
	Palm Details webOS 2.0, Releases Beta SDK
Highly innovative but remarkably illusive - that's how I describe the webOS. The operating system never made its way to The Netherlands, and as such, I never got to try it. Now that Palm is part of HP, development on webOS continues, and the company has just detailed what's coming for developers in version 2.0.
	* "Apple Is Not Fighting Jailbreaking": Wait, What? *
Since interesting news that I'm actually knowledgeable about is still a little hard to come by, I have to work a little harder. This is something interesting to discuss: John Gruber, rather famous Apple blogger, is now arguing that Apple is in fact not fighting the jailbreaking community. Wait, what? Read more on this exclusive OSNews article...
	Fennec Alpha for Android Too Slow, But Add-ons, Sync Impress
"Mozilla has announced a new alpha release of its Fennec mobile browser for Android and the Nokia N900. Fennec offers support for add-ons and has tight integration with Firefox Sync, a browser synchronization service that was formerly called Weave. The support for Firefox Sync is arguably Fennec's killer feature, especially because Mozilla is planing to include the synchronization features out-of-the-box in Firefox 4. Users will be able to have access to the their bookmarks, browsing history, and tabs across all of their computers and supported mobile devices."
	Intel Again Seeks to Use Acquisitions to Expand in Wireless
"Intel Corp.'s $1.4 billion acquisition of Infineon Technologies AG's wireless unit marks another step by the chip maker to expand in the wireless device market, an area where it has struggled in the past. Intel's need to push further into wireless was highlighted Friday by the company's surprising warning that third-quarter revenue would fall short of its previous expectations because of weaker-than-expected demand for consumer PCs. Smartphones and other mobile devices have long been a faster-growing segment than the PC market."
	AMD To Phase Out ATI Brand
I remember a time when you bought ATI instead of NVIDIA, much the same way you still buy AMD instead of Intel. As we all know, AMD bought ATI, further confirming the implicit relationship between the two that already existed anyway. Now, though, the relationship comes to an end, since AMD has confirmed the ATI brand will be phased out.
	Judge Rules Fusion Garage, TechCrunch Were Partners
Remember that other tablet, which came out right around the same time the iPad was released? Yeah, the joojoo, by Fusion Garage. During its development, it was known as the CrunchPad, and emerged out of some form of collaboration between Michael Arrington's TechCrunch and Chandrasekhar Rathakrisnan's Fusion Garage. Things went sour between the two, and eventually, Fusion Garage released the joojoo on its own. Consequently, Arrington sued, and we've got the first major court decision.
	Lenovo To Enter Console Market
"Chinese PC maker Lenovo will go head-to-head with the big boys in the video game console market, looking to snatch away market share from the likes of Microsoft, Nintendo and Sony. On Aug 9, a team of some 40 Lenovo software engineers was spun off from the Lenovo Group to develop and market the 'Ebox', a platform similar to Microsoft's Kinect for Xbox 360."
	Google Withdraws from JavaOne
Well, this is about as surprising as Fiona Apple being awesome in every possible way. Google has announced that it has withdrawn itself from JavaOne, an annual conference on, well, Java. The cited reason? Oracle suing Google over Android's use of Java, of course.
	The First Digital Camera
I don't think you'll find many people left in our western world who prefer an old-fashioned regular camera over a digital one. While I can still appreciate the charm of fiddling with actual film and the thrill of finding out what your photos looked like all developed, digital photography is easier in just about every possible way. Thanks to The New York Times, I found a story from 2007 on the Kodak blog, detailing the ceation of the very first digital camera. In 1975. An old story, but fascinating nonetheless.
	Paul Allen Files Patent Suit Against Apple, Google, Others
Most of us here are not particularly big fans of the concept of patents. Most of us are aware of the significance of patents, we just believe the system has gone out of control and needs a serious kick in the butt. Well, it turns out not even the richest people on this earth are immune to the call of the patent troll. Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen has filed a massive patent lawsuit, using broad and vague patents to sue just about any big name in the business - from Apple to Google.
	FCC Illustrates Its Inability to Govern the Web
When Google and Verizon unveiled their joint net neutrality policy proposal, in which the FCC would play a central role in governing the internet, I mentioned how the the FCC might not be the kind of institution you'd want to hand over control to over your pornography life line (also known as the internet). Over the past few days, the FCC pretty much reiterated just why they are no the right people to govern the web.
	Commodore USA Announces the PC64: Atom in a C64 Case
I'm not really sure what to do with this. I mean, I know how popular the Commodore 64 was and still is, and how significant a machine it really was. So, when Commodore USA sends out a press release that it has acquired the rights to produce an exact replica case of the C64 (but with Intel Atom innards), I knew a lot of people would like this. At the same time, Commodore USA's website always seemed a little... Sketchy to me.
	IBM's Million Dollar CPU Is the Fastest in the World
At the Hot Chips 2010 conference, IBM announced their upcoming z196 CPU, which is really, really fast. How fast? Fastest chip in the world fast. Intended for Z-series mainframe computers, the Z196 has a clock speed of 5.2GHz. Measuring just 512 square millimeters, the Z196 is fabricated on 45nm PD SOI technology, and on its surface contains almost one and a half billion transistors. My... Processor is bigger than yours.
	OpenSolaris Board Quits En Masse
The OpenSolaris governing board fell on its collective sword Monday and resigned en masse after Oracle continued to ignore its ultimatum to appoint a liaison guy to work with it on the future of the open source project. The move was anticlimactic to say the least. Oracle last week leaked an internal e-mail into the wild effectively saying OpenSolaris is dead. The news of the mass resignation, coupled with Oracle suing Google claiming Android infringes on its Java patents, had Adobe's director of open source and standards David McAllister casting Oracle as the New Microsoft and saying "the axis of evil has shifted south about 850 miles or so".
	MPEG-LA Makes Free Internet Video Royalty Free Perpetually
We haven't talked about this one for a while, but now there's news from the MPEg-LA camp. The MPEG-LA, known patent troll and chief supplier of FUD for well over ten years, is apparently feeling the pressure from Google's WebM project, and has done a complete 180. While promising earlier this year not to charge royalties for internet video that is free to end users until the end of 2015, they've now extended this promise to eternity. This may sound like a big deal, but it changes nothing - H264 is still a legal minefield even lawyers and the MPEG-LA itself have trouble understanding.
	2010's Best Open Source Software
The InfoWorld Test Center rounds up of the past year in open source, highlighting the best open source offerings in several software categories: "The word 'best' here can mean many things. It is sometimes equivalent to 'most promising', 'most surprising', 'most subversive', 'most unnerving', 'most opportune', 'most happening', or some weird, inchoate mixture of them all. The one thing it always means is 'most useful' - to developers, IT administrators, and users on a business network." From enterprise apps, to app dev tools, to platforms and middleware, to networking software, the list is expansive, including 39 hybrid license and community offerings.
	Google Adds Voice to Gmail; US, Canada Only
"Gmail voice and video chat makes it easy to stay in touch with friends and family using your computer's microphone and speakers. But until now, this required both people to be at their computers, signed into Gmail at the same time. Given that most of us don't spend all day in front of our computers, we thought, 'wouldn't it be nice if you could call people directly on their phones?' Starting today, you can call any phone right from Gmail."
	* Should Daemons Just Be Frontends to the OS Auditing System? *
I came across a news entry at Phoronix about a new init replacement, systemd, and curiously started a read into the surprisingly heavy matter. Systemd is by no means as simple as upstart. It does far more things far more straight and in more detail. The differences are so significant that they enforce quite different configuration strategies. One can argue for both, depending on the goal to reach. However, that's not what I want to write about. After having read what systemd is capable of, and how it does it, I began to put the existence of all system daemons - in their today's forms - in question. Read more on this exclusive OSNews article...
	NAB Responds to Concerns Regarding Mandated FM Chips
A couple of days ago we talked about how the RIAA and NAB are planning on asking US Congress to mandate FM radio chips inside every cell phone. This plan was met with some ridicule, so the NAB decided to write a blog post addressing the critics. Most of the post is overshadowed by an overdose of America's favourite national pastime: WE ARE ALL GOING TO DIE. 9/11!
	Firefox 4.0 Beta 4 Introduces Panorama
Today, Mozilla released the fourth beta of Firefox 4.0. After a period of what I would call stagnation, the Mozilla team are back on track with delivering interesting UI concepts. They were sensible enough to copy Chrome's excellent tabs-on-top UI, but have now also added something called Panorama, a new and very interesting way of managing your open tabs.
	An Experimental Chip From Intel that Can Move 50Gbps
"Intel Corporation announced an important advance in the quest to use light beams to replace the use of electrons to carry data in and around computers. The company has developed a research prototype representing the world's first silicon-based optical data connection with integrated lasers. The link can move data over longer distances and many times faster than today's copper technology; up to 50 gigabits of data per second. This is the equivalent of an entire HD movie being transmitted each second."
	AMD Announces 8-Core Bulldozer CPU
"You can't say that AMD is ever boring. The company says its next-generation Bulldozer CPU core will take a unique approach to computing that goes beyond Hyper-Threading, which some believe could offer phenomenal performance."
	Windows 95 Turns 15
In what has surprised me greatly, nobody has submitted anything to us regarding this day in the history of computing. Sure, memories of her may not be fond, and with the magical unicorn power of hindsight you'd rather forget you ever dated her so intensely, but she served a purpose. She led a revolution that changed the world forever, and while you may have hoped for a more charismatic leader, I think it's unfair not to honour the fact that she turned 15 today.
	Motorola Goes Legal Against Custom Droid X Froyo Build
Upgrading all those countless Android devices to version 2.2, or Froyo, hasn't exactly been an easy task for many device makers and carriers. Between flat-out denying devices from Froyoness and already having Froyo updates sent out, Motorola has pretty much lost it. Where companies are incompetent, the geeks that roam the 'net seek to provide solace. What do you do, then, as a company? Why, you threaten your loyal customers with legal action, of course.
	Lexmark Slaps 3rd Party Cartridge Makers with Patent Suit
OSNews patent watch, at your service. Lexmark, apparently under new leadership who can't recall the defeat the company suffered back in 2005, is undertaking yet another attempt to block third party cartridges for Lexmark printers to enter the market. Instead of invoking the DMCA, they got clever this time and are claiming patent violations.
	* Rdio: Unlimited, On-Demand, Music Streaming *
Earlier today I bought a $10 album from iTumes, which I wish I hadn't. The reviews were glorious, and the previews not indicative. Listening to the album all I could hear was hipster drivel. Obviously, I wanted my money back. Well, bad luck. iTunes won't give refunds. I tweeted about it, and a friend suggested Rdio. Rdio, a brand new streaming service, currently offers a 3-day free trial -- without the need for a credit card. For $5 let's you stream their huge library on your desktop via an Adobe AIR app or browser, and for $10 let's you also stream from Android/BBerry/iOS, plus be able to sync your music with you offline on these devices. Unlike Last.fm and Pandora, Rdio let's you stream on-demand. Read more on this exclusive OSNews article...
	Virtual Router Smashes Speed Records
"Researchers in South Korea have built a networking router that transmits data at record speeds from components found in most high-end desktop computers. A team from the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology created the router, which transmits data at nearly 40 gigabytes per second--many times faster than the previous record for such a device."
	Valve Silences Steam on Linux Rumours
A rumor has been going around for about four months now that Valve is coming out with a Linux version of Steam and had a lot of people in the Linux community very excited. However Valve have officially killed the rumor. And it is not what people wants to hear - there is no Linux version of Steam in development.
	* The Future of Computing is Remote-Controlling Everything *
Kevin Rose, of Digg fame, wrote a blog post yesterday about the upcoming revolution of the TV. A sentiment that I of course agree with. However, trying to think one step ahead, it makes sense to envision that the next big device that will get "smart," is the car. And when this happens soon, everything else will follow. Read more on this exclusive OSNews article...
	Windows Phone 7 Developer Tools Go Gold September 16
Can you believe it's been only six months since Microsoft first unveiled its brand-new and most likely last-ditch effort to regain some significance in the smartphone market? Well, today the company announced that the Windows Phone 7 Developer Tools will go gold September 16, and applications submissions will be accepted from early October onwards.
	Malware Implicated in Fatal Spanair Plane Crash
Authorities investigating the 2008 crash of Spanair flight 5022 have discovered a central computer system used to monitor technical problems in the aircraft was infected with malware.
	The Dirty Little Secret About Google Android
Here's the dirty little secret about Android: After all the work Apple did to get AT&T to relinquish device control for the iPhone and all the great efforts Google made to get the FCC and the U.S. telecoms to agree to open access rules as part of the 700 MHz auction, Android is taking all of those gains and handing the power back to the telecoms.
	systemd Status Update
Lennart Poettering has posted a status update about systemd, an init/upstart alternative. systemd is able now to replace /etc/fstab and cron, and it seems it will be the default init system for Fedora 14. He has also written a post about systemd for administrators.
	Vim 7.3 Released
"This is a minor release of Vim. It consists of Vim 7.2 plus all patches, updated runtime files and some more, see below. It has been two years since the 7.2 release, thus it's not that 'minor'. But not 'major' either. Something in between, don't know how to call that."
	Kernel Testing in Userspace with 'rump' on NetBSD.
On the NetBSD Blog, there's an in depth article about how rump can be used for testing and debugging the NetBSD kernel in userspace. "This article explains how rump is the enabling technology for a safe, fast and run-anywhere kernel test suite which requires absolutely no configuration from the person running the tests."
	* Seeking New OSNews Contributors and Editors *
Starting next week, Thom Holwerda will be beginning a seven week internship at a Netherlands-based translation firm, so he'll be cutting his OSNews efforts back, and the rest of the OSNews team is going to need to fill in. We've been talking forever about how we need to recruit new editors to freshen up the viewpoints here at OSNews, and I guess there's nothing like a crisis to force everybody to do what they should have done a long time ago. So if you think you have something to contribute to the OSNews effort, read on. Read more on this exclusive OSNews article...
	Microsoft Reiterates: OEM Windows XP Dies October 22
Yes, the day is finally drawing closer: the day Windows XP died. October 22, 2010 will be the final and definitive day for the venerable operating system, since OEMs will no longer be able to pre-load it on netbooks after that day. I might not make myself popular around here with this, but thank god, it's about time that pile of junk is taken behind the shed.
	Microsoft Fixes Toolbar Update
"Microsoft has fixed the distribution scope of a toolbar update that, without the user's knowledge, installed an add-on in Internet Explorer and an extension in Firefox called Search Helper Extension. Microsoft told us that the new update is actually the same as the old one; the only difference is the distribution settings. In other words, the update will no longer be distributed to toolbars that it shouldn't be added to. End users won't see the tweak, Microsoft told Ars, and also offered an explanation on what the mystery add-on actually does."
	Chrome OS to Include Remote Desktop-like Functionality
We don't get too many details when it comes to Google's Chrome OS, but this tiny little tidbit dug up by The Register is certainly quite interesting. It looks as if Google is working on implementing remote desktop-like functionality into Chrome OS so you can directly control applications running on other computers within the browser.
	iPhone Analytics Policy Catching Attention of FTC, DoJ
"The row between Google and Apple over the strict iPhone analytics information sharing policies, which Google and its AdMob subsidiary claim unfairly shuts them out of iPhone and iPad advertising in favor of Apple's iAd, may face antitrust scrutiny. According to the Financial Times, US regulators are looking into the situation, though it's not yet clear if a formal investigation will happen."
	SCOwned: No New Trial, Novell Can Shut Down IBM Lawsuit
"SCO was dealt yet another blow in court today when District Judge Ted Stewart rejected the company's motion requesting a new trial or judgement of law. In a ruling issued today, Judge Stewart sided with a jury that issued a verdict against SCO in April, finding that Novell was the rightful owner of the UNIX SVRX copyrights. According to Judge Stewart, SCO failed to demonstrate that the jury's verdict contradicted the evidence presented in the case."
	Flash Player 10.1 Released
It's been a very long wait, but the release is finally here: Adobe has released Flash Player 10.1. Since Flash has come under increasing scrutiny, there's a lot at stake here for Adobe. This release is supposed to use far less resources while still being faster, more stable, and more secure. Update: No 64bit Flash player for now - on any platform. The Linux beta has been axed.
	* Print to Win Printer from Linux without Linux Drivers? *
This is a problem I've been dealing with for a while now. I have a Lexmark printer which I've bought without checking for compatibility with Linux (I bought it when I was still using Windows), and as it turns out, this printer is not supported in Linux. I switched to Linux on my main desktop full-time late last year, so instead of to my desktop, I hooked this printer up to my bedroom Windows 7 media server/HTPC, and whenever I need to print, I just drop the file in question on this machine, and print form there. I need a better solution. Update: As it turns out, Lexmark has recently started releasing Linux drivers (good stuff). Still, the problem at hand stands, as there might still be other printers that suffer from the same problem. Read more on this exclusive OSNews article...
	Microsoft Secretly Installs Firefox Extension Through WU
It's late here, but we're having election night, and the two leading parties are currently tied seat-wise, with a 10000-vote difference. Anyway, it gives me some time to cover a major problem: Microsoft is at it again. The company has pushed an update through Windows Update which silently, without user consent, installs two browser extensions - one for Internet Explorer, and one for Firefox.
	Google Launches New Web Indexing System
"Today, we're announcing the completion of a new web indexing system called Caffeine. Caffeine provides 50 percent fresher results for web searches than our last index, and it's the largest collection of web content we've offered. Whether it's a news story, a blog or a forum post, you can now find links to relevant content much sooner after it is published than was possible ever before."
	WebM Lands on Firefox Nightlies
WebM support has been added to Firefox trunk. "Today I landed Firefox's WebM support on mozilla-central, our Firefox development branch. It should appear in nightly builds from tonight onwards. Firefox should build with WebM support without needing any extra changes to your build configuration, unless you're building on Win32, where you'll need to have MASM installed in order to compile libvpx's optimized assembly."
	Firefox on Amiga: Timberwolf Goes Alpha
After much, much development, the developers behind AmigaOS 4 have released the first alpha of Timberwolf, the AmigaOS 4 port of the Firefox web browser. I tried it out on my Amiga, and indeed confirmed that this is very much alpha material.
	AdMob CEO: Apple's Policies Will Hurt Users, Developers
This was inevitable. AdMob founder and CEO Omar Hamoui has responded to Apple blocking AdMob from the iOS ecosystem. Unsurprisingly, Hamoui isn't particularly amused, claiming that not only is it bad for competition, it will also hurt developers and users alike.
	Office for Mac 2011 To Be 32bit Only
While WWDC is underway, Microsoft's Macintosh Business Unit has announced that Microsoft Office for Mac 2011 will be available in 32bit only. Microsoft has not yet completed the transition to from Carbon to Cocoa since it has focussed on increasing compatibility between Office for Windows and Office for Mac, and since Carbon is only available in 32bit, Redmond doesn't really have a choice. While it won't affect users in any meaningful way (unless you use gigantic spreadsheets or something), it has some Mac users riled up.
	Chrome Frame Moves Into Beta
There are numerous ways to improve your browser experience if you're somehow still using Internet Explorer. You can download a modern browser with proper standards support, like Firefox or Chrome, but there are numerous scenarios where this isn't possible. One of those is in corporate scenarios, where a lot of people still rely on Internet Explorer. A solution here is Google's Chrome Frame, which just went into beta.
	Nokia N8 Demonstration: Nokia's Got Work to Do
Like Research in Motion, Nokia is playing catch-up, software-wise, to the iPhone OS and Android, which is funny in a cruel way because both Nokia and RIM have a far larger market share than both of them. Nokia has put out a preview video of their upcoming N8 smartphone, which runs the latest Symbian version, Symbian^3. Nokia, like RIM, has got work to do.
	Intel May Add Hardware Support for WebM to Atom CE4100
One name was conspicuously absent from the list of companies backing Google's WebM project and the VP8 codec. Despite other chip makers and designers being on the list, like AMD, NVIDIA, ARM, and Qualcomm, Intel didn't make an appearance. Yesterday, the company made its first careful commitment to the WebM project.
	The CLI Reincarnate: the Gesture Interface
Now this is an interesting article, written by Lukas Mathis. He makes the interesting case that the gesture-based interface, as seen on the iPad and many modern smartphones, is actually more akin to the command line interface than the graphical one. He also offers a number of solutions for that pesky problem of gestures being anything but discoverable.
	Firefox Home Coming to the iPhone
As most of you probably know, Apple does not allow competing browsers into the App Store. As such, browser makers are forced to come up with inventive solutions to still get their name out there among iPhone users, and after Opera's successful attempt, Mozilla is going to take a stab at it too. Their solution is different, but no less interesting - especially if you're already a Firefox user.
	Resource Management for Web Applications in ServiceOS
Microsoft Research continues to evolve its Gazelle concept. "In this paper, we present ServiceOS, a platform that tightly integrates a multi-principal browsing architecture with the underlying OS. ServiceOS provides a centralized, fine-grained resource access control model, and uses recursive web-oriented algorithms for sharing system resources. ServiceOS also introduces new abstractions that allow a web service to explicitly allocate and manage resources for any helper services they embed (e.g., via iframes). A key challenge that ServiceOS solves is managing resources in the face of complex web service composition."
	Facebook Finally Gets it with New, Simpler Privacy Controls
"Facebook has introduced its newly overhauled privacy controls, and most critics should be pleased this time around. The company noted during a press conference Thursday that the site today is very different from how it was when it first started in 2004, admitting that the privacy controls had grown into something of a Frankenstein monster as the company kept adding on features. Thanks to feedback from users, CEO Mark Zuckerberg said, Facebook has completely revamped its offerings and has begun slowly rolling out the change to users."
	Apple, Microsoft Stock Does Stuff
Yesterday, the technology world was full of this whole "market capitalisation" thing where Apple overtook Microsoft and became the biggest technology company in the world. Illustrating the futility of this stuff, the situation has already been reversed today, but before the end of the day, Apple may overtake Microsoft again. Or not. Or it may start raining unicorns. No, we're not going to keep track of this stuff. I'm just mentioning it here so nobody can accuse us of being anti-Apple. So, here it goes: for one night, Apple was the biggest technology company in the world by market capitalisation. I hugged my Macs and iPhone.
	Writing iPhone Apps with Visual Studio?
It's rumour time! Analyst Trip Chowdhry, with Global Equities Research, is claiming that Microsoft has been allotted seven minutes during Steve Jobs' WWDC keynote speech. Supposedly, the Redmond giant will unveil that developers will be able to write native iPhone, iPad, and Mac applications using Visual Studio 2010 on Windows. As crazy as this sounds, this shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone who can move beyond the outdated Apple vs. Microsoft attitude.
	Genode Becomes Noisy, Confines Its Processes
With the just released version 10.05, the Genode OS Framework reaches out to new application areas by providing a solution for subjecting all processes to mandatory access control, and adding the infrastructure needed for high-quality audio processing. On the way towards running general-purpose OS workloads, the port of the Webkit-based Arora web browser running as a native Genode process marks a pivotal point for the project.
	HP Tops IBM in Recovering Server Market, Gartner Says
Hewlett-Packard knocked IBM from the top spot in worldwide server revenue during the first quarter, as the market for x86 systems picked up but sales of Unix and mainframe systems continued to decline, Gartner said on Tuesday.
	Korona 4.4.3 Released
Pavel Heimlich has announced the release of an updated version of Korona 4.4.3: "Korona is the live DVD adding KDE4 packages on top of OpenSolaris. It is intended to be the showcase of the current state of the kde-solaris project, definitely not a distribution for any serious use."
	MeeGo 1.0 Released
"Today we are announcing the project release of MeeGo v1.0. This release provides developers with a stable core foundation for application development and a rich user experience for Netbooks. The MeeGo Netbook user experience is the first to appear, with the development of the MeeGo Handset user experience moving to the open in June."
	US Launches Antitrust Probe Into Apple's iTunes
Well, this was as inevitable as the tides rolling in. The New York Times is reporting that the US Department of Justice is investigating Apple's tactics in the digital music market. The antitrust probe is still in an early phase, and is said to focus on "the dynamics of selling music online".
	The Foxconn Suicides
Now this is a subject I've been tiptoeing around for a while now, not entirely sure what to do with it: the suicides at Chinese electronics manufacturer Foxconn. Instead of acting all morally smug and superior from my comfortable rural home in one of the richest countries in the world, I want to talk about two things journalists and bloggers should really stop focussing on when writing about this story: Apple, and the suicides. Wait, what?
	Google Launches Encrypted Search Beta
Looking at the past few week of Google news, you'll be forgiven for thinking Google doesn't do anything else beyond making Android. While there's sexier stuff going on within Google, the company is also still trying to improve its core user service: search. They've launched encrypted search today, and it will be rolled out across the world in the coming days.
	EyeOS 2.0 Beta Released
EyeOS has released version 2.0 Beta. "After several months of hard work we're happy to announce the immediate availability of the official release of eyeOS 2.0 Beta. And even more: the new release doesn't come alone but with the brand new eyeOS.org website, which has not ben redesigned for the last 2 years now. eyeOS 2.0 Beta can be downloaded from the new downloads page and tested from a Beta test server in eyeOS.info."
	Google Chrome for Mac: Ready, Beta, Now Stable!
"Today, I'm happy to announce that Google Chrome for Mac is being promoted out of beta to our stable channel. We believe that it provides not only the stability, performance and polish that every Mac user expects, but also a seamless native Mac application experience that Mac users will feel instantly at home with."
	Microsoft Shakes up Consumer Products Unit
"It's game time for Steven A. Ballmer, Microsoft's chief executive. Microsoft disclosed a series of management changes on Tuesday that will alter the shape of its business unit responsible for products like the Zune music player, Xbox gaming console and phones. Most notably, Robbie Bach, the current head of the entertainment and devices group, will retire from Microsoft after 22 years at the company. As a result, Mr. Ballmer will take a more hands-on role in Microsoft's gadgets and games by having various division heads report directly to him." Maybe we'll finally see an Xbox that doesn't sound like a tornado. I recently finally got the opportunity to fiddle around with a PlayStation 3 (the big one), and by god, the Xbox is a joke, construction-wise, compared to Sony's beast.
	Slackware 13.1 Released
Pat Volkerding has released Slackware 13.1. "We have chosen to use the 2.6.33.4 kernel after testing the 2.6.33.x kernel branch extensively. Slackware 13.1 contains version 4.4.3 of the KDE Software Compilation. Several Xfce components have been updated as well. Xfce continues to be a great lightweight desktop that doesn't get in your way. If you haven't looked at this great desktop environment lately, you might want to give it another try. If you prefer GNOME, there are teams online producing GNOME for Slackware."
	Fedora 13 Released
It's Fedora release day! The Fedora project has pushed out version 13 of its cutting-edge Linux distribution. There's a whole boatload of improvements, some of which come from the wider Free software ecosystem, but of course, there's also a lot Fedora/Red Hat-specific stuff.
	* All-Out War: The Computing World's Battle Lines Are Drawn *
Over at Daringfireball this past weekend, John Gruber put words to what many people are thinking about after Google's rush of Android announcements and not-subtle Apple-bashing at this week's I/O conference: "all-out war." I agree with Gruber that a good old-fashioned bitter rivalry could be a great thing for the computing world, and for smartphone/handheld fans in particular. Read more on this exclusive OSNews article...
	Why Google Is Rich
Google has explained on its blog where it gets its money from. Sort of. "Today, in the spirit of greater transparency with AdSense publishers, we're sharing the revenue shares for our two main AdSense products - AdSense for content and AdSense for search."
	Open Source Innovations on the Cutting Edge
InfoWorld's Neil McAllister takes on the old saw that open source doesn't innovate, highlighting seven innovative new ideas in software that you may be able to buy from proprietary vendors some day, but that you can only get for free from the open source community today. "Proprietary software vendors would have you believe that the open source movement has produced nothing but knockoffs of existing products and cast-off code that couldn't cut it in the free market," McAllister writes, "The open source movement remains a font of innovation to this day, and not just in the commercial sector. Numerous projects founded by universities, loosely knit communities, and individuals are exploring areas yet to be taken on by mainstream, proprietary software products."
	Outlook Lock-in Could Vanish with New Open Source Projects
"Back in February, Microsoft released public specifications for PST files, the databases used by Outlook for storing and archiving e-mail. To these specifications, Microsoft has now added a pair of developer-oriented open source projects: the PST Data Structure View Tool for cracking open PSTs to browse inside them, and the PST File Format SDK, a cross-platform C++ library for working with PST files programmatically."
	NVIDIA: iPad Set Bar Too Low
Ah, NVIDIA's CEO, Jen-Hsun Huang. This guy is usually to the point, and doesn't sugar-coat his words, so interviews with him are generally good stuff to read. This time around, he had Intel and Apple down his sights. The iPad's A4 processor doesn't measure up to his company's Tegra 2, and Intel's Z6 Moorestown is not competitive in any way. At least, that's what he claims.
	BlackBerry OS 6.0 Pre-release: RIM's Got Work to Do
So, we've talked a lot about Android last week due to Google's I/O conference, but what about the other guys competing in this field? Research In Motion, the Canada's largest smartphone maker, is hard at work developing version 6.0 of the BlackBerry operating system, and if a video of a pre-release build is any indication, they've still got some work to do.
	Nero Files Antitrust Case Against MPEG-LA
Nero AG, a company with one of the most fitting names ever (can you imagine a company called Hitler or Stalin 2000 years from now?), has filed an anti-trust lawsuit against the MPEG-LA. The German technology company claims the licensing body has abused its monopoly power, and that is has not honoured agreements made with the US Department of Justice. There's some juicy stuff in here.
	Episode 37: It Involves Google
I wonder what this podcast could be about? In the show Tess gets the opportunity to air her opinions on the Google announcements, particularly around Android and we fill the discussion on VP8, Adobe being a part of it, Google TV and how with friends like the MPEG-LA, who needs enemies? No Thom this week due to Professor Layton and the Misplaced Microphone.
	MS Shifts Robotics Strategy, Robotics Studio Available Free
"Over the past year or so, Microsoft's robotics group has been working quietly, very quietly. That's because, among other things, they were busy planning a significant strategy shift. Microsoft is upping the ante on its robotics ambitions by announcing today that its Robotics Developer Studio, or RDS, a big package of programming and simulation tools, is now available to anyone for free."
	CERN's Bowling Balls
"10 November 1972: CERN's Bent Stumpe places an order for 12 bowling balls for a total cost of 95 US dollars. Although not evident at first sight, he is buying the heart of some of the first tracking devices to be used in the SPS control room. Today, Bent Stumpe's device would be called a desktop mouse..."
	First Look: VP8 vs. H264
Now that Google has opened up VP8, the big question is obviously how it'll hold up to H264. Of course, VP8 already wins by default because it's open source and royalty free, but that doesn't mean we should neglect the quality issue. Jan Ozer from StreamingMedia.com has put up an article comparing the two codecs, and concludes that the differences are negligible - in fact, only in some high-motion videos did H264 win out. As always, this is just one comparison and most certainly anything but conclusive. Update: Another comparison. I can't spot the difference, but then again, I'm no expert.
	Windows 3.0 Turns 20 Today
"The first truly successful Microsoft Windows operating system is twenty years old today; Windows 3.0 was launched on the 22nd of May 1990 and was the successor to Windows 2.1x. The Graphics User interface (technically it was not an operating system) sat on top of MS-DOS and could run applications for the operating system from within a Window and many might fondly remember that it was available on 5.25-inch high density floppy disks. More significantly, it proved to be the perfect partner for Intel's then-new range of 386 processor, which bought protected mode and extended memory capabilities to the market."
	Countries Launch Investigations Into Google Wifi Collecting
This issue kind of fell by the wayside in all the WebM and Android violence, but apart from the cool things Google did this past week, they've also done something really bad. They claim it's a mistake, but the company has collected 600GB of data from open personal wireless networks in 33 countries through its Street View cars, prompting several countries to initiate official investigations into the search giant.
	Playable Pac Man on Google Today
To commemorate Pac Man's 30 year anniversary, Google has not only made a Pac Man-themed Google logo, but it's playable, and shockingly included the Pac Man theme music, which startled, but ultimately delighted, my officemates and me this morning. If you press the insert coin button, Ms. Pac Man joins the party. I do hope, however, that Google refrains from including theme music on its homepage in the future.
	eComStation 2.0 Released
After god knows how many years, it's finally here: the final release of eComStation 2.0. We first reported on eComStation 2.0 back in December 2005, when the first beta was released, and between then and now, we've seen countless betas and release candidates come and go, but the wait is finally over.
	New AROS NVIDIA Driver Needs Testers
Good news from the AROS world. Thanks to a bounty, they've been working on Gallium3D for a while, and the fruit of this work is starting to taste good. Part of this effort included a 3D driver for NVIDIA cards, and now a 2D driver, based on Nouveau, is being developed as well. This driver has reached beta status, and testers are needed.
	Patent Troll Larry Horn of MPEG-LA Assembling VP8 Patent Pool
Let the spreading of FUD begin! Known patent troll Larry Horn, CEO of MPEG-LA, is clearly feeling the heat - a heat that might set fire to his company's license to print money. After a decade of empty threats towards Theora, the company is apparently putting its it's-impossible-to-create-a-video-codec-that-doesn't-infringe-on-our-stuff attitude into practice once again, by assembling a patent pool to go after VP8. Google, in the meantime, is not impressed.
	The In-depth Technical Analysis of VP8; Counterpoints
There's an incredible amount of momentum behind Google's WebM Project. Opera, Mozilla, and of course Google will all include it in their browsers by default, meaning about 35% of web users will be able to use it with a minimal amount of fuss. On top of that, Microsoft has changed its previously announced plans to make HTML5 video in Internet Explorer 9 H264-only to include VP8 as well. Only Apple's opinion was unclear - until now.
	Lightspark Reaches Beta Status
Lightspark, the project that aims to create an LLVM-based Free Flash payer, has reached beta status. "JIT compilation of ActionScript to native x86 bytecode using LLVM; hardware accelerated rendering using OpenGL Shaders (GLSL); very good and robust support for current-generation ActionScript 3; a new, clean codebase exploiting multithreading and optimized for modern hardware. Designed from scratch after the official Flash documentation was released."
	10 Questions for MPEG-LA on H264
"Prior to Google's announcement of its open sourcing the VP8 video codec, a spokesperson for MPEG LA - the licensing agent that manages the patent portfolio for multimedia technologies relating to the H.264 codec, among others - agreed to answer ten questions submitted to the agency in advance. Those questions regard how it licenses the codec that Microsoft and Apple consider the best solution for HTML 5, the next markup language for the Web." Ten questions, ten answers, and the H264 licensing and royalties mess has managed to become even less clear. Let's compare this to WebM: "You can do whatever you want with the WebM code without owing money to anybody." Now you again, MPEG-LA.
	Android-based Google TV Coming to Living Rooms this Fall
"Google has finally announced its long-rumored TV efforts at Google I/O. Senior product manager Rishi Chandra said during the Thursday keynote that 'video should be consumed on the biggest, best, and brightest screen in your house, and that's the TV', and that it hoped to combine the Web and TV-viewing experience in ways that others have yet to do."
	Google Unveils Android 2.2, Takes Aim at Apple
At the Google I/O conference, Google just held its second keynote address, which focussed on Android. The talk was held by Vic Gundotra, and he unveiled a number of new features coming in Android 2.2 "Froyo", as well as some features coming in Froyo+1. The main theme of the entire keynote? Openness and choice, and a whole bucketload of not-so-subtle jabs at Apple. I'd like to apologise upfront for a possible lack of critical notes in this article - I'm still handing out the brownie points to Google for yesterday.
	Xiph.Org Announces Support for WebM Open Media Project
Monty from Xiph.org Foundation, the people behind Theora and Vorbis, have announced their support for Google's WebM container format. "The Xiph.Org Foundation is pleased to announce its support of the WebM open media project as a project launch partner. As announced earlier today at the Google I/O Developer Conference, the WebM format combines the VP8 video codec, the Matroska container, and the Vorbis audio codec developed by Xiph into a high-quality, open, unencumbered format for video delivery on the Web. Xiph will continue to contribute to WebM as a whole and collaborate in its further development and deployment." Remember, people, without the hard work from the boys and girls at Xiph, Google would not have been able to do this.
	EU Busts Price-Fixing DRAM Chipmakers
European antitrust regulators have fined nine semiconductor manufacturers more than USD 404 million following a years-long investigation into price fixing in the market for DRAM memory chips. The European Commission said all of the companies submitted settlements admitting their liability for infringement. The companies fined are Samsung Electronics, Infineon, Hynix Semiconductor, Elpida Memory, NEC Electronics, Hitachi, Toshiba, Mitsubishi Electric and Nanya Technology. A tenth company, Micron, escaped a fine since it told the Commission about the cartel in 2002.
	OpenBSD 4.7 Released
OpenBSD 4.7 is the newest installment in the proactively secure UNIX-like operating system. With 4.7 comes a range of new features including support for the Loongson 2E and 2F MIPS-compatible processors. See the release page for a complete list of new features.
	Chrome Unveils Chrome Web Store
"We believe it should be easier for users to discover web apps and for developers to reach a large audience. That's why today at Google I/O, we announced the Chrome Web Store, an open marketplace for web apps. Google Chrome users who find web apps in the store will be able to create convenient shortcuts in Chrome for easy access. Also, developers will have the option to easily sell their apps through the store using a convenient and secure payment system."
	IBM Ships Servers Equipped with NVIDIA GPUs
IBM has updated its System x iDataPlex servers to include graphics processors from Nvidia. The new servers are aimed at organizations that want to run scientific and commercial applications on graphics processors.
	Adobe Backs HTML5 in Dreamweaver
Despite its recent feud with Apple over HTML5 and Flash, Adobe will add HTML5 and CSS3 support to its Dreamweaver HTML authoring tool. With the Adobe HTML5 Pack extension for Dreamweaver CS5, developers leveraging HTML5 and CSS3 gain such capabilities as code-hinting, in which the tool helps finish lines of code based on what already has been entered on the keyboard. HTML5 Pack extension also features WebKit engine updates and improvements to support video and audio in the Dreamweaver Live View capability for previewing designs. Also, HTML5 starter layouts are featured.
	Microsoft: Internet Explorer 9 To Support VP8
This warrants a new post as far as I'm concerned, mostly because the original post is getting buried in updates and will soon drop below the fold. Microsoft has just announced it will support VP8 in HTML5 video in Internet Explorer 9, but only if the user has the DirectShow filter installed. Update: Yes, the updates keep on coming. Zencoder has added support for VP8. Update II: Zencoder's side project, video.js, offers a player that can fallback between h.264, OGG and VP8 on most browsers. Support for Android browsers is underway too. Update III: The H264 supporters' hardware argument for mobile is sounding moot too, since ARM explains on its blog that mobile devices with Cortex-A8 and Snapdragon processors "will be able to take advantage of WebM" through those chips' NEON SIMD engine.
	* Howto: MacOS 9 on Ubuntu Using SheepShaver *
Remember MacOS 9, or Classic as Apple named it once Mac OS X was released? On PowerPC Macintosh machines, you can install a Classic environment which launches a virtualised instance of MacOS 9 whenever you launch a Classic application. This environment has been dropped from Intel releases of Mac OS X, but thanks to SheepShaver, you can still set it up yourself on Mac OS X, Linux, Windows, and even BeOS if you want to. I decided to try SheepShaver on my Ubuntu machine, and discovered just how easy it really is. Read more on this exclusive OSNews article...
	BREAKING: Google Opens VP8 Codec, Enables it on YouTube
Yes, I broke my own rules and used a "breaking" modifier for this story (let me have my fun for once). Here we have it, as the rumour mill suggested, Google has released the On2 VP8 video codec as open source (royalty free, BSD-style), while also launching the WebM container format which combines a VP8 video stream with Vorbis audio. Support for WebM has been enabled on YouTube's HTML5 beta, and you can download patches against ffmpeg as well as DirectShow filters for Windows (Gstreamer plugins are labelled as "coming soon"). Mac users are out of luck for now; no QuickTime plugins have been announced yet. Update: The WebM blog is now open - and the list of partners is pretty decent already. It includes ARM, NVIDIA, AMD, Qualcomm, and many others. Update II: VP8 will be baked into Flash. Update III: The Opera labs version with WebM support has been released too, for Linux, Mac, and Windows.
	Facebook's Privacy Woes; Chrome Issue Tempest in a Teapot
If there's one subject that's really hot right now on the web, it's privacy. There's the whole Facebook saga, and especially the company's CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, seems somewhat averse to the concept of privacy. We also have a much smaller issue with the Chrome web browser, where someone found out zoom settings are stored somewhere, even when in incognito mode. It turned out to be a feature (sort of) but it does highlight how important the concept of privacy on the web has become.
	Google to Microsoft on Office vs. Docs: Oh Yeah?
"Google's hackles are raised over Microsoft's claim that Google Docs doesn't work well with Office files, and in fact, has a tendency to butcher Office's page design elements. Alex Payne, Director, Online Product Management, Microsoft, said Office and Google Docs don't play well together because Google Docs converts Office files into a different file format for viewing and editing, which strips out fonts, styles, charts, and other page elements. On Wednesday, Google said it has made a lot of progress in maintaining document fidelity when importing Microsoft Office documents into Google Docs. But Google apparently also sees some irony in Microsoft's reasoning."
	Fedora 13 Delay Fixes Linux GRUB Bug
"No, Fedora 13 Linux is not coming out today. The release was pushed back by a week to fix a number of blocker bugs, among them is an interesting one that many users might simply consider to be just a papercut nuisance."
	Apple Quietly Boosts MacBook Speed, Battery Life
"Apple today quietly refreshed its entry-level MacBook laptop, boosting the processor speed and inserting a longer-life battery. The MacBook remains priced at $999. Apple bumped the MacBook's Intel Core 2 Duo processor speed to 2.4GHz, up from 2.2GHz, and replaced the battery with a 10-hr. battery to match the estimate that it uses in the higher-priced MacBook Pro line. Like the batteries used in those more expensive cousins, the MacBook's is within the case, and cannot be swapped out by the user. The MacBook now sports Nvidia's GeForce 320M integrated graphics, the specially-made-for-Apple successor to the GeForce 9400M, the MacBook's former chipset. The GeForce 320M also powers the two lowest-priced 13-in. MacBook Pro laptops, priced at $1199 and $1499."
	revMobile Rejected from App Store, Unity Team Not Worried
While I was too young to experience its heyday, I have heard a lot of people wax lyrically about Apple's HyperCard. Even Steve Jobs himself said, earlier this year, that he'd love for a HyperCard-like environment to come to the iPhone, but that someone would have to build it. Well, someone did indeed build it, called it revMobile, but Apple has rejected 'it' from the App Store (i.e., applications developed using revMobile) because it violates section 3.3.1 of the iPhone SDK agreement. The team behind Unity, however, are luckier: Unity games are still being accepted into the App Store, and as such, they're not worried.
	Google Afraid of Cougars, Bans Ads
Ah, American society and sex. For the number one producer of pornography, American society sure doesn't tolerate sex. We already have Steve Jobs going the 'think-of-the-children' route, and now it seems Google has similar problems - Google is banning so-called "cougar" dating sites from advertising via its network, while on the other hand, it does not have a problem with ads where older men can seek younger women. Hypocrisy, thy name is society.
	YouTube Turns Five
Has it only been five years? Yes, it has only been five years. The site that has become synonymous with video on the web, the site that sparked so many delightful internet memes, turns five years old today. Whether it's the best line in video game history repeated a million times over, or the most beautiful piece of art ever created in human history (the lesser-known HD version, of course), YouTube has it all.
	Linux 2.6.34 Released
Linux 2.6.34 has been released. This version includes the distributed filesystem Ceph and LogFS, a filesystem for flash devices. Other features are a driver for almost-native KVM network performance, the VMware ballon driver, the "kprobes jump" optimization for dynamic probes, new perf features (the "perf lock" tool, cross-platform analysis support), support for GPU switching, several Btrfs improvements, RCU lockdep, asynchronous suspend/resume, several new drivers and many other small improvements. You can peruse the full changelog as well.
	Wine 1.2 Planned for June 2010 Release
The folks at WineHQ are gearing up for the second release of Wine. "The 64-bit support is now more or less complete, and we have most of the fancy new icons, so it's time to think about the next stable release. Unless some major problems come up, 1.1.44 will be the last of the 1.1.x series. The next release will be 1.2-rc1, which will mark the beginning of the code freeze. This should result in a 1.2 final sometime in June."
	JIT Brings Speed to Android 2.2
Google is set to announce Android 2.2 at the Google I/O event this week and one of the highly anticipated features will provide a big boost for performance and battery life. Originally the Dalvik virtual machine was implemented as an interpreter, but now a JIT compiler will be used. Already benchmarks show a roughly 6x improvement in numeric performance with the new JIT. While this will make Snapdragon-powered phones like the Nexus One seem even more responsive it will have the biggest impact on lower end phones using ARM11-based chipsets. It remains to be seen how many existing models will receive upgrades to 2.2.
	webOS Boots, Runs on PC Hardware Without Modifications
And here's to the good stuff. When HP bought Palm a few weeks ago, the computer giant made it very clear they are going to put the webOS on a tablet, and maybe even on a netbook. While it has never been a secret that the webOS actually runs just fine on x86, nobody ever tried to actually boot it on real hardware. Until now, that is - and it works, without any modifications.
	Apache support for Grand Central Dispatch (GCD)
FreeBSD developer Robert Watson has announced an Apache GCD MPM that uses Apple's Grand Central Dispatch concurrent programming framework, and cites 1/4 the number of lines of code for threaded MPMs to accomplish the same goals. Currently, the MPM is being distributed on Mac OS X Forge, and runs on FreeBSD and Mac OS X. Apache developer Paul Querna has proposed merging it to the Apache trunk. There are also ongoing efforts to port libdispatch to Solaris and Linux, so hopefully it will work there soon as well!
	LLVM Gets Its Own C++ Standard Library
The LLVM developers seem to be driven to replace all parts of the GCC toolchain and libraries with home-grown alternatives under BSD-style licenses. The latest addition to the project is libc++, an implementation of the C++ standard library which is faster and uses less memory than the GCC libstdc++. The developers also intend to support standard library debugging which is ABI compatible to the release version, which should help developers cut down on lengthy recompile-and-debug cycles. The project is still in an early state but it already implements 85% of the C++0x standard library. As with the rest of the LLVM project, the development of libc++ is being supported by Apple.
	DOSBox 0.74 Released
This article falls under the category of emulation. The venerable DOSBox emulator has been incremented to version 0.74. DOSBox emulates an IBM compatible PC computer running MS-DOS and is great for all you retro gamers or those wishing to run legacy applications. Personally I would love to relive the past with all the great games of yore. There is an extensive change log listing all the improvements, so head on over to the official website to peruse them.
	Bear and Monkey Smack Apple with Patent Suit
"Apple has been slapped with another patent infringement lawsuit - but the suit says more about the festering sore that is the US patent system than it does about the individual patents involved. The lawsuit was filed by Austin, Texas inventor Eric Gould Bear, President and CEO of interface design firm MonkeyMedia. The core of his infringement claim is that his patents cover a user-interface concept that he calls 'Seamless Contraction' - essentially a set of techniques to narrow the display of information to that which is most 'salient', to use his term, to the user's needs."
	Jobs: iPad Provides Freedom from Porn
"I didn't plan to pick a fight with Steve Jobs last night. It just sort of happened: An iPad advertisement ticked me off; I sent the Apple CEO an angry email; he told me about 'freedom from porn'. The electronic debate proceeded from there." Says the man who used to use LSD. This man knows how to sell iPads to America: think of the children!
	Wild Fox: Firefox Fork with H.264 Support
Mozilla, sticking to its ideals of the open web, decided long ago that support for the patent-encumbered H264 codec would not be included in any of its products. Not only is H264 wholly incompatible with the open web and Free software, it is also incredibly expensive. Mozilla could use one of the open source implementations, but those are not licensed, and the MPEG-LA has been quite clear in that it will sue those who encode or decode H264 content without a license. Software patents, however, are only valid in some parts of the world, so an enterprising developer has started a project that was sure to come eventually: Firefox builds with H264 support.
	Commodore PET 65816 CPU Card
Andre Fachat has created a CPU add-in card for Commodore PET machines. "It speeds up your PET to up to 12.5MHz (at least that's the plan for the final stage, but it currently looks good!). The board uses a 65816 CPU that runs at up to 12.5MHz, plus a Xilinx CPLD as logic glue. It includes up to 1MByte fast RAM (run at CPU speed) plus 512k parallel Flash ROM, that can be used as boot ROM". Source code and schematics are provided. Via Commodore News Page.
	* Why OSNews Is No Longer OSNews *
There's one complaint we here at OSNews get thrown in our faces quite often: what's up with the lack of, you know, operating system news on OSNews? Why so much mobile phone news? Why so much talk of H264, HTML5, and Flash? Where's the juicy news on tomorrow's operating systems? Since it's weekend, I might as well explain why things are the way they are. Hint: it has nothing to do with a lack of willingness. Read more on this exclusive OSNews article...
	"My Amiga Killed a Troll!"
A few weeks ago, Novell and Red Hat jointly fended off a patent infringement suit thrown their way by a patent troll. The patent in question more or less came down to the concept of virtual desktops - and thanks to Groklaw, several people helped in finding cases of prior art. The most interesting one of all? A carefully restored and working Amiga 1000 demonstrated to the judge and jury.
	* Why Flash Dissatisfies Me, and What Adobe Can Do About it *
It annoys me that Flash is required for most video sites. Especially when Flash isn't available on a lot of devices or at least not the latest, required version. Whenever I try to use my Internet Tablet to watch shows on sites like Hulu, Veoh, Crackle, Joost, etc., I can't, because they require a newer version of Flash, and I'm stuck with what I have. Thankfully not every site uses the latest version. At least not yet anyways. Read more on this exclusive OSNews article...
	Btrfs Possibly Default File System Next Ubuntu Release
"UDS is over! And in the customary wrap-up I stood up and told the audience what the Foundations team have been discussing all week. One of the items is almost certainly going to get a little bit of publicity. We are going to be doing the work to have btrfs as an installation option, and we have not ruled out making it the default. I do stress the emphasis of that statement, a number of things would have to be true for us to take that decision."
	Search Warrant Affidavit Lost iPhone Made Public
We haven't discussed the lost iPhone 4G from Apple for a while now, mostly because there was nothing new to report. Now that the 10-page search warrant affidavit has been made available to the public, we finally have a much more complete picture of what exactly went down.
	Apple 'Responds' to Adobe's Ad Campaign
Every now and then, you come across things that make the internet worthwhile. So yeah, there's this whole genitalia length comparing competition going on between Adobe and Apple, where both companies are actually arguing, with straight faces, which of the two is more open (which to me comes across as Mario and Zelda arguing over who's less of a sell-out). Luckily, though, there's the internet to make us laugh.
	A Sneak Peek at the Native Client SDK
"Today, we're happy to make available a developer preview of the Native Client SDK - an important first step in making Native Client more accessible as a tool for developing real web applications. When we released the research version of Native Client a year ago, we offered a snapshot of our source tree that developers could download and tinker with, but the download was big and cumbersome to use. The Native Client SDK preview, in contrast, includes just the basics you need to get started writing an app in minutes."
	Google Stops Selling the Nexus One - But Doesn't
Google announced today that they'll stop selling the famed superphone, the Nexus One, directly to the public. Instead, Google will continue to sell the phone through carriers in the US.
	Hulu: HTML5 Not Ready for Us
According to Hulu, HTML5 is not yet ready for its needs. "We continue to monitor developments on HTML5, but as of now it doesn't yet meet all of our customers' needs," Hulu writes, "Our player doesn't just simply stream video, it must also secure the content, handle reporting for our advertisers, render the video using a high performance codec to ensure premium visual quality, communicate back with the server to determine how long to buffer and what bitrate to stream, and dozens of other things that aren't necessarily visible to the end user."
	Four Nerds and a Cry to Arms Against Facebook
"A few months back, four geeky college students, living on pizza in a computer lab downtown on Mercer Street, decided to build a social network that wouldn't force people to surrender their privacy to a big business. It would take three or four months to write the code, and they would need a few thousand dollars each to live on. They gave themselves 39 days to raise $10,000, using an online site, Kickstarter, that helps creative people find support." They call the project Diaspora and have managed to raise $100K in just 20 days.
	Adobe Launches 'We Love Apple' Campaign
Adobe has gone on the offensive - big time. The company has started a rather massive advertisement campaign on the web as well as in print in various large US newspapers, in answer to Apple's battle with Flash and Adobe. In the meantime, Adobe received support from an unexpected corner - Andy Gryc, product marketing manager at QNX, has written a lengthy blog post supporting Adobe.
	* The Music Experience: MPD vs AppleTV *
For over 9 months now we use our Apple TV as our music entertainment system in our home. And when I mean "music entertainment system", I mean just that. We don't use our Apple TV for anything else, not even video (our much more video-capable Sony PS3 bears that task). We used to use CDs, in a 250 CD-changer device, but the experience was not nearly as good as when dealing with files that have metadata. So we got ourselves an Apple TV. On the other side of the country, a friend of ours uses the open source MPD solution. In this article I'll try to figure out which one of the two is the best solution for our usage pattern. Read more on this exclusive OSNews article...
	GNOME Shell Mockup Takes the Virtual Out of Virtual Desktops
The problem with just about every virtual desktop implementation is just that - they're virtual. This means that beyond the ability to move windows to specific desktops, you're still looking at exactly the same desktop, no matter what virtual desktop number you switched to. A mockup for GNOME Shell is trying to take the virtual out of virtual desktop.
	The End of the C4 Developer Conference
Since 2006, Jonathan "Wolf" Rentzsch has organised the popular and successful C4 developer conference for independent Mac software developers. In a blog post published yesterday, Rentzsch announced that due to Apple's infamous section 3.3.1 in the iPhone developer agreement, the C4 conference will not return this year.
	Future GNOME: What to Expect in GNOME 3.0
"The release of GNOME 3.0. the popular desktop's first major release in eight years, promises to be the major free software event in autumn 2010. Where is GNOME now? What can we expect of GNOME 3.0? Of GNOME 3 as a series of releases?"
	HTC Sues Apple for Patent Infringement
Well, this is about as surprising as the tides rolling in: HTC has sued Apple for patent infringement. Earlier this year, Apple sued HTC, focussing on the Taiwanese phone maker's Android devices. HTC has now responded with a patent suit of its own.
	Microsoft Launches Office 2010
The Microsoft empire is built upon two pillars: the Windows operating system, and Microsoft Office. Windows 7 made its way unto the scene last year, and now it's time to work on the other pillar. Today, Microsoft officially launched Microsoft Office 2010 and SharePoint 2010. Regular customers will be able to purchase the new versions next month, starting at 119 USD.
	It's Official: Valve Releasing Steam, Source Engine for Linux
"Valve Corporation has today rolled out their Steam Mac OS X client to the general public and confirmed something we have been reporting for two years: the Steam content delivery platform and Source Engine are coming to Linux. This news is coming days after we discovered proof in Steam's Mac OS X Client of Linux support and subsequently found more Linux references and even the unreleased Steam Linux client. The day has finally come and Linux gamers around the world have a reason to rejoice, as this is the biggest news for the Linux gaming community that sees very few tier-one titles." This means Linux users can finally enjoy two of the best games in recent years: Left 4 Dead and Left 4 Dead 2. BOOMER!