OSNews

GNOME developer Dave Neary has posted the highlights of his work to determine where contributions to GNOME come from. This "Census" is a combination of data mining and surveys that gives a snapshot of gnome activity and the profile of a GNOME contributor. This project's aims were to answer three questions in particular: What does the developer community look like? What companies are investing in GNOME, and how? What does the commercial ecosystem around the GNOME project look like?

An interesting article at Ars Technica takes a look at some compelling data (the longer-than-normal processor update cycles in Apple's personal computer lineup) and speculates that Apple's enthusiasm for its partnership with Intel might be cooling. Like Apple's soured relationship with once-BFF Google, this may be the result of Intel's increasing activities in the mobile computing space.

India's Human Resource Development Minister Kapil Sibal unveiled a touchscreen tablet that he claims they will be able to produce for just $35. The device is being aimed at students, and seems to be taking the One Laptop Per Child idea and running with it. "Despite the price, users will get a touch-screen, a PDF reader and a webcam for video conferencing. There has been no confirmation of its specifications but reports suggest 2GB of memory, Wi-Fi and Ethernet and power consumption at just 2W. Naturally, the device will run Linux."

"As a long-time fan of GeoWorks Ensemble (now Breadbox Ensemble), a DOS based graphical user interface and office suite popular in the 80s, I've run it under a variety of operating systems and emulators over the years. You see, Ensemble requires an underlying operating system to provide a DOS compatible file system, not unlike early versions of Windows that required DOS. [...] With the release of eComStation 2.0 I thought I'd revisit the challenge of getting Breadbox Ensemble running under OS/2 again [...] but to add a further twist, since I didn't want to do this on a dedicated machine, I chose to see if I could get things running under VirtualBox."

I'm a couch potato. There, I've said it. I love sitting down and watching sci-fi movies, like any good geek would. And this is an (almost religious) action that hasn't changed for many, many, years. But I feel that we're in for a surprise soon. The way we watch TV and access content is about to change. TV watching will at last arrive into the 21st Century, and the technology giants will be there to duke it out for the reins of this new industry.

Fatal Exception's Neil McAllister asks whether the need for advanced development expertise is on the decline in an era in which tools grow increasingly more advanced, and coding increasingly moves offshore. 'Few companies share Google's zeal for academic credentials when hiring new developers. Many are willing to accept self-taught programmers, particularly if they have other skills relevant to the business.'

BareMetal is an open source 64-bit OS for x86-64 based computers. It is written in Assembly, and applications can be written in Assembly or C/C++. It's aimed at three target segments (High Performance Computing, Embedded Applications, and Education). It's also designed to be simple, and it's really small. Under 16Kb small. Version 0.4.8 was released recently, which includes updates to the C application library, updated documentation, and better support for SMP. It's good to see some innovation in the startup/hobbyist OS space. We wish them well!

There's an article today at abc.com that looks at recent trends around net-based pay-for services and the smattering of paywalls from News Corp to the NYT that are up or threatening to be put up, and speculating that this could be the beginning of a trend. Of course, a YouTube video rental site and a few large publishers putting up paywalls will make zero difference to the "free internet" on their own. But if they're successful, it could spark emulation. But could this be a trend that could snowball enough to change the nature of the net?

Let's do some blatant copy/paste from Ars Technica. A few days ago they ran a story called "What's in your home theatre system?". This poll wasn't so much about listing specific speaker types or amplifier models as it was about a number of more recognisable devices you could vote for. Let's copy their idea, but make it more open: what's in your home theatre setup - and list everything, from CD player to DVR to the type of cabling used. Be as anal about is as you want. Read on for my setup.

Last month, I described how the computer industry encourages planned obsolescence in order to sell more product. This business model exacerbates the problem of computer disposal because it artificially shortens computer lifespans. This increases production and, ultimately, the numbers requiring disposal. One result is that e-waste -- electronics waste -- is one now one of our most pressing environmental challenges. Updated