http://www.osnews.com/ Exploring the Future of Computing en-us Copyright 2001-2009, David Adams OSNews version 4 donotreply@osnews.com (Adam Scheinberg) donotreply@osnews.com (Thom Holwerda) Thu, 09 Jul 2009 20:09:27 GMT http://www.osnews.com/images/osnews.gif http://www.osnews.com/ 120 http://www.osnews.com/story/21793/Gazelle_Applying_Operating_System_Concepts_to_the_Browser/ http://www.osnews.com/story/21793/Gazelle_Applying_Operating_System_Concepts_to_the_Browser/ Web browsers have become ever more important for our computers. Instead of the browser displaying static HTML pages, they now handle complex web applications, ranging from social networking to text editors to online banking, and everything in between. While some browsers have finally started treating the browser more like an operating system (Chrome and Internet Explorer 8), those are just baby steps. The real thing is coming with Microsoft's Gazelle, a research project which applies operating system concepts to the browser. Tue, 07 Jul 2009 22:08:42 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Thom Holwerda) Internet & Networking 10 http://www.osnews.com/topics/34 News http://www.osnews.com/story/21787/CompuServe_Signs_Off/ http://www.osnews.com/story/21787/CompuServe_Signs_Off/ "CompuServe, the first commercially successful online and email provider in America, has been shut down by AOL after 30 years of service. The original CompuServe â€" later renamed CompuServe Classic â€" was laid to rest July 1, 2009. In a message sent to its remaining subscribers, AOL urged customers sticking with cheap dial-up to move on to the company's surviving sub-brand ISP, CompuServe 2000." Tue, 07 Jul 2009 13:42:05 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Thom Holwerda) Internet & Networking 3 http://www.osnews.com/topics/34 News Dale Smoker http://www.osnews.com/story/21772/The_Bing_Thing/ http://www.osnews.com/story/21772/The_Bing_Thing/ Chances are that you've already heard of and even visited Bing, Microsoft's new search offering launched earlier in June, replacing the Live search of yesterday. It's new, shiny, and has pretty pictures, but does it really have much effect on the market? There have been those headlines claiming it's "taken a bite out of Google," but, looking at the statistics, it hasn't really affected the search industry at all. Fri, 03 Jul 2009 20:24:21 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Jordan Spencer Cunningham) Internet & Networking 54 http://www.osnews.com/topics/34 News http://www.osnews.com/story/21767/Browser_Vendors_Force_W3C_To_Scrap_HTML_5_Codecs/ http://www.osnews.com/story/21767/Browser_Vendors_Force_W3C_To_Scrap_HTML_5_Codecs/ We here at OSNews have taken somewhat of an interest in the new HTML5 video and audio tags, which should - some day - make embedding audio and video material into web pages as easy and straightforward as embedding images, allowing the web to finally remove the shackles of dreadful Flash video. Sadly, the problem with these new tags are the codecs; as it turns out, browser makers have not reached an agreement about what codecs to choose for video, with mostly Apple throwing a spanner in the works, and Microsoft shining in absence. Thu, 02 Jul 2009 18:51:01 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Thom Holwerda) Internet & Networking 95 http://www.osnews.com/topics/34 News snydeq http://www.osnews.com/story/21763/New_The_Pirate_Bay_Owners_Detail_Business_Plan/ http://www.osnews.com/story/21763/New_The_Pirate_Bay_Owners_Detail_Business_Plan/ The story around The Pirate Bay acquisition seems to be developing fast. The torrent search engine was bought by Global Gaming Factory yesterday, and they promised to build a legal P2P distribution network where content providers and copyright holders get compensated. In an exclusive interview with the BBC, GGF's Hans Pandeya detailed the business plan they have in mind for TPB. Wed, 01 Jul 2009 21:28:10 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Thom Holwerda) Internet & Networking 28 http://www.osnews.com/topics/34 News Kishe http://www.osnews.com/story/21756/Pirate_Bay_Users_Go_Overboard_As_New_Owners_Dangle_Cash/ http://www.osnews.com/story/21756/Pirate_Bay_Users_Go_Overboard_As_New_Owners_Dangle_Cash/ "The Pirate Bay has been urging users not to abandon ship following yesterday's announcement that a Swedish internet cafe software firm planned to buy the BitTorrent site for $7.8m. The site has been flooded with account deletion requests from angry users griping that TPB had sold out to Global Gaming Factory X." Wed, 01 Jul 2009 16:48:20 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Thom Holwerda) Internet & Networking 3 http://www.osnews.com/topics/34 News http://www.osnews.com/story/21750/Global_Gaming_Factory_Acquires_The_Pirate_Bay/ http://www.osnews.com/story/21750/Global_Gaming_Factory_Acquires_The_Pirate_Bay/ In what you can certainly call a surprise move, The Pirate Bay has been sold. Global Gaming Factory has announced that is has purchased the torrent search engine for 60 million Swedish Krona (7.8 million USD). They plan to build a business model around The Pirate Bay where content providers and copyright owners get compensatation. Tue, 30 Jun 2009 10:02:53 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Thom Holwerda) Internet & Networking 45 http://www.osnews.com/topics/34 News Cytor http://www.osnews.com/story/21731/ICANN_s_New_CEO_Speaks/ http://www.osnews.com/story/21731/ICANN_s_New_CEO_Speaks/ ICANN, the non-profit corporation which oversees the backbone of the internet, has a new CEO in the person of Rod Beckstrom, former director of US National Cybersecurity Center. He takes over ICANN in a rather tumultuous time, and during a press conference, he put forth some of his ideas on how ICANN should work. Basic gist: the internet works fine, so there's little need for change. Fri, 26 Jun 2009 19:35:18 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Thom Holwerda) Internet & Networking 13 http://www.osnews.com/topics/34 News http://www.osnews.com/story/21694/EU_Admits_ICANN_Is_Doing_Fine_But_Wants_Change_Anyway/ http://www.osnews.com/story/21694/EU_Admits_ICANN_Is_Doing_Fine_But_Wants_Change_Anyway/ The relationship between the United States government and ICANN, the private non-profit corporation which oversees the assignment of domain names, has often been a thorn in the eyes of the European Union. A recent document issued by the European Commission again advocates a change in internet oversight - but at the same time, the document also states that ICANN has actually been doing a pretty good job. Sat, 20 Jun 2009 15:57:33 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Thom Holwerda) Internet & Networking 50 http://www.osnews.com/topics/34 News http://www.osnews.com/story/21680/Could_HTML_5_Kill_Flash_Silverlight_/ http://www.osnews.com/story/21680/Could_HTML_5_Kill_Flash_Silverlight_/ While Adobe, Microsoft, and Sun duke it out with proprietary technologies for implementing multimedia on the Web, HTML 5 has the potential to "eat these vendors' lunches", offering Web experiences based on an industry standard. In fact, one expressed goal of the standard is to move the Web away from proprietary technologies such as Flash, Silverlight, and JavaFX. "It would be a terrible step backward if humanity's major development platform [the Web] was controlled by a single vendor the way that previous platforms such as Windows have been," says HTML 5 co-editor Ian Hickson, a Google employee. But whether HTML 5 and its Canvas technology will displace proprietary plug-ins "really depends on what developers do", says Firefox technical lead Vlad Vukicevic. It also depends on Microsoft, the only company involved in the HTML 5 effort that is both a browser developer and an RIA tool developer. Tue, 16 Jun 2009 20:01:18 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (OSNews Staff) Internet & Networking 27 http://www.osnews.com/topics/34 News snydeq http://www.osnews.com/story/21583/Windows_7_Gives_Browsers_Speed_Improvement/ http://www.osnews.com/story/21583/Windows_7_Gives_Browsers_Speed_Improvement/ Lots of people who are testing the various Windows 7 builds have already reported that Windows 7 is faster and snappier than Windows Vista, and some even say that it approaches Windows XP. Apparently, web browsers in particular will benefit from running on Windows 7 instead of Windows Vista SP2. BetaNews ran tests of all the major browsers on both Vista SP2 and Windows 7, and concluded that in general, browsers are round and about 12%-18% faster on 7 than on Vista. Fri, 29 May 2009 15:03:31 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Thom Holwerda) Internet & Networking 26 http://www.osnews.com/topics/34 News http://www.osnews.com/story/21529/Mozilla_and_Google_Announce_HTML-Based_Extensions/ http://www.osnews.com/story/21529/Mozilla_and_Google_Announce_HTML-Based_Extensions/ It appears that great minds think alike (or in the case of open-source software and the close-ties between Google and Mozilla, share-alike). Within a week of each other both Mozilla and Google have announced new initiatives to allow for extensions to their browsers to be written using regular HTML / JavaScript and CSS, greatly lowering the bar for developers to join in. Strap on your Mozilla Jetpack and take a peek at extensions for Chrome. Thu, 28 May 2009 17:32:39 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Kroc Camen) Internet & Networking 12 http://www.osnews.com/topics/34 News http://www.osnews.com/story/21484/Adblock_Developer_An_Approach_to_Fair_Ad_Blocking/ http://www.osnews.com/story/21484/Adblock_Developer_An_Approach_to_Fair_Ad_Blocking/ As we happened to be talking about advertisements on OSNews yesterday, and the use of Adblock, I stumbled upon a blog entry by Adblock Plus' developer, who is trying to improve Adblock in such a way that it is less harmful to webmasters. His suggestion is surely intriguing, but will it fly wth Adblock users? Wed, 13 May 2009 07:50:10 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Thom Holwerda) Internet & Networking 44 http://www.osnews.com/topics/34 News http://www.osnews.com/story/21449/An_Early_Look_at_What_s_Coming_in_PHP_v6/ http://www.osnews.com/story/21449/An_Early_Look_at_What_s_Coming_in_PHP_v6/ In this article, learn about the new PHP V6 features in detail. Learn how it is easier to use, more secure, and more suitable for internationalization. New PHP V6 features include improved support for Unicode, clean-up of several functions, improved extensions, engine additions, changes to OO functions, and PHP additions. Thu, 07 May 2009 21:25:10 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Thom Holwerda) Internet & Networking 8 http://www.osnews.com/topics/34 News http://www.osnews.com/story/21445/Chrome_Users_Most_Up_to_Date_Firefox_Second/ http://www.osnews.com/story/21445/Chrome_Users_Most_Up_to_Date_Firefox_Second/ When Google released the first version of its Chrome web browser, many eyebrows were raised over the fact that it updated itself automatically and silently, in the background, without user intervention or even so much as a notice. As it turns out, this has been a brilliant move by Google, as Chrome users are the most likely to have up-to-date installations of their browser, followed at a respectable distance by Firefox users. Safari and Opera trail behind significantly. Thu, 07 May 2009 08:24:58 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Thom Holwerda) Internet & Networking 73 http://www.osnews.com/topics/34 News