Linked by Thom Holwerda on Tue 14th May 2013 17:38 UTC, submitted by lucas_maximus
Windows "Today at the JP Morgan Technology, Media & Telecom Conference in Boston, Tami Reller shared with the audience that the update previously referred to as 'Windows Blue' will be called Windows 8.1 and will be a free update to Windows 8 for consumers through the Windows Store." They really didn't have much of a choice, but good news anyway.

 

Linked by Thom Holwerda on Mon 13th May 2013 22:21 UTC
PDAs, Cellphones, Wireless "The HTC First, or 'Facebook phone' as many prefer to call it, is officially a flop. It certainly wasn't a good sign when AT&T dropped the price of HTC's First to $0.99 just one month after its debut, and now BGR has confirmed that HTC and Facebook's little experiment is nearing its end. BGR has learned from a trusted source that sales of the HTC First have been shockingly bad. So bad, in fact, that AT&T has already decided to discontinue the phone. Our source at AT&T has confirmed that the HTC First, which is the first smartphone to ship with Facebook Home pre-installed, will soon be discontinued and unsold inventory will be returned to HTC." Wow. That's pretty bad - but not unexpected.

 



Linked by Thom Holwerda on Mon 13th May 2013 12:42 UTC
Google The only thing from the interview I care about: "We are thinking about how to make Android handle updates better. We see ways we can do this. It's early days. We're talking with our partners and working our way through it. We need time to figure out the mechanics, but it's definitely an area of focus for me and for the team." We've seen empty promises about this before, though.

 

Linked by Kyuss on Mon 13th May 2013 01:31 UTC
Microsoft "Most people understand that Windows is used by a variety of people who have a variety of needs, ranging from corporate server to workstation to POS terminals to home PC and beyond. Most people accept that whenever Microsoft updates Windows, it has to balance the competing requirements to find some kind of workable compromise. There is however another set of competing requirements that many do not really register, even those that call themselves power users or are IT admins. It is a conflict between developers/programmers and Microsoft itself."

 

Linked by Thom Holwerda on Sun 12th May 2013 23:38 UTC
PDAs, Cellphones, Wireless "Last week our HTC One vs Samsung Galaxy S4 head-to-head concluded that Samsung no longer makes the best Android phone. But after developments this week, I wonder whether Google wants Samsung to continue making Android phones at all." Yup.

 

Linked by Thom Holwerda on Sun 12th May 2013 22:30 UTC
Windows "Microsoft's communications chief has a tough job these days, and with Windows 8 is under attack from all sides he's bravely called for a return to the center and a less partisan conversation about the new OS. There's just one problem: The periodicals he’s called out for engaging in 'sensationalism and hyperbole' are in fact right about Microsoft's strategy. And ignoring that is the real problem."

 

Linked by Thom Holwerda on Fri 10th May 2013 23:40 UTC
PDAs, Cellphones, Wireless "The Lumia 928 sports a 4.5-inch AMOLED display (PureMotion HD+), 8.7MP camera (PureView, Carl Zeiss, OIS and Xenon flash), 4G LTE connectivity, wireless charging, three HAAC microphones and a loud speaker. It's an improved Lumia 920." This is the Lumia that will turn Nokia and Windows Phone around. I'm super-serious you guys!

 

Linked by Thom Holwerda on Fri 10th May 2013 22:34 UTC
PDAs, Cellphones, Wireless "The reviews are in: Facebook Home, Mark Zuckerberg's grandiose stab at totally controlling our mobile experience, is an unmitigated disaster. On Wednesday, AT&T announced that it was dropping the price of the HTC First smartphone, which comes with Facebook Home built in, from $99 to 99 cents. Think about that: a new smartphone, priced to jump off the shelves at Dollar General. It's a great deal, but it is also hugely embarrassing for Zuckerberg. [...] For confirmation we need only look at the Google Play store, where the Facebook Home app, which can be installed on select Android phones, has now fallen to the No. 338 ranking in the category of free apps. That's 200 spots lower than it ranked just two weeks ago." Totally did not see this coming whatsoever.

 

Linked by Thom Holwerda on Thu 9th May 2013 18:06 UTC
PDAs, Cellphones, Wireless This is the Nokia I remember. The company just unveiled the Nokia Asha 501, which has a completely new version of the Asha software platform. Fast, responsive, stunningly great and simple hardware, and an unbeatable price ($99!). It borrows a lot from MeeGo on the N9, and overall excites me infinitely more than their Lumia offerings. I want one of these so bad.

 

Linked by Thom Holwerda on Thu 9th May 2013 16:53 UTC
Google "'Those are some unique glasses.' 'Are you wearing Glass?' 'He's got Google Glass on!' My appearance can be ostentatious at times, but wearing Google Glass in public drew a truly unparalleled amount of attention - never have I seen so many strangers (and people I know) give me this look of, 'uh, what's on your face?'" Gamechanger. If not Glass, at least something similar. Hunching over to use you phone is unnatural, and you close yourself off from your surroundings. No such thing with Glass - that alone will change the game.

 

Linked by Thom Holwerda on Thu 9th May 2013 16:26 UTC
Legal New Zealand leads the way. "The government has announced a change to planned new patent rules today which has put an end to fears that computer software might be covered by new patent protection." Also, here's the evidence that nobody (except lawyers, (un)paid company lackies, and corporate managers) wants software patents: "Matthews said a recent poll of more than 1000 Kiwi IT professionals found 94 per cent wanted to see software patents gone." Let that sink in for a while: 94%.

 

Linked by Thom Holwerda on Wed 8th May 2013 22:23 UTC
Games "We are looking forward seeing your exciting ideas become reality and having fun developing together. We're always looking to support new developer talent, so we've decided to waive the publisher license fee (EUR 80, GBP 65) for PlayStation Mobile, which means you can bring your games to PlayStation Vita or any PlayStation-certified device, free of charge."

 

Linked by Thom Holwerda on Tue 7th May 2013 22:46 UTC
Windows "After acknowledging its Windows Blue codename publicly in March, Microsoft is getting closer to revealing all about the upcoming Windows 8 update. In an interview with The Verge this week, Microsoft's Windows CFO Tami Reller provided some details on where the company is heading with its Blue project."

 

Linked by bowkota on Tue 7th May 2013 21:44 UTC
Legal "The European Commission has accused Motorola Mobility of abusing its standard-essential patents against Apple in Germany. The Commission has sent a Statement of Objections to the company over a misuse of its GPRS patents, which has seen Motorola pursue injunctions against Apple products instead of properly licensing the technology."

 

Linked by Thom Holwerda on Tue 7th May 2013 13:38 UTC
Hardware, Embedded Systems News of the year in the technology industry. "The Fit's most important spec its display, with a nod to Sony's TV division: they come with 1600x900 or 1920x1080 touchscreens and nothing else. 'We're not going to offer 1366x768," reps said. 'We've killed that.'" This is Sony's new, simplified entry-level notebook line. Very, very welcome news in a world where even a supposedly "Pro" laptop that costs $1199 ships with... A 1280x800 resolution. This bottom-of-the-barrel crap needs to be eradicated, and good on Sony for taking this step.

 

Linked by Thom Holwerda on Mon 6th May 2013 20:17 UTC
Graphics, User Interfaces "Adobe first launched Creative Suite 1 back in 2003, and now, ten years and six versions later, the company is taking a left turn: Adobe is abandoning its Creative Suite entirely to focus efforts on Creative Cloud."

 

Linked by Thom Holwerda on Mon 6th May 2013 19:11 UTC
Games Good news by Ars' Peter Bright. "According to an internal Microsoft e-mail sent to all full-time employees working on the next Xbox, 'Durango [the codename for the next Xbox] is designed to deliver the future of entertainment while engineered to be tolerant of today's Internet.' It continues, 'There are a number of scenarios that our users expect to work without an Internet connection, and those should 'just work' regardless of their current connection status. Those include, but are not limited to: playing a Blu-ray disc, watching live TV, and yes playing a single player game.'" Conveniently 'leaked' of course.

 

Linked by MOS6510 on Sun 5th May 2013 22:43 UTC
General Development "In order to be an effective programmer, you need to possess a combination of traits that allow your skill, experience, and knowledge to produce working code. There are some technically skilled developers who will never be effective because they lack the other traits needed. Here are seven traits that are necessary to become a great programmer."

 

Linked by Thom Holwerda on Sun 5th May 2013 21:40 UTC, submitted by Anonymous Penguin
Debian and its clones That rare event where tried and true Debian releases a new version. "This new version of Debian includes various interesting features such as multiarch support, several specific tools to deploy private clouds, an improved installer, and a complete set of multimedia codecs and front-ends which remove the need for third-party repositories. Multiarch support, one of the main release goals for 'Wheezy', will allow Debian users to install packages from multiple architectures on the same machine. This means that you can now, for the first time, install both 32- and 64-bit software on the same machine and have all the relevant dependencies correctly resolved, automatically."

 

Linked by Thom Holwerda on Sat 4th May 2013 09:36 UTC
Hardware, Embedded Systems "NeXT Computer (the original 68030 cube) was a high end workstation that was manufactured between 1988 - 1990. Back then it was a very expensive machine as a complete system would start at $6500 (in 1988 dollars). The machine is a 1 foot cube magnesium case that houses the computer. At the time, its performance was impressive, with a Motorola 68030 CPU running at a screaming 25Mhz, a dedicated floating point CPU, and a digital signal processor built into the system. NeXT cubes featured a magneto-optical drive that stored a whopping 256 Megabytes (by comparison, high end Mac systems at the time might have featured a 20 Megabyte hard drive.) In its day, this was the "Ferrari" of desktop systems!" No new information for the average OSNews reader, but lots of beautiful photos for a beautiful Saturday afternoon.