OSNews

First looks at Windows 'Blue' have revealed an upgrade composed of cosmetic fixes, suggesting that Microsoft may be blowing its chance to turn the tide on Windows 8 blow back, and make good on its promise to truly 'rethink' Windows 8 with the release of Windows Blue. As a result, InfoWorld has issued an open letter to Microsoft to consider Windows 'Red' -- what InfoWorld is calling a 'serious plan' to fix the flaws of Windows 8, one that could rescue Microsoft's currently flagging promise to deliver a modern computing experience on both PCs and tablets.

"Today at TechEd, I announced Visual Studio 2013 and Team Foundation Server 2013 and many of the Application Lifecycle Management features that they include. [...] I will not, in this post, be talking about many of the new VS 2013 features that are unrelated to the Application Lifecycle workflows. Stay tuned for more about the rest of the VS 2013 capabilities at the Build conference."

"Mozilla and Foxconn have officially announced a partnership and confirmed that the two firms are developing at least 5 new devices, including a tablet computer. At a press conference today at Computex 2013 in Taipei, Li Gong, CEO of Mozilla Taiwan, and Young Liu, General Manager of Foxconn innovation Digital System Business Group, unveiled a new tablet prototype model designed for an unnamed OEM."

Google is changing its disclosure policy for zero-day exploits - both in their own software as in that of others - from 60 days do 7 days. "Seven days is an aggressive timeline and may be too short for some vendors to update their products, but it should be enough time to publish advice about possible mitigations, such as temporarily disabling a service, restricting access, or contacting the vendor for more information. As a result, after 7 days have elapsed without a patch or advisory, we will support researchers making details available so that users can take steps to protect themselves. By holding ourselves to the same standard, we hope to improve both the state of web security and the coordination of vulnerability management." I support this 100%. It will force notoriously slow-responding companies - let's not mention any names - to be quicker about helping their customers. Google often uncovers vulnerabilities in other people's software (e.g. half of patches fixed on some Microsoft 'patch Tuesdays' are uncovered by Google), so this could have a big impact.

"Asus has just announced the cure for the common 20-something-inch 1080p display: a small TV-sized 31.5-inch monitor with a massive resolution of 3840x2160. Engadget reports that the Asus PQ321 display, which uses IGZO technology to reduce energy usage and thickness, includes DisplayPort and dual-HDMI input, integrated speakers, and an adjustable stand." The dread of 1366 and 1080p is being removed. Finally.

"The ReactOS project is proud to announce the release of version 0.3.15. A culmination of over a year of development, 0.3.15 incorporates several architectural enhancements to create a more compatible and conformant implementation of the NT architecture. Perhaps the most user visible enhancement is initial support for USB devices, both storage and input. Infrastructure wise, this is the first release of ReactOS using CMake instead of rbuild. The conversion to CMake has allowed developers to generate Visual Studio solutions for working on the code, though several C++ components still need work before support for Microsoft's toolchain is complete."

Microsoft has detailed Windows 8.1 - not a whole lot of information we didn't yet know from leaked builds, but this bit makes me happy: "The updated PC Settings in Windows 8.1 gives you access to all your settings on your device without having to go to the Control Panel on the desktop. You can do things like change your display resolution, set your power options, see the make and model of your PC, change the product key, let you run Windows Update, and even join a domain - all from PC Settings." Available as a preview late June, but no word on whether said preview release will be available for Windows RT as well.

"The MorphOS development team is proud to announce the public release of MorphOS 3.2, which introduces support for Power Mac G5 workstations, iBook G4 laptops and additional PowerBook G4 models. The 3.2 release also has a strong focus on improved network support with a completely new and improved NetStack core as well as support for wireless networks. In addition, there are several new network-related tools such as VNC client, a Remote Desktop Client and a tool showing detailed network statistics as well as many other fixes and improvements."

"At the Tizen conference this week in San Francisco, Intel showed off an Intel Ultrabook running their next-generation Tizen 3.0 platform that's using a shell/desktop derived from GNOME 3.x."

"Today I pushed out a new ISO of my Wayland Live CD project, which is named for my favorite celebrity. For this new Wayland CD, I wrote a new login manager with Bash and Zenity and Expect (and Script) that fully runs on a Wayland server (weston). Now X is no longer involved in the boot process, and X does not start, (unless you use an X application with xwayland), because I replaced LightDM with the new loginmanager."