posted by Rahul on Thu 26th Feb 2009 07:59 UTC
As seen in this TechFlash article, Microsoft has launched a patent suit against TomTom, a seller of (Linux-based) navigation devices. "It's believed to be the first time Microsoft has filed a patent suit over Linux, after claiming for years that elements of the open-source operating system violate its patents. However, Microsoft says open-source software is not the intended focal point of the action." The lawsuit focusses on several navigation techniques, and includes a few patents related to Linux. LWN lists the individual patents in question.
Features
Linked by IndigoJo on 02/10/10 0:05 UTC
While some potential users of the iPad may be put off by such things as its lack of multi-tasking, which they might have expected on a device this size, the device may prove highly useful to users with varying disabilities. Ms Ricky Buchanan runs the ATMac website, which is dedicated to accessibility issues with Apple products.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 02/09/10 19:06 UTC, submitted by diegocg
And there we are, the KDE team has released KDE Software Compilation 4.4, formerly known as, well, KDE. Major new features include social networking and online collaboration integration, the new netbook interface, the KAuth authentication framework, and a lot more.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 02/09/10 16:18 UTC
Notebooks with dual GPUs have been shipping for a while now, but switching between the fancy discrete GPU and the low-power integrated one hasn't exactly been painless. Today, NVIDIA introduced a technology called Optimus, which makes the switching process automatic and transparent. In Windows, that is.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 02/08/10 23:55 UTC
The past few weeks or so, there's been a lot of interest in a supposed battery status report bug in Windows 7. After installing Windows 7, some users reported seeing "consider replacing your battery"-warnings in systems that appeared to be operating just fine on Windows XP or Vista. After extensive research, Steven Sinofsky has now explained on the Engineering 7 blog that the fault is not with Windows 7 - it really, really is your battery.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 02/08/10 21:38 UTC
Developed by industrial designer Barton Smith, the Stream Adaptive Computer System is an interesting take on making computing easier and more adaptable to suit the user's current needs. Today, he also unveiled the operating system and user interface that would run on Stream. It's... Amazing.
Linked by David Adams on 02/08/10 19:29 UTC
We've been working on an "OSNews version 5" upgrade for several months, and with several months to go, we decided to make some incremental changes to OSNews on the existing codebase. The major change, as you probably already noticed, is that we've removed the "Page1/Page2" tabs and instead have OSNews stories with original content and commentary in one column, and news, items on OS-related topics gleaned from other sources in the other. Read on for more details on the changes we've implemented.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 02/08/10 13:23 UTC, submitted by kragil
You may remember that back in November last year, I wrote about the lack of a decent Paint.NET-like application for Linux (or, more specifically, for Gtk+ distributions, since Qt has Krita). As it turns out, this compelled Novell employee Jonathan Pobst to code a Paint.NET clone in Gtk+ using Cairo. Version 0.1 is here, and it's remarkably advanced for something so young.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 02/07/10 19:11 UTC
Later this month, Microsoft will most likely unveil
Linked by Kroc Camen on 02/05/10 23:28 UTC
A quick round up of various web-related news items. First up, a new open source product entitled the "Highgate media suite" will bring OGG video decoding to Silverlight. Microsoft have just joined the SVG working group (arguably 10 years late, but it's better than nothing). Adobe promise significant improvements in Flash 10.1, including Core Animation rendering on OS X and lowered CPU usage. Finally, CoperLicht--a WebGL JavaScript 3D engine (Quake in JS will be here one day)
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 02/05/10 22:24 UTC
In a way, it's kind of sad. The old media squealing and squirming, trying pathetically to hold on to a time that has long been lost to the sands of... Well, time. Jeff Zucker, President and CEO of NBC, made such a pathetic attempt before a US Congress committee yesterday, claiming Boxee stole Hulu's content.