We fought you off for as long as possible, but in the end we had to give in :) What decided it was that OSnews is not a mainstream source of news like Engadget or even sites where they actually employ people, we are not an entity like AOL that fails to grasp the reality of the web today and the issues surrounding the technology landscape. We have the technical background, and the community to boot to know that when we criticise others, we had better be doing the right thing ourselves. Get the feed here.With my work utilising HTML5, I understand the importance of free access to media, and the huge furor of news that was generated over the iPad’s announcement regarding the lack of Flash, and ergo what that meant for HTML5, and ergo what that meant for H.264 licencing issues.
The case for OGG is not so much about hardware availability, as it is for hackability. Openness means that no one person is dependent on one provider for any solution, and I know—however unlikely it is—that someone in a developing nation (or even in the impoverished parts of developing nations) can take OGG software and our content and put together a solution that works for them, perhaps even invent the Next Big Thing™ in media (even the adoption of podcasting is a new thing). The truth is that you never know where the next innovation is going to spring from when you have an open playing field.
The community at OSnews is skilled enough to not require their media handed to them through layers of DRM and Approved Channels® and can hack together any solution that suits them. Providing OGG audio (and hopefully video in the future too) is just a small step—by the volunteer team—to open OSnews up to more of that creative hacking. We have a number of things in consideration including the moving to CC-BY licenced content, a JSON API and clear and well-documented HTML/JS/CSS that will allow for inventive user-styles and greasemonkey scripts.
The Flash audio player has been replaced by an HTML5 audio element. Please report any problems you experience.
Doing the actual transcoding to OGG and uploading has taken over 20 hours to do, all I can say is that I hope it all goes to good use, I’m knackered.
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"It is with huge pleasure that the Debian GNU/Hurd team announces the release of Debian GNU/Hurd 2013. This is a snapshot of Debian 'sid' at the time of the Debian 'wheezy' release (May 2013), so it is mostly based on the same sources. It is not an official Debian release, but it is an official Debian GNU/Hurd port release." Important note: 75% of Debian packages are supported bu Debian GNU/Hurd. Impressive.
"The first killer app was VisiCalc. This early spreadsheet turned the Apple II from a hobbyist toy to a business computer. VisiCalc came with room for improvement, though. In addition, a new architecture and operating system, the Intel-based IBM PC and MS-DOS, also needed a spreadsheet to be taken seriously. That spreadsheet, released in early 1983, would be Lotus 1-2-3, and it would change the world. It became the PC's killer app, and the world would never be the same. On May 14, IBM quietly announced the end of the road for 1-2-3, along with Lotus Organizer and the Lotus SmartSuite office suite. Lotus 1-2-3's day is done." Impressive 30 year run.
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The new WebKit Opera for Android has been released. "Opera 14 for Android is built on top of Chromium 26, with a total overhaul of the UI in native code, making it fit well with the latest Android design guidelines. Go get the build from Google Play or point your browser to m.opera.com, and give it a spin!"
The Verge pointed me to a blog post by Leap Motion - which reveals how their Kinect-like motion control works with Windows 8. "From the second you plug in your Leap Motion Controller, you'll be able to browse the web and interact with your computer just by moving your hands and fingers in the air. With Leap Motion technology and Windows, you can do everything that's possible with multi-touch inputs - without actually touching anything. This also means that existing applications in Windows 7 and 8 will respond to your natural hand and finger movements. Soon, we'll show you how Leap Motion will work with Mac OS X." Quite cool.PocketNow interviews Marc Dillon, and there's an interesting note about why Jolla is keeping the display properties under wraps: "We're leaving some of those details out because we do understand that there are a lot of really big players in the market and they tend to take certain components in the market and dominate them. We created the ability to actually be able to run Sailfish on multiple hardware displays and be able to swap components, so this is part of the demand and supply planning phase. We are committed to this industrial design which is a 4.5-inch display, an 8 megapixel camera on the back and a front-facing camera at the front, and the exact specs of the display we'll provide when we're close to delivery." Something you rarely hear anything about.
"This is my NeXTstation Turbo Color booting the Mac System 7.1 Operating System using a hardware add-on called 'Daydream'. The Daydream has a Mac ROM and a few custom ICs in it and hooked up to the NeXTs DSP port. Turns your NeXT into a full fledged 68k powered Mac." So cool.
"The NetBSD Project is pleased to announce NetBSD 6.1, the first feature update of the NetBSD 6 release branch. It represents a selected subset of fixes deemed important for security or stability reasons, as well as new features and enhancements. Please note that all fixes in the prior security/bugfix updates (NetBSD 6.0.1 and 6.0.2) are also in 6.1."
"At the end of a week in which Electronic Arts confirmed it wasn't developing a thing for the Wii U, one of the software engineers in EA Sports' Canada studio, in a series of since-deleted tweets, disparaged the console as 'crap' and suggested Nintendo should give up on hardware altogether. 'The Wii U is crap. Less powerful than an Xbox 360. Poor online/store. Weird tablet', tweeted Bob Summerwill, listed as a senior software engineer at EA Canada, in a reply to a tweet posting a link about EA's no-Wii U news. 'Nintendo are walking dead at this point'." The Wii U is turning into the 21st century's Virtual Boy.