OSNews

So, the EFF has an article up on how to clear your search history at Google before the changes to the company's privacy policy takes effect. Most importantly, the hitherto sealed search hisory will now be shared with other Google services to provide better products advertising. Interestingly enough, when I got to the search history page, I saw this. Was this feature opt-in or something? Also, just to be safe, where do I go to delete or even just see the information associated with my Apple ID or my Live ID?

Lukas Mathis touts many webOS features that he wants other vendors to steal. All this stuff just makes me more sad I never got to try webOS on anything because nobody gives a rat's bum about The Netherlands. WebOS never came to market here. Especially its multitasking with cards looks so much more elegant than the horrible "multi"tasking implementations on Android and iOS. Hopeful note: Matias Duarte now heads the UX team for Android.

"Nightline has aired its report from Foxconn's factories on ABC. In the report, host Bill Weir speaks directly to factory workers as well as their managers. You would think that this unprecedented' look inside Apple factories would reveal much we didn't know, but the show was relatively light on information. Weir did extensively survey the places where iPads and iPhones are constructed, spent time interviewing both employees and their families, and talked to FLA president Auret van Heerden, though he uncovered mostly familiar information." Mind you, ABC is owned by Disney, which has close ties to Apple. Make of that what you will.

DragonFly BSD 3.0 was released today, bringing the improved performance on MP systems (MP kernel became the default one in ths release), TrueCrypt-compatible disk encryption, enhanced POSIX compatibility and other improvements. The next big thing for the project will be the major revision of the HAMMER file system (HAMMER2). The DragonFly founder Matthew Dillon said it to be the main focus of his effort for the whole yaer, though the full implementation is expected only in 2013.

Opa, the new open source programming language for web applications, just released its 0.9.0 'S4' version. Opa is a single programming language for specifying client code, server code and database code. The new release introduces two major features: A new default syntax that resembles JavaScript and was asked for by the community, and an abstraction layer for the NoSQL database MongoDB. Features that were previously supported by the internal Opa database are now available with the fast-growing, scalable NoSQL database. Together, Opa and MongoDB, provide a way to develop complex web applications and have them scale out easily. Many other smaller features have been added, as the number of contributors to the code on github grows.

For the first time in six years, the Apache Foundation has released a new version of the successful Apache HTTP Server. "It is with great pleasure that we announce the availability of Apache HTTP Server 2.4", said Eric Covener, vice president of the Apache HTTP Server project, "This release delivers a host of evolutionary enhancements throughout the server that our users, administrators, and developers will welcome. We've added many new modules in this release, as well as broadened the capability and flexibility of existing features."

So, Microsoft Office for the iPad is supposedly coming, dressed in a Metro user interface. Fun, since running a fresh Metro application (like the XBox Live one) on the iPad accentuates just how outdated and archaic iOS really looks and feels next to Metro. An Android version is supposedly not in the works, but that's to be expected - Apple and Microsoft have long been best buds (although this is still a total and utter surprise to some, which is kind of precious in a Bambi's-first-steps kind of way).

"A group of researchers has fabricated a single-atom transistor by introducing one phosphorous atom into a silicon lattice. Through the use of a scanning tunnelling microscope and hydrogen-resist lithography, Martin Fuechsle et al. placed the phosphorous atom precisely between very thin silicon leads, allowing them to measure its electrical behavior. The results show clearly that we can read both the quantum transitions within the phosphorous atom and its transistor behavior. No smaller solid-state devices are possible, so systems of this type reveal the limit of Moore's law - the prediction about the miniaturization of technology - while pointing toward solid-state quantum computing devices."

According to Microsoft, Google is circumventing the P3P third party cookie standard. P3P is kind of an odd standard (complex, not user-friendly, and it requires some serious computer knowledge to know what the heck it actually does and means), but hey, what the heck. Of course, Microsoft rides on the coattails of what happened over the weekend, and it's clear PR because not only has this been known for years, Google is - again - not the only one doing this; Facebook, for instance, does the same thing (and heck, Microsoft's own sites were found guilty). Still, this is not acceptable, and even if it takes Microsoft PR to get there, let's hope this forces Google and Facebook to better their ways.

"The federal government has been paying lip service to the idea that it wants to encourage new businesses and startups in the US. And this is truly important to the economy, as studies have shown that almost all of the net job growth in this country is coming from internet startups. Thankfully some politicians recognize this, but the federal government seems to be going in the other direction. With the JotForm situation unfolding, where the US government shut down an entire website with no notice or explanation, people are beginning to recognize that the US is not safe for internet startups." Not an issue today per se, but if the US government keeps this up, they do run a risk of lobotomising their technology sector.