Linked by Thom Holwerda on Wed 26th Dec 2012 00:32 UTC
Now that the holidays are upon us (happy holidays!) and the year is about to end, we at OSNews thought it time to finally lift the veil a little bit on the next version of OSNews - OSNews 5. I've hinted at this next version of OSNews here and there in the comments, but we think it's time to make it all a little bit more official by taking in some initial feedback.
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Linked by Thom Holwerda on 06/20/13 6:17 UTC, submitted by MOS6510
"In the first episode of Microsoft's new film series 'On the Whiteboard', Editor Pamela Woon chats with two-time Oscar winner Randy Thom about the (often underestimated) importance of sound in human-technology interactions. Thom, the lead sound designer at Skywalker Ranch who worked on films such as The Incredibles, Castaway and Forrest Gump, says that people rarely consider the significance of those signature sounds that come from their trusty devices, whether it be a cell phone, a computer or a tablet."
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 06/19/13 23:02 UTC, submitted by M.Onty
"Microsoft has sensationally abandoned its controversial plans to restrict the sharing of XBox One games, and has also removed daily online authentication requirements for its forthcoming console", reports The Guardian. They had no choice. Still a good move.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 06/19/13 22:28 UTC
"A snippet of code in the Steam digital distribution platform has revealed that Valve may be planning to let users easily share their games with friends in the future. The Verge has verified the code's authenticity, which was originally spotted by a member of the NeoGAF gaming forum; the code references a 'shared game library' and a notification that would alert a user when their games are currently in use by a borrower." This would change the, uh, game.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 06/18/13 22:33 UTC
Official Apple statement on PRISM and privacy: "Regardless of the circumstances, our Legal team conducts an evaluation of each request and, only if appropriate, we retrieve and deliver the narrowest possible set of information to the authorities. In fact, from time to time when we see inconsistencies or inaccuracies in a request, we will refuse to fulfill it." This is basically Apple re-publishing their earlier statement in a more official manner. You either believe it, or you don't.
Linked by Anonymous on 06/18/13 22:26 UTC
The open source Contiki operating system and its commercial Thingsquare distribution are making strides towards the connected home. According to a Computerworld article, a new LED light bulb manufacturer is putting small computers into their light bulbs. Each computer runs the Contiki OS, which gives each bulb an IP address and allows them to be controlled with a smartphone application. To connect the bulbs to the application, the bulbs use both Wi-Fi and the much lower power IEEE 802.15.4 mesh technology.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 06/18/13 22:25 UTC
"Google asked the secretive Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court on Tuesday to ease long-standing gag orders over data requests it makes, arguing that the company has a constitutional right to speak about information it's forced to give the government. The legal filing, which cites the First Amendment's guarantee of free speech, is the latest move by the California-based tech giant to protect its reputation in the aftermath of news reports about sweeping National Security Agency surveillance of Internet traffic." Draining the ditch after the cow has drowned in it.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 06/18/13 17:45 UTC
"I can't find one person who has been using the Nexus 7 for an extended period of time, and hasn't seen a massive downgrade in performance. Just what kind of downgrade are we talking here? I cannot pick up my Nexus 7 without experiencing problems like a lag of ten seconds, or more, just to rotate the display; touches refusing to acknowledged; stuttering notification panel actions; and unresponsive apps." Fully and utterly agreed. My Nexus 7 was blazing-fast and awesome for a few months, and at some point, it just started sucking. Just like that. I've tried loads of ROMs, and nothing helps.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 06/18/13 17:32 UTC, submitted by poundsmack
A new release of the hobby operating system MenuetOS! The release notes are a bit non-descript, but you'll have to take what you can get: "updates and improvements (picview, httpc, ehci, ...)".
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 06/17/13 17:58 UTC
"The Internet is one of the most transformative technologies of our lifetimes. But for 2 out of every 3 people on earth, a fast, affordable Internet connection is still out of reach. And this is far from being a solved problem. There are many terrestrial challenges to Internet connectivity - jungles, archipelagos, mountains. There are also major cost challenges. Right now, for example, in most of the countries in the southern hemisphere, the cost of an Internet connection is more than a month's income. Solving these problems isn't simply a question of time: it requires looking at the problem of access from new angles. So today we're unveiling our latest moonshot from Google[x]: balloon-powered Internet access." Insane.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 06/17/13 17:52 UTC
"MineAssemble is a tiny bootable Minecraft clone written partly in x86 assembly. I made it first and foremost because a university assignment required me to implement a game in assembly for a computer systems course. Because I had never implemented anything more complex than a 'Hello World' bootloader before, I decided I wanted to learn about writing my own kernel code at the same time. Note that the goal of this project was not to write highly efficient hand-optimized assembly code, but rather to have fun and write code that balances readability and speed. This is primarily accomplished by proper commenting and consistent code structuring." Just cool.More News »
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Does that improve things? I really want to avoid going all-white for the background :/.
Maybe a bit. But actually, what I forgot to write in my previous feedback is the question: Why don't you just allow users to tweak the color scheme for themselves? If you're already offering a "night" mode, I imagine it shouldn't be too much trouble to offer a few more alternative color schemes or even to allow more detailed per-user/per-HTML-element customization.
Agreed on the idea of taking on an actual graphic designer. Unfortunately I am not one. Anyone else reading this want to volunteer their talents?
Anyway, at the very least I would suggest you could try filling the current logo with all-green and with the font size of the word "news" increased. I think that could look quite decent even at smaller sizes.
Fine and good, but seeing as you are playing the role of UI designer as well as graphic designer these things are important to define as best as you can *now*. Otherwise some technical "features" will in all likelihood fill in the blanks for you, in a manner that in all likelihood will be sub-optimally usable.
Think about what the actual needs of your users are, not about some abstract concept of "future proofing". Learn a lesson from KDE 4 and don't ignore current usability concerns in the name of an abstract ideal of future flexibility.
Why not space the menu items out more so you can fit more than one-word item names, and call it "Support OSNews"? Seems simple and unambiguous enough to me.
The current UI of having other news items listed along the right-hand side is much more useful, if a bit distracting/cluttered.
Won't happen
OK if you're that set against it. But please at least take a cursory look at e.g. Ars Technica and the Verge, both of which make good use of this extra space.
I just think it needs to be above the fold, and not necessarily at the top. Putting it at the top would introduce a non-standard item to the top-right menubar (they're all text links, not input fields), which I don't want (it would look hideous). I can play with moving it above the user menu, though. Made a note to try this out.
Above the menu sounds good. Or again, check out Ars Technica -- they make putting it in-line with the menu work visually even though it is indeed another kind of element.
Glad you are responsive to this. It would be more consistent with the rest of the web.
Why not only show avatar icons if they're available, otherwise don't show anything? That's how The Verge does it and it seems to work fine there.
One more thing: The "Submit News" link doesn't have anything to do with the user profile and so shouldn't be buried inside the user menu. In fact this is an incredibly important function that you want to encourage the use of, no? I should think it's at least as important as the "Support OSnews" function, seeing as content is the number one priority of a user-content-based news aggregation and editorial site. So why not put it in a highly visible position, for instance in the top-right menu, perhaps in a brighter color to emphasizes it (like the "Subscribe now" item on Ars Technica)?
Cheers for listening, looking forward to the next update.
Edited 2012-12-27 18:08 UTC