OSnews - Exploring the Future of Computing

Kaffe 1.1.7 released

Submitted by djinn 2006-03-30 Java 12 Comments

A new version of Kaffe has been released. Kaffe is a clean room implementation of the Java virtual machine, plus the associated class libraries needed to provide a Java runtime environment. The Kaffe virtual machine is free software, licensed under the terms of the GNU General Public License. Some benchmarks are available too.

Is Palm Building Its Own Linux-Based PDA OS?

Eugenia Loli 2006-03-30 Wireless 23 Comments

Speculation is in the air again that Palm, Inc (not just PalmSource) is working on their own operating system for future mobile devices. David Beers is reporting on his blog that a analyst "in the know" privately confirmed that Palm is experimenting with developing its own Linux based operating system.

Community Interview: Bernd Korz, YellowTAB

Thom Holwerda 2006-03-29 Zeta 50 Comments

Today, we have something special on OSNews, something that's actually a first-timer on OSNews. Already common on other websites, we today hand the microphone to you, so you can ask questions to someone from the tech industry. Read on for the details!

Submitted by mcsimpson 2006-03-29 Apple 28 Comments

GeekPatrol uses their GeekBench tool to compare Windows XP and OSX, both running on MacBook Pros. "Overall, there are areas where the Windows XP MacBook Pro was faster, areas where the Mac OS X MacBook Pro was faster, and areas where they were both roughly the same. Looking at these results, it’s hard to say which configuration comes out on top, although I think you could make a convincing argument for Windows XP (with Visual C++) being a bit faster overall than Mac OS X (with GCC)."

Interviews: Mepis, Xandros, Linspire, Micro Center VIP

Submitted by SilentBob4 2006-03-29 Linux 7 Comments

"This is the second in a series of two articles on Tux's move into retail. Last week's article described some of the mechanics of how free open source software is getting into retail. Today, Mad Penguin interviews Linspire CEO Kevin Carmony; Xandros CEO Andreas Typaldos; Mepis Linux founder Warren Woodford; and Kevin Jones, Micro Center Vice President of Merchandising, to get their take Tux's jump into big box retail."

Submitted by helgegrimm 2006-03-29 Windows 135 Comments

The European Commission said on Wednesday it told Microsoft that it had competition worries about the firm's new operating system, Vista, another antitrust concern that the software giant must answer in Europe. "We are concerned about the possibility that the next Vista operating system will include various elements which are currently available separately from Microsoft or other companies," Commission spokesman Jonathan Todd said. More here. My take: Enough already. Seriously.

Evolution of the Mac Interface

Thom Holwerda 2006-03-29 Apple 16 Comments

Bill Atkinson was Apple Computer's main developer of the user interface that first appeared on the Lisa and later on the Mac. A passionate photographer, Atkinson had the foresight in the late '70s and early '80s to document his UI work for Apple in a series of Polaroids. The photos were published by another Mac pioneer, Andy Hertzfeld, in his book 'Revolution in the Valley: The Insanely Great Story of How the Mac Was Made'. Through Hertzfeld, Atkinson permitted CNET News.com to reprint the photos. Similar shots here.

Microsoft Offers 60-Day ActiveX Reprieve

Thom Holwerda 2006-03-29 Internet Explorer 12 Comments

Microsoft has acknowledged that a planned update to the way Internet Explorer renders multimedia on Web pages could cause some serious problems, and promised to give developers an extra two months to modify their pages to ensure a smooth transition. The company was forced to make the changes in response to a patent dispute with Eolas Technologies. The fix would affect the way ActiveX controls are displayed on Web pages, according to experts. If no changes were made, a user would have to 'activate' an ActiveX or Java control before it would be usable. More on IE here.

Quick Look: GNOME 2.14

Thom Holwerda 2006-03-29 Gnome 23 Comments

Ars takes a quick look at GNOME 2.14. "The GNOME team recently announced another excellent release. GNOME 2.14 includes a variety of spiffy enhancements, bug fixes, improvements, and new features that make it the best GNOME desktop environment ever. Already available in Ubuntu Dapper and the recently released Fedora Core 5, GNOME 2.14 awaits your use and abuse. I've poked and prodded it and now I'm ready to talk about it."

Apple Joins Windows Benchmarking Consortium

Thom Holwerda 2006-03-29 Apple 4 Comments

In a stunning move, BAPCo, the industry-standard Windows benchmarking consortium, announced that Apple Computer has joined up as a member. BAPCo is responsible for the SYSmark 2004SE and MobileMark benchmark suites we use at PC Magazine Labs for testing PCs. BAPCo also produces the webserver test WEBmark. BAPCo members include AMD, Intel, Transmeta, ATI, nVidia, Microsoft, Ziff Davis Media, CNET, Dell, HP, Toshiba, Seagate, VNU, Atheros, and ARCintuition.

Asus To Ship Ageia PhysX Add-in Boards

Thom Holwerda 2006-03-29 3D 10 Comments

Asus will begin shipping a dedicated physics processing board based on Ageia's PhysX PPU in May, the company said today. The card contains 256MB of memory dedicated to environment calculations designed to make virtual worlds feel more real to game players. Ageia announced PhysX last week. It claims that 60 developers - including UbiSoft, Cryptic Studios, NCSoft, Epic Games and Sega - are working on 100 games with support for the company's physics calculation API.

Submitted by shanecoughlan 2006-03-29 Rumors 68 Comments

"Over 500 million people use the Internet, and over a billion computers are deployed around the world. It has become impossible to ignore the issue of content management and access. Call it Digital Rights Management if you will, or call it working out how to manage copying in the digital realm. We need to solve the problem of how digital information will be shared, and an equally important need to set open and wide reaching standards. It has been more than ten years since computers and the Internet really started to take off, and there is still no coherent approach to restricted (or unrestricted) information sharing. This is a serious problem."

Linux Supporters Fiddle While OpenSSH Burns

Submitted by anonymous 2006-03-29 OpenBSD 151 Comments

"Even if you don't use OpenBSD, you're likely to be benefiting from it unknowingly. If you're using Solaris, SCO UnixWare, OS X, SUSE Linux, or Red Hat Enterprise Linux, chances are you're using the OpenBSD-developed OpenSSH for secure shell access to remote machines. If so many are using this software, why are so few paying for it? Official responses (and non-responses) from Sun Microsystems, IBM, Novell, and Red Hat are below, but if you're one of the freeloaders who hasn't contributed to OpenBSD or OpenSSH, what's your excuse?"

Review: Trustware BufferZone 1.6

Submitted by anonymous 2006-03-29 Privacy, Security 2 Comments

"Security company Trustware has a product that takes a new approach on protecting the end users. BufferZone is centered on a concept of virtualization technology, that creates a whole new secluded environment on your computer. After installing the software, you are guided through a mini presentation that introduces you to the process of setting up your BufferZone. Although usage of terms like 'virtualization' and 'buffer' might be a bit complicated for the average PC user, the concept is very easy to comprehend and to setup."

Red Hat 4Q Profit Soars, Beats Estimates

Submitted by Rahu 2006-03-29 Red Hat 8 Comments

Red Hat is going through a growth spurt as companies become more comfortable with its software as an alternative to Windows and profits fuel the expansion, executives with the developer of open source software said Tuesday. Profitability expanded even as Red Hat grew to more than 1200 employees.

40+ Suggestions for Improving GNOME

Submitted by Matt Evans 2006-03-28 Gnome 74 Comments

"Here are my few suggestions to make better desktop (making it simple but powerful). Most of them are for GNOME and related applications but for other desktop environments and applications could be also useful. This suggestions are not of type make it faster (what is also important) but of type make it more useful. Some of them are my own thoughts but some suggestions are inspired by existing programs. And even some are not real suggestions." Note that English isn't his native tongue.

MINIX 3.1.2-B2 Released

Thom Holwerda 2006-03-28 OS News 8 Comments

Andy Tanenbaum has released 3.1.2-B2 of MINIX, a preview version of 3.1.2. We reported extensively on the initial release of MINIX3 last year. The most important new feauture of this release is the inclusion of the X windowing system.

Interview: Theo de Raadt, OpenBSD

Thom Holwerda 2006-03-28 OpenBSD 58 Comments

"Theo de Raadt is the project leader for OpenBSD, a Unix-like operating system. We spoke with Theo about the upcoming release of OpenBSD, 3.9, the financial state of the project, and about companies that profit from free software without contributing back."

Next Microsoft Virtual Server slips to 2007

Thom Holwerda 2006-03-28 Microsoft 8 Comments

Microsoft has delayed until early 2007 an update for Microsoft Virtual Server, a technology that lets a computer run multiple incarnations of Windows simultaneously. The SP1 update to Virtual Server 2005 R2 will include support for two chip features, Intel's Virtualization and AMD's Virtualization, that ease the task. Previously it had been scheduled to arrive in the fourth quarter, but a Microsoft representative confirmed the slip on Tuesday.

WinAros Light Released

Submitted by John Holmes 2006-03-28 Amiga & AROS 5 Comments

WinArosLight is a preinstalled AROS on a HD image, that runs under Windows using QEmu. WinAros Light targets developers, using AmiDevCpp to develop AROS programs. WinArosLight in combination with a program like ultraiso is a nice test environment for those programs. WinArosLight uses the latest AROS snapshot. Other than all that, it's just a really easy way of testing AROS. Download it from this page, 'WinArosLight.exe'.