OSnews - Exploring the Future of Computing

Apple Seeds Mac OS 10.4.6 to Developers

Thom Holwerda 2006-02-23 macOS 9 Comments

One week after releasing Mac OS X 10.4.5 to the general public Apple has dropped the first seed of the next Mac OS X update on developers. The update currently delivers about 50 documented improvements, including several OpenGL-related fixes, improvements to CoreImage and CoreGraphics, and other bug corrections for iSync, AppleScript, and other components.

Quantum Computer Solves Problem, Without Running

Thom Holwerda 2006-02-23 Geek stuff 28 Comments

Ok, this one is just plain scary. "By combining quantum computation and quantum interrogation, scientists at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign have found an exotic way of determining an answer to an algorithm - without ever running the algorithm. Using an optical-based quantum computer, a research team led by physicist Paul Kwiat has presented the first demonstration of 'counterfactual computation', inferring information about an answer, even though the computer did not run." The research team published their results in Nature.

Asus Dreams up Modular PC of the Future

Thom Holwerda 2006-02-23 Hardware 12 Comments

Asus has shelved plans to develop the PC of the future - literally. The Taiwanese vendor's Green PC concept computer, shown to Reg Hardware this week, is just that: a shelf. And some clever wireless connectivity and non-contact inductive power source.

Apple Drops 15″ PowerBook

Thom Holwerda 2006-02-23 Apple 10 Comments

Apple has phased out its 15" PowerBook G4. The PowerPC-based notebook has been removed from the company's online stores in the UK and the US, Europe and Asia-Pacific, even as the first Intel-based 15" MacBook Pro machines began to be delivered to buyers.

FOSDEM 2006: Interviews

Guest post by Jonita Prifti 2006-02-23 Open Source 1 Comment

FOSDEM takes place on the 25th and 26th of February 2006 in Brussels, Belgium. You are all invited to take part in the largest Free Software and Open Source event. The previous edition encountered a huge success with more than 3000 attendees coming from all over the world to attend the talks of famous figures of the Free Software and Open Source community. Read more for more info.

Review: The O2 XDA Atom

Eugenia Loli 2006-02-22 Wireless 27 Comments

Quanta/O2 loaned us a unit of their brand new GSM communicator, the O2 XDA Atom. The phone is a GSM 900/1800/1900, GPRS class B, multi-slot class 10, EDGE phone running Windows Mobile 5.1 (the unit arrived loaded with the latest ROM). Dig in for more info about this interesting smartphone, mostly aimed at the Australia/Asian and European markets.

Growing Apple with the Macintosh: the Sculley Years

Submitted by anonymous 2006-02-22 Apple 25 Comments

John Sculley was instrumental in Apple's rise and fall during the late eighties and early nineties. By 1990, Apple was the largest PC manufacturer in the world, but at the same time, the company was hemorrhaging research money. After a power struggle that started almost as soon as Steve Jobs left the company in 1985, he was deposed in favor of his trusted aid, Michael Spindler. Read more.

Updating SUSE Linux Clients From a Local Update Server

Submitted by Jane Walker 2006-02-22 SuSE, openSUSE 5 Comments

"In my last tip, we set up a single internal YaST Online Update server to pick up updated software from the SuSE mirrors. Now, we're going to answer the question: how do clients connect to the server? In setting up the single internal YaST Online Update server, the idea was to minimize the load on the existing mirrors by having one machine hit the outside servers, instead of however many client machines you have, and enhance security by keeping updates inside your firewall."

Submitted by Kombatant 2006-02-22 3D 91 Comments

"ATI's R5xx line was first released back in October 2005. The initial launch covered the X1800 and X1300 series, with the X1600 series following suit in November. Last month we saw the release of the new X1900 series too. Now, let me count the months from October to February; it is 5 months, right? Well, believe it or not, that's the number of months the new X1000 series is out in the market without Linux support. If you are unfortunate enough to own such a card, all you have is Matthew Tippett's statement in Phoronix."

Submitted by vurdlak 2006-02-22 General Development 26 Comments

"This website will provide you with lessons and quality material to learn basics of C language programming in just a few days. All you have to do read trough my lessons. You will notice I'm putting new lessons up every day or two. It would be practical if you had Visual Studio installed on your computer and used it parallel to these lessons, but it isn't neccessary."

Submitted by jamesd 2006-02-22 Solaris 6 Comments

"Another release of OpenGrok, made possible due to many contributions of Trond Norbye, a new member of OpenGrok team." OpenGrok 0.3 has been released. This new version introduces support for Subversion and a new GUI. There's also an article available describing OpenGrok's internals.

Submitted by DigitalDame 2006-02-22 Windows 80 Comments

"With today's release of the Windows Vista February CTP, Microsoft has publicly passed a key milestone on the road to launching its new operating system. This release of Vista is 'feature-complete', the company says, meaning that all of the fundamental capabilities that Vista will eventually offer are now baked in." Lots of screenshots included, so go ahead and praise halleluja or declare end of days, boys and girls.

Submitted by harochai 2006-02-22 OS News 12 Comments

"Parallels today announced the availability of Parallels Workstation 2.1 Beta2. In addition to the numerous enhancements and new features included in Parallels Workstation 2.1 Beta1, this upgraded version of Parallels' desktop virtualization solution includes a completely new user interface, faster virtual machine performance, better stability and stronger isolation, more advanced USB support that enables users to access a broader range of popular USB devices like cameras, flash drives and PDAs directly in virtual machines."

The OpenLaszlo Javascript Advantage Over Flash

Submitted by anonymous 2006-02-22 General Development 3 Comments

"OpenLaszlo is a rich client application architecture that uses Macromedia to build Flash widgets with XML and JavaScript logic. This article details the basic concepts of OpenLaszlo, and gives examples of situations in which an OpenLaszlo solution might be beneficial and it also details how it compensates for the shortcomings of Ajax dynamic web development."

The Intelligent File Format

Thom Holwerda 2006-02-22 OS News 21 Comments

"What would happen if the beginning of file systems embedded a driver for accessing the disk? If the driver was in some sort of neutral format (similar to the X Windows drivers), then any OS could access the file system! While this concept was exciting in of itself, it didn't even begin to scratch the surface of what was possible. It wasn't long before I considered the fact that a file system is nothing more than a hierarchical database. There's nothing inherently special about it, so why can't the file system payload be replaced with some sort of other data? As long as the embedded driver can read the format and produce some sort of usable data structure, there's no reason why the concept could be extended for all types of data!"

Microsoft Subpoenad in SCO Case; More EC vs. Microsoft

Thom Holwerda 2006-02-22 Legal 48 Comments

This is your daily IT Lawsuit News Feeder. Groklaw reports that IBM has subpoenad Microsoft in its enduring legal battle with SCO. IBM is demanding Microsoft delivers all communications between Microsoft and SCO, since June 28th 2002, including conversations Darl McBride may have had with Steve Ballmer. But no worries, that ain't all! IBM, Red Hat, Sun, and Real have filed a complaint with the European Commission because Microsoft unfairly scotches competition. That was your daily IT Lawsuit News Feeder, end transmission.

Security Hole in Mac OS X Also Affects Apple Mail

Thom Holwerda 2006-02-22 macOS 49 Comments

The weak point in Apple's Mac OS X operating system is apparently worse than originally thought. In addition to attacks via the Safari web browser, Apple Mail also executes scripts without asking in certain circumstances. It suffices to disguise a script with the ending "jpg" and assign the Terminal application for opening it. If this script is then sent in the AppleDouble format as an attachment, the information is passed along so that the recipient's system also opens it with the Terminal. Apple Mail displays the attachment with a JPG file symbol, but when users click on it, the script executes within Terminal without further prompting. Update: Heise is right.

World’s Largest Windows Error Message

Thom Holwerda 2006-02-22 Humor 49 Comments

Times Square has seen the largest Windows error message ever. One of the many machines controlling one of the many electronic billboards crashed, displaying a large DirectX error message. The billboard is two stories high. Adam Gaffin happened to be at Times Square and took some pictures of the world's largest error message.

Apple Launching… Something Next Week

Thom Holwerda 2006-02-22 Apple 35 Comments

"Apple special events are nothing new. The company will send out an invitation, rumor sites will post images of the invite, Mac users everywhere will speculate about what's going to happen and what Apple will announce, and on the day of the event, news sites faithfully report on the special event. Apple has just such an event planned for the last day of February, but with a twist: in invitations sent out to journalists, the company says journalists are invited to 'come see some fun new products from Apple' without giving hints as to what they might be."

HAL, GNOME Support for Hard Disk Encryption in FC5

Submitted by Moule 2006-02-22 Fedora Core 9 Comments

"I've been hacking on and off with W. Michael Petullo on integrating LUKS into the GNOME desktop via HAL and patches are now upstream. I think it rocks. I've prepared a small screencast." What exactly is LUKS? "LUKS is the upcoming standard for Linux hard disk encryption. By providing a standard on-disk-format, it does not only facilitate compatibility among distributions, but also provide secure management of multiple user passwords. In contrast to existing solution, LUKS stores all setup necessary setup information in the partition header, enabling the user to transport or migrate his data seamlessly."