OSnews - Exploring the Future of Computing

Microsoft vs. Open Source: Who Will Win?

Submitted by Martin Beech 2005-06-06 Rumors 40 Comments

Using formal economic modelling, professors Pankaj Ghemawat and Ramon Casadesus-Masanell consider the competitive dynamics of the software wars between Microsoft and open source.

LaTeX isn’t for everyone but it could be for you

Guest post by Andy Roberts 2005-06-06 Office 122 Comments

Anyone who has used Microsoft Word for a reasonable amount of time will recognise my very own Andy's Laws on Word:

CONFIRMED: Apple to use Intel Chips – updated

Eugenia Loli 2005-06-06 Apple 378 Comments

"Mac OS X has been leading a secret double life. There have been rumors to this effect... We've had teams working on the 'just in case' scenario." said Steve Jobs. Apple will ship a Mac with Intel processors by June 6th, 2006, as reports said. It should be complete by June 2007. Says that Intel offers a better roadmap for the markets that Apple services. Jobs talked about IBM missing the 3 GHz mark for the G5 and not being able to put one in a PowerBook. Today's WWDC demonstration has been done entirely on an Intel Mac Xeon-P4. Developers applauded Steve when he said that both processors would be supported for a long time and the core to this will be universal binaries. 'Rosetta' will allow PowerPC compiled apps to work on an Intel Mac. UPDATE: After Jobs' presentation, Apple Senior Vice President Phil Schiller addressed the issue of running Windows on Macs, saying there are no plans to sell or support Windows on an Intel-based Mac. "That doesn't preclude someone from running it on a Mac. They probably will," he said. "We won't do anything to preclude that." However, Schiller said the company does not plan to let people run Mac OS X on other computer makers' hardware. "We will not allow running Mac OS X on anything other than an Apple Mac."

Debian GNU/Linux 3.1r0 released

Submitted by Philipp Esselbach 2005-06-06 Debian 32 Comments

Debian GNU/Linux 3.1r0 (Sarge) has been released to the ftp mirrors. The full download is available on 14 CDs or 2 DVDs.

Linux Adoption Stalls, Study Says

Eugenia Loli 2005-06-06 Linux 20 Comments

Linux use in computer servers running business applications was reported in 53 percent of the 500 North American companies surveyed by SG Cowen & Co. for its Core Technology Survey, released this week. In addition, 7 percent of the respondents planned to adopt Linux, which was the "most modest" level the New York investment banker had seen in its survey.

Atari Flashback 2.0

Submitted by Rodrigo 2005-06-06 Games 11 Comments

While most people is looking forward to XBOX 360 and PS3, this is the one that makes the heart of most 30 years old geeks beat faster.

A good morning with Theo de Raadt

Submitted by OpenBSD MediaCoverage 2005-06-06 OpenBSD 7 Comments

Brief but wide-ranging interview with Theo in which our leader opines about the good things in 3.7: "The list of new developments is impressive, but in my view not nearly as impressive as the small little details that continue to be fixed during each development cycle."

VMware launching developer program

Eugenia Loli 2005-06-06 In the News 12 Comments

VMware plans to unveil a subscription plan Monday to grant developers cheaper and easier access to the company's products. Elsewhere, Bochs 2.2 was released.

WinUAE v1.0 released

Eugenia Loli 2005-06-06 Amiga & AROS 14 Comments

Tony Wilen has released WinUAE 1.0 of his Classic Amiga emulator. Also, UAE review here.

Should We Be Doing More Unit Testing?

Eugenia Loli 2005-06-06 General Development 27 Comments

Quick feedback. More testable code. Finding serious problems early. What's not to like? Michael Kelly pleads the case for unit testing.

Editorial: Why Apple’s Switch Makes Sense NOW

Eugenia Loli 2005-06-05 Apple 207 Comments

After News.com's Friday report that Apple is moving to Intel/x86, the respected publication Wall Street Journal and now NYTimes threw their reputation behind the rumor. Many people still remain skeptical, but I personally believe that the time is right for Apple to switch to x86-64, for two main reasons:

Nintendo: Innovation is dying

Submitted by Darius 2005-06-04 Games 72 Comments

Mario creator Miyamoto discusses what's wrong with the video game industry today.

Konqueror passes ACID2 Test

Submitted by Daniel Molkentin 2005-06-04 KDE 66 Comments

KHTML Developer Allan Sandfeld announced that KDE's browser Konqueror now passes the ACID2 test from webstandards.org. While some patches were taken from the Safari fixes, a good part of the fixes have been written from scratch. Konqueror is the second browser to actually tackle the hard test.

Mac OS X Tiger burns bright

Eugenia Loli 2005-06-04 macOS 26 Comments

Apple's Mac OS X 10.4 brings productivity to desktops, turnkey power to servers, says InfoWorld.

Apple to drop PPC for x86?

Submitted by Yves R. Crevecoeur 2005-06-04 Apple 325 Comments

Stop the presses: Apple Computer plans to announce Monday that it's scrapping its partnership with IBM and switching its computers to Intel's microprocessors, CNET News.com has learned.

The end of the ‘blind’ computer soon?

Submitted by Williams Paquier 2005-06-04 Geek stuff 33 Comments

Computers can do a lot of things today: connect to the internet or do text editing or any other productivity task. They can play music, display or retouch photos, play movies. Produce realistic 3D graphics. But it's still 'blind', it has no idea of your existence, your emotions, the objects you are interacting with. Observer is about to end this era. Have a look at the videos presented in the movies section to understand the potential offered by Observer.