Based on the MINIX 3 microkernel, we have constructed a system that to the user looks a great deal like NetBSD. It uses pkgsrc, NetBSD headers and libraries, and passes over 80% of the KYUA tests). However, inside, the system is completely different. At the bottom is a small (about 13,000 lines of code) microkernel that handles interrupts, message passing, low-level scheduling, and hardware related details. Nearly all of the actual operating system, including memory management, the file system(s), paging, and all the device drivers run as user-mode processes protected by the MMU. As a consequence, failures or security issues in one component cannot spread to other ones. In some cases a failed component can be replaced automatically and on the fly, while the system is running, and without user processes noticing it. The talk will discuss the history, goals, technology, and status of the project.

Former Nokia CEO Stephen Elop is leaving Microsoft as part of a fresh reorganization. "We are aligning our engineering efforts and capabilities to deliver on our strategy and, in particular, our three core ambitions," says Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella in an email to employees today. "This change will enable us to deliver better products and services that our customers love at a more rapid pace."

Looking across the updates in El Capitan, the story is clear: Apple is making life way better for people who live in its ecosystem. But if you don't live in Apple's garden, the benefits are less clear. Yes, it's faster and there are bugfixes all around, but to take advantage of Apple's updates you really need to use Apple's apps.

It's Day 0 of E3 2015. This is the time when all the giants of popular gaming make their big announcements, competing for your attention and future gaming dollars. Today is also a big day for YouTube, which doesn't make games, but will soon be introducing a dedicated YouTube Gaming service. It too will be competing for the attention of millions.

The goals of YouTube Gaming are as grand as YouTube itself. Google wants its new website and app to become "the biggest community of gamers on the web" and the destination for live-streamed game video, whether it comes from professional tournaments or amateurs playing just for fun. If that sounds exactly like Twitch, that's because it is. Having lost out to Amazon in the pursuit to acquire Twitch last summer, Google has spent the past year building up its own alternative, and that's what we have to look forward to in the coming weeks.

A 30-year-old computer that has run day and night for decades is what controls the heat and air conditioning at 19 Grand Rapids Public Schools.

The Commodore Amiga was new to GRPS in the early 1980s and it has been working tirelessly ever since. GRPS Maintenance Supervisor Tim Hopkins said that the computer was purchased with money from an energy bond in the 1980s. It replaced a computer that was "about the size of a refrigerator."

But internally, Android One was seen as an attempt to avoid another China, where Android is popular but comes without Google's services. It was also a hedge against the rising power of Facebook, which is becoming, in many parts of the developing world, the gateway to the Web.

So far, it has done neither. And the audacious hardware program has been anything but.

Most web users tolerate ads; many web users hate advertising with the fiery passion of a thousand suns. There are many good reasons that users dislike ads (they’re bad for performance, security, and privacy) as well as less universal, more arguable grievances (e.g. annoyance factor, disagreement about the value exchange for ad-funded services, etc).

Apple, a company that makes ~80%ish of their revenue from iOS-based products, recently announced that iOS 9 will ship with a compelling ad-filtering API for the Safari browser.

Such attention to detail used to be Apple's thing. Today, that distinction falls to Google. Unveiled last year, Material Design - Google's evolving design language for phones, tablets, and desktop - offers relentless consistency in interactions; invisible rules that govern everything, so that every app feels familiar; and beauty in the service of function. It's why so many designers will tell you, as they've told me, "I just like Android better." Whereas iOS is still inching along without improving much, Google is creating a coherent, unified language that easily scales across phones, with enough flexibility to jump to watches and cars. "It's not even about composing a UI in one place," says Nicholas Jitkoff, who helped lead the creation of Material Design. "It's about composing interactions from one device to the next."

This was Google. And this was Larry Page, a man who, when asked by one designer what Google's aesthetic was, responded, "Pine." That is, a command-line email system common during Page's college years, whose main draw was its speed.

Page's answer spoke to a philosophy that still dominates in the minds of many engineers: That the best design is no design at all, because speed is the only metric that matters. Adding anything charming to a computer interface simply slowed down. For many years, that made sense. In the dawn of computing, and the dawn of the internet, it didn’t matter of the computer spat out something ugly, so long as it spat out something as soon as you asked. This was a version of the so-called two second rule, formulated in the 1970s: If a computer didn't respond within that time frame, humans naturally drifted away. For a computer to actually augment your mind, it had to respond almost instantaneously.

Xcode 7 and Swift now make it easier for everyone to build apps and run them directly on their Apple devices. Simply sign in with your Apple ID, and turn your idea into an app that you can touch on your iPad, iPhone, or Apple Watch. Download Xcode 7 beta and try it yourself today. Program membership is not required.

TempleOS is somewhat of a legend in the operating system community. Its sole author, Terry A. Davis, has spent the past 12 years attempting to create a new operating from scratch. Terry explains that God has instructed him to construct a temple, a 640x480 covenant of perfection. Unfortunately Terry also suffers from schizophrenia, and has a tendency to appear on various programming forums with a burst of strange, paranoid, and often racist comments. He is frequently banned from most forums.

This combination of TempleOS's amateurish approach and Terry's unfortunate outbursts have resulted in TempleOS being often regarded as something to be mocked, ignored, or forgotten. Many people have done some or all of those things, and it's understandable why.