I know a lot of folks are eager to find out when they will be able to get Windows 8.1. I am excited to share that starting at 12:00am on October 18th in New Zealand (that's 4:00am October 17th in Redmond), Windows 8.1 will begin rolling out worldwide as a free update for consumers on Windows 8 through the Windows Store. Windows 8.1 will also be available at retail and on new devices starting on October 18th by market. So mark your calendars!
Our priority is ensuring our customers get the best Xbox One experience the first day it is available. To do that, and in order to meet demand, we have adjusted the number of markets that will receive Xbox One in November to 13 markets, including Australia, Austria, Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Mexico, Spain, United Kingdom, United States and New Zealand, in November.
We remain committed to launching Xbox One in Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Netherlands, Norway, Russia, Sweden, Switzerland, as soon as possible in 2014.
And now delays. Microsoft on a roll.
After spending a little time with the Ascend P6 getting it set up with our accounts and apps, we have to say we're quite impressed with the build quality. This is a big step up over some of its offerings last year, and even over what it announced just at CES in January. It is incredibly thin and relatively light as well, without feeling cheap or flimsy and the use of different metals along with small plastic accents is quite nice. The display also looks crisp and bright despite only being 720p (although the resolution is quite acceptable at 4.7-inches), and the device is overall refreshingly small compared to the ballooning sizes of recent handsets.
This thing is going places. Huawei is advertising it all over the country on national TV here in The Netherlands, and it's being pushed by retail chains. The next Samsung won't be American or European, but Chinese.
The sad thing is not that this is apparently a thing - no, the sad thing is that people actually believe this to be true. If you believe Apple and Google really care about you as a user, you've already lost the battle.
That said, like online, the console will still function if Kinect isn’t plugged in, although you won’t be able to use any feature or experience that explicitly uses the sensor.
The Xbox One used to require Kinect. Now it doesn't. Good move, obviously, but it does raise the question: whatever the hell was this company thinking? Microsoft really seems to have lost all its marbles - Windows 8, Windows Phone, and now Xbox One. Messy, messy, messy.
Business magnate Larry Ellison thinks that without Steve Jobs -- "our Edison" and "our Picasso" -- Apple corporation is in trouble.
Larry Ellison was one of Jobs' closest friends. Then again, this is the same Ellison who presided over one of the most idiotic and - for Oracle - disastrous lawsuits in technology history.
Update: A few new tidbits from the interview: Google is "completely evil" because of Java, and the mass surveillance by the US government is "absolutely necessary". So, aside from being utterly delusional (the Google and Java thing), he also does not believe in civil rights, and would much rather everyone give up their privacy and right to free speech.
What a tool. No wonder nobody cares about Oracle.
The Hacker School space has an old Apple //e sitting around.
Due to the fact that we are hackers, my friend Martin Törnwall and I decided to turn it into a lisp machine.
Quite cool.
We suggest using VMWare Player (Windows/Linux) or VMWare Fusion (MacOS) to run the Live CD or install the beta. Install SkyOS to your harddisk or run the Live CD natively on your own risk!
To run SkyOS in VMWare just:
SkyOS was quite prominent on OSNews between 2003-2008 - it was coded virtually entirely by Austrian Robert Szeleney in his free time. It achieved a relatively usable state on the desktop - especially considering it was a one man project - but it did suffer from what I call the 'ooh shiney!'-syndrome - it was a hobby project for Szeleney, and as such, focus tended to shift around quite often, depending on whatever he wanted to work on at that time.
SkyOS originally started out as a mere bootloader, but eventually expanded into becoming an entire operating system. In the early days - up until version 4.x - SkyOS was freely available, but it wasn't open source (I believe the 1.x versions may have been, though, I can't recall). After that, Szeleney started charging a small fee for access to the SkyOS 5 beta, which some considered controversial. The SkyOS 5.0 release cycle started with its first alpha release in December 2003, and ended with the release of beta build 6947 in August 2008 - a final release never materialised.
The project seemed to fizzle out, but Szeleney did experiment with using third party kernels, like a BSD kernel or a Linux kernel. That was the last we heard of it - and earlier this year, the website went dark.
So, it's quite a surprise to see that over the weekend, Szeleney has made the last beta release of SkyOS 5.0 - build 6947 - available for free. I somehow doubt we'll see development pick up again, but it's nice to have the latest release out in the open for everyone to play with.
They've managed to build quite some hype, so let's see if it lives up to it. Does anyone here use it?
Android tablets browsing share is still relatively low in Europe, but very strong in Asia. Despite the iPad's head start in the market, Android's tablet browsing share has nearly matched the iPad in Asia. More importantly, the overall trend is sharply in favor of Android tablets, which supports the strong shipment performance over the past few quarters.
Good analysis. Sameer Singh compares the growth trend of Android tablets to that of Android smartphones in the past, and it shows that Android tablet usage is actually growing faster than Android smartphone usage did in the past.
At this point, nothing seems to be able to stop Android's total and utter dominance. Not Apple, not Microsoft. Scary.
Some older Samsung Electronics Co. mobile devices face a sales and import ban in the United States after a U.S. trade panel ruled for Apple Inc. in a high-profile patent infringement case.
The U.S. International Trade Commission on Friday ruled that South Korea's Samsung infringes on portions of two Apple Inc patents on digital mobile devices, covering the detection of headphone jacks and operation of touchscreens.
If Obama does not step in, two tiny patents like this can get devices banned, but refusal to accept FRAND terms, refusal to negotiate, all the while using the patent in question anyway does not.
Sure, this is not about protectionism. How cute.
The Administration’s unprecedented decision to veto an ITC "Section 337" import ban against Apple for infringing Samsung's intellectual property is a disruptive and potentially dangerous development that calls into question the fairness of our trading regime and could undermine the way US companies are treated globally.
Adjudication by USTR fiat, however, is unacceptable and invites other countries to do the same. While Ambassador Froman's letter cites policy issues, it offers little helpful analysis or guidance. And it ignores the ITC's determination that Apple failed to prove either that Samsung's patent was a standard-essential patent or that Samsung breached its obligation to a standards-setting organization.
Well said.
This is the core of the problem with Obama's veto. Not only did he completely and utterly contradict the findings of an expert panel of judges who investigated all the materials in great detail, he also sent out a very strong message: if you're a foreign company doing business in the US, you will be treated as a second class citizen. Combined with the endless stream of negative press concerning surveillance and which hunts for whistleblowers, the US just got a whole lot less enticing for technology companies.Early this morning on Google+, he showed off his latest project, which will allow any audio or video file to be casted to your TV using a CyanogenMod-powered device and the Chromecast dongle. In his demo above he shows it off using the Twit.TV app, but he explains that the process should be the same for any media you can play through any app.
This is exactly what I want out of the Chromecast.
While Microsoft's latest Windows Phone 8 update is slowly rolling out to existing handsets, the company is prepping new changes that will be made available by the end of the year. Sources familiar with Microsoft's Windows Phone plans have revealed to The Verge that the software maker is currently testing a General Distribution 3 (GDR3) update. The update is designed for new hardware initially, and will provide a rotation lock feature, UI changes to Live Tiles, and a driving mode option that's designed for in-car use.
Apple and Google are surely shaking in their boots.
Over one billion people use Google Maps services every month. On the Google Maps app, these users are often searching for local businesses - from restaurants, to car dealerships, to dentists, and more. Recently, we launched a new version of the Google Maps app for Android, iPhone, and iPad where we introduced several new features. Today we're introducing an updated ad experience we think is more attractive for users and more effective for advertisers.
Yes, ads in Google's mobile Maps applications. Fantastic.
President Barack Obama hosted Apple CEO Tim Cook, AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson, Google computer scientist Vint Cerf and other tech executives and civil liberties leaders on Thursday for a closed-door meeting about government surveillance, sources tell POLITICO.
Five hundred years ago, our ancestors started the fight to separate church and state. Now it's time we separate corporation and state.
Sure, Apple will most likely still make far more money per sold iPhone device than competitors will per Android phone, but the trend is clear: as much as I love my iPhone, it will be relegated to a ~10% market share figure within a few quarters.
Well, I see that people have figured out why I'm quitting AOSP.
There's no point being the maintainer of an Operating System that can't boot to the home screen on its flagship device for lack of GPU support, especially when I'm getting the blame for something that I don't have authority to fix myself and that I had anticipated and escalated more than 6 months ahead.
By the way, in this context, 'to escalate' means handing something over to your superiors so they can handle it. I believe this definition of the word is uncommon outside of the US.
The issue here is exactly what it sounds like: there are currently no factory images/binaries available for the latest Nexus device, the new Nexus 7. The problem is that the GPU in the new Nexus 7 is made by Qualcomm, a company which is incredibly hostile towards the open source community. This isn't the first time Qualcomm has sabotaged an AOSP launch - all Nexus devices with Qualcomm chips, the Nexus 1, 4, and the new 7, faced these problems.
Because he is apparently very good at pattern recognition, JBQ states that he already anticipated this issue six months ago, but that it hasn't been solved. A recent tweet from him is quite telling:
That feeling when lawyers sabotage the launch you spent 6 months working on? I haz it. Sad sad sad sad sad sad.
This is bad news for Google, and bad news for Android. JBQ has done an amazing job on AOSP, and I'm very sad to see him leaving his post. As of this moment, it's not yet known whether he will leave Google entirely or not.
Windows Phone posted the largest year-over-year increase among the top five smartphone platforms, and in the process reinforced its position as the number 3 smartphone operating system. Driving this result was Nokia, which released two new smartphones and grew its presence at multiple mobile operators. But beyond Nokia, Windows Phone remained a secondary option for other vendors, many of which have concentrated on Android. By comparison, Nokia accounted for 81.6% of all Windows Phone smartphone shipments during 2Q13.
Over the past 12 months, Windows Phone went from 3.1% market share to 3.7%. This means that while shipments of Windows Phone devices are growing, they're barely growing any faster than the industry as a whole. Still, it's crazy to see there's less than a 10 percentages points difference between Windows Phone and iOS.
Another potential problem is that Microsoft is effectively entirely dependent on Nokia. If Nokia falters, Windows Phone falters. Other vendors have essentially lost all interest in the platform, and as such, Microsoft has a a very strong impetus in keeping Nokia going. Still, I'm pretty sure that the Surface phone is ready to go at a moment's notice.
They're going to need it.
After Samsung announced the Galaxy S4, its futuristic slab of a smartphone, it was only a matter of time until LG countered. Today, at a jazz hall in New York City, LG dealt its hand in the form of the new G2, and not surprisingly it's a lot like the other phone shipping from Korea this year.
It has its power and volume buttons on the back. I'm pretty sure that's a comfortable location - but boy it looks terrible. Like Samsung, LG also slaps an absolutely horrible skin on top of Android, further adding to the dreadfulness of the G2. Yet another reason this is essentially an S4 with the buttons on its back.
I guess I'm not the target customer for this stuff. I wonder if any of us here are.
Submitted by 