OSnews - Exploring the Future of Computing

NYT chimes in on reduced parts orders for iPhone 5

Thom Holwerda 2013-01-15 Apple 43 Comments

The New York Times also chimes in on the reduced orders, and they have numbers which seem more realistic. "Apple does appear to be cutting back on orders for its latest iPhone from its manufacturing partners, as Nikkei of Japan and The Wall Street Journal reported earlier. Paul Semenza, an analyst at NPD DisplaySearch, a research firm that follows the display market, said that for January, Apple had expected to order 19 million displays for the iPhone 5 but cut the order to 11 million to 14 million. Mr. Semenza said these numbers came from sources in the supply chain, the companies that make components for Apple products." Some suggest this is stock manipulation, and while that is an exciting story to be sure, would respected and well-informed newspapers like The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times participate in something like that? Somehow, I highly doubt it. A far more logical explanation, as NYT details, is that the iPhone simply isn't doing overly well outside of the US.

Dell said to be in buyout talks with private-equity firms

Thom Holwerda 2013-01-15 Hardware 33 Comments

"Dell, the personal-computer maker that lost almost a third of its value last year, is in buyout talks with private-equity firms, two people with knowledge of the matter said. The shares surged." So yeah, like I said - no wonder Microsoft has entered the hardware business. The PC OEM era is over.

Submitted by MOS6510 2013-01-14 General Development 50 Comments

"Programming languages are living phenomena: They're born, the lucky ones that don't die in infancy live sometimes long, fruitful lives, and then inevitably enter a period of decline. Unlike real life, the decline can last many, many years as the presence of large legacy codebases means practiced hands must tend the code for decades. The more popular the language once was, the longer this period of decline will be."

CBS forced CNET staff to recast vote after Hopper won ‘Best in Show’

Thom Holwerda 2013-01-14 In the News 16 Comments

"Apparently, executives at CBS learned that the Hopper would win 'Best of Show' prior to the announcement. Before the winner was unveiled, CBS Interactive News senior-vice president and General Manager Mark Larkin informed CNET's staff that the Hopper could not take the top award. The Hopper would have to be removed from consideration, and the editorial team had to re-vote and pick a new winner from the remaining choices. Sources say that Larkin was distraught while delivering the news - at one point in tears - as he told the team that he had fought CBS executives who had made the decision." And this is why media owned by larger media conglomerates (or by large companies in general) should always be treated with a certain amount of scepticism. This may be an open and shut case, but more subtle interference can be felt every single day as you read the media.

Guest post by snydeq 2013-01-14 Windows 38 Comments

DOS 4.0, Zune, and Windows 8 are but a few of the landmarks among 25 years of failures Redmond-style, writes InfoWorld's Woody Leonhard in a round-up of Microsoft's 13 worst missteps of all time. 'Over the years, Microsoft's made some incredibly good moves, even if they felt like mistakes at the time: mashing Word and Excel into Office; offering Sabeer Bhatia and cohorts $400 million for a year-old startup; blending Windows 98 and NT to form Windows 2000; sticking a weird Israeli motion sensor on a game box; buying Skype for an unconscionable amount of money. (The jury's still out on the last one.) Along the way, Microsoft has had more than its fair share of bad mistakes; 2012 alone was among the most tumultuous years in Microsoft history I can recall. This year you can bet that Redmond will do everything in its power to prove 2012 naysayers wrong. To do so, Microsoft must learn from the following dirty baker's dozen of its most dreck-laden decisions, the ones that have had the very worst consequences, from a customer's point of view.'

‘Apple cuts orders for iPhone parts’

Thom Holwerda 2013-01-14 Apple 28 Comments

The Wall Street Journal: "Apple has cut its orders for components for the iPhone 5 due to weaker-than-expected demand, people familiar with the situation said Monday. Apple's orders for iPhone 5 screens for the January-March quarter, for example, have dropped to roughly half of what the company had previously planned to order, two of the people said. The Cupertino company has also cut orders for components other than screens, according to one of the people." The WSJ is usually very well informed about Apple matters (and Japanese business new Nikkei reports something similar), so it's a safe assumption that they're not making this up. What, exactly, this means, we don't know; perhaps a new model already? Seems strange they would switch to a different screen this quickly, though. Android (more specifically: Samsung) keeps on growing, so it's only inevitable that Apple would feel a sting there at some point. We'll know for sure on the 23rd, when Apple's latest quarterly results come rolling in.

Microsoft’s OEMs focus on Windows 8, but the future is Surface

Thom Holwerda 2013-01-13 Windows 62 Comments

Tom Warren: "While Intel is trying to keep the Windows tree healthy, Microsoft is hoping that the leaves don't start to drop off before its own family of Surface devices are fully ready. Redmond isn't 'priming the pump' here, it's planting seeds for the future. If Microsoft is successful then it could be the world's biggest Windows OEM in just a few years. The future is Surface." You just have to look at the difference in build quality and supplied software between OEM devices and Surface even though Surface is cheaper to realise that the age of Windows OEMs is coming to an end. The writing's on the wall, and the OEMs know it: there's no future for them in Windows.

Samsung cancels US Windows RT tablet plans

Thom Holwerda 2013-01-12 Windows 84 Comments

Well, this can't be a good sign. Samsung has told CNET that the company will not be launching its Windows RT tablet in the United States, citing a lack of demand and consumer confusion. After I spent an afternoon in my country's largest electronics retailer, it's hard not to agree with Samsung.

Aaron Swartz commits suicide

Thom Holwerda 2013-01-12 In the News 57 Comments

"Computer activist Aaron H. Swartz committed suicide in New York City yesterday, Jan. 11, according to his uncle, Michael Wolf, in a comment to The Tech. Swartz was 26." Swartz was one of three co-creators of Reddit, worked on the RSS 1.0 specification at age 14, and so many other things. Swartz faced decades in prison for downloading a collection of JSTOR scientific articles. JSTOR dropped charges, but the US government pursued the case anyway, demanding fifty years in jail. Lawrence Lessig, one of his close friends: "Aaron had literally done nothing in his life 'to make money'. He was fortunate Reddit turned out as it did, but from his work building the RSS standard, to his work architecting Creative Commons, to his work liberating public records, to his work building a free public library, to his work supporting Change Congress/FixCongressFirst/Rootstrikers, and then Demand Progress, Aaron was always and only working for (at least his conception of) the public good. He was brilliant, and funny. A kid genius. A soul, a conscience, the source of a question I have asked myself a million times: What would Aaron think? That person is gone today, driven to the edge by what a decent society would only call bullying. I get wrong. But I also get proportionality. And if you don't get both, you don't deserve to have the power of the United States government behind you." Our sincere condolences to his family and friends. We've just lost one of the good guys.

‘Safari is released to the world’

Thom Holwerda 2013-01-11 Apple 34 Comments

After relying on third parties for several years - Internet Explorer, Netscape - Apple decided that it was time to take matters into its own hands. It was time Apple created its own browser (again). And so, Safari was born, and released unto the world ten years ago. These past few weeks, Don Melton, the project lead for Safari and WebKit, has been sharing a lot of interesting stories about the origins and development of Apple's browser.

Guest post by MOS6510 2013-01-10 General Development 143 Comments

"For years I've tried my damnedest to get away from C. Too simple, too many details to manage, too old and crufty, too low level. I've had intense and torrid love affairs with Java, C++, and Erlang. I've built things I'm proud of with all of them, and yet each has broken my heart. They've made promises they couldn't keep, created cultures that focus on the wrong things, and made devastating tradeoffs that eventually make you suffer painfully. And I keep crawling back to C."

Windows RT jailbreak tool released

Thom Holwerda 2013-01-10 Windows 6 Comments

"Recently, a method was found for Windows RT that allowed running unsigned code through a rather clever exploit. This method has now been turned into a full fledged tool by XDA Developers member Netham45. All the details are over in this XDA post, including the download." Super-simple, even a child can do it. A big <3 to XDA.

Chrome beta channel launches for Android

Thom Holwerda 2013-01-10 Google 6 Comments

"Release early, release often. Today, we're introducing Chrome Beta channel for phones and tablets on Android 4.0+. You can expect early access to new features (and bugs!), as well as a chance to provide feedback on what's on the way. Just like our other Beta versions, the new features may be a little rough around the edges, but we'll be pushing periodic updates so you can test out our latest work as soon as it's ready." Well, let's see if the Chrome Beta is any less of a disaster than what passes for 'stable' Chrome on Android.

Guest post by the_randymon 2013-01-10 Office 40 Comments

For years, developers decried the tight fist Sun kept on the development of its office suite, preventing the hacker culture from improving its software. So now that LibreOffice is, well, free, it's not surprising to see one ambitious hacker has developed a mechanism for theming it. Let's have a round of applause for Jan Holesovsky, whose patch in the upcoming 4.0 edition of LibreOffice allows you to style LibreOffice using FireFox Personae. Holesovsky's blog is full of other interesting UI changes made to LibreOffice, proof perhaps that letting hackers hack is the best way to keep your project improving.

QML component API’s to come together?

Thom Holwerda 2013-01-10 Qt 12 Comments

A Jolla (Sailfish) developer and a Canonical (Ubuntu Phone) developer walk into a KDE/Plasma IRC channel, and fire up a conversation about the QML component API. Not long after, the first fruits of this conversation become apparent. Aaron Seigo (who uses punctuation these days!): "Well, one thing led to another and Zoltan posted an email to the Qt Components mailing list summing up the conversation and proposing we bring our APIs into better alignment. We hope to address issues of API drift between the various component sets out there. This is a pain point others have identified, such as in this recent blog post by Johan Thelin. There is much work to be done before we can even think of calling this a success, but it's the right sort of start." Great news.

Nokia sold 4.4 million Lumias in Q4 2012

Thom Holwerda 2013-01-10 Wireless 84 Comments

Nokia has just sent out a few preliminary comments about the company's performance during the fourth quarter of 2012. Nokia's figures are a good indicator for how well Windows Phone 8 is doing, and, in all honesty, I'm not exactly blown away. Apparently, neither was Nokia itself, since the company decided to redefine their Asha phones from feature phone to smartphone to prop up their smartphone sales figures.

ZTE planning to sell Mozilla-powered phone in Europe

Thom Holwerda 2013-01-10 Wireless 7 Comments

ZTE will launch a Firefox OS smartphone this year. "ZTE is seeking partnerships to offer devices with the new operating system to reduce its reliance on Google's Android, which dominates the smartphone market with a 75 percent share of shipments, according to IDC. ZTE is expanding in mobile devices and cloud computing, where sales growth is faster than its traditional equipment business." The Google-reliance thing seems to be a common theme these days. It's also partly why Samsung is looking at Tizen.

Submitted by lucas_maximus 2013-01-10 Rumors 92 Comments

"A senior OpenBSD developer has complained on a mailing list that upstream vendors of free and open source software are adding in changes without any thought of whether downstream users could adapt to the change. Marc Espie said this would hurt smaller players by not allowing them to keep up with the changes. Basically what is happening is that numerous changes are being made to Linux and smaller projects like OpenBSD cannot keep up with the changes. And, according to Espie, not all these changes are strictly necessary."

An operating system designed for FPGA-based reconfigurable computers

Thom Holwerda 2013-01-10 Linux 5 Comments

"BORPH is an operating system designed for FPGA-based reconfigurable computers. It is an extended version of the Linux kernel that handles FPGAs as if they were CPUs. BORPH introduces the concept of a 'hardware process', which is a hardware design that runs on an FPGA but behaves just like a normal user program. The BORPH kernel provides standard system services, such as file system access to hardware processes, allowing them to communicate with the rest of the system easily and systematically. The name is an acronym for 'Berkeley Operating system for ReProgrammable Hardware'."

Guest post by the_randymon 2013-01-09 Hardware 12 Comments

Anyone who has turned on a shortwave radio in the past decade knows it's a wasteland out there, to the chagrin of nostalgic old geeks like me. But this technology sector is also one poised to explode with innovation thanks to software-defined radio. From H-Online: "Software-defined radio promises to the complexity in radio systems a software problem. The principle is simple and, in the ideal setup, an antenna is connected directly to analogue-to-digital converters for receiving signals and digital-to-analogue converters for transmitting them, with software running on an attached processor taking care of everything else." Your computer is about to become more useful than ever.