OSnews - Exploring the Future of Computing

Yahoo! sues Facebook for patent infringement

Thom Holwerda 2012-03-14 Legal 13 Comments

"Yahoo has made good on its threat of last month and filed a patent infringement suit against Facebook." Yup, another patent battle. Great for innovation, this. Destroying the technology industry, one patent at a time.

“Why I left Google”

Thom Holwerda 2012-03-14 Google 45 Comments

"The Google I was passionate about was a technology company that empowered its employees to innovate. The Google I left was an advertising company with a single corporate-mandated focus. Technically I suppose Google has always been an advertising company, but for the better part of the last three years, it didn't feel like one. Google was an ad company only in the sense that a good TV show is an ad company: having great content attracts advertisers." Note we're looking at a Microsoft employee. His points still carry some validity, though.

Samsung begins ICS rollout to Galaxy SII

Thom Holwerda 2012-03-13 Wireless 42 Comments

A big day today for 20 million Android users out there: Samsung has started the process of updating the Galaxy SII to Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich. Sadly, only a few European countries and South Korea will get it this week, although you can flash the official ROM yourself if you so desire (like I did today). Sadlier sadly, its TouchWiz is virtually identical to that of Gingerbread. Update: This is what HTC is doing to Ice Cream Sandwich. And I thought TouchWiz was bad. Please... Just - stop. Stop it. Stop doing this. Go away.

ARM announces 32bit 1mm x 1mm CPU

David Adams 2012-03-13 Hardware 19 Comments

The Cortex -M0+ architecture is designed to provide chip-makers with the means to build microcontrollers that require "ultra low power" but are capable of 32-bit processing. Arm says it went back to the drawing board to create the new processor cores which measure 1mm by 1mm in size. It says the microcontrollers should draw around a third less energy than their predecessors, which only offered 8 and 16-bit capabilities.

ClearType dialled back in Windows 8’s Metro

Thom Holwerda 2012-03-12 Windows 54 Comments

Okay, so this one actually bothers me quite a deal in the Windows 8 consumer preview: the fonts in Metro look fuzzy - they look like fonts on Mac OS X. Because of the Mac OS X resemblance, I had assumed that Metro switched to a shape-accurate rendering method, like Mac OS X uses, but as it turns out, it's a little less exotic than that.

Submitted by deadwood 2012-03-12 Amiga & AROS 17 Comments

Sure, we have AmigaOS and MorphOS, but those cost money and require special hardware. For those of us more interested in running an Amiga-like operating system on regular, x86 hardware, there's AROS. Two AROS distributions, Icaros Desktop and AspireOS both saw new releases recently.

How patent monopolies work in reality

Thom Holwerda 2012-03-12 Legal 33 Comments

"Patent monopolies prevent innovation. It is a system that works against innovations, to protect the current corporations against competition from aggressive, innovative, and competitive upstarts. It allows the big corporations to crush competitive upstarts in the courtroom, rather than having to compete with their products and services." ...which happens to be exactly why the old boys' club of computer technology (Apple, Microsoft, Oracle, IBM) wants to keep it this way. This is not a system for the people, it's a system for huge corporations.

Duqu trojan contains unknown programming language

Submitted by yoni 2012-03-12 Privacy, Security 29 Comments

"And just when you thought the whole Stuxnet/Duqu trojan saga couldn't get any crazier, a security firm who has been analyzing Duqu writes that it employs a programming language that they've never seen before." Pretty crazy, especially when you consider what some think the mystery language looks like "The unknown c++ looks like the older IBM compilers found in OS400 SYS38 and the oldest sys36.The C++ code was used to write the tcp/ip stack for the operating system and all of the communications."

Microsoft creates special application class for Windows 8 browsers

Thom Holwerda 2012-03-11 Windows 57 Comments

And thus, Microsoft bites itself in its behind with Metro. As you all surely know by now, the Metro environment in Windows 8, and its accompanying applications, need to follow a relatively strict set of rules and regulations, much like, say, applications on iOS. For one type of application, Metro has already proven to be too restrictive and limited: web browsers. Microsoft has had to define a separate application class - aside from Metro and desktop applications - just to make third party web browsers possible for Windows 8.

Guest post by snydeq 2012-03-10 Linux 17 Comments

The open source community should feel a little safer from software patent attacks, writes InfoWorld's Simon Phipps. "The Open Invention Network, a consortium of Linux contributors formed as a self-defense against software patents, has extended the definition of Linux so that a whopping 700 new software packages are covered, including many developer favorites. Just one hitch: The new definition also includes carve-outs that put all Linux developers on notice that Phillips and Sony reserve the right to sue over virtualization, search, user interfaces, and more."

Why vim uses the hjkl keys as arrow keys

Thom Holwerda 2012-03-09 General Development 60 Comments

"I was reading about vim the other day and found out why it used hjkl keys as arrow keys. When Bill Joy created the vi text editor he used the ADM-3A terminal, which had the arrows on hjkl keys, so naturally he reused the same keys." As interesting as that is, John Graham-Cumming goes even further back in history. "The reason that keyboard had those arrows keys on it was because those keys correspond to CTRL-H, J, K, L and the CTRL key back then worked by killing bit 6 (and bit 5) of the characters being typed." Truly fascinating stuff, even though it's from way before my time (I'm from 1984).

Submitted by bowkota 2012-03-09 Google 24 Comments

"As day one of the annual Pwn2Own hacker contest wound down on Wednesday, no browser suffered more abuse than Google Chrome, which was felled by an attack exploiting a previously unknown vulnerability in the most up-to-date version. Combined with a separate contest Google sponsored a few feet away, it was the second zero-day attack visited on Chrome in a span of a few hours." Google fixed the issue within 24 hours.

Submitted by kragil 2012-03-08 Windows 34 Comments

Microsoft has disclosed just which limitations Windows Phone 'Tango' will have on low-end devices (256MB RAM). It's pretty hefty - most importantly, the ability to 'multitask' has been disabled. Aren't there more powerful unlimited Android phones out there? What's the point of all this?

Apple uses OpenStreetMap for iPhoto on iOS, doesn’t give credit

Thom Holwerda 2012-03-08 Apple 11 Comments

"Yesterday Apple launched iPhoto, its photo management app, for the iPad and iPhone... And we're rather pleased to find they're the latest to switch to OpenStreetMap. The OSM data that Apple is using is rather old (start of April 2010) so don't expect to see your latest and greatest updates on there. It's also missing the necessary credit to OpenStreetMap's contributors; we look forward to working with Apple to get that on there." Pretty ironic coming from a company suing the living daylights out of everyone over rounded corners and bouncy-scroll effects, but alas, I'm sure there's some construed justification coming up from the usual suspects.

Timberwolf beta released for AmigaOS

Submitted by Richard Lake 2012-03-07 Amiga & AROS 45 Comments

"The Timberwolf team is proud to announce the immediate availability of the first beta version of Timberwolf 4.0.1. Timberwolf is an AmigaOS web browser based on Firefox/Mozilla technology. This technology is more than just a browser, it is an enabling technology, bringing powerful tools such as html5, WebM, JavaScript, XUL, and more to AmigaOS 4.x. These are the building blocks for other applications as well, such as the email client 'Thunderbird' or the media center 'Songbird'. This first beta release includes almost the full functionality of the browser, allowing style-sheet enabled web browsing, secure connections, use of Firefox add-on and more."

Apple unveils new iPad, adds Retina Display

Thom Holwerda 2012-03-07 Apple 174 Comments

And it was that time of the year again - Apple held one of its product announcements. This one focussed on the iPad mostly, and while some will call it a disappointment merely because virtually everything had already been leaked, I'm still in awe over the fact the newly announced iPad has a 2048x1536 display. My mind is blown.

Windows Embedded Standard 8 preview available to download

Thom Holwerda 2012-03-07 Windows 7 Comments

"Microsoft has laid out its roadmap for the next version of Windows Embedded, with a preview of the standard version available to download now. Windows Embedded is the specialized version of the OS that you'll often see running in devices ranging from kiosks and ATMs to car dashboards and medical equipment. It looks like the next version will be labeled with the Windows 8 branding across the board, though it's officially being called Windows Embedded v.Next in Microsoft's press release."

Exclusive: Microsoft Office 15 features, improvements

Thom Holwerda 2012-03-06 Microsoft 16 Comments

"Today we are able to share details on a number of new and improved features in each of the core applications for Office 15, thanks to several people with access to the early Technical Preview code. From Touch and Reading Mode to a Weather Bar feature in Outlook 15, we have exclusive details on Microsoft's plans." Looking good. Not fully Metro though. Bummer.

Guest post by snydeq 2012-03-06 Legal 1 Comment

"A US judge has ordered Motorola Mobility and Google to turn over information to Apple on Google's acquisition in 2005 of Android, its development of the Android OS and the proposed acquisition of Motorola. According to Motorola, the information Apple seeks regarding Google's acquisition of Motorola and Android is not relevant to any damages asserted in the case."

Windows 8’s desktop mode: Microsoft’s ‘Classic’

Thom Holwerda 2012-03-06 Windows 107 Comments

As you may have seen, David's been taking care of OSNews for a few days because I'm quite busy with work. Still, there's one thing I'd like to talk about: the desktop mode in Windows 8. I wish I could've added this to the first impressions article, but I only arrived at this conclusion yesterday: desktop mode in Windows 8 is Microsoft's equivalent of Mac OS X's Classic mode.