OSnews - Exploring the Future of Computing

FTL Launcher for Android: Fast, Basic

Thom Holwerda 2012-02-11 Wireless 34 Comments

Ever since my Android review, I've been looking for a different launcher for my Galaxy SII. I wanted something closer to the stock Android launcher to replace TouchWiz, without actually having to install CyanogenMod (I'm waiting for the ICS-based version 9 before taking that plunge). I finally found one I'm happy with: the extremely basic and light FTL (Faster Than Light) Launcher.

Wayland, Weston 0.85.0 released

Thom Holwerda 2012-02-10 Wayland 106 Comments

"This is the first real release of Wayland and Weston. Wayland is the protocol and IPC mechanism while Weston is the reference compositor implementation. The 0.85 branch in both repositories is going to be protocol and interface stable. We have a series of protocol changes on the table before 1.0 but this branch marks a stable point before we jump into that." Change is coming to the Linux world. And yes, I get the irony of using this particular icon, but it's the closest I could find.

Germany refuses to sign ACTA amid protests

Thom Holwerda 2012-02-10 Internet 8 Comments

Well, this is good news. "Germany will not sign an international anti-piracy treaty, despite having already agreed to it in principal, government sources in Berlin said Friday, February 10." with Germany on the side of reason - for now - we're a huge step closer to stopping ACTA.

Microsoft, Google, Apple talk FRAND patent license fees

Thom Holwerda 2012-02-10 Legal 21 Comments

"Microsoft today issued a brief statement promising to make 'essential patents' available to competitors at fair and reasonable licensing rates, and promised not to sue companies making products that infringe these patents. The actual patents themselves weren't disclosed, but Microsoft joins both Google and Apple in making recent statements on so-called fair, reasonable, and non-discriminatory licensing terms. Such licensing terms designate certain patents as essential to complying with industry standards, making them available for licensing at (supposedly) lower-than-usual rates." This industry is dysfunctional.

‘I have a bad feeling about this’

Thom Holwerda 2012-02-10 In the News 28 Comments

"Like any space opera, the story of information technology is a very simple one. It is played out in a myriad of different ways by a revolving cast of characters, but it always has its loveable heroes, its predictably nefarious villains, innocent civilians to be saved, and bumbling bureaucrats that aren't inherently evil, but begin every story aiding the forces of darkness out of a misplaced belief they are preserving law and order in their corner of the galaxy." He might use Star Wars as an analogy (I strongly dislike Star Wars - Trekkie here), but it sums up very well how I feel about computing today.

Submitted by moondevil 2012-02-10 Windows 87 Comments

As you all know, Windows 8 will be the first release of Windows NT which supports the ARM architecture. Microsoft hasn't been particularly forthcoming about this new Windows variant, but that's changing today. The company has posted a long and in-depth blog post about Windows 8 on ARM.

European independent Apple resellers on verge of Bankruptcy

Thom Holwerda 2012-02-09 Apple 50 Comments

Way back in 2005, only a few months after I joined the OSNews team, I interviewed Wim Schermer, founder and then-owner of the largest chain of Apple "Premium Reseller" stores in The Netherlands, MacSupport (now iCentre). In fact, Wim Schermer was the first Dutchman to buy a Macintosh - the original Macintosh, that is - in The Netherlands, and went on to start his Apple reseller business in 1988. While the interview covered many aspects, one thing always stuck with me: Schermer was concerned about what would happen to his business if Apple were to open an official Apple Store in The Netherlands. Seven years later, his concerns are becoming reality.

Engineers boost computer processor performance by over 20%

Thom Holwerda 2012-02-08 Hardware 13 Comments

"Researchers from North Carolina State University have developed a new technique that allows graphics processing units and central processing units on a single chip to collaborate - boosting processor performance by an average of more than 20 percent."

Microsoft to launch Windows 8 Consumer Preview February 29

Thom Holwerda 2012-02-08 Windows 15 Comments

"Microsoft revealed today that it plans to launch the highly anticipated 'Consumer Preview' version of Windows 8 on February 29th. The company will hold an event at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona on February 29th to launch the Windows 8 Consumer Preview between 3PM and 5PM (CET)." Still haven't seen any indication they've addressed the core issues with Metro (no window management, no real applications). If they don't, this release will be entirely useless to anyone who uses computers beyond Facebook, weather applications, and Twitter.

Tribler makes BitTorrent impossible to shut down

Thom Holwerda 2012-02-08 Internet 35 Comments

"While the file-sharing ecosystem is currently filled with uncertainty and doubt, researchers at Delft University of Technology continue to work on their decentralized BitTorrent network. Their Tribler client doesn't require torrent sites to find or download content, as it is based on pure peer-to-peer communication. 'The only way to take it down is to take the Internet down,' the lead researcher says." In a way, the efforts by Hollywood and the corrupt US Congress is actually increasing the resiliency of peer-to-peer technology. Karma.

Submitted by fran 2012-02-08 Google 49 Comments

So, how long have we been waiting for this to happen? Google has finally unveiled the future if the Android browser: it has no future. Google unveiled Chrome for ~~Android~~ Ice Cream Sandwich, and has designated it as the future default browser for the Android platform.

Nokia Belle released

Thom Holwerda 2012-02-07 Wireless 16 Comments

"People who have the latest Symbian Nokia smartphones can now update them to Nokia Belle - bringing a fresh look to their screens thanks to the latest user interface. Once you have installed Nokia Belle you will still have the same phone, but it will feel like new, with improved performance." Love the version name.

Submitted by AmineKhaldi 2012-02-07 ReactOS 68 Comments

Oh ReactOS. This project has been with us for a very long time now, and since day one, I never really knew what to think of it. They always seem to be running at least 300 miles behind the Win32 bandwagon, but what they've accomplished so far is insanely impressive nonetheless. This new release comes with quite a lot of new stuff.

Guest post by fran 2012-02-07 Wireless 3 Comments

"Research in Motion has said the native software development kit for Blackberry 10 will be committed to open source. The firm, which has a history of basing its business on being a closed system, is shifting more and more to open source. Its upcoming Blackberry 10 native SDK will include many open source code resources."

‘The Apple fanboy problem’

Thom Holwerda 2012-02-07 Rumors 130 Comments

Let this be a lesson. After posts by John Gruber and Shawn King, this happened to Violet Blue. "The misinformation gave a significant number of people fuel to stalk me, attack me for hours at a time, malign, insult me in disgusting ways, threaten me with weapon-specific violent death (an axe), and lead social media attempts to force me to lose my job over the matter. Many referenced John Gruber, and/or his post as they did this. Plans were openly made to make media to attack me - another Angry Mac Bastards podcast." Disgusting story, and sadly enough, this isn't the first time this has happened, as Blue notes in her article. I don't like talking about these matters (you don't want to know the kind of crap that gets thrown my way at times), but I can assure you my inbox has seen its share of pure vitriol after Gruber links to an OSNews piece. It ain't pretty.

No, Mac OS X wasn’t ported to ARM by an intern

Thom Holwerda 2012-02-07 macOS 23 Comments

It's still early days, but this has the potential to put more fuel on the Apple rumour mill fire than anything else in recent times. A BA thesis by Dutch student Tristan Schaap details how, during his internship at Apple's Platform Technologies Group, he ported Darwin to a certain ARMv5 developer board. A few blog articles later, and the headline has already turned into 'Mac OS X ported to ARM'. So, what have I been running on my iPhone and iPad all these years?

Submitted by gogothebee 2012-02-07 Ubuntu 89 Comments

This shouldn't come as a huge surprise. Jonathan Riddell, lead developer of the Kubuntu project and the only person paid by Canonical to work on the KDE variant of the popular distribution, has announced that after the 12.04 release, Canonical will no longer be funding him, effectively putting Kubuntu on the same level as other Ubuntu variants like Xubuntu.

Raspberry Pi To Hit Store Late February

Thom Holwerda 2012-02-07 Hardware 10 Comments

Big news from the Raspberry Pi front today - they have a manufacturing date. "The boards will be finished on February 20. Eben and I may be going to China to make sure that the boards can be brought up properly for that date if necessary. We'll be airfreighting them to the UK immediately, so you should be able to buy them before the end of the month."

C++ AMP Open Specification Published

Thom Holwerda 2012-02-06 General Development 9 Comments

"As an industry trend, advancement in heterogeneous hardware has progressed at a rapid pace. This in turn has fueled developer desire to target such hardware for accelerated computation, necessitating a significant step forward in programming models to enable such practices. C++ Accelerated Massive Parallelism (C++ AMP) is a new technology implemented in Visual Studio 11 that helps C++ developers use accelerators such as the GPU for parallel programming."

Google Unveils ‘Solve for X’

Thom Holwerda 2012-02-06 Google 2 Comments

"Google's just pulled the curtains off of its 'Solve for X' website, and it appears that Google is nearing the creation of a TED-like think tank that will focus on talks about radical technological ideas. The site describes the effort as 'a place where the curious can go to hear and discuss radical technology ideas for solving global problems'."