With the ability to run the GNU tool chain including GCC, binutils, and GNU make, the Genode OS framework has taken another big step towards becoming a general-purpose OS. The just released version 12.05 introduces Genode's file-system infrastructure along with support for stacked file systems, extends the framework API with support for configuring system components on-thy-fly, and adds media replay capabilities.

"In the last five years, LLVM has evolved from an academic project to the universal back-end of C, C++, and Objective C compilers. The key to its success is its performance and adaptability, both of which derive from its unique design and implementation."

Struggling RIM will layoff up to 2,000 employees in an attempt to right itself while it pins its hopes on the Blackberry 10. Wireless industry analyst Peter Misek of Jefferies & Company opines: "We maintain that the only path for RIM is to partner with someone, to be acquired, or to turn themselves into a software company, and I think that path with become very clear to the management team by the end of the year."

In the announcement of the new Chromebook and Chromebox, I found this interesting tidbit: "And support for hardware-accelerated graphics, a built-from-scratch multi-touch trackpad and an open-source firmware stack provide a much faster and more responsive computing experience." It's the open source firmware stack that interests me. Does anybody know how extensive this is?

Fedora 17 has been released. Major new features: "GNOME 3.4 and KDE 4.8; OpenStack, Eucalyptus, CloudStack and Open Nebula; ICC profiles for color printing and an improved gimp; Still more virtualization improvements." And, of course, loads and loads more.

Good news everyone! The Dutch parliament has just officially rejected ACTA. In addition, parliament has also accepted an additional motion which prohibits the government from signing similar agreements in the future. It was originally the plan to wait for the ACTA vote in the EU parliament, but a majority in the Dutch parliament felt that ACTA was too dangerous not to throw into the bin right away, EU vote or no. I'm not exactly sure what this means for ACTA as a whole, but it's my understanding that if one member state votes against ACTA - which we just did - it's effectively dead in the EU.

"Two robbers have paid a visit to a house in south-eastern Australia, hours after a teenager posted a photo on Facebook of a large sum of cash. The masked men, armed with a knife and a club, struck the home of the 17-year-old girl's mother in the country town of Bundanoon on Thursday, police say. Her mother told the men her daughter no longer lived there. It is not clear how the robbers found the family address. The Facebook image was at the grandmother's Sydney house. The men searched the house and took a small amount of cash and a small number of personal objects before leaving. No-one was injured." Should I be laughing or crying?

"A massive, highly sophisticated piece of malware has been newly found infecting systems in Iran and elsewhere and is believed to be part of a well-coordinated, ongoing, state-run cyberespionage operation. The malware, discovered by Russia-based anti-virus firm Kaspersky Lab, is an espionage toolkit that has been infecting targeted systems in Iran, Lebanon, Syria, Sudan, the Israeli Occupied Territories and other countries in the Middle East and North Africa for at least two years. Dubbed 'Flame' by Kaspersky, the malicious code dwarfs Stuxnet in size." Since I'm not particularly well-versed in the subject, maybe someone can answer this question for me: if country A creates a malware infection like this to spy on and/or harm computers in country B, can it be construed as an act of war under existing international law?

"Employees of Facebook and several engineers who have been sought out by recruiters there, as well as people briefed on Facebook's plans, say the company hopes to release its own smartphone by next year. These people spoke only on the condition of anonymity for fear of jeopardizing their employment or relationships with Facebook. The company has already hired more than half a dozen former Apple software and hardware engineers who worked on the iPhone, and one who worked on the iPad, the employees and those briefed on the plans said." Who would risk signing a two-year contract only to end up with next year's MySpace Phone? A bit extreme, perhaps, but history has shown us that social networks do not have particular staying power.

This topic comes up quite a lot on technology websites, but I generally try to steer clear from it as much as possible, since I'm not the one to talk about it (you know, with me being a man and all that), however, I feel it might be a good idea to just get my opinion out there and be done with it. The topic of women in IT is a hot-button issue, so let me just go out guns blazing: assuming women need special treatment, help, protection, and affirmative action is just as insulting and degrading as outright claiming women have no place in IT - maybe even more so.

"What is interesting is that you can use the new system to play around and notice that Microsoft doesn't always seem to take down from its search engine, Bing, the same links that it orders Google to takedown." Funny, but since Microsoft outsources their takedown requests to a different company, most likely just a case of the right hand not knowing what the left hand is doing.

The Verge is reporting that some important members of the WebOS developer team are going to Google. According to a reply from HP, Open webOS project is on schedule, but a number of people are indeed transferring to Google. Fun times - let's see some of that webOS in Android.

James Hague: "But all the little bits of complexity, all those cases where indecision caused one option that probably wasn't even needed in the first place to be replaced by two options, all those bad choices that were never remedied for fear of someone somewhere having to change a line of code... They slowly accreted until it all got out of control, and we got comfortable with systems that were impossible to understand." Counterpoint by John Cook: "Some of the growth in complexity is understandable. It's a lot easier to maintain an orthogonal design when your software isn't being used. Software that gets used becomes less orthogonal and develops diagonal shortcuts." If there's ever been a system in dire need of a complete redesign, it's UNIX and its derivatives. A mess doesn't even begin to describe it (for those already frantically reaching for the comment button, note that this applies to other systems as well).

"Dozens of teachers specialising in computer science are to work in English schools thanks to a partnership between Google and the charity Teach First. Google's chairman Eric Schmidt said money would also be provided to buy 'teaching aids, such as Raspberry Pi's or Arduino starter kits'. He said that without investment in the subject, the UK risked 'losing a generation' of scientists." My Raspberry Pi should arrive via UPS today, assuming they don't mess up. I'll try and get a few photos and first impressions up if it does arrive.