Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich Source Code Released

Google 52 Comments
Finally! Jean-Baptiste Queru (yes, husband of) has announced the source code release for Android 4.0, Ice Cream Sandwich (technically, it's 4.0.1). Naturally, this code dump also happens to include the source code for Honeycomb - however, due to Honeycomb's incomplete nature, there's no tags available for it. Not interesting from a let's-build-it-and-code-point of view, but it is interesting for ROM hackers - bring it on, ICS for my Galaxy SII!
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Gassee: Thank God Apple Didn’t Buy Be

  Submitted by cristoper Apple 85 Comments
It's no secret OSNews has a bit of a thing for the BeOS. I can only speak for myself, obviously, but relatively speaking, BeOS was the best operating system ever made. The man who started all this was Jean-Louis Gassee, former executive at Apple, who founded Be, Inc. in 1991. In the second half of the '90s, Apple was looking for a replacement for its heavily outdated Mac OS, after several failed attempts at developing its own - it came down to Steve Jobs NeXT, or BeOS. Be didn't make it, and Gassee is happier for it.
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FreeBSD Hypervisor: Call For Testers

  Submitted by al BSD & Darwin 5 Comments
Via Ivan Voras' blog (yes a few days late....but this place needs more BSD news). Michael Dexter of CFT has published a tutorial on FreeBSD's upcoming type 2 hypervisor known as BHyVe. The article guides the reader through the procedures to configure, build & boot a hypervisor capable host and guest system. BHyVe currently only supports Intel's x86 virtualization hardware & the project itself is still currently under early development.
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Google+ Pages for Business Released

Google 16 Comments
According to InformationWeek: "Just over a hundred days after Google last provided an update on the status of Google+ for businesses, the company has introduced a way for companies to participate in its social network. Google+ Pages, like Facebook Pages before them, provide businesses and brands with a place to promote conversations related to their products and services." A number of U.S. government agencies are trying out Google+, including NASA, the U.S. Navy, the U.S. Marine Corps, and the National Nuclear Security Administration. Since release of initial Google+ components on June 28 2011, the product is claimed by Larry Page to have over 40 million users, versus some 800 million for Facebook.
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Logitech CEO: Google TV “Cost us Dearly”

Multimedia, AV 24 Comments
"Yesterday, Logitech hosted an Analyst and Investor Day and during his remarks, CEO Guerrino De Luca pulled absolutely no punches in describing the 'mistakes' the company made with its Logitech Revue Google TV set top box. Calling the company's Christmas 2010 launch 'a mistake of implementation of a gigantic nature', De Luca told investors that the company had 'brought closure to the Logitech Revue saga' by making plans to let inventory run out this quarter and that there are 'no plans to introduce another box to replace Revue'."
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A Proper Solution to the Linux ASPM Problem

Linux 10 Comments
"At long last, it looks like there is an adequate solution to the Active State Power Management (ASPM) problem in the Linux kernel , a.k.a. the well-known and wide-spread power regression in the Linux 2.6.38 kernel, which has been causing many laptops to go through significantly more power than they should. This is not another workaround, but rather a behavioral change in the kernel to better decide when the PCI Express ASPM support should be toggled."
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HTC’s Anti-Apple Strategy Wins in US Smartphone Market

Wireless 67 Comments
"HTC has become the top seller of smartphones in the US with a strategy that's precisely the opposite of Apple's. Where Apple is secretive, HTC is open. Where Apple is exclusive, HTC works with all carriers. Where Apple is proprietary, HTC is collaborative. Where Apple customizes for no one, HTC customizes for everyone. It's the anti-Apple and, so far, it has worked." I'm not enamoured with HTC's product design as of late (too soft, too 'rounded'), but as far as companies go, HTC is one of the good guys. Amazing to see such behaviour rewarded - and once again proves what I've been saying all along: in the end, openness and choice always wins.
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Barnes & Noble Asks DoJ to Investigate Microsoft’s Patent Trolling

Legal 89 Comments
To anyone who has been reading anything on the web over the past few months, this shouldn't come as a surprise. Barnes & Noble is currently embroiled in a patent lawsuit started by Microsoft, after the bookseller/tablet maker refused to pay protection money to Redmond. Barnes & Noble has now openly said what we already knew, and has filed an official complaint at the US Department of Justice: Microsoft is engaging in anticompetitive practices. Update: Here's the slide deck B&N presented to the DoJ.
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Adobe: HTML5 > Mobile Flash

Wireless 50 Comments
"Sources close to Adobe that have been briefed on the company's future development plans have revealed this forthcoming announcement to ZDNet: Our future work with Flash on mobile devices will be focused on enabling Flash developers to package native apps with Adobe AIR for all the major app stores. We will no longer adapt Flash Player for mobile devices to new browser, OS version or device configurations.. . ."
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Fedora 16 Released

Fedora Core 63 Comments
"The following are major features for Fedora 16: enhanced cloud support including Aeolus Conductor, Condor Cloud, HekaFS, OpenStack and pacemaker-cloud; KDE Plasma workspaces 4.7; GNOME 3.2; a number of core system improvements including GRUB 2 and the removal of HAL; an updated libvirtd, trusted boot, guest inspection, virtual lock manager and a pvops based kernel for Xen all improve virtualization support."
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Mozilla Releases Firefox 8

Mozilla, Gecko 41 Comments
Mozilla has announced the release of Firefox 8 for Windows, Mac, Linux and Firefox for Android. This release appears to be a relatively minor update. Perhaps the main feature of this update is the ability for user control over third-party addons. "At Mozilla, we think you should be in control, so we are disabling add-ons installed by third parties without your permission and letting you pick the ones you want to keep." A detailed technical description of this new Firefox release can be found in the release notes.
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Synaptics Maps Windows 8 Gestures to Touchpads

Windows 10 Comments
Windows 8 is still in heavy development, and still has a long way to go before it ends up on our desktops, laptops, and tablets. One of the major concerns is how Windows 8 is going to deal with a traditional keyboard and mouse/trackpad combination - especially on non-tablet computers where touch input is pretty much not an option. While Microsoft assures us it's all good, Synaptics decided to see what it, as trackpad maker, can do.
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U.S. Senate to Vote on Net Neutrality

Internet 16 Comments
According to Wired, "The Senate is likely to vote within days on a measure that would undo net-neutrality rules adopted by the Federal Communications Commission in 2010, even though they've yet to go into effect... The House passed a similar measure, but Obama has threatened to veto it. It was not immediately clear whether the Senate has the necessary votes for passage."If you care about net neutrality, now is a good time to head on over to Save The Internet and get involved in this issue.
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