UniOS: Too Good to be True

  Submitted by Unios 35 Comments
A serious-looking (German Language) article examines a rather preposterous claim: that a group of young hackers has produced "the first operating system that allows problems to run programs from Windows, Mac, and Linux with only one system." Their outlandish claims ("every known program runs under UNIOS without driver issues!") drew interest from the local press, then skepticism. I wasn't able to find much information in the English language. So stay tuned here at OSNews, which will no doubt be covering ongoing industry-changing UniOS news as it breaks. Or not.
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US Court Almost Gets It

  Submitted by lemur2 Legal 38 Comments
The United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit just rejected a patent essentially on the basis that the method used was mathematics. Hooray, they finally almost understood this point, but then they blotted their copybook by seeming to say that it would be OK to patent if the mathematics is hard. Oh dear. Well, baby steps I suppose.
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Apple Also Manipulated Evidence in Dutch Apple v Samsung Case

Legal 54 Comments
After revealing that Apple tampered with evidence in the German case against the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1, WebWereld.nl has now revealed that Apple has also tampered with the evidence in the Dutch court case (coverage in English). Apple has manipulated the image of a Samsung Galaxy S in a side-by-side comparison with the iPhone 3GS. The Galaxy S has been shortened and made narrower so that its dimensions match those of the 3GS. This piece of evidence is the only side-by-side comparison of these two devices, and is part of the summons, which, according to a Dutch lawyer, means that Apple considers it to be of special significance. Just goes to show, once more, how far Apple is willing to go to stifle competition through the legal system - lying, cheating, manipulating. What a classy, premium company, that Apple!
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Apple Seeks Ban on All Galaxy Smartphones, Tablets in EU

Legal 61 Comments
"In its case against Samsung Electronics in the Netherlands, Apple is demanding an extensive ban on all Galaxy series smartphones and tablets, including a complete recall of stock by European distributors and resellers. Apple's complaint against Samsung in The Hague district court is much more comprehensive than previously thought. It's not only broader in its legal scope than a separate, ongoing Apple complaint against Samsung in Germany, but an injunction could have a 'huge impact' on the entire European market for smartphones and tablets, according to Alastair Edwards, principal analyst at Canalys." That's how far Apple is willing to go. They are willing to screw over countless resellers - some big, some small, one-shop affairs - because they don't like competition. I wonder how the Grubers of this world are going to spin this one. Hey Steve, I've got another extremely successful Android phone maker for you to sue.
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Breaking: HP ‘Discontinues Operations for webOS Devices’

Hardware 128 Comments
Major bombshell, and sorry, but this certainly requires a breaking tag as well: HP has announced it is discontinuing operations for webOS devices - effective immediately. Just like that... The TouchPad and Pre 3 are dead. Eh. Raise your hands if this brings back those painful memories of that infamous 'Focus Shift'. In addition, the company also announced its intention to sell its personal computer business.
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AMD’s Open-Source Radeon Driver After Four Years

  Submitted by Michael Graphics 28 Comments
While the BFS scheduler is getting ready to celebrate its second birthday, in just three weeks AMD's open-source Radeon graphics driver strategy for Linux will be turning four years old . . . which has ended up being a game-changer in the Linux world. AMD continues to support open-source hardware enablement on their latest graphics processors and recently even hired more developers to work on the code and documentation. How far have they come though in four years?
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Genode 11.08 Blurs the Lines Between Different Kernels

OS News 10 Comments
The microkernel developer community uses to be extremely fragmented. There exists a high variety of advanced microkernels each being developed with a different focus. However, since each kernel comes with its own minimalistic user land that is usually geared towards the special needs of its developers, none of those kernels has taken off in the domain of general-purpose computing. Genode has the mission to change that. Thanks to the tooling infrastructure that comes with the new version 11.08, the use of different microkernels has finally become a seamless experience. Those kernels including OKL4, L4/Fiasco, L4ka::Pistachio, NOVA, Codzero, and Fiasco.OC can be combined with the framework's steadily growing functionality such as a its new AHCI driver and Qt4.
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Researchers Identify First Flaws in AES

  Submitted by HAL2001 Privacy, Security 23 Comments
Researchers have found a weakness in the AES algorithm. They managed to come up with a clever new attack that can recover the secret key four times easier than anticipated by experts. In the last decade, many researchers have tested the security of the AES algorithm, but no flaws were found so far. The new attack applies to all versions of AES even if it used with a single key. The attack shows that finding the key of AES is four times easier than previously believed; in other words, AES-128 is more like AES-126.
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Microsoft Patent Covers Streaming OS Plans

Microsoft 6 Comments
Though the patent has only surfaced now, Microsoft has been working on this concept for quite some time. As far back as 2009 similar systems have been discussed on various Microsoft blogs. There was also the Midori OS project that had bloggers buzzing about its post-Windows potential and integration with Microsoft's cloud platform, Azure. Steve Ballmer himself has called Windows 8 Microsoft's riskiest bet yet -- could this streaming tech make make an appearance in the upcoming OS?
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Best Buy Tells HP to Take Back Its TouchPads

Wireless 115 Comments
Ars Technica is reporting that US Retailer Best Buy has been able to sell less than 10% of the TouchPad tablets that it ordered from HP, and now wants HP to take them back. Similarly, deal-a-day site Woot offered TouchPads at a very aggressive price, and only managed to sell 612 of them. This is for a site that often sells out goofy tech widgets in hours. When the TouchPad was gearing up for release, there seemed to be a fair amount of interest among geeks. Is it just that it hasn't resonated the same way with the general public, or have people just been disappointed once they've put their hands on one?
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