OSnews - Exploring the Future of Computing

More Malware in Android Market, Google Quickly Removes it

Submitted by Jennimc 2011-07-17 Wireless 14 Comments

"The Lookout Security Team has identified a new variant of DroidDream Light found in the Android Market, which Google already removed from the Android Market. Fortunately the malware was available in the Android Market for a short period of time so the number of downloads was limited to 1000 - 5000. This is the third iteration of malware likely created by the authors of DroidDream; the first was discovered in early March (the original DroidDream) and the second in early June (DroidDream Light)."

Guest post by robertson 2011-07-16 OS News 26 Comments

"Plan 9 has been forked to start a development out of the Bell Labs (or whatever they are called these days...). This true community-approach allows further development of Plan 9, even if the shrinking resources at Bell-Labs for Plan 9 are vanishing. The homepage and the code can be both found at Google code. You can boot 9front from the regulary built live cd or build the binaries in your existing Plan 9 installation. Installation instructions and further information can be obtained at the 9front wiki."

App Devs Withdraw from US as Patent Fears Reach ‘Tipping Point’

Thom Holwerda 2011-07-15 Legal 23 Comments

"App developers are withdrawing their products for sale from the US versions of Apple's App Store and Google's Android Market for fear of being sued by companies which own software patents - just as a Mumbai-based company has made a wide-ranging claim against Microsoft, Apple, Google, Yahoo and a number of other companies over Twitter-style feeds, for which it claims it has applied for a patent."

Submitted by Jennimc 2011-07-15 Legal 117 Comments

If you can't compete, litigate. Not entirely unsurprisingly, the US ITC has sided with a US company against a Taiwanese competitor - the US International Trade Commission judge has ruled that out of ten patents Apple brought into its suit against HTC, the Taiwanese smartphone pioneer is infringing upon two. The ruling has to be reviewed by a panel of six, but if they agree, then some HTC devices may be banned from the US market - unless HTC and Apple can come to a settlement. We also know which two patents - and yes, they're software patents, of course.

Guest post by jrincayc 2011-07-15 Legal 37 Comments

Patent term calculation is complicated in the US because there are essentially two different systems and quite a few corner cases. Even with a list of patents, it can be tricky to determine when the patents are all expired. Since I am a computer programmer (and not a lawyer), I created a program to try and automate this. This paper discusses how patent term calculation works, and some results from a combination of hand and automatic term calculation for MP3, MPEG-2 and H.264.

Guest post by moondevil 2011-07-15 Internet 9 Comments

"Apple participates in the Web Application Working Group. In application of the exclusion rights they have according to the W3C Patent Policy, Apple Inc. excluded Patent Nr. 7,743,336 and Patent Application 20070101146 from its Royalty Free commitment given upon joining the Web Applications Working Group. According to Apple Inc., both read on the Widget Access Request Policy Specification. Apple Inc.'s exclusion triggered a Patent Advisory Group (PAG). The PAG is using this page to collect links and hints to technology that may help to circumvent the patent. This information may be useful to help the Web Applications Working Group to design around the excluded patent and allow for a Royalty Free Widget Access Request Policy Specification."

IBM Donates Symphony to Apache OpenOffice.org Project

Guest post by Debjit 2011-07-15 IBM 16 Comments

"After most of the developers and Linux distributions deserted them for LibreOffice, Oracle donated OpenOffice.org to the Apache Software Foundation. IBM has surprisingly thrown its weight behind OpenOffice.org in the OpenOffice.org vs LibreOffice fight. Tomorrow IBM will announce the donation of the source code of their free office suite - IBM Lotus Symphony - to the Apache OpenOffice.org."

Submitted by Jennimc 2011-07-15 Hardware 12 Comments

Both IDC and Gartner have released their PC shipment analyses again, and as it turns out, worldwide PC sales are on the rise. Gartner: "Worldwide PC shipments surpassed 85.2 million units in the second quarter of 2011, a 2.3 percent increase from the same period last year, according to preliminary results by Gartner, Inc. These results are below Gartner's earlier projection for 6.7 percent growth." IDC, too: "Worldwide PC shipments increased 2.6% in the second quarter of 2011 (2Q11), according to the IDC Worldwide Quarterly PC Tracker." From large to small, the world's largest PC manufacturers are HP, Dell, Lenovo, Acer, ASUS, and Toshiba. Lenovo demonstrated the largest growth worldwide (+22% compared to Q2 2010). Apple did quite well in the US, but doesn't register on the worldwide scale.

Iconfactory’s Hockenberry: Patents Destroying Small Developers

Thom Holwerda 2011-07-14 Legal 80 Comments

I've been sitting on this item all day. Technically, it's about patents and the like, and even I understand I've been beating this dead horse so often it almost looks like it's alive. However, this is an interesting opinion piece by Craig Hockenberry, long-time employee at The Iconfactory, one of my favourite software development houses - these guys breath software and beautiful design, and employ one of my favourite artists, David Lanham. The gist of his story? Software patents are killing the independent developer scene.

Spotify vs RDIO vs MOG

Eugenia Loli 2011-07-14 Podcasts 20 Comments

Spotify launched in the US today, to become the third serious provider after MOG and RDIO services that offer unlimited streaming of their catalog for a rather small-ish monthly fee. Napster, Real, ZunePass, Thumbplay (now sold away), also offer a similar service, but they never managed to capture the market the same way. I have used all three services above over the last year (some in a short trial mode, some through lengthy subscription), so here's how I see them go down.

A Programmer’s Introduction to the Haiku OS

Guest post by Andrew Hudson 2011-07-14 Haiku 32 Comments

This article provides a brief overview of the Haiku operating system from a programmer's point of view, with sample code for an inter-application communication application. The Haiku API is simple and powerful and by the end of this article you will be able to use a variety of objects to write your own Haiku applications. Some C or C++ coding experience is useful.

Guest post by Jennimc 2011-07-13 Microsoft 12 Comments

"InfoWorld's Woody Leonhard uncovered the fact that Microsoft is paying some organizations to adopt its Office 365 cloud service, mostly in funds that Microsoft earmarks for their customers' migration costs and other required consulting. Although this raised the eyebrows of some bloggers - and I'm sure Google wasn't thrilled - I think this is both smart and ethical. Here's why."

SSH Client PuTTY 0.61 Released

Guest post by HAL2001 2011-07-13 Internet 28 Comments

"After four long years, here comes a new version of PuTTY, the popular free telnet/SSH client for Windows and Unix platforms. PuTTY 0.61 brings new features, bug fixes, and compatibility updates for Windows 7 and various SSH server software. The new version supports SSH-2 authentication using GSSAPI, on both Windows and Unix. Users in a Kerberos realm should now be able to use their existing Kerberos single sign-on in their PuTTY SSH connections."

Of Course a Tablet Is a PC – The iPad Is a PC Too, You Know

Thom Holwerda 2011-07-13 Windows 48 Comments

With Windows Phone 7 being a success among critics and probably the only mobile platform which tries to take at least baby steps away from the old WIMP/desktop paradigm, it's not entirely unsurprising that a lot of people are asking for Windows Phone 7 on tablets. However, Microsoft once again reiterated that WP7 is not meant for tablets, since they view tablets as PCs - hence, they will be running regular Windows.

Rapid DHCP: Or, How Do Macs Get on the Network so Fast?

Thom Holwerda 2011-07-13 Internet 37 Comments

"One of life's minor annoyances is having to wait on my devices to connect to the network after I wake them from sleep. All too often, I'll open the lid on my EeePC netbook, enter a web address, and get the dreaded 'This webpage is not available' message because the machine is still working on connecting to my Wi-Fi network. On some occasions, I have to twiddle my thumbs for as long as 10-15 seconds before the network is ready to be used. The frustrating thing is that I know it doesn't have to be this way. I know this because I have a Mac. When I open the lid of my MacBook Pro, it connects to the network nearly instantaneously. In fact, no matter how fast I am, the network comes up before I can even try to load a web page. My curiosity got the better of me, and I set out to investigate how Macs are able to connect to the network so quickly, and how the network connect time in other operating systems could be improved." Yes, I'd love to have Windows and Linux reconnect as fast as Macs do. Alas, "Method to quickly reconnect to a wireless or wired network", as well as its completely different "Method to quickly reconnect to a wireless or wired network on a mobile device" are probably patented, so Windows and Linux can't reconnect too fast out of fear of violating a software patent. In case you haven't noticed: I'm joking. Sort of.

GNU Hurd Quarterly Status Teport

Submitted by Gregory 2011-07-13 OS News 33 Comments

The Hurd is still doing its thing. "Jeremie Koenig started working on his Google Summer of Code project: bringing not only Java to the Hurd, but also fixing or adding missing parts in the Hurd's components along the way. For example, he already contributed a set of signal handling improvements. Samuel Thibault created the first Debian GNU/Hurd CD set with a graphical installer. You can dowload it at the usual place for Debian CD images."

HTC Disappointed Apple Chooses Litigation over Fair Competition

Thom Holwerda 2011-07-12 Legal 73 Comments

Tell 'm like it is, HTC. "HTC is disappointed at Apple's constant attempts at litigations instead of competing fairly in the market," said HTC general counsel Grace Lei in a statement, "HTC strongly denies all infringement claims raised by Apple in the past and present and reiterates our determination and commitment to protect our intellectual property rights."

Submitted by Jennimc 2011-07-12 Internet 24 Comments

"Internet streaming music service Pandora announced on Tuesday that it is phasing out Flash in favor of HTML 5. The change means users won't have to rely on the Flash plug-in in their Web browser to listen to the service's music offerings, and the company claims switching to HTML 5 has improved overall performance, too. 'The front-end technology has been rebuilt in HTML 5 and together with a host of other improvements results in a much faster experience,' the Pandora Web site stated."

Critical Vulnerability in Sun Java

Submitted by HAL2001 2011-07-12 Privacy, Security 20 Comments

ACROS Security has discovered a vulnerability in Sun Java, which can be exploited by malicious people to compromise a user's system. The vulnerability is caused due to the application loading an executable file in an insecure manner when an out of memory condition occurs.

Android is the Linux Desktop Dream Come True

Submitted by suka 2011-07-12 Linux 34 Comments

In an interview with the Austrian tech site derStandard.at/web Google's Chris DiBona talks about the important role Open Source plays inside of Google. He also goes on to explain why "Android is the Linux desktop dream come true".

More Malware in Android Market, Google Quickly Removes it

Plan 9 Forked, Continues as 9front

App Devs Withdraw from US as Patent Fears Reach ‘Tipping Point’

ITC Judge Rules HTC Infringes Two Apple Software Patents

US Patent Expiration for MP3, MPEG-2, H.264

W3C Looking for Prior Art Regarding Two Apple Patents