Symbian UI Overhaul To Arrive Fall 2011

Wireless 17 Comments
Symbian might have been taking a beating over the past few months, but that doesn't mean the world's most popular smartphone platform (I doubt the installed base hase been overtaken by Android yet, although I might be mistaken) is just going to sit idly by. While Nokia gets its first Windows Phone 7 devices ready, work on Symbian^3 continues, and the Dutch (yeahaw!) product manager for Nokia Benelux has confirmed that a massive overhaul of the platform will be pushed to phones later this year .
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Choosing Between Portability and Innovation

Open Source 121 Comments
"Now that Linux is the most popular free Unix-like operating system, it shouldn't be a surprise that some projects have begun treating non-Linux operating systems as second-class citizens. This isn't out of contempt for the BSDs or OpenSolaris, it's just a matter of limited manpower: if almost all the users of the application have a Linux operating system and if all the core developers are using Linux themselves, it's difficult to keep supporting other operating systems. But sometimes the choice to leave out support for other operating systems is explicitly made, e.g. when the developers want to implement some innovative features that require functionality that is (at least for now) only available in the Linux kernel."
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In-Depth Look at HTML5

Internet 2 Comments
InfoWorld's Peter Wayner offers a four-part series devoted to the new features of HTML5. Each articles examines the evolving spec in-depth, focusing on canvas, video, audio, and graphics for display options, including the canvas and video tags, Scalable Vector Graphics, and WebGL; local data storage, including Web Storage, Web Database, and other APIs designed to transform Web pages into local applications; data communications, for cross-document messaging, WebSockets, and other HTML5 APIs that improve website and browser interactivity; and forms, for increasing control over data input and validation.
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Pwn2Own Day 2: iPhone, BlackBerry Beaten

  Submitted by gogothebee Privacy, Security 5 Comments
"After successful attacks on Safari and Internet Explorer 8 on Wednesday, the second day of Pwn2Own saw the iPhone 4 and then the BlackBerry Torch 9800 successfully exploited. The annual security competition allows researchers to win any systems that they successfully compromise, and also awards them cash rewards if those security flaws are still present in the latest version of the software."
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Son of ACTA: Meet the Next Secret Copyright Treaty

Legal 3 Comments
"So many countries in need of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, so little time! The US government, still trying to secure final passage for the drafted-in-secret Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, has already turned its attention to a new multilateral trade agreement that will bring the wonders of the DMCA to countries like Australia, Brunei, Chile, Singapore, Malaysia, and Vietnam. The new Trans-Pacific Partnership, like the ACTA before it, had its intellectual property chapter drafted by the US. Once again, the chapter was drafted in secret and has been classified for at least four years after negotiations end. The agreement exports (nearly verbatim) the DMCA's rules on digital locks, ISP liability, and subscriber disconnections, with a few extra goodies on the side." Sigh.
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Dealing with Complexity in UI Design

Graphics 50 Comments
Over the past few decades, the software that enables us to be productive with our computers has become increasingly sophisticated and complex. Today's UI designers are faced with the challenge of devising graphical user interfaces that are easy to grasp and use, yet still provide access to a wide range of features. Here are some ideas about the nature of GUI complexity, followed by a couple of thoughts on simplicity that might just surprise you.
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pwn2own Day One: Safari, IE8 Fall, Chrome Unchallenged

  Submitted by gogothebee Privacy, Security 20 Comments
"Fully patched versions of Safari and Internet Explorer 8 were both successfully hacked today at pwn2own, the annual hacking competition held as part of the CanSecWest security conference. If a researcher can pwn the browser - that is, make it run arbitrary code - then they get to own the hardware the browser runs on. This year, not only did they have to run arbitrary code, they also had to escape any sandboxes - restricted environments with reduced access to data and the operating system - that are imposed."
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Ubuntu Netbook Edition Bid Farewell

Ubuntu 12 Comments
"One of the benefits of the direction that's been taken with the next release of Ubuntu is that there is no longer a need for a separate netbook edition. The introduction of the new shell for Ubuntu means that we have a user interface that works equally well whatever the form factor of the PC. And the underlying technology works on a range of architectures including those common in netbook, notebooks, desktops or whatever you choose to run it on. Hence the need for a separate version for netbooks is removed"
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Why Windows Server Deserves Unix Admin’s Respect

Windows 41 Comments
Grizzled Unix vet Paul Venezia tips his cap to the Windows Server crew, suggesting that the lessons of Unix history have not been lost on Microsoft -- and that's one reason why Windows Server has become so complex. 'The Windows Server of today has more in common with Unix than many people want to admit. The upside: more stable servers, greater scope of services, better adherence to standards, and Microsoft's newfound willingness to work with its competition. The downside is that Windows has become more complex than Unix from a management and administration point of view,' Venezia writes, even if he still sees some Windows admin practices as prime examples of how not to administer servers.
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Software Industry Lobbies Against EU Consumer Rights Laws

Legal 102 Comments
Well, how about some positive news to end this day? How about annoying the heck out of the Business Software Alliance? There's a new proposal for a directive on consumer rights in the EU, and in it, digital goods - software, online services, and so on - are explicitly defined as goods that are no different than any other good - like bread, watches, or cars. In other words, you would suddenly own the copies of software you buy, effectively declaring the EULA as a worthless piece of paper. Surprise - the BSA is not happy about this.
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