OSnews - Exploring the Future of Computing

All-Out War: The Computing World’s Battle Lines Are Drawn

David Adams 2010-05-25 Wireless 68 Comments

Over at Daringfireball this past weekend, John Gruber put words to what many people are thinking about after Google's rush of Android announcements and not-subtle Apple-bashing at this week's I/O conference: "all-out war." I agree with Gruber that a good old-fashioned bitter rivalry could be a great thing for the computing world, and for smartphone/handheld fans in particular.

Why Google Is Rich

Thom Holwerda 2010-05-24 Google 6 Comments

Google has explained on its blog where it gets its money from. Sort of. "Today, in the spirit of greater transparency with AdSense publishers, we're sharing the revenue shares for our two main AdSense products - AdSense for content and AdSense for search."

Guest post by snydeq 2010-05-24 Open Source 12 Comments

InfoWorld's Neil McAllister takes on the old saw that open source doesn't innovate, highlighting seven innovative new ideas in software that you may be able to buy from proprietary vendors some day, but that you can only get for free from the open source community today. "Proprietary software vendors would have you believe that the open source movement has produced nothing but knockoffs of existing products and cast-off code that couldn't cut it in the free market," McAllister writes, "The open source movement remains a font of innovation to this day, and not just in the commercial sector. Numerous projects founded by universities, loosely knit communities, and individuals are exploring areas yet to be taken on by mainstream, proprietary software products."

Submitted by poundsmack 2010-05-24 Microsoft 8 Comments

"Back in February, Microsoft released public specifications for PST files, the databases used by Outlook for storing and archiving e-mail. To these specifications, Microsoft has now added a pair of developer-oriented open source projects: the PST Data Structure View Tool for cracking open PSTs to browse inside them, and the PST File Format SDK, a cross-platform C++ library for working with PST files programmatically."

NVIDIA: iPad Set Bar Too Low

Thom Holwerda 2010-05-24 Hardware 30 Comments

Ah, NVIDIA's CEO, Jen-Hsun Huang. This guy is usually to the point, and doesn't sugar-coat his words, so interviews with him are generally good stuff to read. This time around, he had Intel and Apple down his sights. The iPad's A4 processor doesn't measure up to his company's Tegra 2, and Intel's Z6 Moorestown is not competitive in any way. At least, that's what he claims.

BlackBerry OS 6.0 Pre-release: RIM’s Got Work to Do

Thom Holwerda 2010-05-24 Wireless 16 Comments

So, we've talked a lot about Android last week due to Google's I/O conference, but what about the other guys competing in this field? Research In Motion, the Canadian smartphone maker, is hard at work developing version 6.0 of the BlackBerry operating system, and if a video of a pre-release build is any indication, they've still got some work to do.

Nero Files Antitrust Case Against MPEG-LA

Thom Holwerda 2010-05-24 Legal 43 Comments

Nero AG, a company with one of the most fitting names ever (can you imagine a company called Hitler or Stalin 2000 years from now?), has filed an anti-trust lawsuit against the MPEG-LA. The German technology company claims the licensing body has abused its monopoly power, and that is has not honoured agreements made with the US Department of Justice. There's some juicy stuff in here.

Episode 37: It Involves Google

Kroc 2010-05-23 Podcasts 11 Comments

I wonder what this podcast could be about? In the show Tess gets the opportunity to air her opinions on the Google announcements, particularly around Android and we fill the discussion on VP8, Adobe being a part of it, Google TV and how with friends like the MPEG-LA, who needs enemies? No Thom this week due to Professor Layton and the Misplaced Microphone.

Submitted by poundsmack 2010-05-23 Microsoft 7 Comments

"Over the past year or so, Microsoft's robotics group has been working quietly, very quietly. That's because, among other things, they were busy planning a significant strategy shift. Microsoft is upping the ante on its robotics ambitions by announcing today that its Robotics Developer Studio, or RDS, a big package of programming and simulation tools, is now available to anyone for free."

CERN’s Bowling Balls

Thom Holwerda 2010-05-23 In the News 2 Comments

"10 November 1972: CERN's Bent Stumpe places an order for 12 bowling balls for a total cost of 95 US dollars. Although not evident at first sight, he is buying the heart of some of the first tracking devices to be used in the SPS control room. Today, Bent Stumpe's device would be called a desktop mouse..."

First Look: VP8 vs. H264

Thom Holwerda 2010-05-23 Benchmarks 99 Comments

Now that Google has opened up VP8, the big question is obviously how it'll hold up to H264. Of course, VP8 already wins by default because it's open source and royalty free, but that doesn't mean we should neglect the quality issue. Jan Ozer from StreamingMedia.com has put up an article comparing the two codecs, and concludes that the differences are negligible - in fact, only in some high-motion videos did H264 win out. As always, this is just one comparison and most certainly anything but conclusive. Update: Another comparison. I can't spot the difference, but then again, I'm no expert.

Windows 3.0 Turns 20 Today

Thom Holwerda 2010-05-22 Windows 43 Comments

"The first truly successful Microsoft Windows operating system is twenty years old today; Windows 3.0 was launched on the 22nd of May 1990 and was the successor to Windows 2.1x. The Graphics User interface (technically it was not an operating system) sat on top of MS-DOS and could run applications for the operating system from within a Window and many might fondly remember that it was available on 5.25-inch high density floppy disks. More significantly, it proved to be the perfect partner for Intel's then-new range of 386 processor, which bought protected mode and extended memory capabilities to the market."

Countries Launch Investigations Into Google Wifi Collecting

Thom Holwerda 2010-05-22 Google 40 Comments

This issue kind of fell by the wayside in all the WebM and Android violence, but apart from the cool things Google did this past week, they've also done something really bad. They claim it's a mistake, but the company has collected 600GB of data from open personal wireless networks in 33 countries through its Street View cars, prompting several countries to initiate official investigations into the search giant.

Playable Pac Man on Google Today

David Adams 2010-05-21 Humor 25 Comments

To commemorate Pac Man's 30 year anniversary, Google has not only made a Pac Man-themed Google logo, but it's playable, and shockingly included the Pac Man theme music, which startled, but ultimately delighted, my officemates and me this morning. If you press the insert coin button, Ms. Pac Man joins the party. I do hope, however, that Google refrains from including theme music on its homepage in the future.

Submitted by martini 2010-05-21 OS/2 87 Comments

After god knows how many years, it's finally here: the final release of eComStation 2.0. We first reported on eComStation 2.0 back in December 2005, when the first beta was released, and between then and now, we've seen countless betas and release candidates come and go, but the wait is finally over.

New AROS NVIDIA Driver Needs Testers

Thom Holwerda 2010-05-21 Amiga & AROS 10 Comments

Good news from the AROS world. Thanks to a bounty, they've been working on Gallium3D for a while, and the fruit of this work is starting to taste good. Part of this effort included a 3D driver for NVIDIA cards, and now a 2D driver, based on Nouveau, is being developed as well. This driver has reached beta status, and testers are needed.

Patent Troll Larry Horn of MPEG-LA Assembling VP8 Patent Pool

Thom Holwerda 2010-05-21 Legal 87 Comments

Let the spreading of FUD begin! Known patent troll Larry Horn, CEO of MPEG-LA, is clearly feeling the heat - a heat that might set fire to his company's license to print money. After a decade of empty threats towards Theora, the company is apparently putting its it's-impossible-to-create-a-video-codec-that-doesn't-infringe-on-our-stuff attitude into practice once again, by assembling a patent pool to go after VP8. Google, in the meantime, is not impressed.

The In-depth Technical Analysis of VP8; Counterpoints

Thom Holwerda 2010-05-20 Multimedia, AV 131 Comments

There's an incredible amount of momentum behind Google's WebM Project. Opera, Mozilla, and of course Google will all include it in their browsers by default, meaning about 35% of web users will be able to use it with a minimal amount of fuss. On top of that, Microsoft has changed its previously announced plans to make HTML5 video in Internet Explorer 9 H264-only to include VP8 as well. Only Apple's opinion was unclear - until now.

Lightspark Reaches Beta Status

Thom Holwerda 2010-05-20 Internet 20 Comments

Lightspark, the project that aims to create an LLVM-based Free Flash payer, has reached beta status. "JIT compilation of ActionScript to native x86 bytecode using LLVM; hardware accelerated rendering using OpenGL Shaders (GLSL); very good and robust support for current-generation ActionScript 3; a new, clean codebase exploiting multithreading and optimized for modern hardware. Designed from scratch after the official Flash documentation was released."

10 Questions for MPEG-LA on H264

Thom Holwerda 2010-05-20 Multimedia, AV 11 Comments

"Prior to Google's announcement of its open sourcing the VP8 video codec, a spokesperson for MPEG LA - the licensing agent that manages the patent portfolio for multimedia technologies relating to the H.264 codec, among others - agreed to answer ten questions submitted to the agency in advance. Those questions regard how it licenses the codec that Microsoft and Apple consider the best solution for HTML 5, the next markup language for the Web." Ten questions, ten answers, and the H264 licensing and royalties mess has managed to become even less clear. Let's compare this to WebM: "You can do whatever you want with the WebM code without owing money to anybody." Now you again, MPEG-LA.