OSnews - Exploring the Future of Computing

Windows Phone 7: No Multitasking, Stricter Microsoft QA

Thom Holwerda 2010-02-07 Windows 127 Comments

Later this month, Microsoft will most likely unveil ~~Windows Mobile 7~~ Windows Phone 7 at the Mobile World Congress. Rumours abound, and the latest set of rumours paint a rather dramatic turnaround for Microsoft's mobile platform - no more multitasking, application distribution limited to official channels, and a whole lot more.

Microsoft To Patch 17-Year-Old Computer Bug

Thom Holwerda 2010-02-05 Microsoft 4 Comments

"The ancient bug was discovered by Google security researcher Tavis Ormandy in January 2010 and involves a utility that allows newer versions of Windows to run very old programs. Mr Ormandy has found a way to exploit this utility in Windows XP, Windows Server 2003 and 2008 as well as Windows Vista and Windows 7. The patch for this vulnerability will appear in the February security update. Five of the vulnerabilities being patched at the same time allow attackers to effectively hijack a Windows PC and run their own programs on it."

OGG in Silverlight, MS Join SVG, Flash Improvements, WebGL

Kroc 2010-02-05 Web 2.0 37 Comments

A quick round up of various web-related news items. First up, a new open source product entitled the "Highgate media suite" will bring OGG video decoding to Silverlight. Microsoft have just joined the SVG working group (arguably 10 years late, but it's better than nothing). Adobe promise significant improvements in Flash 10.1, including Core Animation rendering on OS X and lowered CPU usage. Finally, CoperLicht--a WebGL JavaScript 3D engine (Quake in JS will be here one day)

Zucker Misses the Mark, Wrongly Accuses Boxee of Stealing

Thom Holwerda 2010-02-05 Multimedia, AV 19 Comments

In a way, it's kind of sad. The old media squealing and squirming, trying pathetically to hold on to a time that has long been lost to the sands of... Well, time. Jeff Zucker, President and CEO of NBC, made such a pathetic attempt before a US Congress committee yesterday, claiming Boxee stole Hulu's content.

Submitted by tyrione 2010-02-05 General Development 21 Comments

"Today, Clang completed its first complete self-host! We built all of LLVM and Clang with Clang (over 550k lines of C++ code). The resulting binaries passed all of Clang and LLVM's regression test suites, and the Clang-built Clang could then build all of LLVM and Clang again. The third-stage Clang was also fully-functional, completing the bootstrap."

Virtio: An I/O Virtualisation Framework for Linux

Thom Holwerda 2010-02-05 Linux 3 Comments

With all the virtualization schemes running on top of Linux, how do they exploit the underlying kernel for I/O virtualization? The answer is virtio, which provides an efficient abstraction for hypervisors and a common set of I/O virtualization drivers. Discover virtio, and learn why Linux will soon be the hypervisor of choice.

Mono Project Delivers Moonlight 3.0 Preview

Thom Holwerda 2010-02-05 Mono 11 Comments

"The Mono Project releases the first preview of Moonlight 3.0, giving application developers a first look at the open-source implementation of Microsoft's Silverlight 3 technology for the Linux platform." Sadly, it's still Firefox-only.

Fusion Garage: Market Big Enough for iPad and Joo Joo

Thom Holwerda 2010-02-04 Wireless 30 Comments

Finally something we can work with. While both the iPad and the Joo Joo are technically still vapourware, people have at least had the opportunity to play with the former, while the latter remained somewhat illusive. Now that the device has been set to ship at the end of this month, Ars Technica finally had some time to play with the Joo Joo and talk to Fusion Garage's CEO, Chandra Rathakrishnan. There's good news, and there's (potentially) bad news.

Studios Crushed: ISP Can’t Be Forced to Play Copyright Cop

Thom Holwerda 2010-02-04 Legal 16 Comments

"In a definitive defeat for film studios - and in a first case of its kind worldwide - Australia's Federal Court has ruled that ISPs have no obligation to act on copyright infringement notices or to disconnect subscribers after receiving multiple letters. If copyright holders want justice for illegal file-sharing, they need to start by targeting the right people: those who committed the infringement."

Sun CEO Announces Resignation on Twitter

Thom Holwerda 2010-02-04 Oracle and SUN 23 Comments

Sun Microsystems CEO Jonathan Schwartz, an advocate of Web 2.0, used Twitter early Thursday to announce his resignation. He was named CEO in 2006 as Sun faced a switch in strategic direction away from proprietary systems and toward open source code, including its valued Solaris 10 operating system. "Today's my last day at Sun. I'll miss it", he said in a tweet to his followers, reported the New York Times on its Web site at 1:12 a.m. Thursday. He added a bit of haiku: "Financial crisis, Stalled too many customers, CEO no more."

Former Microsoft VP on “Microsoft’s Creative Destruction”

Thom Holwerda 2010-02-04 Microsoft 95 Comments

Now this is something you don't read every day. Dick Brass, vice president at Microsoft from 1997 to 2004, has written an article for The New York Times' Op-Ed section, detailing the flaws in Microsoft's corporate culture, and how they've severely affected the company in a negative way. Telling, and painful. And, in a way, very sad. Update: Microsoft responds. "For Microsoft, it is not sufficient to simply have a good idea, or a great idea, or even a cool idea. We measure our work by its broad impact."

Hands-on: New Single-Window Mode Makes GIMP Less Gimpy

Thom Holwerda 2010-02-04 Graphics 15 Comments

"The venerable GNU Image Manipulation Program is undergoing a significant transformation. The next major release, version 2.8, will introduce an improved user interface with an optional single-window mode. Although this update is still under heavy development, users can get an early look by compiling the latest source code of the development version from the GIMP's version control repository."

Joo Joo in Production, To Ship This Month, Includes HD Flash

Thom Holwerda 2010-02-04 Wireless 42 Comments

As promised, Fusion Garage has sent out a press release regarding its Joo Joo tablet device. The news is all good: full production has started, and the device will ship this month, readily beating the iPad to market. It has also been confirmed it will come with Flash, and once Flash 10.1 goes final, the Joo Joo will be able to playback HD through Flash, so that things like Hulu will work.

Symbian Goes Open Source Four Months Early

Thom Holwerda 2010-02-04 Wireless 6 Comments

Symbian has completed the process of open sourcing its entire code base, in advance of its June deadline. While the release is ahead of schedule, the first phones - expected to be out early next year - will hit the market more than two years after the first Android phone became available. The code is expected to become available on the Symbian developer page on Thursday.

MPEG-LA Will Not Change h264 Licensing

Thom Holwerda 2010-02-04 Multimedia, AV 125 Comments

We've got news from the MPEG-LA, regarding any possible H264 license changes they might institute at the end of this year. More specifically, they've put out a press release stating that they will not change one specific aspect of the license that governs the AVC Patent Portfolio (to which h264 belongs): MPEG-LA will not collect royalties for internet video that is free to end users. The press release is highly confusing, so let's de-construct what's going on here.

Android and the Linux Kernel Community

Thom Holwerda 2010-02-03 Linux 12 Comments

"As the Android kernel code is now gone from the Linux kernel, as of the 2.6.33 kernel release, I'm starting to get a lot of questions about what happened, and what to do next with regards to Android. So here's my opinion on the whole matter."

ARM CEO: ARM Netbooks To Sell with or Without Windows

Thom Holwerda 2010-02-03 Hardware 45 Comments

Ah, the ARM chip. ARM is a hugely successful architecture, and can be found in just about every cell phone or other small device out there. ARM, however, wants more, and for a long time now we've been hearing predictions about an upcoming massive rise in ARM netbooks - so far, this hasn't materialised. Warren East, ARM's CEO, said in an interview with PC Pro that netbooks could one day make up 90% of the laptop market - preferably powered by ARM processors of course.

Hands-on: Mozilla’s Pocket-Sized Firefox Mobile for Maemo

Thom Holwerda 2010-02-03 Mozilla, Gecko 9 Comments

"The notion of a Firefox smartphone browser seemed implausible only a few short years ago, but today it's very much a reality. Firefox Mobile for Maemo demonstrates the flexibility of the Firefox Web browser and its potential to bring a desktop-like browsing experience to constrained computing environments. It is truly an impressive achievement, but it's only the beginning of what Mozilla hopes to accomplish on handheld devices. Stay tuned for our follow-up about Weave, in which we will examine some of the opportunities for innovation created by Firefox Mobile."

Submitted by Chicken Blood 2010-02-02 Apple 116 Comments

The beauty of the internet is such that every opinion has become worthless; this goes doubly so for those with publish buttons on (relatively, we're humble) major websites. For every opinion, there's a matching counter-opinion, and that's great. Yesterday, we linked to an article by Mark Pilgrim about tinkerers and the iPad, and of course, someone was bound to disagree with that one.

Windows 7 Market Share Reaches 10%

Thom Holwerda 2010-02-02 Windows 71 Comments

Heck, Microsoft really weren't kidding when they said Windows 7 was the fastest-selling operating system in the world. NetApplications released its figures for January 2010, and it seems that after only three months of availability, Microsoft's latest baby has already hit the 10% market share mark.