OSnews - Exploring the Future of Computing

What’s Next for Firefox? Electrolysis

Thom Holwerda 2010-01-27 Mozilla, Gecko 19 Comments

"One of the key new features that the Lorentz branch of Firefox 3.6 will aim to include is a technology that rival browser Google Chrome helped to popularize - out of process plugins. With out of process plugins, browser plugins like Flash are sandboxed and isolated by the browser. The official project name at Mozilla for the effort is called Electrolysis."

Submitted by anilg 2010-01-27 Solaris 1 Comment

Parallel NFS (pNFS) is a part of NFS 4.1 standard than allows NFS access in parallel. The Nexenta Project has released the very first distribution with pNFS support (integrated with the ZFS filesystem). Get the NCP-pNFS Experimental release here, and setup instructions here.

Apple Unveils iPad

Thom Holwerda 2010-01-27 Apple 190 Comments

In what everybody already saw coming for weeks (months) now, Apple has just unveiled its latest product, a tablet called the iPad. Basically a bigger version of the iPhone, Steve Jobs presented the iPad during a press event in San Francisco. The most interesting news? It's powered by... An Apple processor, called the A4. The most shocking news? The price.

Submitted by historyb 2010-01-27 Ubuntu 78 Comments

For the longest time, the default search provider in Ubuntu Linux has been Google, but this is going to change in the next release, Lucid Lynx, scheduled to release April 29. The change comes after Canonical has signed a revenue sharing deal with Yahoo!, so you can imagine who the new default search provider will be.

Gates Weighs in on Google China Issue

Thom Holwerda 2010-01-26 Google 34 Comments

The whole Google attack thing is far from over. We already have an item on page 2 about how the attack may not have originated from within China at all, but there's more. Bill Gates has weighed in on the issue, and there are reports indicating that Google may not leave China at all.

‘Aurora’ Code Circulated for Years on English Sites

Thom Holwerda 2010-01-26 Privacy, Security 7 Comments

"An error-checking algorithm found in software used to attack Google and other large companies circulated for years on English-language books and websites, casting doubt on claims it provided strong evidence that the malware was written by someone inside the People's Republic of China."

Mass Effect 2 Released

Thom Holwerda 2010-01-26 Games 37 Comments

I just went out in the blistering cold (windchill factor -12) for a very specific purpose: a certain online retailer had broken the embargo on a certain product, and in the faint hope that real-world stores would follow, I figured I'd be able to get my hands on said product that way, too. What are we talking about here? Oh, only what will most likely be the game of the year.

Chrome 4.0 Brings Extensions, Bookmark Sync

Thom Holwerda 2010-01-26 Google 52 Comments

Finally! Google has released version 4.0 of Chrome for Windows, bringing the much-anticipated extensions framework out of beta and into the stable channel. Currently, more than 1500 extensions are already available. Version 4.0 carries more features than just extensions, though.

Once Impenetrable PS3 Cracked Wide Open

Thom Holwerda 2010-01-25 Games 31 Comments

"The first hacker to successfully jailbreak the iPhone says he has pulled off yet another modding marvel, this time penetrating the previously impervious PlayStation 3 gaming console. The hack by 20-year-old George Hotz, aka geohot, is significant because the PS3 was the only game console that hadn't been hacked, despite being on the market for more than three years. The feat greatly expands the functionality of the box by allowing it to run unrestricted versions of Linux and a wide range of games that are currently forbidden. The hardware and software designer told El Reg it took him five weeks to develop the hack using a combination of modifications to the console's hardware and software."

Atomthreads Open Source RTOS Released

Submitted by Kelvin Lawson 2010-01-25 OS News No Comments

"Atomthreads is a free, lightweight, portable, real-time scheduler for embedded systems. It is released under the flexible, open source BSD license and is free to use for commercial or educational purposes without restriction. It is targeted at systems that need only a scheduler and the usual RTOS primitives. No file system, IP stack or device drivers are included, but developers can bolt on their own as required. Atomthreads will always be a small number of C files which are easy to port to any platforms that require threading by adding a simple architecture-specific file."

Holiday Cheer Gives Apple Some Eye-Popping Earnings

Thom Holwerda 2010-01-25 Apple 1 Comment

"Today, Apple announced that the holiday season brought booming sales to most of its product lines, the lone exception being the iPod. Although the music players declined slightly to 21 million units from the year before, Mac sales shot up by 33 percent to 3.36 million, while iPhone sales doubled, hitting 8.7 million. Those sales, plus changes to accounting rules, helped the company book $3.38 billion dollars in profits."

AmigaOS 4.1 Update 1 Released

Thom Holwerda 2010-01-25 Amiga & AROS 46 Comments

It seems like only yesterday, but in fact it's already six months ago. July last year, we published our review of AmigaOS 4.1 running on ACube's sam440ep motherboard, and here we are, six months later, and Hyperion has released AmigaOS 4.1 Update 1. This free update brings with it quite a number of new features, and since I still have the sam440ep on my desk, I could test the new features first-hand.

Syllable Desktop Gets OpenSSH Server

Guest post by Kaj de Vos 2010-01-25 Syllable, AtheOS 2 Comments

After many years of trying by several people, Kaj de Vos collected their hints and got the server part of OpenSSH to work. The integration into Syllable Desktop is based on earlier integration into Syllable Server of the system configuration needed for the OpenSSH server. Kristian Van Der Vliet implemented the socketpair function in Syllable 0.6.6 to support OpenSSH, although this currently still needs to be disabled. Michael Pavone and Adam Kirchhoff supplied and tested several more options that need to be disabled to get the server running and stable.

Microsoft Cites Psystar Case in Xbox Antitrust Defence

Thom Holwerda 2010-01-24 Games 49 Comments

Remember that little legal spat going on between Apple and Psystar? That one's been more or less wrapped up, with Apple being the sole victor there. The dust from that case has barely had time to settle, and already we see another company quoting it to support its own restrictive, anti-consumer practices. The company in question? Ha, it's Microsoft.

Mozilla Explains Why it Doesn’t License h264

Thom Holwerda 2010-01-24 Mozilla, Gecko 158 Comments

This week, both YouTube and Vimeo opened up beta offerings using HTML5 video instead of Flash to bring video content to users. Both of them chose to use the h264 codec, which meant that only Safari and Chrome can play these videos, since firefox doesn't license the h264 codec. Mike Shaver, Mozilla's vice president of engineering, explained on his blog why Mozilla doesn't license the h264 codec.

75% of Linux Code Written by Paid Developers

Submitted by Dale Smoker 2010-01-24 Linux 52 Comments

LWN.net founder and kernel contributor Jonathan Corbet offered an analysis of the code contributed to the Linux kernel between December 24 2008 and January 10 2010. 18% of contributions were made without a specific corporate affiliation, 7% weren't classified, and 75% were from people working for specific companies in roles where developing that code was a major requirement. "75% of the code comes from people paid to do it," Corbet said.

Submitted by elsewhere 2010-01-24 Legal 17 Comments

The sand has hit the elephant. The buttons have dried the desert. The empty CD-Rs are dancing to Radiohead. The unicorns have left the building. The US International Trade Commission is going to be working overtime this year: after Nokia and Apple, Motorola, too, has now filed a complaint with the ITC, seeking a ban on imports of RIM devices.

AMD Reaches Profitability for the First Time in Years

Thom Holwerda 2010-01-24 AMD 13 Comments

AMD has reached profitability for the first time in three years during the fourth quarter of 2009, benefiting from a legal settlement with Intel and a change in its business model. The company reported net income of USD 1.18 billion during the quarter that ended on Dec. 26, an improvement over the loss of USD 1.44 billion it reported in the fourth quarter of 2008. The company reported diluted earnings per share of USD 1.52.

Re-Live 1992 With Windows 3.1

David Adams 2010-01-24 Windows 26 Comments

An intrepid web developer has re-created the entire Windows 3.1 experience within a browser window, including games, notepad, and a web browser. Truth be told, the included web browser is a major anachronism, since it's apparently standards-compliant in 2010.

Judge Reduces USD 1.92m P2P Fine by 97% to USD 54000

Thom Holwerda 2010-01-23 Legal 51 Comments

Like many of you, I kind of lost my faith in the US justice system (when it comes to piracy cases) when a judge awarded USD 1.92 million in damages for downloading 24 songs in the Jammie Thomas-Rasset case. At the same time, also like many of you, I was very pleased with the outcome of the OiNK case in the United Kingdom last week. As it turns out, some of my faith in the US system has been restored: the USD 1.92 fine has been reduced by 97%, to a mere USD 54000.