Microsoft Unveils Kin Mobile Phones

Microsoft 25 Comments
Today, at a press event in San Francisco, Microsoft launched two mobile phones which run a specialised, social media-oriented version of Windows Phone. The devices are aimed at the social generation of teens and twentysomethings (I shall burn in hell for writing that), and while they do not appeal to me (and you, I take it) in any way, shape, or form, they do sport an immensely interesting user interface.
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China UK Passes Controversial Digital Economy Bill

  Submitted by aargh Internet 17 Comments
"The controversial Digital Economy Bill has been passed into law during the wash-up period, which sees outstanding legislation rushed through before a general election. The most controversial aspects of the bill - which could see persistent illegal file-sharers disconnected from the web and copyright holders given the power to block access to websites hosting illegal content - survived the process."
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Intro to the LLVM MC Project

  Submitted by tyrione General Development 1 Comment
"The LLVM Machine Code sub-project of LLVM was created to solve a number of problems in the realm of assembly, disassembly, object file format handling, and a number of other related areas that CPU instruction-set level tools work in. It is a sub-project of LLVM which provides it with a number of advantages over other compilers that do not have tightly integrated assembly-level tools. This blog post talks about how the MC project evolved, describes a few different aspects of it , talks about the improvements/capabilities it brings to LLVM, and finishes off with the current status of the project."
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Digital: A Love Story

Amiga & AROS 22 Comments
I really wonder how I missed this one. While I'm sure most of you have already been playing this, I only discovered it a few days ago and have been hooked ever since. It's called Digital: A Love Story, and it's an interactive story set in 1988, written/created by Christine Love. The interface of the game is the Amiga Workbench, and you progress through the story by reading, replying, and hacking BBSs using your modem.
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Porting RHEV-M from C# to Java

Red Hat 20 Comments
A developer from the Qumranet team, developers of the KVM virtual machine and Spice Protocol has written about the team's experience in porting the RHEV-M software from C# to Java as a means of making the application cross platform and open sourcing it. The team considered several options including Mono which they discarded as too immature for the job, and Grasshopper technology was discarded as an option since the goal was to open source it and eventually settled on a semi-automated workflow using Java. Red Hat is well on its way towards the goal of making a cross-platform and open source management tool for managing virtual machines in the servers and desktops.
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40 Year-old Discovery Could Define Future of Computing

  Submitted by Laurence Hardware 8 Comments
"The fundamental building blocks of all computing devices could be about to undergo a dramatic change that would allow faster, more efficient machines. Researchers at computer firm Hewlett Packard have shown off working devices built using memristors - often described as electronics' missing link. These tiny devices were proposed 40 years ago but only fabricated in 2008. HP says it has now shown that they can be used to crunch data, meaning they could be used to build advanced chips."
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Microsoft Visual Studio 2010, .NET Framework 4 Released

  Submitted by HAL2001 .NET 34 Comments
"Visual Studio 2010 and .NET Framework 4 have something for every developer. The new editor, now using Windows Presentation Foundation, supports concepts such as the use of multiple monitors. This enables a developer to have one monitor with code, another with the user interface designer, and yet another with database structure. Developers have integrated access to SharePoint functionality into the Visual Studio integrated development environment. Windows Azure tools make it easy to quickly develop, debug, test and deploy cloud applications from within the familiar Visual Studio environment."
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Copyright Turns 300 Today

Legal 28 Comments
Happy birthday to you... Happy birthday to you... Happy birthday dear copyright law... Yeah, it's April 10, the birthday of copyright (thanks, Arnoud). In 1710, 300 years ago, England enacted the very first copyright law, cutely named the Statute of Anne, after then-reigning Queen Anne. When reading about those early days of copyright, one can't help but hope we will return to those days - the Statute of Anne has little to nothing to do with modern copyright.
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Is Apple Betting on Adobe Ditching the Mac?

Apple 154 Comments
The backlash is starting to show. The most recent change in Apple's iPhone developer agreement isn't going down well. The change is clearly aimed at increasing lock-in, and seems to have little to nothing to do with anything else. While individual developers are hit hard, Adobe as a whole has been hit pretty hard too, giving rise to sentiments on the web that Adobe should abandon Mac development. I have the sneaking suspicion this is exactly what Apple is aiming for.
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Apple Takes Aim at Adobe… Or Android?

Rumors 35 Comments
"Apple's current - and in our opinion, objectionable - position is now close to the complete opposite of its initial stance. From promoting openness and standards, the company is now pushing for an ever more locked-down and restricted platform. It's bad for competition, it's bad for developers, and it's bad for consumers. I hope that there will be enough of a backlash that the company is forced to reconsider, but with the draw of all those millions of iPhone (and now, iPad) customers, I fear that Apple's developers will, perhaps with some reluctance, just accept the restriction and do whatever Cupertino demands."
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10 Things Linux Does Better Than Windows

Linux 186 Comments
"To be clear about this article's intent, it's not to bash Microsoft, or Windows. Because to be fair, despite using Linux 95% of the time while I'm on the PC, I can find more faults with it than Windows. So, this article's goal is to highlight some of the major pluses of Linux, and also showcase where Windows could improve in the future, should Microsoft take heed of the suggestions."
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Microsoft Aims to Bring apt/rpm-like Tools to Windows

  Submitted by poundsmack Windows 46 Comments
Now this is interesting. Microsoft developer Garrett Serack has acknowledged that it is generally easier to roll out a, for instance, complex stack of open source server software on Linux than it is on Windows. He also offers a solution - he's working on a project to bring package management to Windows. This project will be community-driven, and Serack has the full blessing from Microsoft.
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iPhone Dev Agreement Bans Adobe’s Flash-to-iPhone Compiler

Apple 71 Comments
John Gruber has found out that cross-compilers are no longer allowed in iPhone OS 4.0. "My reading of this new language is that cross-compilers, such as the Flash-to-iPhone compiler in Adobe's upcoming Flash Professional CS5 release, are prohibited. This also bans apps compiled using MonoTouch - a tool that compiles C# and .NET apps to the iPhone. It's unclear what this means for tools like Titanium and PhoneGap, which let developers write JavaScript code that runs in WebKit inside a native iPhone app wrapper. They might be OK."
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Silverlight 4.0 To Be Released this Month

  Submitted by poundsmack Microsoft 19 Comments
"While Adobe has been getting most of the press recently for their Flash 10.1 RC, Microsoft has quietly announced their plans to release the final version of Silverlight 4.0 as early as next week. This major update will provide more fundamental changes than prior iterations, including Google Chrome support, better performance (up to 200% over Silverlight 3), improved security with digital signing and sandboxing, and greater control for developers."
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