OSnews - Exploring the Future of Computing

Adobe Premiere Pro & After Effects CS5

Eugenia Loli 2010-06-02 Multimedia, AV 19 Comments

With the explosion of (mostly Canon's) video HD dSLRs in the last few months, purchase decisions for video editors have shifted, depending on which editor can deal with h.264 the best way. Until recently, users had to either use "proxy" files, or transcode to an intermediate format. Then, Adobe's Premiere Pro CS5 came in to change this by being the first video editor to fully utilize nVidia's CUDA technology and achieve real-time playback for Quicktime dSLR, and AVCHD footage.

Microsoft to Google: Our Security Is Bigger Than Yours

Thom Holwerda 2010-06-01 Microsoft 127 Comments

Well, this was pretty inevitable, wasn't it? We had Google employees detailing that their company has pretty much given up on Windows, forcing employees to use either Mac OS X or Linux. In what surely comes as a total surprise, Microsoft has responded to this report. Regarding the security claims, "the facts don't support the assertion", Microsoft states.

Google: Android Fragmentation a Non-Issue

Thom Holwerda 2010-06-01 Google 23 Comments

Fragmentation. You'll often hear people say this is a major problem with Google's Android platform; there are many devices running multiple different versions of the mobile operating system, leading to fragmentation. Dan Morrill, Android's open source and compatibility program manager, addresses this issue in a blog post, and details what Google is doing to fight it. The gist: it's a non-issue - according to Google, that is.

Intel Fashions Supercomputing Phoenix from Ashes of Larrabee

Thom Holwerda 2010-06-01 Intel 14 Comments

"In an announcement at the International Supercomputing Conference, Intel provided further details on the many-core chip that it hinted at earlier in the month. The first product based on the new design will be codenamed Knight's Corner, and will debut at 22nm with around 50 x86 cores on the same die. Developer kits, which include a prototype of the design called Knight's Ferry, have been shipping to select partners for a while now, and will ship more broadly in the second half of the year. When Intel moves to 22nm in 2011, Knight's Corner will make its official debut."

Microsoft Launches Windows Embedded Compact 7 CTP

Thom Holwerda 2010-06-01 Windows 28 Comments

And the award for Most Boring And Non-descriptive Press Release Title 2010 goes to Microsoft for "Microsoft Outlines Business Opportunities for Hardware Makers Across Windows Platform". The press release itself appears to be about as interesting as watching paint dry, until you reach that small part where it says Microsoft has released the first community technology preview of Windows Embedded Compact 7 (1).

Using C++ in GCC Is Okay

Thom Holwerda 2010-06-01 General Development 45 Comments

"I am pleased to report that the GCC Steering Committee and the FSF have approved the use of C++ in GCC itself. Of course, there's no reason for us to use C++ features just because we can. The goal is a better compiler for users, not a C++ code base for its own sake. Before we start to actually use C++, we need to determine a set of coding standards that will apply to use of C++ within GCC."

Submitted by Marquis 2010-06-01 FreeBSD 10 Comments

"The first of the test builds for the FreeBSD 8.1 release cycle is now available for amd64, i386, ia64, powerpc, pc98, and sparc64 architectures. Files suitable for creating installation media or doing FTP based installs through the network should be on most of the FreeBSD mirror sites by now."

Review: Windows 7’s Built-in Speech Recognition

Thom Holwerda 2010-06-01 Windows 6 Comments

"Microsoft has pumped out voice recognition software for years, but the company has a curious aversion to publicizing the fact. With Windows 7, Microsoft's speech recognition has become a decent productivity tool and one that the company should be proud to proclaim as an OS feature. For the casual speech recognition user, nothing beats free - especially when one considers the $100+ price points for third-party software. But is it powerful enough for serious users?"

Google: “Microsoft [Windows] We Don’t Feel So Good About”

Thom Holwerda 2010-06-01 Google 139 Comments

Google employees have always had a remarkable amount of freedom when it comes to what operating system they wanted to run on company computers - Linux, Windows, Mac OS X, it was all fine. Since the China attacks, however, this has changed: Windows is no longer welcome on Google computers.

Firefox for Windows Starts 64bit Transition

Thom Holwerda 2010-05-31 Mozilla, Gecko 23 Comments

"Mainstream microprocessors have been 64-bit for years. Operating systems have followed suit. Now it's time for a program used by hundreds of millions of people to make the leap: Firefox. Programmer Armen Zambrano Gasparnian announced the first 64-bit Firefox builds for Windows on Friday, offering an FTP site for those who want to download it. But the software isn't for mainstream users yet."

JLG on Microsoft’s Past Decade

Thom Holwerda 2010-05-31 Microsoft 42 Comments

While Microsoft is indeed incredibly profitable, it's not going as well as it seems. The company is still riding high upon its Windows and Office offerings, but when it comes to new markets, Microsoft hasn't been as successful. Jean-Louis Gassee provides some very interesting insights into the company's past ten years.

Tablet Overload at Computex

Thom Holwerda 2010-05-31 Wireless 22 Comments

It's time for Computex! This means loads of gadgets and related stuff to flood the internet, so let's get started by focussing on ASUS. The company showed off two interesting tablets: the Eee Tablet (which is actually a notepad) and the Eee Pad (which is actually a tablet). No, this doesn't make any sense, but product naming hasn't been a strong point at ASUS for a while now. There's also the ExoPC Slate (not from ASUS), which has a pretty interesting user interface.

Submitted by madmalkav 2010-05-31 Amiga & AROS 2 Comments

And as time goes by, the date the AmigaOne X1000 will be unveiled creeps ever closer. Last week, A-Eon has announced it will make 100 Nemo motherboards, rev-2, available to 100 beta testers under a special discount program. Several AmigaOS4 developers already have access to these motherboards for a while now, as they are working on implementing the necessary drivers.

Guest post by clusteruk 2010-05-31 Amiga & AROS 22 Comments

The journey that started 18 months ago to create a next generation Amiga on commodity hardware has now reached its first major milestone by becoming a completely driver native Aros system powered by the energy efficient Intel Atom processor. This has been achieved with the supply of hardware and in some cases financial rewards to key developers in the Aros world. The plan with the following steps has been to create a base reference platform for Aros and the Amiga community to build on and support.

Will Apple Embrace the Web? No.

Kroc 2010-05-29 Apple 103 Comments

I've been meaning to write this for some time, and for all the time I delayed the more poignant the point I wanted to make started to become as new news came out further solidifying my angle. When I begun writing this article the iPad had not yet been revealed, iPhone OS 4 was not on the map and Apple had not yet purchased Lala. You've probably just noticed that all of these events in fact point toward Apple embracing the web more and in this article I will point out why this is not the case because I believe Apple's agenda here is similar to something we've already seen in recent history.

Submitted by unix_joe 2010-05-28 KDE 24 Comments

KOffice 2.2, the office suite for KDE, has been released. New features include import filters for Office 2007 thanks to Nokia, and the return of the Access clone Kexi. With this release, the KOffice team writes, "we are at a stage where we think that KOffice can be used for real work by some users". A full list of changes can be found here.

Submitted by Panajev 2010-05-28 Open Source 34 Comments

"The Free Software Foundation is up in arms over Apple's iTunes Store Terms of Service, suggesting that these terms fundamentally conflict with the terms of the GNU Public License. The foundation has warned Apple that a version of GNU Go distributed by the App Store makes Apple liable to comply with GPL terms that allow free sharing of code, but warned that its 'Usage Rules' violate those terms. The fallout could potentially affect any app that uses GPLed code."

Submitted by poundsmack 2010-05-28 KDE 20 Comments

"The developers behind the KDE desktop environment have released the first beta of version 4.5. Although the major focus during this development cycle is stability, the release also brings some nice new features and user interface improvements."

Disabling the Tynt Copy/Paste Nonsense on Websites

Thom Holwerda 2010-05-28 Internet 55 Comments

If there's one thing several people are really, really good at, it's ruining the web. The latest attempt is something quite insipid, something that had me scratching my head a few times before I realised what was going on. When copying and pasting text from certain websites, content would be added to your clipboard without you knowing about it - something like "Read more at". John Gruber finds this just as insipid as I do, and investigated a little further - while also coming up with a way to block this nonsense. Seriously - this is right up there with those in-text underline ad things.

Nokia N8 Demonstration: Nokia’s Got Work to Do

Thom Holwerda 2010-05-28 Wireless 57 Comments

Like Research in Motion, Nokia is playing catch-up, software-wise, to the iPhone OS and Android, which is funny in a cruel way because both Nokia and RIM have a far larger market share than both of them. Nokia has put out a preview video of their upcoming N8 smartphone, which runs the latest Symbian version, Symbian^3. Nokia, like RIM, has got work to do.