OSnews - Exploring the Future of Computing

Falling PC Prices Pit Microsoft Against PC Makers

Submitted by shaneco 2009-12-02 Microsoft 29 Comments

Plummeting prices of PCs are great news for consumers, but are a disaster for hardware makers. Microsoft isn't cutting them any slack with Windows pricing. Will PC price drops catch up with Microsoft in other ways?

The Rise of Camel Case

Thom Holwerda 2009-12-02 Office 59 Comments

A few weeks ago, we talked about how the rise of computing, a field wherein English is the primary language, is affecting smaller languages, and more specifically, the Dutch language (because that's my native tongue). Of course, it's not just the smaller languages that are affected - English, too, experiences the pressure.

Krita Team Seeking Sponsorship to Take Krita to Next Level

Submitted by Boudewijn Rempt 2009-12-02 KDE 10 Comments

The Krita team is seeking sponsorship to allow one of the core team members to work on Krita full-time, focusing on performance and usability, with a goal of releasing the results in Krita 2.2 and 2.3, in 2010. See kde.dot.org for an interview, or the Krita site for more information about this effort.

Google Working with Manufacturers on Printing Support

Thom Holwerda 2009-12-02 Google 81 Comments

As most of you will know, a common problem for any new operating system is hardware support. Drivers don't grow on trees, and usually need to be written by manufacturers, which costs time and money. Luckily for Chrome OS, it uses the Linux kernel which makes the hardware support question far less problematic. Still, when it comes to printers, the situation is different, and here, Google is trying to achieve something which should've been done ages ago.

Microsoft: Patches Did Not Cause Black Screen Problem

Thom Holwerda 2009-12-01 Windows 37 Comments

There was a bit of a stink today about an antivirus vendor claiming that Microsoft's November security patches caused computers to show a 'black screen of death'. Microsoft has investigated the issue, and states that the antivirus vendor, Prevx, is wrong.

Submitted by poundsmack 2009-12-01 Qt 40 Comments

Nokia has released the latest version of its cross-platform toolkit Qt, version 4.6. As usual, it comes with a whole slew of improvements and new features, and this time, they even added a new platform into the mix.

Important FreeBSD “Local Root” Exploit Patch Available

Thom Holwerda 2009-12-01 FreeBSD No Comments

"A short time ago a 'local root' exploit was posted to the full-disclosure mailing list; as the name suggests, this allows a local user to execute arbitrary code as root. Normally it is the policy of the FreeBSD Security Team to not publicly discuss security issues until an advisory is ready, but in this case since exploit code is already widely available I want to make a patch available ASAP."

Psystar, Apple To Enter Settlement Agreement

Thom Holwerda 2009-12-01 Legal 20 Comments

The case between Apple and Psystar may in fact finally be over. AppleInsider is reporting on a document filed with the California court which says that the two companies have entered into a settlement agreement. However, since AppleInsider doesn't actually provide the document in question, and nothing shows up yet on dockets, it's all a little bit unclear. Update: Here's the filing. It does not cover the Florida case, but pretty much ends the California one. Round 1 a smashing victory for Apple, round 2 has Psystar starting heavily crippled.

Microsoft: Office 2010 To Ship in June 2010

Thom Holwerda 2009-11-30 Microsoft 11 Comments

"After several Web sites today claimed to having seen a possibly inadvertent notice from Microsoft claiming June as the release month for its forthcoming Office 2010 (we looked hard and couldn't find it ourselves), a Microsoft spokesperson confirmed to Betanews this afternoon that June is indeed the ship month."

Sun Releases VirtualBox 3.1, Adds Teleportation Feature

Thom Holwerda 2009-11-30 Oracle and SUN 49 Comments

Yesterday (today if you're in the US), Sun released the latest version of its virtualisation solution, VirtualBox 3.1. Among speed improvements and other smaller features, the biggest news is that Virtualox 3.1 introduces something called teleportation: you can move running VMs between machines - servers or clients, different architectures, different host operating systems, it doesn't matter to VirtualBox. Coincidentally, this reminded me of an idea I once had about moving running applications between machines.

Submitted by michuk 2009-11-30 KDE 82 Comments

"I have managed to find some time to cover the recent changes in the development version of KDE 4.4. The number of changes is not impressive but they are interesting enough to write an article."

Submitted by -ujb- 2009-11-30 Morphos 51 Comments

The MorphOS team seems to be on a roll. Recently, they added support for the PowerPC G4 Mac mini models from Apple, meaning it suddenly became a lot easier to get your hands on a computer capable of running MorphOS. As expected, the team has now announced that a release with PowerMac G4 support is coming as well.

Crunchpad Project Implodes

David Adams 2009-11-30 Wireless 17 Comments

Michael Arrington's promising CrunchPad Tablet PC device was due for imminent launch, but, due to what Arrington claims was an attempt by his business partner to cut him out of the deal because of "pressure from shareholders," the ownership of the intellectual property is now in dispute. As a result, the project will almost certainly move into a the lawsuit and recrimination phase, and the CrunchPad will likely never be released.

Submitted by samw 2009-11-30 Desktop environments 18 Comments

An effort to turn a normal windows installation into a chrome OS like operating system has come to fruition with its first release. The complete shell replacement that is available here stops the default desktop loading at boot time and instead replaces it with Google's Chrome browser (allowing the user to load the normal desktop later). Standby to browser times of 3 seconds have been reported.

Shopping Season Is Here

David Adams 2009-11-30 OS News 12 Comments

This holiday season it seems that everyone has forgotten the recession and has just decided to pretend to not be broke. In the US, somehow the retail industry has hoodwinked everyone into celebrating a shopping holiday the weekend after Thanksgiving, with the recent addition of "cyber monday" to encourage both irresponsible spending and doing personal shopping on company time while at work. Far be it from us to stand in the way of this Juggernaut. I personally do most of my shopping online, and much of it at Amazon.com, who over the years have proven a dedication to low prices and excellent service. Cyber Monday or not, if you're planning on shopping online this holiday season (or anytime), please consider using OSNews' shopping page, which gives you a good launching point to browse for products and compare prices, and supports OSNews by kicking back a small percentage of your purchase price. It doesn't cost you anything, but makes a big difference for us. So bookmark the page, and show the love all year round. We'd like to make some improvements to the OSNews Shopping launchpad. Please include your recommendations and suggestions in the comments.

Intel Roadmap Leak Shows Desktop Core i3/i5/i7 Plans

Thom Holwerda 2009-11-29 Intel 5 Comments

"Intel's plans to overhaul its desktop processors early next year have been detailed almost entirely in a roadmap published today. The lineup is now believed to be headlined by low-powered S versions of the Core i5-750 and i7-860 that will run all four cores at 2.4GHz and 2.53GHz respectively; they should use just 82W of power versus 95W or more and fit into tighter spaces. Each will have 8MB of Level 2 cache, though the Core i7 chips will scale up to 3.46GHz where the Core i5 will stop at 3.2GHz."

Programming: Notepad or Visual?

Thom Holwerda 2009-11-29 General Development 94 Comments

Even though I'm not a programmer, I still know that while some programmers like the idea of graphical programming, whereas others shun the concept completely, opting for a more hands-on approach. While Microsoft is quite active in the field of graphical programming, the company's own high-level coders aren't very keen on the idea.

Episode 29: Warranty Void

Kroc 2009-11-29 Podcasts 11 Comments

Back by popular demand, Tess joins the show again and we are also greeted by another guest--William, a friend who has a lot more charm and wit than the angry crocodile in the room with a grudge against everything. Topics covered include: Chrome OS, Bing / Google, The GIMP, Siverlight or standards, and voiding warranties.

Submitted by fsmag 2009-11-29 Open Source 106 Comments

From Free Software Magazine: "Google promises a much needed shift in the way small computers work. Problems like software updates, backups, installation, maintenance, viruses, have plagued the world for too long: a shift is way overdue. To me, however, the change about to happen shows us what many people have refused to believe for a long time: KDE and GNOME shot each other dead."

IBM Shows off Power7 HPC Monster

Thom Holwerda 2009-11-27 IBM 27 Comments

"IBM likes to go on and on about the transaction processing power and I/O bandwidth of its System z mainframes, but now there is a new and much bigger kid on the block. Its name is the Power Systems IH supercomputing node, based on the company's forthcoming Power7 processors and a new homegrown switching system that blends optical and copper interconnects. The Power7 IH node was on display at the SC09 supercomputer trade show last week in Portland, Oregon, and El Reg was on hand to get the scoop from the techies who designed the iron. This server node is the heart of the 20 petaflop 'Blue Waters' supercomputer being installed at the University of Illinois."