OSnews - Exploring the Future of Computing

Italy Class-Action Lawsuit Planned Over Windows OEM Copies

Thom Holwerda 2010-01-06 Legal 47 Comments

I have no inherent problem with computer makers shipping their machines with Windows pre-installed. Of course, I'd much rather see a lot more diversity when I walk into an electronics retailer, but I can't really blame OEMs for taking the safe bet and focussing on what they know customers seem to want. Still, we need better ways to return our unused OEM copies of Windows, and apparently, a lot of people in Italy agree.

Microsoft Not Planning Legal Action Against Ylmf OS

Thom Holwerda 2010-01-05 Microsoft 39 Comments

Late last year, news got out that an infamous Chinese pirate has moved beyond pirating Windows, moving on to creating an Ubuntu distribution that is almost a pixel-perfect copy of Windows XP, called Ylmf OS. Ars Technica contacted Microsoft about possible legal actions, but it seems Microsoft isn't really bothered by all this.

Microsoft Reveals Office 2010 Retail Prices

Thom Holwerda 2010-01-05 Microsoft 10 Comments

Microsoft has revealed Office 2010 pricing for Home and Student, Home and Business, Professional, and Professional Academic editions. Office will come in both boxed versions and "key card" versions that have no media.

Submitted by OSGuy 2010-01-05 Google 19 Comments

In what is probably the least surprising product launch ever, Google has launched its Nexus One phone, but it's only available in the US, the UK, Singapore, and Hong Kong. Google has all the specifications, and Engadget has a review. Update by ELQ: Let me just say quickly that I now own the Canon 5D Mark II camera that some of the wallpapers that come with the Nexus One by default were shot with (e.g. this one). These amazing Creative Commons-licensed pictures were shot by Google Android engineer Romain Guy (he wrote the "live wallpaper" engine among other projects) who's also an amazing photographer.

New Amiga Sports Programmable Co-Processor, Dualcore PPC

Thom Holwerda 2010-01-05 Amiga & AROS 171 Comments

After days of wild speculation and ridiculously fast-growing threads on AmigaWorld.net, we finally know most of what we need to know about the new Amiga. This is not just a random PowerPC evaluation board that you can stuff in a generic case - no, this is an all-new system with a custom motherboard, and some very, very interesting innovations - like a fully customisable co-processor. Twenty-five years after the introduction of the first Amiga, this is one heck of a machine.

First Stable Enna MediaCenter Release

Submitted by Davide Cavalca 2010-01-04 Multimedia, AV 18 Comments

The GeeXboX project has announced the first stable release of Enna (version 0.4.0), an open source media center application. It features a simple user interface, based on the Enlightenment Foundations Libraries for its graphical user interface and the GeeXboX libraries for multimedia playback (libplayer) and information retrieval (libvalhalla and libnfo).

Activate Windows 7’s Hidden ‘God Mode’

Thom Holwerda 2010-01-04 Windows 29 Comments

God mode. A term usually reserved for games of all shapes and sizes, with the coolest being Rise Of The Triad's god mode, it has now found its way to the world of operating systems. Someone has discovered that Windows 7 has a god mode - but it's not what you think it is.

Submitted by poundsmack 2010-01-04 Legal 27 Comments

"Responding to Apple's vehement countersuit against Nokia, in which it leveled 13 patent infringement allegations against Nokia's 10, last December 29, Nokia added 14 more to the mix, including for concepts that may perhaps be as integral to the construction of modern telephones as power-conserving voltage-controlled oscillators, and a sensor that de-activates touchscreens while the phone is held against the ear."

‘Save MySQL’ Campaign Gains Momentum

Thom Holwerda 2010-01-04 Databases 30 Comments

A petition launched in December by MySQL creator Michael 'Monty' Widenius to 'save' the open-source database from Oracle has quickly gained momentum, collecting nearly 17,000 signatures. Widenius on Monday submitted an initial batch of 14,174 signatures to the European Commission, which is conducting an antitrust review of Oracle's acquisition of Sun Microsystems, MySQL's current owner. The petition calls for authorities to block the merger unless Oracle agrees to one of three "solutions", including spinning off MySQL to a third party and releasing all past versions and subsequent editions for the next three years under the Apache 2.0 open-source license.

Freescale Launches Tablet Reference Design

Thom Holwerda 2010-01-04 Wireless 19 Comments

Apple certainly isn't going to be the first to announce a 7-10" thing tablet computer. We already had the Joo Joo, and now Freescale has joined in on the fun with a 7" tablet reference design. Let's talk about Freescale's tablet, and as hinted at during yesterday's podcast, let's spend/waste (pick one) a few words on Apple's tablet as well.

Submitted by martini 2010-01-04 OS/2 26 Comments

For some months now, independent developers have been working on a Qt4 port for eComStation, and it's almost ready. Some Qt4 applications have been ported to eCS, as well. This project is funded by donations from the eCS-OS2 community and currently they have 82% of the needed sum.

Review: Mac Mini with Snow Leopard Server

Thom Holwerda 2010-01-04 Apple 6 Comments

"Apple's Mac mini with Snow Leopard Server is aimed squarely at small businesses that, for any number of reasons, need or prefer to host their core Internet services in-house without breaking the bank. Ars kicks the tires on the new combo to see if Apple has another hit on its hands."

Episode 30: I Wonder What the Children Would Be?

Kroc 2010-01-03 Podcasts 25 Comments

The problem with the future is that by the time you get there, everything is pretty normal. Now that we've arrived in 2010 (something I could hardly imagine 10 years ago), we're now met with the annual tradition of predicting what will happen this year. Now that Kroc, Thom and Tess have recovered enough from the new year we discuss KDE 4, desktop OSes vs. the web and the issues of privacy and government involvement in the Internet--that is, when we managed to stay on topic. More coffee!

Intel Forced to Remove “Cripple AMD” Function from Compiler?

Thom Holwerda 2010-01-03 General Development 123 Comments

Here's something you probably don't know, but really should - especially if you're a programmer, and especially especially if you're using Intel's compiler. It's a fact that's not widely known, but Intel's compiler deliberately and knowingly cripples performance for non-Intel (AMD/VIA) processors.

PC-BSD 8.0-BETA Released

Submitted by theeb 2010-01-03 PC-BSD 16 Comments

The PC-BSD team has released the first beta release of PC-BSD 8.0. "The PC-BSD Team is pleased to announce the availability of PC-BSD 8.0-BETA (Hubble Edition), running FreeBSD 8.0-RELEASE, and KDE 4.3.4. Version 8.0 contains a number of enhancements and improvements."

Syllable Web Server Cheyenne Gets WebSocket Framework

Guest post by Kaj de Vos 2010-01-03 Syllable, AtheOS 1 Comment

Over the holidays, the Cheyenne web server that is used in Syllable Server got a WebSocket framework. Cheyenne's author Nenad Rakocevic implemented WebSocket support in just a day on top of the UniServe universal network I/O subsystem that underpins Cheyenne. In a few more days, he designed an original WebSocket framework supporting persistent connections in an efficient manner, extending the regular Cheyenne framework for the typical HTTP stateless request/response communication.

Chrome Overtakes Safari, Becomes Number 3 Browser

Thom Holwerda 2010-01-02 In the News 98 Comments

NetApplications has released its latest browser market share figures, and these figures show that Chrome has overtaken Safari as the number three browser worldwide, behind Internet Explorer and Firefox. IE, by the way, continues to lose popularity rather fast.

Hyperion Teases Amiga Community

Thom Holwerda 2010-01-02 Amiga & AROS 84 Comments

People, this is an interesting thing to follow first-hand. Hyperion, the company behind AmigaOS4, has been talking about its "Most Ambitious Project" for a while now, but on December 31, they started teasing the Amiga community like crazy. They opened a site called a-eon.com, which is most likely about the MAP.

Submitted by jeanmarc 2010-01-01 Haiku 40 Comments

As I drag myself from cup of coffee to cup of coffee, led by the soothing sounds of The Eagles, still recovering from last night (happy new year everyone!), it hit me that there is this thing I normally do, this website. Anyway, we've got some good Haiku news on this first day of 2010.

(Re-)Introducing HTML5 Video

Kroc 2010-01-01 Opera 84 Comments

HTML5 Video is coming to Opera 10.5. Yesterday (or technically, last year--happy new year readers!) Opera released a new alpha build containing a preview of their HTML5 Video support. There's a number of details to note, not least that this is still an early alpha...