OSnews - Exploring the Future of Computing

MPAA Shuts Down Municipal WiFi Due to Single Illegal Download

Submitted by Tom Curtis 2009-11-13 Legal 60 Comments

As regular readers on OSNews will know, I'm quite opposed to the concept of post-sale restrictions, but also the insane countermeasures undertaken by the film and music industry against individuals who illegally download content. The reason I'm so opposed to these things is not because I approve of the act of illegal downloading - no, it's all about the slippery slope effect.

Arrington: Chrome OS To Debut Next Week

Thom Holwerda 2009-11-13 Google 36 Comments

TechCrunch's Michael Arrington is claiming Google's Chrome OS will debut next week - but his story does have an odd ring to it. He goes on and on about how driver support will be shoddy, but that makes no sense - isn't Chome OS supposed to be built on Linux? The only way I can see initial driver support to be shoddy is when Chrome OS has its own, custom graphical layer, instead of using X. However, were that to be the case, I'm sure Google would at least support some NVIDIA, ATI, and Intel chipsets. In any case, it's a rumour - do with it as you please.

Submitted by irbis 2009-11-13 Gnome 38 Comments

GNOME 3, the much talked about next generation GNOME introduces a radical shift from the interface found in GNOME 2.x. Digitizor has a quick visual tour of GNOME 3 in Ubuntu 9.10.

A 2x Faster web: SPDY

Kroc 2009-11-12 Google 65 Comments

Google have created a new HTTP-based protocol "SPDY" (pronounced "Speedy") to solve the problem of the client-server latency with HTTP. "We want to continue building on the web's tradition of experimentation and optimization, to further support the evolution of websites and browsers. So over the last few months, a few of us here at Google have been experimenting with new ways for web browsers and servers to speak to each other, resulting in a prototype web server and Google Chrome client with SPDY support."

Submitted by s1oan 2009-11-12 SuSE, openSUSE 41 Comments

We're in the middle of the distribution release frenxy, or so it seems. After Ubuntu 9.10 and Mandriva Linux 2010.0, it's OpenSUSE time now: the team has pushed out OpenSUSE 11.2. A minor version number, but there's enough in there, still.

Submitted by SReilly 2009-11-12 Legal 22 Comments

Intel and main (and only?) rival AMD have long been embroiled in legal battles regarding antitrust and patent issues. On top of that, antitrust regulators all over the world are investigating Intel for possible antitrust violations, so it looks like Intel needed to close off at least one flank: the company has reached a settlement with AMD, ending all legal disputes between the two chip makers. Intel will pay 1.25 billion USD to AMD.

Chrome Beta for Mac Comes December

weildish 2009-11-12 Internet 28 Comments

According to a message on one of the development mailing lists, Google seems to be planning a beta of Chrome to appear sometime in December. There isn't any set date, and the message wasn't even addressing the release of a beta for Mac, but Nick Baum, a Google Chrome product manager, also the author of the mailing list post, let word fly. "Why make the switch now? The earlier you switch, the more time you will have to polish your experience for our Beta launch in early December. We realize this means dropping Mac support for a couple of weeks, but we already have people working on that. If you prioritize the Windows and Linux versions, we'll bring you cross-platform parity as soon as we can!"

Cavium Acquires MontaVista

Submitted by Henry 2009-11-11 Linux 1 Comment

An up-and-coming networking chip company is buying one of the first companies to commercialise embedded Linux. Cavium has agreed to pay $50M for MontaVista, which has operated independently for ten years. The deal is the second this year to shake up the embedded Linux OS, tools, and service market. The first came this May, when Intel acquired Wind River Systems for $884M. Following Wind River's lead, MontaVista says that after the acquisition, it will retain its brand name, and continue to operate independently.

40 Years of Multics, 1969-2009

Thom Holwerda 2009-11-11 OS News 3 Comments

October 2009 marked an important milestone in the history of computing. It was exactly 40 years since the first Multics computer system was used for information management at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Multics (Multiplexed Information and Computing Service) is regarded as the foundation of modern time-sharing systems. Multics was the catalyst for the development of Unix and has been used as a model of operating system design since its release four decades ago. Here is a picture gallery of Multics' history.

Microsoft Manager: We Copied the Mac OS X Look-and-Feel

Thom Holwerda 2009-11-11 Windows 105 Comments

Okay, so this is new. When it comes to graphical user interfaces, everyone is copying everyone, but you'll always find supporters of platform Abc claiming platform Xyz is stealing from them - and vice versa. Mac supporters have often stated that Vista and Windows 7 were copying from Apple, and according to Microsoft's partner group manager, Simon Aldous, this is true. Wait, what?

Psystar Owners Speak Out, Deny License Violation

Thom Holwerda 2009-11-11 Hardware 48 Comments

The Miami New Times News (try saying that out loud ten times in a row really fast) has a long story on the Pedraza brothers, the two men behind Psystar, which is located in Miami. The story details the brothers' youth, and, of course, talks a lot about Psystar and Apple. There is a lot of interesting stuff in there not covered before.

Google Creates New Open Source Programming Language

Thom Holwerda 2009-11-11 Google 62 Comments

Google has invented a new programming language designed to reduce the complexity of coding without compromising the performance of applications. Called Go, the language has been tested internally at Google but is still at an experimental stage, so the company is releasing it as open-source code in the hope that it will get help with its future development.

Submitted by SReilly 2009-11-11 Gnome 84 Comments

As most of you will know, the GNOME team is hard at work on GNOME 3.0, the first major overhaul of the platform since 2002. The release of GNOME 3.0 was originally planned for March 2010, but it has now been pushed back for six months to September 2010.

Lunascape 6.0 Orion Beta Released

Thom Holwerda 2009-11-10 Internet 14 Comments

There are a number of browsers allowing you to switch between rendering engines, with Lunascape being one of them. We've covered this browser before quite extensively, and today, the Lunascape team released the first beta of Lunascape 6 ORION, the bext version of this triple-engine web browser.

Is There Room for a New Mobile OS?

David Adams 2009-11-10 Wireless 25 Comments

Just when we were starting to worry that the OS world was becoming ossified around three increasingly-competent options, making it very boring for OS enthusiasts, along comes a re-energized mobile computing market and a furious land grab among established players and new entrants. Samsung, the #2 handset maker by marketshare, is releasing a new mobile OS called Bada and will be vying to become the seventh major mobile OS in the market.

Submitted by estherschindler 2009-11-10 Windows 8 Comments

Unless you're seriously into networking (and okay, maybe you are), all the features in the new Secure Remote Connection - not to mention the pieces required to make it work - can be fairly tough to figure out. But the benefits make sense: "With this feature," writes Steven Vaughan-Nichols, "a user on any Windows 7 system can gain access to the corporate intranet's resources. In short, with the right back-end setup you can run office-only programs and get to server-based files from any Windows 7 PC." He explains it all in Accessing Office Resources from Anywhere using Secure Remote Connection.

Apple’s Mini DisplayPort Officially Adopted by VESA

Thom Holwerda 2009-11-10 Multimedia, AV 10 Comments

"The Video Electronics Standard Association officially issued its Mini DisplayPort standard Tuesday, based on the technology licensed from Apple. VESA said that all devices using the Mini DisplayPort connector must meet the specifications required by the DisplayPort 1.1a standard, and cables that support the standard must also meet specific electrical specifications. It's a formal confirmation of the news from earlier this year, when VESA announced the Mini DisplayPort connector would be included in the forthcoming DisplayPort 1.2 specification."

SFLC Finds One GPL Violating Company Per Day

Thom Holwerda 2009-11-10 Open Source 5 Comments

"I've been on a mission in recent months to establish just how common and mundane GPL violations are. Since 21 August 2009, I've been finding one new GPL violating company per day (on average) and I am still on target to find one per day for 365 days straight. When I tell this to people who are new to GPL enforcement, they are surprised and impressed. However, when I tell people who have done GPL enforcement themselves, they usually say some version of: Am I supposed to be impressed by that? Couldn't a monkey do that? Fact is, the latter are a little bit right: there are so many GPL violations that I might easily be able to go on finding one per day for two years straight."

Submitted by a_weber42 2009-11-10 Privacy, Security 3 Comments

"The major disadvantage of PLAIN text passwords on the server of course is that they are readable. Even if your communication with the server is encrypted it is troubling to have readable passwords on the server. You can easily change this by using the dovecotpw command and creating encrypted passwords."

Microsoft: Sophos Windows 7 Malware Test ‘Sensationalised’

Thom Holwerda 2009-11-10 Windows 108 Comments

Last week, security vendor Sophos published a blog post in which it said that Windows 7 was vulnerable to 8 our of 10 of the most common viruses. Microsoft has responded to these test results, which are a classic case of "scare 'm and they'll fall in line".