OSnews - Exploring the Future of Computing

Linux to Be the First Support USB 3.0

weildish 2009-06-15 Hardware 12 Comments

It's not available in the latest kernel just yet, but if you just so happen to have gotten your hands on a USB 3.0 device you want to use at full spectrum (you lucky jerk) or want to do this for the sake of geekiness, it's now possible to get USB 3.0 support for Debian and Ubuntu systems. The USB 3.0 subsystem will be integrated into the Linux kernel "soon," but if you've got some time on your hands, instructions have been provided to do it yourself.

Gartner Impressed by Android on ARM; Android Ported to MIPS

Thom Holwerda 2009-06-15 Google 23 Comments

We've been talking a lot about ARM-based netbooks, and when they're going to come. We've also been talking about Android on netbooks. Well, at Computex, analyst firm Gartner took a look at ARM netbooks running Android, compared them with Atom notebooks running Windows 7, and concluded that the interface on the former felt snappier.

Apple Finally Fixes Critical Java Vulnerability

Thom Holwerda 2009-06-15 macOS 11 Comments

The critical Java vulnerability in Mac OS X which we reported on earlier has finally been fixed by Apple. "Java for Mac OS X 10.5 Update 4 delivers improved reliability, security, and compatibility for Java SE 6, J2SE 5.0 and J2SE 1.4.2 on Mac OS X 10.5.7 and later." The fix for this vulnerability is in there.

Twitter, Facebook Play Key Role for Iranian Protesters

Thom Holwerda 2009-06-15 Web 2.0 33 Comments

Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Flickr. All demon spawn from Web 2.0, and we all love to make fun of these websites and the services they provide. However, here in the West, where everything is at arm's length and democracy is something we do not remember fighting for, it's easy to forget that what looks silly and useless to us, can be of the utmost importance somewhere else in the world. Update: I've been informed that the first casualty has fallen at the hands of armed government supporters. Hundreds of thousands of people are now on the streets all over Iran. More updates inside.

Fifteen Classic PC Design Mistakes

Thom Holwerda 2009-06-15 Hardware 16 Comments

"There's no such thing as the perfect computer, and never has been. But in the personal computer's long and varied history, some computers have been decidedly less perfect than others. Many early PCs shipped with major design flaws that either sunk platforms outright or considerably slowed down their adoption by the public. Decades later, we can still learn from these multi-million dollar mistakes. By no means is the following list exhaustive; one could probably write about the flaws of every PC ever released. But when considering past design mistakes, these examples spring to my mind."

Writing Applets for KDE4’s Plasma

Thom Holwerda 2009-06-15 KDE 2 Comments

KDE, the K Desktop Environment, is a free software project based on a desktop environment for UNIX-like systems. Learn how to build small but extremely useful applets for Plasma - the new shell for the K Desktop Environment - starting with a handy memory monitor applet.

Apple: Jobs To Return End of June

Thom Holwerda 2009-06-15 Apple 18 Comments

According to various rumours, Steve Jobs would make a surprise appearance during last week's keynote address at the WWDC, marking the end of his sick leave. While that rumour turned out to be false, Apple has now confirmed that Jobs will return to Apple at the end of June.

Submitted by Hakime 2009-06-15 Apple 7 Comments

Kroc and I already touched this subject during yesterday's podcast, referring to AnandTech's test of the new MacBook Pro's battery. This one will deliver 8 hours of battery life, and consequently AnandTech is pretty impressed with this thing. "Today I am more than comfortable saying that this is the best Apple notebook I've ever laid my hands on. The build quality is excellent, the base specs are solid and of course, the battery life. There's no doubt that it could be better; toss in an SSD or drop the price even further, but as it stands the new MBP is an excellent choice if you're looking for a Mac laptop. Obviously, you can attain the same battery life with a cheaper notebook and one or two spare batteries. But there's something to be said for increasing battery life by at least 50% without increasing the bulk or weight of the system. I'm not sure there's much else I can add other than Good Job, Apple."

Submitted by boulabiar 2009-06-15 Wayland 4 Comments

The Interactive Computing Lab team in ENAC, Toulouse, has been successful in collaboration with Linux developers in bringing native multi-touch support to Linux. While there is Multi-Pointer X in the mainline X.Org server (to be released with X.Org 7.5/X Server 1.7), we now have multi-touch support to be able to handle gestures and other actions. This multi-touch support requires the Linux 2.6.30 kernel. How this works right now is by reading the input events, translating them into multi-touch events using simple gesture recognition, and then sending D-Bus messages over to Compiz to produce multi-touch effects. Right now the code is deemed just a proof-of-concept, but they are currently working on a better implementation.

Episode 13: What Apple Gives, Microsoft Takes Away

Kroc 2009-06-14 Podcasts 25 Comments

It's an almost 50/50 split of Apple and Microsoft news. Apple's WWDC is an unavoidable news-machine outputting Snow Leopard, Safari 4, new MacBook s and the iPhone 3GS (The 'S' is for sucks -- ed. It's a joke!). Microsoft returns the volley with their decision to remove IE completely from Windows 7 in Europe, but between all this giant game of tennis we find a quiet moment to discuss QNX and SkyOS too.

WWDC, Internet Explorer, Mono

Thom Holwerda 2009-06-14 OS News No Comments

Due to a total lack of time on my end, we didn't have a Week in Review last week, but now I'm back, ready to summarise the news of the past week. Obviously, the week was dominated by Apple's WWDC and Microsoft's announcement regarding Internet Explorer, but in between all that, we had a lot of news on alternative operating systems.

Xenon: Viable New Mobile OS

weildish 2009-06-13 OS News 31 Comments

With the growing "mobile, mobile, mobile!" craze, many groups have been working strenuously to develop slimmer, easier to use mobile operating systems and applications. At the forefront of these innovating developments are various Linux branches, Android quite possibly one of the most popular and most hoped to come preinstalled on netbooks. In the humble shadows, however, a new mobile OS is emerging and just may have the viability to cover some hefty ground in the market. Meet "Xenon," the new mobile OS.

Apple Motions for Lift of Stay in Psystar Case

Thom Holwerda 2009-06-13 Legal 52 Comments

We've got some news in the Apple vs. Psystar tragedy that's been unfolding before our eyes for months now. We all know the gist: Psystar sells machines with Mac OS X pre-installed, while the EULA states that's not allowed. Apple then took this stuff to court, and in the meantime, Psystar went into Chapter 11 Bankruptcy protection. The news today is that Apple has filed a complaint stating that this Chapter 11 thing is just a shield that allows Psystar to continue its business practices, which Apple deems as illegal.

Mono Part of Debian’s Default Desktop Install?

Thom Holwerda 2009-06-12 Debian 95 Comments

Well, this is interesting. We already have a Mono item ruffling some feathers on OSNews today, but here we have the apparent news that Tomboy has become a default part of GNOME on Squeeze, the next release of Debian. Wait, what now? Update: I've updated the article with Fedora's position in all this. Read on! Update II: Josselin Mouette replies.

Submitted by google_ninja 2009-06-12 Mono 123 Comments

A Mono developer responds to a request for "a calm presentation of why Mono is desirable, why it is not a threat, and why it should be included in Ubuntu by default" answering the three questions individually, then attempting to address general anti-Mono sentiment.

Submitted by PLan 2009-06-12 Bugs & Viruses 14 Comments

Reuters reports that Microsoft is getting ready to unveil a free antivirus service for computers to compete with the many retail antivirus offerings on the market. Microsoft first made plans for its free antivirus offering codenamed "Morro" in November of 2008. At the time, Microsoft said that the service would be launching in the second half of 2009. The exact launch date of the new free anti-virus service has yet to be announced, but Reuters reports that Microsoft will "soon" make a beta version of the free protection available for users. Investors in security software firms like McAfee and Symantec are worried that a free offering from Microsoft could potentially harm revenue for the companies.

Guest post by snydeq 2009-06-12 Google No Comments

Google has quietly announced Fusion Tables, a new online database designed to sidestep the limitations of conventional relational databases. Fusion Tables, announced on Google's Research Blog, has been built to simplify a number of operations that are notoriously difficult in relational databases, including the integration of data from multiple, heterogeneous sources and the ability to collaborate on large data sets, according to Google. Under the hood of Fusion Tables is data-spaces technology, a concept has been around since the early 1990s and that Google has been developing it since it acquired Transformic in 2005.

Opera, EU Not Satisfied with IE Unbundling

Thom Holwerda 2009-06-12 Internet Explorer 98 Comments

Yesterday, Microsoft dropped a bomb by announcing that all versions of Windows 7 released in Europe would ship without Internet Explorer pre-installed. This was in answer to the EU antitrust investigation currently under way regarding possible illegal bundling of Internet Explorer with Windows. The first reactions to this news are coming in, with Opera and the EU both lamenting the move.

Submitted by Bahadir 2009-06-11 OS News 13 Comments

It really is the week of back-to-core news for OSNews, as we've had news on various smaller operating systems and new projects. Forget Windows 7 and Snow Leopard; in the end this is what we're all here for. Anyway, B Labs has recently announced that version 0.1 of their Codezero microkernel has been released.

From NeXTSTEP to Cocoa

Submitted by johan 2009-06-11 macOS 17 Comments

"Although OS X is relatively new, it is built on top of technology that has been under development since Steve Jobs founded NeXT in the mid '80s. Erik Buck, author of Cocoa Design Patterns, has been working with this platform for over two decades. His perspective on the development of Cocoa, from its beginnings in NeXTSTEP and its evolution through the OpenStep specification, provide some interesting insights."