Android 1.5: UK Now, US Soon

For users in the United Kingdom, the Cupcake update has already started rolling and will continue to throughout the month. Users in the United States will have to wait until late next week for the updates to begin rolling, but patience is, after all, a virtue. New features include Picasa and YouTube uploads directly from one's phone, and that's spiffy. Cupcakes are quite tasty, so I think.

Debian Switching to EGLIBC

Via LWN, we found a blog post of a Debian maintainer which announces a new package: EGLIBC, a compatible reimplementation of the GNU glibc which "which will soon replace the GNU C Library". Apparently the primary reason is the sadly famous bad maintainership aptitude of Ulrich Drepper, the main libc maintainer.

Bringing Genode to the OKL4 Kernel

As a teaser for the upcoming release of the Genode OS Framework 9.05, the newly added support for the OKL4 kernel has been released to the project's subversion repository. Genode is a framework for building custom microkernel-based operating systems using a capability-based architecture geared towards high security and robustness. Among the features of Genode are a custom GUI, a device driver kit, and native Qt4 support. From the ground up, it was laid out to be highly portable among different kernels.

Apple’s Rumoured Netbook Made Out of Wood

Normally, this isn't something you'd find on the front page of OSNews, but the amount of craftsmanship and attention to detail going into this project is just mind blowing. In fact, it's so mind blowing that many Apple rumour websites posted this as a possible shot of an upcoming Apple netbook. Well, yeah, if Apple started making laptops out of wood...

Itanium: ‘A Special Cause for Optimism’

This morning, the Itanium Solutions Alliance put out a statement with some vague numbers showing the strength of the Itanium server platform in 2008. By IDC's reckoning of the server space in the fourth quarter, shipments of Itanium-based machines rose by 18 per cent and it was the seventh straight quarter of sales that crested above $1bn for the Itanium server category. Data from Gartner's report covering 2008's server sales indicated that Itanium machines outgrew RISC-based alternatives in terms of sales and shipments, growing share in each category.

An Insider’s History of SMSQ/E

Tony Tebby, the author of the Sinclair QL's operating system QDOS, added a long semi-autobiographical essay to the Wikipedia page on QDOS' successor SMSQ/E. However, a Wikipedia moderator deleted it - sad, but fair, since it was not directly relevant to an encyclopaedia entry. Someone has extracted the story and placed it on a Geocities page, unformatted. But as Geocities is closing down, soon that too will disappear - so read it while it's still up! The original, deleted history remains visible in Wikipedia's history, here.

Windows 7 Release Candidate Released to Public

A little earlier than expected, Microsoft has already released the Windows 7 release candidate to the general public. The Redmond company had already put the RC up for download on TechNet and MSDN, but from now on, everyone can download it. I've already updated all my Windows machines to the RC, so let's take a quick look at what I found. Note: The Windows XP Mode beta is also set to arrive today, but has not yet been made available. We'll update this item accordingly once it's released. Update: The Windows XP Mode beta is also available. Get it now!

Why Text Messages Are Limited to 160 Characters

"Alone in a room in his home in Bonn, Germany, Friedhelm Hillebrand sat at his typewriter, tapping out random sentences and questions on a sheet of paper. As he went along, Hillebrand counted the number of letters, numbers, punctuation marks and spaces on the page. Each blurb ran on for a line or two and nearly always clocked in under 160 characters. That became Hillebrand's magic number - and set the standard for one of today's most popular forms of digital communication: text messaging."

Social Desktop Starts to Arrive in KDE

"At last year's Akademy the vision of the Social Desktop was born and first presented to a larger audience. The concept behind the Social Desktop is to bring the power of online communities and group collaboration to desktop applications and the desktop shell itself. One of the strongest assets of the Free Software community is its worldwide community of contributors and users who belief in free software and who work hard to bring the software and solutions to the mainstream."

Episode 7: Windows Was Away This Week

A podcast without any Windows news this week; we focus on the alternatives with our discussion about RISC OS, Hackintoshes, and AROS. No GarageBand crashes this week, as Kroc downgraded to an earlier version without the bug that has been bugging us since the first podcast.

ReactOS, AROS, BSD

It's Sunday! Sunday! What does this mean! Yes! Another week has passed us by! We're all one week closer to inevitable death! This also means it's time for another week in review. This past week we saw a lot of Windows and Apple news, we had some items on various truly alternative operating systems, and Linux reached a milestone. I don't know what this week's My Take will be about. Maybe, once I'm done with the Week in Review, I'll have thought of something.