OSnews - Exploring the Future of Computing

PC Buyers Fail to Prove MS Deceived in Vista ‘Capable’ Suit

Thom Holwerda 2009-03-20 Legal 13 Comments

"The judge in the ongoing Vista Capable row has denied PC buyers a motion for partial summary judgment in a lawsuit against Microsoft, citing a lack of evidence to show the company had hoodwinked customers. The issue will be decided in a forthcoming trial instead, ruled US District Judge Marsha Pechman late on Wednesday."

Submitted by diegocg 2009-03-20 Linux 38 Comments

The Netfilter development team's Patrick McHardy has released an alpha version of nftables, a new firewall implementation for the Linux kernel, with a user space tool for controlling the firewall. nftables introduces a fundamental distinction between the user space defined rules and network objects in the kernel: the kernel component works with generic data such as IP addresses, ports and protocols and provides some generic operations for comparing the values of a packet with constants or for discarding a packet.

A Look at Browser and OS Stats for OSNews

Thom Holwerda 2009-03-20 OS News 80 Comments

Recently we've had a couple of articles and discussions on OSNews about browser statistics. Every now and then someone in the comments will ask what OSNews statitstics are like, and what browsers and operating systems our readers are running. Well, recently we installed a fancy new web site analytics program, Mint. I figured I might as well put it to good use by showing some of the browser and platform statistics we've gathered over the past month.

Submitted by google_ninja 2009-03-20 Privacy, Security 138 Comments

Fresh from winning the PWN2OWN contest yesterday, Charlie Miller has been interviewed by ZDNet. He talks about how Mac OS X is a very simple operating system to exploit due to the lack of any form of anti-exploit features. He also explains that the underlying operating system is much more important in creating a successful exploit than the bowser, why Chrome is so hard to hack, and many other things.

TomTom Countersues Microsoft

Thom Holwerda 2009-03-20 Legal 14 Comments

Following Microsoft's patent claim against TomTom, the Dutch mobile navigation device maker has countersued Microsoft, claiming the company infringes upon four of its patents. "The GPS device maker, based in The Netherlands, filed the countersuit in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia on Monday. TomTom says Microsoft's Streets and Trips products infringe on four patents it owns related to vehicle navigation software."

Apple Offers HD Movies in iTunes Store

weildish 2009-03-19 Multimedia, AV 5 Comments

iTunes and iPod users can now enjoy the fruits of HD movies as offered by Apple's iTune store. Starting today, HD movies can be bought and downloaded for $19.99 apiece, and Apple's also promising movie rentals for $4.99 within 30 days after new releases. Downloads include both the standard HD file as well as an iPhone/iPod-ready SD file. The store already had 1200 "stunning" HD videos for rent, now has a growing arsenal of ones for purchase, and Apple intends to steadily add to that arsenal as time goes on. The press release is really pushing that vampiric film "Twilight" for pre-order, so go out and purchase your favorite tale of a spineless teenager with less emotion than a stick (no offense to sticks) today, now in flying HD colors.

Wind River Linux Reaches 3.0

weildish 2009-03-19 Linux 2 Comments

Wind River, a device software optimization company, just announced Wind River Linux 3.0, based off of Linux kernel 2.6.27 and GCC 4.3, and reportedly it is the most feature-rich OS offering from the company thus far. It includes more than 500 packages, which is about 250 more than in previous versions. Wind River Linux is designed for specific industries including aerospace and defense, consumer, industrial, networking, and medical, and was previously segmented in different packages for different features and hardware support for each industry, but has now been consolidated into one standard system.

Google: Most DMCA Takedown Notices Illegitimate

Thom Holwerda 2009-03-19 Google 21 Comments

It might seem like a New Zealand-only story, but the recently proposed law in New Zealand that would force internet service providers to cut off web access for those accused of violating copyright law has led to an interesting statement from Google about the US Digital Millennium Copyright Act.

Fennec Leaps Into Beta

Thom Holwerda 2009-03-19 Mozilla, Gecko 5 Comments

"Fennec, the mobile version of Firefox, has gone to beta. Though currently only available for the Nokia N810 Internet Tablet, it appears to be functional and stable. Firefox introduced many innovations into desktop browsing, most of which have since been emulated by the competition. On mobile phones the competition is already fierce, and Fennec will have a hard time proving its value against other browsers which already offer much of what made Firefox so compelling." Ars has more.

Microsoft’s Vision for Future Computing

Submitted by Arto Stimms 2009-03-19 Microsoft 4 Comments

"Working with Microsoft and director Mason Nicoll (former creative director at Digital Kitchen and Prologue), Seattle-based studio Oh, Hello brought this vision of a highly-gadgetized future to life with some slick roto, loads of tracking and, of course, silky smooth futurific animation. If this video is any indicator, the future will fuse together interactive and motion design in ways that this project only begins to imagine. Regardless of whether Microsoft is behind it, those who understand the rich nuances of time-based experienced will be well-positioned to succeed. Nathan Barr of Oh, Hello was kind enough to answer some of the more pragmatic questions I had about the project."

Submitted by shaneco 2009-03-19 Internet Explorer 108 Comments

About a year after the first beta (which was followed by another beta and a release candidate), Microsoft has announced the release of the final version of Internet Explorer 8, the company's newest browser. The focus of Internet Explorer 8 is better standards compliance, security, and making "common online tasks faster and easier".

Submitted by Moulinneuf 2009-03-19 Privacy, Security 82 Comments

As he had already predicted, cracker Charlie Miller has won the PWN2OWN contest by cracking Safari and Mac OS X within seconds of the start of the competition. "It took a couple of seconds. They clicked on the link and I took control of the machine," Miller said after his accomplishment. He took home the USD 10000 prize, as well as the MacBook he performed the exploit on. Internet Explorer 8 fell a while later by cracker Nils, who also cracked Safari and Firefox after being done with IE8.

Intel’s SIMD Accelerator Gives Better Graphics, Saves Energy

weildish 2009-03-19 Intel 3 Comments

Details are sparse, but Intel has let out word of a spiffy new graphics accelerator designed for mobile devices. This SIMD (Single Instruction, Multiple Data) accelerator renders graphics more efficiently than any other available component in that it renders them faster and at higher quality and-- here's the kicker-- it consumes ten times less energy than similar available components, providing longer battery life. Again, there's not much to go on at the moment, but Intel says that these lovely little buggers will definitely be showing up in future mobile devices be they MIDs, UMPCs, or netbooks.

Linux Up in Servers, Down in Netbooks; Android to the Rescue?

weildish 2009-03-18 Linux 36 Comments

According to a Novel-sponsored IDC survey, Linux seems to be gaining popularity among businesses implementing servers, and it has a bright outlook for both server and desktop installations in the coming future. On the other hand, netbooks have seen less and less default OEM installations of Linux. Windows now has over 90 percent of netbook sales, quashing any hopes of an open source revolution in the form of netbooks. Android, however, may be able to change things.

Psystar Adds New Desktop to Line Up

Thom Holwerda 2009-03-18 Hardware 14 Comments

Lawsuit or not, Psystar has just added a new desktop with Mac OS X pre-installed to its line up, the Open(3). The mini-ATX computer comes in at USD 599, and packs a Core 2 Duo at 2.8Ghz, 2GB of DDR2 800Mhz RAM, a GeForce 8400GS 256MB graphics card, and Leopard pre-installed. Various options are also available. The company has also stated it is working on a laptop with Mac OS X pre-installed.

Silverlight 3 Beta Arrives

Thom Holwerda 2009-03-18 Microsoft 16 Comments

"As expected, Silverlight 3 was announced today at MIX09, this year's iteration of Microsoft's annual conference for web developers, designers, and enthusiasts. While the keynote that just finished was full of little announcements that were handed out faster than the audience could swallow them, the one that stood out the most was the third iteration of Microsoft's Flash alternative, Silverlight. Links for the first and last beta of Silverlight 3, and the many development tools surrounding it, went live earlier today."

GNOME 2.26 Released

Thom Holwerda 2009-03-18 Gnome 59 Comments

The GNOME team has released GNOME 2.26, the latest release in the 2.x release branch. As everyone knows, GNOME is a multi-platform open source desktop environment. The 2.26 release continues GNOME's policy of incremental updates to a stable base, and as such, it comes packed with a boatload of new features.

Dell Unveils Adamo

Thom Holwerda 2009-03-18 Hardware 34 Comments

I'm not often wowed by a computer's design, probably because most of them appear to be designed by people with no sense of style and class whatsoever. The only (relatively) recent examples of decent design that I personally find to have a "wow factor" are Apple's MacBook Air and the PowerMac Cube from the same company. Yesterday, however, I was wowed again by a product from a company you wouldn't expect it from: Dell.

The Squirrel Portable Shell and Scripting Language

Thom Holwerda 2009-03-18 General Development 6 Comments

If you don't want to commit to the idiosyncrasies of a specific shell running on a particular platform, try the Squirrel Shell. The Squirrel Shell provides an advanced, object-oriented scripting language that works equally well on UNIX, Linux, Mac OS X, and Windows systems. Write a script once, and run it anywhere.

Submitted by PLan 2009-03-18 In the News 131 Comments

In a move that would certainly shake up the computer industry quite a bit, IBM is reportedly in talks with Sun Microsystems about the possibility of IBM acquiring Sun. Sun is going through hard times at the moment, and has been actively looking for someone to be acquired by.