"Open source code, much like its commercial counterpart, tends to contain one security exposure for every 1000 lines of code, according to a program launched by the Department of Homeland Security to review and tighten up open source code's security. Popular open source projects, such as Samba, the PHP, Perl, and Tcl dynamic languages used to bind together elements of Web sites, and Amanda, the popular open source backup and recovery software running on half a million servers, were all found to have dozens or hundreds of security exposures and quality defects. A total of 7826 open source project defects have been fixed through the Homeland Security review, or one every two hours since it was launched in 2006, according to David Maxwell, open source strategist for Coverity, maker of the source code checking system, the Prevent Software Quality System, that's being used in the review." Note: I just want to state for the record that the headline has not been written by me. I do like the total kicking-in-open-doors air surrounding it, though.

The newest version of the popular RPM package manager is now out with improved performance and functionality. But there's a bit of a catch with RPM version 5.0. Linux vendor Red Hat officially considers RPM 5.0 a project fork. "RPM5 is a fork of RPM, and is not related to RPM.org," Daniel Riek, Product Manager Red Hat Enterprise Linux told InternetNews.com. "Neither Red Hat or Fedora are involved in RPM5, and have no current plans to use it. Red Hat remains committed to the main RPM.org releases and development."

Geeks.com was so kind as to send me the Vizio VX32L for review, a 32" widescreen LCD TV capable of doing 1080i. At USD 469.99, this 32" LCD television is quite affordable, so read on to find out if it is worth your money.

DesktopBSD 1.6 has been released. These are the most notable features introduced: "FreeBSD 6 as a modern and reliable base system. X.Org release 7.3, improving support for modern graphics hardware. Live CD/DVD feature for testing the system without installation to a hard-drive. Revised installer supporting upgrades from 1.0 and previous 1.6 release candidates. Improved package manager usability and performance. Many enhancements and bugfixes for the DesktopBSD tools. Support for multiple processors and multi-core CPUs. Inclusion of the NVIDIA graphics driver for hardware 3D rendering. DesktopBSD build servers as an up-to-date source for precompiled packages" Download.

Thin TVs made with organic light-emitting diodes could become a big hit with consumers, but not any time soon, according to Toshihiro Sakamoto, president of the Panasonic AVC Networks company. "It will start to grow as a market in 2015," he said during an interview at the Consumer Electronics Show taking place here this week. "You won't be able to beat the cost and price performance of LCD and plasma for a long time."

"How do you get people interested in a USD 1500 keyboard? Simple, turn each key into an OLED screen. When you hit caps lock, the keys change to show they're upper case. Play a first-person shooter and the WASD keys turn into arrows. The Optimus Maximus keyboard brought this audacious idea to life, although since it was first shown in 2005 the hardware has gone through many delays. So many delays, in fact, that Art. Lebedev was accused of promoting 'vaporware' up until the price was announced, at which point there was a whole new set of sticker-shock-induced complaints."

I detailed Fitts' Law not too long ago in one of my usability terms articles (the series will pick up later on, by the way, I am currently too busy with my bachelor's thesis), and this article is a very detailed addition. It is a little old (October 2007), though. "Back in school, I remember that it wasn't until I started taking classes in physics that calculus made any kind of real sense to me. I just need diagrams to function. In that spirit, I thought it would be nice to go over Fitts's Law, a staple in the HCI diet, with a few visuals to explain both the concept and why it's ideas are a bit more complicated than most would have you believe."

"4Front Technologies is proud to announce the release of the source code to Open Sound System v4.0 under the BSD license for FreeBSD and other BSD compliant operating systems. OSS is a cross platform API that provides drivers for most consumer and professional audio devices for UNIX and POSIX based operating systems, including Linux. Owing to its open architecture, applications developed on one supporting operating system platform can be easily recompiled on any other platform. Open Sound System is also available for Linux under the GPLv2 license and OpenSolaris under the CDDL license. It is also available for commercial and proprietary operating systems under the 4Front commercial license."

After an extensive development period, the Syllable project has released Syllable Desktop 0.6.5 with improvements all over. As always there are bug fixes, most notably in USB and the network stack, leading to large reliability and performance improvements. LibUSB and SANE were ported, so there is now USB access from user space and support for scanners. There are new network and video drivers, including a unique S3 DeltaChrome driver that Arno Klenke wrote from scratch. Two new window decorators debut from John Aspras. CD burning ability is now integrated in the form of SimpleBurn and CDRTools. A new network preferences applet from Andrew Kennan was integrated, and also Arno Klenke's port of OpenBeFS. Many ports were upgraded and the system layout has been heavily reorganised. Files needed for compiling software have been split off in a separate package. This is also the release that harmonises a number of things between Syllable Desktop and Syllable Server. The full change log is here. Installation CDs, the upgrade, and images for emulators are here. Additional software can be found here.

"AmigaOS 5 made a covert appearance at an event outside the CES, turning up in the guise of a version of Space Invaders running on a Windows Mobile 6-based phone. Amiga - the company - was ostensibly showing AmigaAnywhere 2, the new version of its virtual machine technology. But taking Amiga President Bill McEwen aside for a moment, we discovered that AmigaAnywhere 2 is AmigaOS 5."

Measure the total time of entry and verify the time between keystrokes to help authenticate a user regardless of the data being entered. Learn how to apply the open source tools xev and Perl in keystroke dynamics to measure the more-subtle characteristics of human-computer interaction. This article uses example code to demonstrate keystroke dynamics for enhancing the security of your applications in authentication and continuous data entry contexts.

"Windows Vista didn't make a smooth market entrance; in fact, nearly every aspect of the operating system has been attacked since its release on January 30, 2007. Multiple SKUs allegedly confused customers, anti-DRM groups disliked Vista's Protected Video Path and its overall DRM friendliness, and Microsoft's definition of 'Vista Capable' got the company sued. Toss in a plethora of bugs and the usual consumer backlash over GUI changes, and you'd think consumers would be avoiding Vista in droves. According to new information, however, they aren't - Vista's adoption rate over the past year actually exceeded XP's in 2001, and consumers apparently choose Vista over XP by a 7:1 margin."

"The Cray-1 is to supercomputers what Sigmund Freud is to psychiatrists. That is to say: it's likely the only one of the bunch that you've heard about, and you can feign cleverness just by dropping the name. So let's take a whack at this computer legend."

The major competitor of unlocked iPhones in Asia and Europe is the LG Prada and Viewty phones. TimTechs.com sent us in a LG KU990 Viewty unit for a review and we give it a whirl.