Hands-on Video: Sony Vaio P
The Register has posted a hands-on video review of the Sony Vaio P, Sony's take on the netbook lifestyle PC. There's not much more to say, so just watch the video and tell us how you feel about it.
Thom Holwerda Archive
Torvalds on Filesystems, Netbooks, KDE 4.0
Ever year, Linus Torvalds goes on vacation to Australia, during which he usually also visits linux.conf.au. During his stay this year he gave an interview to ComputerWorld, in which he talked about the success of point releases and the important topic of file systems in Linux, which is quite an active field today with ext4 and Btrfs. He also gave some insights into why he switched away from KDE, moving to GNOME instead, and he shares his thoughts on Windows 7.
The Benefits of Parceling Root Power with POSIX
POSIX file capabilities split root user powers into smaller privileges, such as the ability to read files or to trace processes owned by another user. By assigning capabilities to a file, you can enable an unprivileged user to execute the file with those specified privileges. In this article, learn how programs can make use of POSIX capabilities, how to investigate which capabilities are needed by a program, and how to assign those capabilities to the program.
Apple’s Iconic 1984 Commercial Turns 25
This week, 25 years ago, a company aired an advertisement that would cement that company's name into the minds of many. It was an advertisement about individuality versus conformism, about light versus dark, about new versus established. It was the most expensive advertisement of its time, and yet, it didn't even show the product it was trying to sell. After the ad was over, all we knew was that something called "Macintosh" was going to show us how 1984 wouldn't be like 1984.
Microsoft UK Launches DRM-Riddled Music Store, Doomed to Fail
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With every major online digital music vendor slowly but surely abolishing digital rights management, you might wonder how much sense it makes to launch a music service that locks tracks to the devices they're downloaded to. Still, this is exactly what Microsoft has done with its recent launch of its UK Mobile Music store. To make matters worse, there's a whole boatload of other weird decisions regarding this new service that makes you wonder if Microsoft UK has been in contact with anyone outside of its own main office building for, say, the past 5 years.
Acer Reveals 10″ Aspire One
One of the most successful netbooks around is the Acer Aspire One. The Aspire One is a rather surprise hit for Acer, and probably has something to do with the aggressive pricing policies of the company, and the fact that you actually get a very sturdy and decent netbook for the money. Acer formally took the wraps off the Aspire One's successor, the 10" variant.
All the Lightweight Web Servers of the World
"There's far more to the world of Web servers than just Apache and IIS. While lightweight Web servers have much in common, there's also variation within the category. Most are written in C, but several other implementation languages have proven successful among the servers with which I've experimented, including Erlang, Java, Lisp, Lua, Perl, Python, and Tcl. If there's a language you favor, you can probably find a lightweight Web server here coded for your convenience. survey the possibilities and see how they apply to you."
Google Rises Over Profit, Revenue Estimates
For the last quarter of 2008, Google followed the example of Apple and IBM, not Microsoft and Intel, reporting financial results above financial estimates amid a grim economic environment. "Google performed well in the fourth quarter, despite an increasingly difficult economic environment. Search query growth was strong, revenues were up in most verticals, and we successfully contained costs," Chief Executive Eric Schmidt said in a statement. "It's unclear how long the global downturn will last, but our focus remains on the long term, and we'll continue to invest in Google's core search and ads business as well as in strategic growth areas such as display, mobile, and enterprise."
Introduction: Parallel Programming
"Parallel computing is the use of multiple processors in order to solve a specific task. For quite a few decades now parallelism has been used in the domain of High Performance Computing (HPC) where large, difficult problems are split up into pieces which are solved and then recombined to form the answer. With the emergence of multiple cores per processor this has become more and more important for the everyday user and programmer. In this article I will explain some of the elementry concepts of parallel computing and point the reader to further points of information."
Ubuntu 8.04.2 LTS Released
The Ubuntu team has released the second maintenance release for Ubuntu 8.04. "The Ubuntu team is proud to announce the release of Ubuntu 8.04.2 LTS, the second maintenance update to Ubuntu's 8.04 LTS release. This release includes updated server, desktop, and alternate installation CDs for the i386 and amd64 architectures. In all, over 200 updates have been integrated, and updated installation media has been provided so that fewer updates will need to be downloaded after installation. These include security updates and corrections for other high-impact bugs, with a focus on maintaining stability and compatibility with Ubuntu 8.04 LTS." Get it from their download page.
Mesa 7.3 Released
Four months after Mesa 7.2 was released, Mesa 7.3 has now officially surfaced. Mesa 7.3 has been in testing since earlier this month with it having gone through three release candidates. The new features found in this latest version of the standard Open-Source OpenGL stack is proper support for GLSL 1.20 and the Intel DRI driver now supports the Graphics Execution Manager and Direct Rendering Infrastructure 2.
Scripting with Guile
Guile isn't just another extension language: it's the official extension language of the GNU project. Guile makes Scheme embeddable, which makes the interpreter ideal for embedded scripting and more. The days of building and delivering static software and products are over. Today, users expect their products to be dynamic and easily customizable. Learn how, with Guile, you can interpret Scheme scripts, dynamically bind scheme scripts into compiled C programs, and even integrate compiled C functions into Scheme scripts.
Microsoft To Cut 5000 Jobs
After much, much, much speculation, Microsoft let the cat out of the bag today: due to weak results, Microsoft is going to cut 5000 jobs. Those 5000 jobs will disappear over the course of 18 months, with 1400 jobs being cut immediately. Quarterly results, as well as the cost-cutting measures, were made known in a press release today.
Apple Hints at Legal Action Against Palm
Remember when Steve Jobs launched the iPhone, and held it up in the air, proudly proclaiming "Boy, have we patented it", followed by a massive applause of the adoring audience? It may seem like this wasn't just an empty claim, either. During the earnings conference call yesterday, the company hinted at possible legal action against Palm were the Pre to infringe on iPhone patents.
Shuttleworth: Windows 7 To Be a “Great Product”
As if we are watching an episode of The Scary Door, Canonical's Mark Shuttleworth has praised Windows 7, and welcomed Microsoft's latest operating system into the fight. Shuttleworth made his remarks in a short interview with The Register.
Game Review: Lost Odyssey, XBox 360
After our article on modern gaming a while ago, we decided to dive futher into gaming. That's why I met up with one of my friends, and asked him if he could loan me the best game he had for his XBox 360. Maybe I should have been a bit more specific, I thought, because when he came over, before I knew it, he shoved a Japanese RPG in my console. This would be my first foray into the strange, magical, and disturbed world of the Japanese RPG. Read on for a review of Lost Odyssey.
Mono 2.2 May Overtake .NET in Some Critical Categories
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The Mono Project releases version 2.2 this week with full support for SIMD extensions being one of the more interesting features (Betanews article). The extension allows SIMD code to be accelerated above and beyond the speed of past Mono and current .NET releases. Johnathan Allen from InfoQ impresses the significance of the latest Mono release in a blog entry. "It represents something bigger; Mono is outgrowing the standard. Mono is not just playing catch-up any more, it is trying to move past the CLR in many areas. And as an open source project, they can slip in new libraries at a much faster clip than Microsoft. Instead of trying to build everything themselves, they can simply pick up mature projects like Mono. Options or the collection library C5 and include them in the standard release."
Apple Updates White MacBook, Releases QuickTime 7.6
If you thought that Apple kept the white MacBook around only temporarily, you thought wrong. The white MacBook remained on Apple's product listing, despite the introduction of the newer and faster unibody MacBooks. The newer MacBooks were more expensive than the white model, so Apple kept it around to serve the budget market. To confirm that the low-end MacBook will be around for a while, the company updated the machine today.
AMD Unloads Mobile GPU Technology to Qualcomm
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AMD continues to shed assets in advance of its January 22nd earnings announcement: first it was employees, and now it is mobile graphics technology. AMD announced Tuesday that it's selling its handheld GPU technology, along with some of the handheld unit's employees, to Qualcomm for $65 million.
HyperSpace OS Coming to ASUS Laptops
Phoenix Technologies has signed a deal with ASUS to include their HyperSpace "instant on" OS on new ASUS laptops, including Eee PC netbooks. Hyperspace is a stripped down Linux OS that provides you access to just a few frequently used applications like Firefox, or a media player, without waiting for a full fledged OS like Windows, or Linux to boot.