Monthly Archive:: November 2009

There are a number of browsers allowing you to switch between rendering engines, with Lunascape being one of them. We've covered this browser before quite extensively, and today, the Lunascape team released the first beta of Lunascape 6 ORION, the bext version of this triple-engine web browser.

Just when we were starting to worry that the OS world was becoming ossified around three increasingly-competent options, making it very boring for OS enthusiasts, along comes a re-energized mobile computing market and a furious land grab among established players and new entrants. Samsung, the #2 handset maker by marketshare, is releasing a new mobile OS called Bada and will be vying to become the seventh major mobile OS in the market.

"The Video Electronics Standard Association officially issued its Mini DisplayPort standard Tuesday, based on the technology licensed from Apple. VESA said that all devices using the Mini DisplayPort connector must meet the specifications required by the DisplayPort 1.1a standard, and cables that support the standard must also meet specific electrical specifications. It's a formal confirmation of the news from earlier this year, when VESA announced the Mini DisplayPort connector would be included in the forthcoming DisplayPort 1.2 specification."

"I've been on a mission in recent months to establish just how common and mundane GPL violations are. Since 21 August 2009, I've been finding one new GPL violating company per day (on average) and I am still on target to find one per day for 365 days straight. When I tell this to people who are new to GPL enforcement, they are surprised and impressed. However, when I tell people who have done GPL enforcement themselves, they usually say some version of: Am I supposed to be impressed by that? Couldn't a monkey do that? Fact is, the latter are a little bit right: there are so many GPL violations that I might easily be able to go on finding one per day for two years straight."

Last week, security vendor Sophos published a blog post in which it said that Windows 7 was vulnerable to 8 our of 10 of the most common viruses. Microsoft has responded to these test results, which are a classic case of "scare 'm and they'll fall in line".

Apple has finally released Mac OS X 10.6.2, the latest version of its Snow Leopard operating system, and be prepared for a massive update for your Mac: 473MB. There's a lot of stuff in here, and among other things, it includes a fix for the guest account data loss bug.

TechCrunch broke the news today that Google has bought Gizmo5, the popular VoIP SIP provider, for $30 mil cash (not confirmed officially yet). The company was led by Michael Robertson, known for his times on mp3.com and Lindows. What does this mean for Google Voice? Read on.

Over the past few years, there have been persistent rumours that NVIDIA, the graphics chip maker, was working on an x86 chip to compete with Intel and AMD. Recently, these rumours gained some traction, but NVIDIA's CEO just shot them down, and denied the company will enter the x86 processor market.

Hands up if you use Firefox. Have used it? Know about it? Heard of it? 'Sites up and down the World Wide Web today will be celebrating five years of Firefox. When I sat down to write this I worried about having to list the history of its features and landmark events and the news of the past five years. Other sites will be comprehensively doing that, there is nothing I can add to that list that Google can't surmise. Instead I will be telling you what Google does not know, my story of Firefox and what Firefox has meant to all of us.

Despite reports to the contrary, current Mac OS X 10.6.2 Snow Leopard builds do not support the Intel Atom processor. The report that support had returned is a fake, and the most recent build 10C540 still does not support the Atom processor. C'est tout.

It was actually quite a relaxing week on OSNews, with few big news stories going on. We talked about Psystar, the need (or not?) for ZFS to have an fsck tool, the end of the FatELF project, and the release of Mandriva 2010.0, among other things.

Is complexity (and wearing this on the outside) an inherit part of open source design? FactoryJoe compares the OpenOfficeMouse (a mouse with 18 programmable buttons and even an analogue joystick) and the Apple Magic Mouse-"To me, the OpenOfficeMouse seems like such a typical product from the open source community."

Debian GNU/Hurd can now be installed a little easier. "This month Philip Charles created a new installation CD, the L series, for the Hurd, which brings us a big step towards installing the Hurd from the Hurd (without the need of a Linux-based installer). If you enjoy testing stuff, please give it a try."

Every now and then you come across these news items that make just too much sense to be true. Earlier this year, the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry threatened Norway's largest ISP, Telenor: block access to The Pirate Bay within 14 days, or face legal action. Telenor refused to comply - so it went to court. In what can only be seen as a major victory, the judge sided with Telenor.