Monthly Archive:: July 2010

The free open-source disk encryption software Truecrypt reached version 7.0. Among the new features are hardware-accelerated AES, support for devices that use sector sizes other than 512 bytes, ability to configure a volume to be automatically mounted whenever its host device gets connected to the computer, favorites organizer, and more. Downloads for Windows, Linux and Mac OS X are available here.

Dell has this "highly sophisticated website" telling us "WHICH OPERATING SYSTEM SHOULD I CHOOSE ?" Ubuntu or Windows? Read the site and understand why it is a "highly sophisticated website"

Microsoft confirmed the existence of a critical vulnerability in all supported versions of Windows. The new zero-day vulnerability is easily exploitable via USB storage devices, network shares or remote WebDAV shares. All that is required for exploitation is for the contents of the USB device to be viewed in Windows Explorer. Specially crafted shortcut (.lnk) files are allowed to execute code when the shortcut's icon is loaded to the GUI. An exploit targeting this vulnerability is currently in limited use and additional exploits are very likely in the coming weeks.

On July 15th the latest Android super-phone was released by Motorola and Verizon Wireless. All hail the Droid X. The release was not without controversy though. The Droid X, while greatly raising the bar for Android phones in general, does so at the expense of the very power users and community that made the original Droid the gotta-have phone it became. Alienating this group may have far reaching consequences for Motorola.

Maverick Meerkat, the version of Ubuntu slated to be released later this year, brings with it several features and improvements that the Linux community has been eagerly looking forward to. I've taken a look at the blueprints for this next release, and picked out a few of the major items that Linux end-users will be interested in. Here are 5 things to look forward to in Ubuntu 10.10.

Even lighter, even faster cloud-based Linux OS released called Peppermint Ice, from the team that brought you Peppermint Linux OS.

Steven Chin, one of the main people behind JFXtras has created a petition to OpenSource JavaFX:

I'm a couch potato. There, I've said it. I love sitting down and watching sci-fi movies, like any good geek would. And this is an (almost religious) action that hasn't changed for many, many, years. But I feel that we're in for a surprise soon. The way we watch TV and access content is about to change. TV watching will at last arrive into the 21st Century, and the technology giants will be there to duke it out for the reins of this new industry.

We'd argue that the "wow" factor still isn't there quite yet, but we'll admit: Symbian^4 is clearly going to be a bit of a departure from the versions that came before it. The Symbian Foundation has posted the first handful of home screen UI shots on its developer wiki recently showing redesigned widgets, app categories and search, pop-up menus, and a standard-issue numeric touchscreen keypad -- and unlike Nokia's concept videos from before, these are from a real emulator running real code.

One would think that laying claim to the largest share of the world's smartphone market would attract the most high-quality mobile software developers, but that doesn't seem to be the case for Nokia.

The folks at WineHQ have released the second major stable version of Wine: "This release represents two years of development effort and over 23,000 changes. The main highlights are the support for 64-bit applications, and the new graphics based on the Tango standard. It also contains a lot of improvements across the board, and over 3,000 bug fixes."

A Computerworld blog speculates that the open-source Unix distribution may live on, but Oracle won't be supporting it. At this point, "OpenSolaris' only real future is as a fork, which would not be easy to pull off. Still, with enough interest from developers it could be done. OpenSolaris is licensed under the GPLv3 CDDL and various other OSS licenses, so the base code is available."

Atheros and Wilocity have announced a partnership that will see the companies producing tri-band wireless devices capable of operating both at the 2.4GHz and 5GHz frequencies used by 802.11n, as well as the 60GHz frequency required by upcoming WiGig systems. Besides combining the ubiquity and coverage of Wi-Fi with multi-gigabit speeds, the move will enable many new applications, among which there will be products featuring wireless PCI Express technology.

In a move that should surprise nobody, Apple has sort-of admitted to iPhone antenna problems in their press conference this morning, claiming it affects a small number of users, but they claim to be working hard to fix the problems that they have confirmed. They've offered free bumpers (that have until now been a $30 accessory) to all iPhone buyers, and are offering to waive any restocking fees for anyone who wants to return their iPhone 4. Whether or not there's going to be a hardware fix for future iPhones, Steve Jobs says he doesn't know yet whether that will happen.