Monthly Archive:: July 2010

Last month, I described how the computer industry encourages planned obsolescence in order to sell more product. This business model exacerbates the problem of computer disposal because it artificially shortens computer lifespans. This increases production and, ultimately, the numbers requiring disposal. One result is that e-waste -- electronics waste -- is one now one of our most pressing environmental challenges. Updated

After Google announced the open sourcing of the VP8 codec and provided it free-of-charge, there was a lot of discussion around the quality of the codec. However, the few studies that tried to back up the discussion with hard data didn't base their investigations on large amounts of data. None tried the comparison with multiple input files and provided results according to the numerous standard quality metrics. Every year, the MP4-Tech experts group compare every h.264 implementation in order to track performance and quality improvements. Yesterday, The Graphics and Media Lab of Moscow State University published a new, deep study of the performance of VP8, x264 and XviD implementations.

MeeGo is a Linux-based operating system designed by Intel and Nokia for netbooks and smart phones. Installing MeeGo on an Eee PC 1000 netbook is quick slick and easy. I found the user interface to be colourful and stylish with many quirky animations. MeeGo's features are easy to discover and it is fast and responsive.

In an ill omen for Symbian fans, the publisher of Symbian-Guru is abandoning the platform: "As of today, I will no longer be updating Symbian-Guru.com, and will be purchasing an Android-powered smartphone - my new Nexus One should arrive tomorrow. I've been a Nokia fanboy since 1999, and a Symbian fanboy since I got my Nokia 6620 in summer of 2004. Since then, I've personally owned 10+ different Symbian-powered smartphones, and have reviewed nearly every Symbian-powered smartphone that's been released in the past 3 years or so. I've tried to use all of Nokia's various products and services to the best of my ability, and I just can't do it anymore." His post continues with an exploration of the sorry state of Symbian and Nokia that only a once-true-believer could have written.

Audio and Video professionals swear by it, but if Microsoft sticks with its plans, Firewire may not be supported in Windows 8. This is following an industry trend with, for example, Apple itself phasing out firewire support in recent years.

Bob Sutor, Vice President of Open Source and Linux at IBM confirmed on his blog that the entire IBM company is moving to Firefox as its default browser. Though it seems like various users in the company have been able to use Firefox for quite some time, it looks like now they're going to be encouraging everyone to use it, and all new computers will be provisioned with Firefox as the default. Sutor has plenty of glowing praise for the open source browser in his blog post.

"While HTML5's video support enables us to bring most of the content and features of YouTube to computers and other devices that don't support Flash Player, it does not yet meet all of our needs," said YouTube programmer John Harding in a blog post Tuesday. "Today, Adobe Flash provides the best platform for YouTube's video distribution requirements, which is why our primary video player is built with it."

After having the Netbook UX of MeeGo out for quite a while, the MeeGo project released the first preview of Handset UX for public scrutiny. This is, finally, the Qt based heir of Maemo. There is also a youtube video available, with someone running the release on Moorestown-based Aava reference phone. While this can be flashed on your N900, that is only recommended for platform developers; this release is not productized to be useful for consumers. Pics after the jump

While at the HP Technology Forum 2010, a particular breakout session stood out in that it was all about Linux. In fact, I've stolen the title of the presentation and made it the name of this article. Bdale Garbee, a very comprehensive and impressive individual (also the HP Open Source & Linux Chief Technologist), gave a talk on the basics of Linux and HP's involvement in it.

While it wasn't a very important link in the story about the iPhone 4's antenna issue, we did link to an article over at Boy Genius Report which supposedly contained emails coming from Steve Jobs. Apple has told Fortune and Engadget that these emails are, in fact, not from Steve Jobs. Apple claims they're fake. Also, on a funnier note, I'm assuming all of you have already seen last night's brand new Futurama episode in which they make some serious fun of Apple, Google, the iPhone, and its fans?

So, the iPhone 4 has been out for a while, and is getting mostly pretty good reviews - there's one major sore spot, though. Apple made this hoopla about their fancy antenna thingie, but as it turns out, this thingie is kind of a design flaw, causing signal loss (and dropped calls) for some people. Despite downplaying by Steve Jobs himself, AnandTech has done a thorough investigation, and they've found out that the problem - which affects every mobile phone - is a whole lot worse on the iPhone 4 due to the new antenna. At the same time, however, the iPhone has much better reception in low signal situations. What?

The HURD was meant to be the true kernel at the heart of the GNU operating system. The promise behind the HURD was revolutionary -- a set of daemons on top of a microkernel that was intended to surpass the performance of the monolithic kernels of traditional Unix systems and in doing so, give greater security, freedom and flexibility to the users -- but it has yet to come down to earth.