Monthly Archive:: January 2011

The major U.S. wireless carriers now all have services that, while not 4G under the strictest definition, provide broadband-level speeds without wires. So why not cut the cord entirely and have one broadband connection wherever you go? Here's a look at where 4G coverage is available, what real-world connectivity is like, and how much it will cost you.

"The GNOME Project launches the new GNOME 3 website that brings you all the latest news about the new desktop of the same name. The new GNOME 3 website walks the curious as well as the new and seasoned GNOME user through all that the new GNOME 3 desktop is."

"Opera has officially announced its much-loved web browser will be appearing on Sony TVs and Blu-ray players . There's no specific details, but it given its low-key presence at CES a few weeks ago (Sony Insider grabbed a video of it in action on the show floor -- embedded after the break -- unfortunately hampered by slow connection speeds) it will spread at least across the company's 22 new connected HDTVs."

The fork of OpenOffice called LibreOffice is going to have its first official release soon. This version is primarily a code cleanup, and so it will not be much different to OpenOffice 3.3, which is also about to be released soon. For the subsequent release of LibrOffice, however, there are proposals starting to emerge which are quite interesting. Tech Drive-in reports on a mock-up of a proposed overhaul of the LibreOffice UI.

In a major cybercrime turning point, scammers have begun shifting their focus away from Windows-based PCs to other operating systems and platforms, including smart phones, tablet computers, and mobile platforms in general, according to the a new Cisco report. The report also finds that 2010 was the first year in the history of the Internet that spam volume decreased, that cybercriminals are investing heavily in "money muling," and that users continue to fall prey to myriad forms of trust exploitation.

What would have happened if the ST had run a BSD based UNIX rather than TOS and GEM? "To run Unix effectively we needed some hardware that was very fast, that was simple enough to put into a minor spin of the ST’s memory controller with little project risk, and that would still provide some kind of memory relocation and protection. The ability to have separate address spaces to isolate processes would be good, too."

The target of attacks has shifted from traditional infrastructure to mobile users and endpoint devices. As the security of mobile networks has improved, mobile devices are increasingly the target of attacks, while social networking sites are quickly becoming cybercriminals' platform of choice to expand and propagate destructive botnets. Anti-virus software is losing the battle against malware - the new breed of malware is virtually undetectable by current scanning software.

The Free Software Foundation announced today that it will be supporting the WebM project. As Brett Smith, license compliance engineer for the FSF, said in a press release: "Google has been working to bring together a broad coalition of organizations to support WebM, which will go far to help it become the video codec of choice with HTML5. e want the world to know that we also support WebM: with its developer-friendly patent license and free software reference implementation, it's a good choice to help ensure the Web fulfills its promise of providing a free way for the world to communicate."

"StarCraft, one of the most popular games ever made, also serves as the perfect proving ground for artificial intelligence. Here's the inside story of how a Berkeley team won the world's first StarCraft AI competition with code that can beat even pro-level human players."

"Apple sold 4.13 million Macs during the quarter, a 23 percent unit increase over the year-ago quarter. The Company sold 16.24 million iPhones in the quarter, representing 86 percent unit growth over the year-ago quarter. Apple sold 19.45 million iPods during the quarter, representing a seven percent unit decline from the year-ago quarter. The Company also sold 7.33 million iPads during the quarter."

"Unity 2D developer and Canonical OEM team lead, Bill Filler, created a lot of buzz around the 2D Unity option last week when he published a post entitled Unity 2D. Filler's original post was unavailable for several days and subsequent is now available again to the public and the screenshots included are from that post. The removal of the Filler's blog post prompted Linux Pro Magazine Online (LPMO) to contact David Barth, Engineering Manager for Desktop Experience (DX) Team, at Canonical, to find out the more about the future of the 2D Unity option in the Natty release."

De kogel is door de kerk. After years of focussing entirely on Gtk+ and GNOME, Ubuntu will finally start evaluating Qt applications for inclusion in the defaukt Ubuntu installation. Mark Shuttleworth announced the policy change on his blog today.

Okay so it took them two years, but hey, good things come to those who wait. The Xfce team has finally released version 4.8 of their Gtk+-based desktop environment. This release contains a lot of work under the hood, as well as a number of new features.

"Martha Lane Fox is promising GBP 98 computers to tempt the last remaining digital refuseniks in UK to get online. The machines, refurbed by Remploy, will come complete with telephone support, monitor, mouse and Linux software."