Monthly Archive:: June 2011

"Google has released a research paper that suggests C++ is the best-performing programming language in the market. The internet giant implemented a compact algorithm in four languages - C++, Java, Scala and its own programming language Go - and then benchmarked results to find 'factors of difference'."

So, yeah, uhm, I bought an iPad 2 today. I still don't think anyone really needs a tablet, but that doesn't mean I didn't want one. I wanted to wait until the HP TouchPad was announced, but now that it has, it seems it won't be coming to The Netherlands any time soon. As such, the iPad 2 it was. A few quick fist impressions.

Ten more applications have been pulled from the Google's official Android Market following a notification that they contained a new kind of Android malware. The malware was discovered by Xuxian Jiang, an assistant professor at the NC State University, and his team. As we have already witnessed before, the malicious code is "grafted" onto legitimate applications, and once the app is installed, it works as a background service whose goals is to gather information and transmit it to a remote server. The server takes the information in consideration and returns a URL from which the malware downloads a .jar file that, once loaded, exploits Dalvik class loading capability to stay hidden by evading static analysis.

"When it comes to adopting the newest technologies, Fedora is always at the front among the major Linux distributions. Well, Fedora might very well do it again by adopting a new file system for its next release. According to proposals for Fedora 16, Btrfs will be the default filesystem used in that release. The proposal has been approved by the Fedora Engineering Steering Committee. In Fedora 16, the switch from EXT4 to Btrfs will be a 'simple switch' - it means that major Btrfs features such as RAID and LVM capabilities will not be forced onto users."

It's official now. The signs had been there for a while now. While the west bangs on about the importance of freedom and democracy, they don't actually want anyone to have too much of it. The US, France, and the UK have jointly pretty much declared war on freedom on the web.

Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes! Palm HP has finally officially announced the release of the TouchPad! Sadly though, it will only see a phased roll-out over the remainder of the year, and the number of countries actually getting the TouchPad is remarkably limited. Somewhat of a downer, really.

"FreeNAS is an open source operating system based on FreeBSD and, as its name implies, designed for networked storage. The project recently celebrated the release of FreeNAS 8, which racked up some 43,000 downloads in the first 48 hours after its release. I caught up with Josh Paetzel, director of IT at iXsystems and project manager for FreeNAS 8, to talk about the current state of the OS, what lies ahead for it, and the relationship to FreeNAS 0.7."

After the end of business on Monday I received the following in an email from Microsoft: "We appreciate your feedback and enthusiasm throughout the Windows Thin PC Community Technology Preview. Today, we are happy to announce that Windows Thin PC has been released to manufacturing (RTM), and will be available for our SA customers to download starting July 1, 2011." Anandtech published a brief but concise review of Windows Thin PC but here's a quick summary of my experience of this 32-bit only OS based on Windows Embedded Standard 7.

I've been keeping you up to date about the situation around net neutrality in The Netherlands - and today, everything finally came to its logical conclusion. During a debate in our lower house, most of the kinks were ironed out, and our minister of economic affairs, Maxime Verhagen, will now turn net neutrality into law. This means that after Chile, The Netherlands will be the second country in the world to do so.

So, the E3 is well under way, and all the major players have had their press conferences. To summarise. Microsoft: Kinect. Really. Kinect. Please Kinect. We'll do anything. For the love of god, Kinect. Sony: wait, what is this? What am I doing here? Oh, here's a 24" 3D TV for $500 and yet another PSP. Nintendo: we slapped every possible shiny object onto a tablet and made the Wii capable of rendering halfway decent graphics. Here's another load of Mariozelda Kart, and a bunch of EA games that Xbox/PS3 players already own. Yes, this year's E3 has been a massive letdown - save for a few exceptions. Update: Epic fail for Nintendo. The company has admitted that it has used footage from the Xbox 360 and PS3 to spice up the press reel for the Wii U.

RIM has pushed the second update of the QNX-based operating system running on the PlayBook. One of the new features listed? "The BlackBerry PlayBook tablet can now be charged even when fully powered down." Oh my.

RSA has finally admitted publicly that the March breach into its systems has resulted in the compromise of their SecurID two-factor authentication tokens. The admission comes in the wake of cyber intrusions into the networks of three US military contractors: Lockheed Martin, L-3 Communications and Northrop Grumman - one of them confirmed by the company, others hinted at by internal warnings and unusual domain name and password reset process.

Apple just held its keynote thing to signal the start of its Worldwide Developers Conference. The big three things Apple talked about were Mac OS X Lion, iOS 5, and its new internet service, iCloud.

"Microsoft and Nvidia have an agreement in place that spells out terms relating to a possible acquisition of the graphics and mobile processor manufacturer, regulatory documents indicate. The deal gives Microsoft the exclusive right to match any offer for 30% or more of Nvidia's outstanding shares by a third-party." The agreement appears to be over 10 years old, dating back to the time of the contract for the GPU of the original X-Box. It has likely gained relevance again now that Microsoft allegedly wants to more closely control hardware of tablets running its upcoming Windows 8 OS.