Monthly Archive:: June 2011

The German city of Hamburg will soon be getting one of the biggest Apple Stores in the world. Construction isn't complete yet, and a group of people calling themselves the '.WAV Collective' decided it was time for a practical joke. Posing as construction workers, they planted an interesting logo on the store's facade. In broad daylight. And they videotaped it.

Okay, so building up on the feedback given on the previous item on that topic (thanks everyone, and xiaokj, Alfman and Brendan in particular!), I have tried to improve the design of my daemon and service model a bit further. Here is the new version, feel free to study and discuss it!

"The hacker group LulzSec on Thursday posted information it took from Sony Entertainment and Sony BMG on its site, called the LulzBoat. The information includes about a million usernames and passwords of customers in the U.S., Netherlands and Belgium and is available for download and posted on the group's site. A release posted on LulzSec's page said the group has more, but can't copy all of the information it stole. The group also said none of the information it took from Sony was encrypted."

Netbook innovator Asustek has announced that it will ship three models of its Eee PC with Ubuntu 10.10 preinstalled. Canonical announced Asus' decision to load the Eee PC 1001PXD, 1011PX and 1015PX with Ubuntu 10.10 from 1 June as one that will "make it one of the most user-friendly PCs on the market". Asus said that "many more" Eee PC models running Ubuntu will be available later this year. Linux fans will hope that in the three years since Asus started shipping Linux on its Eee PCs users will have realised that Linux is far more lightweight and suited to netbook computing than Windows.

A new "point release" of Icaros Desktop, distribution of the AROS Research Operating system (an effort to re-create the original AmigaOS in a open source fashion, that may be ported on any platform), has been released today. The new version includes new software and games, but also enhances and extends some of the goods already included in the former releases.

Four years ago, July 2007, Microsoft released the first few tidbits of information about Windows 7. Vista had just been shipped, and it wasn't received well - both by critics and the marketplace. During these days, I argued that for Windows 7, Microsoft ought to scrap the Vista userland, and build an entirely new interface and userland on top of Windows NT, while maintaining a 'classic' Windows version on the side for business and other reluctant folk who want to see the 'new' Windows mature a little bit first. While they didn't do this with Windows 7, they are doing exactly this with Windows 8. Ladies and gentlemen, Windows 8 is the first 'cut the legacy'-release we've all been waiting for - and Microsoft couldn't have picked a better time.

OSNews sat down with Ian Seyler, the Founder and Lead Programmer at Return Infinity, the maker and sponsor of Baremetal OS, a 64-bit OS for x86-64 based computers written entirely in Assembly. Editor's note: We'd love to do similar interviews with the people behind other alternative or hobby OS projects. If there's a project that you'd like to learn more about, let us know.

The "In the box" project aims at porting the Dalvik VM and the Gingerbread API on top of iOS, so that Android applications may be easily turned into iOS ones. Unlike the Alien Dalvik project, it is community-driven, and the source released under version 2.0 of the Apache Software License. Recently, this project has published its first result: a "Hello World" Android application running on top of iOS.

It's 2am here (edit: I'm done writing, it's 2:38am now), and I really ought to be sleeping right about now, but for some stupid arbitrary reason, the D9 conference is held at honestly irresponsible hours for us Europeans (and we rock, damnit). So, here I am, MacBook Air on my lap, camomile tea (the Empress of Teas) in my cup, because Microsoft just had to show Windows 8's new interface for the first time at this ungodly hour. Oh, and they unveiled some more interesting stuff about Windows 8. Update: The videos from D9 are up. Mossberg talking to Steve Sinofsky, and the Windows 8 demonstration by Larson-Green.

Because OSNews is technically a site from the US, and because the technology industry is decidedly a US-centric industry, we often talk about US politics having adverse effects on technology - or, the other way around. That's why I've been detailing the political movements here in The Netherlands with regards to net neutrality. After a lot of positive news, I've now got some bad news - bad news that involves the largest political party trying to block net neutrality - because one of its members of parliament, Afke Schaart, is a former KPN employee. And yes, KPN is the carrier that first announced it was going to block and throttle traffic.

HP's CEO Leo Aptheker is currently on stage at D9, answering questions from the audience. The thing hasn't concluded yet, but I think this one warrants its own item: Apotheker has revealed that HP is also licensing webOS to other hardware makers. "It's a great OS - why wouldn't we want to offer it to other companies? Why wouldn't they want to use webOS? Appliance makers could use it to connect up normal home devices. We'd like to make webOS available to these people - enterprises, SMBs, etc. Yes, webOS will be more than just a system that runs inside an HP product." When asked more directly if, for instance, HTC could build webOS phones, Apotheker answered: "We'd certainly have that conversation."

If there is one organisation that I hold in very high regard and have a lot of respect for, it's the Electronic Frontier Foundation. The EFF formed after a US Secret Service raid on Steve Jackson Games' office, back in 1990, which owned the Illuminati Online BBS and later the IO.com domain. As Slashdot reports, the IO.com domain has been sold, and all email, shell, and homepage services will be transferred. A piece of internet history, right here, and a landmark in the fight for online freedom and free speech.