Monthly Archive:: August 2012

"ICS, we hardly knew ye. Builds for CyanogenMod 9 stable will be rolling out to our servers tonight. As noted before, this will be the end of the line for the ICS branch of our code; only critical bug fixes will be merged moving forward. Tonight's release is for the majority of our ICS supported devices, the stragglers will catch up, and we will leave the door open for merging in additional devices from maintainers, external and internal. The team itself, will focus solely on Jelly Bean and maintenance of the CM 7 codebase." Already running the CM10/Jelly Bean previews on my SII, and while clearly not as polished yet as CM9, it works just fine. Great work.

"Here's the official guidance, my sources say: Anything currently/formerly known as a 'Metro-Style application' (with or without a hyphen) will now be known officially as a 'Windows 8 application'. References to the 'Metro user interface' will now be replaced by "Windows 8 user interface." And instead of saying 'Metro design', the Softies and those adhering to their official guidelines will be using the words 'Windows 8 design'." Microsoft not being allowed to use the Metro name here is just as ridiculous as Apple trolling Samsung. All ridiculous exponents of the western world's IP fetish.

HelenOS 0.5.0 was released today. Some of the noteworthy new features of this major release are USB support, reimplemented networking stack with full TCP support and new network drivers (including Realtek RTL8139 and Intel E1000), read-only ext2 and ISO 9660 file system support, read-write MINIX FS support and several ported applications (GNU Binutils, PCC, MSIM). For a complete list of user-visible changes, see the release notes. The release files can be downloaded from the download page.

"It'll be a full x86 device - Lenovo calls a 'joint effort' with Intel and Microsoft - that clocks in at 1.3 pounds with a 10.1-inch 1366 x 768 display. It's billed to have 10-hour battery life, which would be impressive for a device only 9.8mm thick. The standard model is Wi-Fi-only, but there will also be carrier versions including one with AT&T's LTE connectivity." If you see a 1366x768 resolution on a 10.1" display, they blew it.

Valve has just announced it will start selling applications through Steam. "The Software titles coming to Steam range from creativity to productivity. Many of the launch titles will take advantage of popular Steamworks features, such as easy installation, automatic updating, and the ability to save your work to your personal Steam Cloud space so your files may travel with you. More Software titles will be added in an ongoing fashion following the September 5th launch, and developers will be welcome to submit Software titles via Steam Greenlight." I feel like a broken record at this point, but guys and girls, Valve is going to release specifications for a 'Steambox'. A set of minimum specifications a Linux or Windows machine has to adhere to, either self-built or by an OEM. Steam pre-installed, can be used as regular PC and as a console. With Windows 8 locking itself down, this is their only option - and I applaud it.

BeOS may be dead, but over a decade after its lamentable demise the open source Haiku project keeps its legacy alive. Haiku is an attempt to build a drop-in, binary compatible replacement for BeOS, as well as extending the defunct OS's functionality and support for modern hardware. At least, that's the short-term goal - eventually, Haiku is intended significantly enhance BeOS while maintaining the same philosophy of simplicity and transparency, and without being weighed down with the legacy code of many other contemporary operating systems. Computerworld Australia recently caught up with Stephan Assmus, who has been a key contributor to the project for seven years for a lengthy chat about BeOS, the current state of Haiku and the project's future plans.

"Over the past couple weeks, we've read a number of bedtimes stories about RIM's next move. They all start with the same trope: once upon a time, late last century, Apple was on the edge of the precipice and still managed to come back - and how! Today, RIM's situation isn't nearly as dire as Apple's was then. Unlike Apple, it doesn’t need a cash transfusion and, in the words of Thorsten Heins, RIM's new CEO: 'If you look at the platform it's still growing, if you look at the devices we've got a single phone that's sold 45 million units.' RIM will pull off an Apple-like rebound and live happily ever after. Equating RIM 2012 with Apple 1997 is, in so many respects, delusional. Let me count the ways."

"Comparing Samsung's flagship products before and after release of the iPhone & iPad, and how Apple's intellectual property infringement claims hold up." A terrible visual guide that ignores not only Samsung's own pre-iPhone designs, but also - and worse yet - the thirty-odd years of mobile computing that preceded the iPhone. Typical of today's technology world: a complete and utter lack of historical sense. Worse yet are the claims about icons: only the phone icon is similar, but Apple did not invent the green phone icon. This is a remnant of virtually all earlier phones which use a green phone icon for initiate/answer call, and a red phone icon for terminate/reject call. Claiming this deserves IP protection is beyond ridiculous, and shows just how low Apple is willing to go.

I asked for more of this, and I got it. "There has been much interest in assembly lately (whether the real 6502, or the fictional DCPU-16; I even created my own virtual 8-bit CPU called i808 in 2007), but none of this attention focuses on the architecture that is most popular in today's computers. If you are reading this on a desktop, laptop, or server then your computer is most likely using x86-64 (or x86). x86-64 is the 64-bit superset of the 32-bit x86 architecture and any modern CPU from AMD or Intel supports it. This document will focus on the most used parts of x86-64."

Well, this is interesting. Apple has released iOS 6 beta 4, and it removes one of the staples of iOS, included since its very first release with the first iPhone: beta 4 does not include the YouTube application. YouTube is owned by Google, so that could be an explanation. However, unless Google has its own iOS YouTube application ready, iOS 6 could lead to a lot of unhappy iPhone and iPad users. The large websites with sources inside Apple are probably hard at work trying to find out what's going on here - could just be a bug, or maybe a way to gauge public response by causing news sites and blogs to post about it. Huh. Update: thank god for sites with clout: The Verge confirms that Google is working on a stand-alone iOS YouTube application. Good news for users, since the stock one wasn't particularly good to begin with.

How this passed through Apple's Mountain Lion testing is beyond me. "If one edits a document, then chooses Save As, then BOTH the edited original document and the copy are saved, thus not only saving a new copy, but silently saving the original with the same changes, thus overwriting the original." Just goes to show: do not mess with my ability to save my stuff. There is no one-size-fits-all for this kind of delicate stuff.

Mat Honan got hacked, and lost all the data on his MacBook, iPad, and iPhone. How? Somebody broke into his iCloud account. Brute force attack? Simple password? No, not really - the hacker called Apple tech support, and convinced the person on the phone he was really Mat Honan. Apple then reset the iCloud password. The dangers of a monoculture, kids. Even Steve Wozniak has doubts about everything going into the cloud.

"Quick - name the most important personal computer of the late 1970s and early 1980s. Those of you who mentioned the legendary Apple II - that's fine. I respect your decision. Forced to think objectively in 2012, I may even agree. But if you just named Radio Shack's TRS-80, you made me smile. Your choice is entirely defensible. And back in the TRS-80's heyday, I not only would have agreed with it but would have vehemently opposed any other candidate."

Eh. Microsoft has instructed its employees to drop the name 'Metro', due to a trademark conflict with an 'an important European partner'. The Verge has learned that Microsoft plans to unveil a new name next week. Considering Microsoft has been beating the Metro drum for quite a few years now, this all seems a bit silly. The European partner in question is believed to be Metro AG, a huge collection of electronic retail stores covering several different chains (I've got a few within a few kilometres of my middle-of-nowhere hick hometown). Depending on what they come up with, I will continue to use the Metro name. I like it, and I don't give a rat's bum about trademark disputes.