Monthly Archive:: October 2012

"At the beginning, it was, for instance, 500K units a month, then maybe 600, 700K. This latest month, it was close to 1 million," Asustek Chief Financial Officer David Chang told The Wall Street Journal. Very much deserved. You can pry my beloved Alexis (my Nexus 7's name, normally written in Hangul but OSNews can't render it) from my cold, dead hands. I don't think I've ever had a device that I liked more than this thing. Note this is sales, not shipped.

"Since Apple has announced the Fusion drive, people have wondered if it's possible to use the fusion drive on older machines with a SSD and HDD." Fun with Core Storage (via John Siracusa).

"We know what Nexus means now. There can no longer be any doubt: a Nexus device is about openness first and foremost. That does not mean Google won't make compromises with the Nexus program. It simply means that Google will only make compromises when it comes to increasing openness. Why? Because Google benefits from open devices as much, or more than you do. Last year the technology sphere was busily discussing whether or not the Verizon Galaxy Nexus was a 'true' Nexus device. This year we have an answer: a Nexus controlled by a carrier is no Nexus. Rather than get in bed with Verizon, Sprint, or AT&T to produce an LTE version of the Nexus 4, we have HSPA+ only. Even the new Nexus 7 with mobile data is limited to this enhanced 3G standard." Interesting take on the whole thing - reeks a bit of finding a reason for a feature deficiency, but it does fit into the available facts.

Steve Ballmer has just announced that in the first three days of being on sale, more than 4 million people have bought the Windows 8 upgrade. This doesn't count OEM installations or Microsoft's own Surface - just individual upgrades. Definitely a promising start for Windows 8, but then, these are most likely enthusiasts (I'm one of those four million), so we still don't know a whole lot. I'm patiently waiting for the response from regular consumers.

Contiki, the open source OS for the Internet of Things, has always been an active open source project, but it has historically been difficult to contribute code to the project without being one of the project committers. To make it easier to contribute to Contiki, the project today announced that it is moving to Github: the Contiki source code can from now on be forked from its Github repository.

"Apple today announced executive management changes that will encourage even more collaboration between the Company's world-class hardware, software and services teams. As part of these changes, Jony Ive, Bob Mansfield, Eddy Cue and Craig Federighi will add more responsibilities to their roles. Apple also announced that Scott Forstall will be leaving Apple next year and will serve as an advisor to CEO Tim Cook in the interim." The most important thing to remember is that Ive will head interface design. Ive is supposedly not a big fan of skeuomorphism, so hopefully, iOS and OS X will move away from the My First Operating System-look. Expect the current popularity of skeumorphism - including elaborate reasoning as to why it's the best choice - to magically radically decline among Apple fans.

It's already been out for iOS for a while, but today, Android users can join in on this piece of gaming history as well. Chrono Trigger, arguably one of the best - if not the best - games ever made has just been released for Android. Whether you ascribe to that position or not, this 1995 SNES classic from Square was revolutionary in many ways (oh the music...), and you owe it to yourself to give it a go. It's EUR 7.99, which isn't cheap, but trust me: it's worth it. My Nexus 7 just became even more useful.

"RISC OS Open are very pleased to announce the official release of RISC OS for the Raspberry Pi, 'RISC OS Pi'. This is a watershed moment for RISC OS and represents the culmination of many months of hard work from a whole community of developers, testers and other contributors. It also means the Raspberry Pi can now boast support for the quick, compact, original ARM-based operating system." This is absolutely fantastic news. I'm going to try this on my Pi later this week.

"This article offers something different. A Visual Studio Express based solution, written using C++ and assembler, that allows the user to write and execute X86, X86/64 and ARM assembler line by line as easily as using a text editor. As code is only emulated, errors are trapped and reported within the program without any wider impact."

ActiveWin.com has just posted their 17-page, 90-screenshot review of Microsoft Windows Server 2012. The review covers many different aspects of the OS including start screen, server manager, VHDX, chkdsk improvements, Hyper-V, private cloud, IIS 8, and more. "On the desktop, Windows 8 remains the most talked about release, but within the datacenter, Windows 8’s counterpart on the server is also creating its own noise amongst Sys Admins and Integrators. One of the themes around Windows 8 is mobility and Touch, Windows Server 2012 itself follows a theme that is part of an industry trend, the Cloud. Windows Server 2012 promises to embrace the concept of private clouds fully while maintaining the traditional concept of on premises administration using its familiar tools."

"Microsoft today announced the global availability of its popular Windows operating system, Windows 8. Beginning Friday, Oct. 26, consumers and businesses worldwide will be able to experience all that Windows 8 has to offer, including a beautiful new user interface and a wide range of applications with the grand opening of the Windows Store." I'm still not clear on what '12:01 AM local time' means, but if it means it goes on sale in every country on 12:01 AM, I'll be buying in a bit over an hour!

When Steve Jobs unveiled the iPhone, one of its most prominent and most controversial features was the on-screen keyboard. In as world dominated by devices with physical keyboards, it was seen as a joke, something that could never work. We know better by now, of course, but while I still prefer the physical feel and clicks of a real keyboard, a recent new endeavour of mine has made me appreciate the on-screen keyboard in a whole new way.

"There may be a time in the future when all the bugs have been fixed, the third-party app support has arrived, and some very smart engineers in Redmond have ironed out the physical kinks in this type of product which prevent it from being all that it can be. But that time isn't right now - and unfortunately for Microsoft, the clock is ticking." The Verge's review is not so positive, because they focus on what Surface is now.

"After using Microsoft's Surface for the past week I can say that I honestly get it. This isn't an iPad competitor, nor is it an Android tablet competitor. It truly is something different. A unique perspective, not necessarily the right one, but a different one that will definitely resonate well with some (not all) users." AnandTech's review is positive, because they focus on Surface's potential.