Monthly Archive:: January 2013

"For the longest time Canonical has slapped an LTS moniker on some of their Ubuntu releases. Currently, a new major release of the operating system happens every six months, and is supported for 18 months after release. Whereas in the past when LTS versions received two years support or more, the current model - starting with 12.04 - supports new LTS releases for five years. However, a recent public Google Hangouts session revealed that Canonical has been thinking about switching from the venerable LTS model to a rolling release, starting with version 14.04."

Back in 2010, Apple, Google, Intel, Adobe, and a few others settled with the US Department of Justice regarding their anti-poaching agreements concerning employees. While the CEOs did a good job of escaping possible prosecution, the affected employees filed a class action lawsuit about this, and judge Lucy Koh has just unsealed a number of emails concerning this case. They paint a pretty grim picture of Steve Jobs and Eric Schmidt engaging in mafia practices, threatening smaller companies with patent litigation if they didn't agree to the no-poaching agreements, or demanding to handle matters verbally as to not leave a paper trail.

"If you consider NetApplications' data set, then Linux owns only about 1 percent of the desktop OS market and Windows has almost 92 percent. But if you consider all computing platforms, including mobile, than Windows has only 20 percent and Linux has 42 percent - and that would be in the form of Google's Android alone." No more or less legitimate than claiming Windows owns 92% of the market. It's all a matter of perspective.

"A complete continuum of screen sizes is actually a blessing for Web designers and developers. It forces us toward adaptive solutions that respond to diverse capabilities instead of being able to draw arbitrary cut-off points for separate mobile, tablet, and desktop sites. So I for one, welcome our six inch fonblet/phablet friends and look forward to further diversity in screens that allow us to access the Web." Hadn't thought of it this way yet. Clever. Aside from this, I'm happy with all these sizes - it means there's something for everyone. Just because I prefer 4.3", doesn't mean everyone should, or that I'm going to ridicule those that prefer larger or smaller displays.

"This week we are announcing our new Firefox OS developer preview phones because we believe that developers will help bring the power of the web to mobile. These developer phones are being developed by Geeksphone in partnership with Telefonica and Geeksphone." Loving the orange.

The lead developer of a niche ARM-powered OS has written a string of in-depth articles on the design, implementation and testing of a commercial operating system. Justin Fletcher was the architect of versions of 4 and 6 of RISC OS, the ARM processor's original operating system. Although his pieces will be best appreciated by RISC OS and Acorn users old and new, the series is a fantastic insight into operating system design: check out his build system for compiling code into ROM images, the abstraction of video graphics from a legacy 1980s-era kernel, converting images on the fly, testing and debugging, executing applications and plenty more. Justin has written tens of thousands of words and will be publishing new pieces daily online and in Android and iOS-friendly formats.

The words 'Facebook' and 'open' don't necessarily go well together, until they do. And while they may hoard your data, they've contributed to openness in other ways. "In 2011 Facebook began the Open Compute Project, an effort among technology companies to use open-source computer hardware. Tech companies similarly shared intellectual property with Linux software, which lowered costs and spurred innovation. Facebook’s project has attracted many significant participants, including Goldman Sachs, Arista Networks, Rackspace, Hewlett-Packard and Dell." An interesting read over at the New York Times.

"The first computers were gigantic, filling rooms and requiring constant care and maintenance. The computer stayed on the desk until the laptop computer, a smaller, more portable, but just as powerful machine, made it nearly obsolete. And then, the iPhone was released, followed shortly after by Android and the Palm WebOS, and the next step in computing was clear. What we did not immediately understand was if mobile computing was an accessory, or a replacement, for the traditional desktop machines." Jon-Buys at Ostatic believes the phone-becomes-computer paradigm is the next step.

Ever since I bought my HTC HD7 way back in October 2010, I have been hooked on Windows Phone. Without even being able to test-drive the new operating system (The Netherlands didn't get Windows Phone 7 until a year later), I imported the HD7 from the US - the minimalist, stark, clean, flat, and textual interface spoke to me, and I just knew I would like it. And like it, I did.

This is actually pretty big news - both exciting and tragic at the same time. Opera has revealed Opera Ice, its next mobile browser, to PocketLint. This new browser represent a big shift in both user interface as well as rendering engine, since it has a new, unique interface, as well as a new rendering engine... New to Opera, that is, as it's a WebKit-browser.

"In December, the Google Nexus made by Taiwan's Asustek Computer Inc. accounted for 44.4% of all tablet sales by volume electronics retailers. That's according to a survey of 2,400 stores nationwide by market research firm BCN Inc., released Wednesday. Google's figure beat Apple's 40.1% share, dethroning the iPad for the first time since it went on sale in May 2010." Just as I and many others with me predicted, what happened in the smartphone market will also happen in the tablet market: Android will take the numbers, iOS will take the figures (i.e., profit). As far as I know, this is the first time this has actually materialised fully in a market, though. Also, while it was inevitable that Android would overtake iOS on tablets (even if it is just a single country, for now), I don't think anyone predicted it would be a single model? Colour me impressed (which is pink).

"Meet the new ThinkPad X131e Chromebook: A fast booting, highly customizable laptop PC built with rugged features for the daily rigors of K-12 education. The ThinkPad X131e Chromebook simplifies software and security management for school administrators and provides students and teachers with quick access to thousands of apps, education resources and storage." Lenovo is the third OEM to jump into ChromeOS. Chromebooks have been doing well on Amazon, apparently, too. Android tablets, iPads, the Mac, and now Chromebooks - it must be rainy in Redmond.

Wired's Steven Levy got to interview Google CEO Larry Page, and it's a good read overall. When asked about how he feels about Jobs' infamous remark that he would go 'thermonuclear' on Android, Page defiantly responds "How well is that working?" He's got a point. He's even harsher on Facebook, stating that the social network does "a really bad job on their products". My favourite quote from the interview is in response to questions about Google X, and projects like Google's self-driving cars. "If you're not doing some things that are crazy, then you're doing the wrong things."

"A statistical analysis shows that icons with less detail score better in terms of usability. It seems to be an easy truth: too much detail in icons confuses the users. So we wondered whether we could find any evidence for this truth in the data of our large scale test of the LibreOffice Icons."