1720187
submission
ianare writes:
A few days ago someone found a serious flaw in the Android firmware that allowed root access. Unfortunately, once there, it's difficult to accomplish anything given Google's overly simplistic busybox replacement, toolbox. What is really needed is a complete Unix userland.
Jay Freeman was able to install the ARM distribution of Debian with the ability to add almost all applications available. He has posted full instructions that explain how to create and load a custom image on an SD card. In the end, both Android and Debian will co-exist happily on the device. Note that the bug which allows this process has been patched by Google, so get this done while you still can!
1225921
submission
ianare writes:
There are an estimated 45m PCs in Brazil, but 59% of Brazilians have never accessed the internet or used a computer. However, measures are underway to change all that. 56,000 public schools are presently being fitted with broadband internet, with an aim to have all of the urban public schools in the country connected by 2010. The Brazilian government is also trialling a number of laptop projects, including the OLPC, Intel's Classmate, and Encore's Simputer. Children in Brazil only spend between four or five hours at school, so being able to take the laptop home extends the time that they have to learn. The Brazilian government has a profound conviction that free software is the way to go, and is demanding that there be a whole suite of free and open-source software installed in these computers.
653466
submission
ianare writes:
The first legalised home computers have gone on sale in Cuba, the latest in a series of restrictions on daily life which President Raul Castro has lifted in recent weeks. The desktop computers cost almost $800, in a country where the average wage is under $20 a month, but some Cubans do have access to extra income. Internet access remains restricted to certain workplaces, schools and universities on the island which the government claims is due to low bandwidth availability. Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez is laying a new cable under the Caribbean, but it remains unclear whether once the connection is completed, the authorities will allow unrestricted access to the internet.
529460
submission
ianare writes:
Microsoft has released the specifications of its Office binary formats (Office 97-2007: .doc, .xls, .ppt, drawing) under the MS Open Specification Promise, a program under which Microsoft promises not to sue developers who use the specifications. They are available for direct download as PDF or XPS documents, previously, it was necessary to contact Microsoft to receive the documentation.
Secondly, Microsoft addressed translating from binary formats into the Open XML formats, and concluded that the best option was to create an open source translation project to achieve this. The project has now launched, and is released under the Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD) license. Although it is still in early stages of development, a first result is expected for April 1st, with the final Word translator (and more) due on June 30th.
These changes are aimed at alleviating criticisms related to the Open XML specifications, specifically the use of undocumented legacy document rendering compatibility tags.
493408
submission
ianare writes:
A new method of digital rights management which relies on a user's profile has been pioneered by Aboriginal Australians for a multimedia archive. The need to create profiles based on a user's name, age, sex and standing within their community come from traditions over what can and cannot be seen. For example, men cannot view women's rituals, and people from one community cannot view material from another without first seeking permission. Meanwhile images of the deceased cannot be viewed by their families. This threw up issues surrounding how the material could be archived, as it was not only about preserving the information into a database in a traditional sense, but also how people would access it depending on their gender, their relationship to other people and where they were situated.
466832
submission
ianare writes:
The European Commission is launching two new anti-competition investigations against US computer giant Microsoft. The first will look at whether Microsoft unfairly ties its Explorer internet browser to its Windows operating system, stemming from a complaint by browser maker Opera. The second area of investigation will concern the interoperability of some of Microsoft's products, including Office 2007, the .NET Framework, and some server products. This one stems from a complaint by the European Committee for Interoperable Systems which alleges that the new Office Open XML does not play nice with competing products.
Microsoft's opponents are certain to embrace the new investigation, while others will accuse the EU of singling out and taking an unnecessarily hard line with the company.
459232
submission
ianare writes:
A new ornamental flower, just patented by Cornell, can last for two weeks in a vase, but when left in the garden, it blooms all summer long in the cooler, northern states until the first hard freeze in the fall. Its lavender-lilac flower color is adorned with dark speckling and a creamy yellow throat. The hybrid, which botanically is not a lily, took five years to develop, this included testing it and growing in large enough quantities to sell.
425284
submission
ianare writes:
Akin to Damien Hirst's bodies in formaldehyde, the frog is suspended in clear liquid contained in a glass cube, with a blue ethernet cable leading into its splayed abdomen. The computer stores a website that enables users to trigger physical movement in the corpse: the resulting movement can be seen in gallery, and through a live streaming webcamera.
Includes a high-resolution image and a video.
422173
submission
ianare writes:
Eight tusks and a bison skull all show signs of having being blasted with iron-nickel fragments, typical meteorite material. Raised, burnt surface rings trace the point of entry of high-velocity projectiles; and the punctures are on only one side, consistent with a blast coming from a single direction. But the team was astonished to find the animal remains were about 35,000 years old, rather than from the known impact of 13,000 years ago.
Was there more than one impact, or were these animals already dead when the meteorite hit?
406759
submission
ianare writes:
Nick Breese, a security consultant at Security-assessment.com, has come up with a way of cracking encryption algorithms 100 times faster, using a Sony PS3. The speed increase relates to the use of the Cell processor's SIMD (or vector) computing, allowing him to run cryptography calculations in parallel. Breese has pushed the current upper limit of 10-15 million cycles per second on Intel-based architecture to 1.4 billion cycles per second for MD5 calculations. This discovery will unfortunately make cracking certain types of passwords much faster, hopefully it will also drive stronger and better implemented cryptography.
348607
submission
ianare writes:
For the first time, Wal-Mart has begun selling a HD-DVD player for less than $200. Enthusiasts have reported seeing the Toshiba HD-A2 HD DVD player available for $198, significantly less than its common price of $230-$280. It's not clear what the Blu-ray camp will do to respond to the price cuts, Blu-ray players continue to cost more than $400. Blu-ray has an early lead, but that doesn't count for much. What matters is, who will have the lowest-priced high-def player at a decent quality level when HD starts to be mainstream? And there are signs that this could be the season where holiday shoppers open their wallets for HD equipment.
333373
submission
ianare writes:
The BBC must deliver the iPlayer, an online TV catch-up service, in a way that lets users of all operating systems download programmes, the corporation's regulators have said. The issue of platform neutrality has been controversial, with open rights advocates complaining that the service was initially only available to Windows users. The BBC has said the problem in offering a cross-platform download service lies in the Microsoft DRM used to limit viewing to 30 days. Nevertheless, the BBC Trust said that "catch-up television over the internet should become platform neutral within a reasonable time frame".
321269
submission
ianare writes:
Ars Technica reports that openSUSE 10.3 has been released. It includes KDE 3.5.7 with numerous improvements and usability enhancements like the new Kickoff start menu. Also provided is a complete KDE 4 preview environment for testing. The recently-released GNOME 2.20 is also included, with SUSE usability improvements like the SLAB menu and the new international clock applet. A new GTK-based frontend for YaST is also available now in addition to the conventional KDE-based frontend. Although Compiz has been available in previous versions, openSUSE 10.3 comes with the new and improved Compiz Fusion, which has many impressive new visual effects. Improvements for virtualization are present as well. The latest version of Xen 3.1 is included as well as KVM and support for kernel-level virtualization enhancements. It's also very green!
298367
submission
ianare writes:
AMD has recently released register specifications for the ATI Radeon R5xx and R6xx graphic devices. This allows the OSS community to develop 2D (and theoretically 3D) drivers, given time. In fact, engineers from Novell have released a first alpha quality Open Source driver which currently supports initial mode settings. Although current work is focused on 2D, rather than 3D acceleration, this type of information sharing could conceivably lead to an OSS 3D driver.
273869
submission
ianare writes:
Ubuntu Xorg maintainer Bryce Harrington recently demonstrated the BulletProof-X feature that is planned for inclusion in Ubuntu 7.10. It provides a failsafe mode which will ensure that users never have to manually configure their graphics hardware settings from the command line. If Xorg fails to start, the failsafe mode will initiate with minimalistic settings, low resolution, and a limited number of colors. The failsafe mode also automatically runs Ubuntu's new GTK-based display configuration utility so that users can easily test various display settings and choose a configuration that will work properly with their hardware. Features like BulletProof-X deliver tangible usability improvements that contribute to a more positive user experience.