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Operating Systems

NetBSD 6.0 Has Shipped 124

Posted by Soulskill from the onward-and-upward dept.
New submitter Madwand sends this quote from the NetBSD Project's announcement that NetBSD 6.0 has been released: "Changes from the previous release include scalability improvements on multi-core systems, many new and updated device drivers, Xen and MIPS port improvements, and brand new features such as a new packet filter. Some NetBSD 6.0 highlights are: support for thread-local storage (TLS), Logical Volume Manager (LVM) functionality, rewritten disk quota subsystem, new subsystems to handle flash devices and NAND controllers, an experimental CHFS file system designed for flash devices, support for Multiprotocol Label Switching (MPLS) protocol, and more. This release also introduces NPF — a new packet filter, designed with multi-core systems in mind, which can do TCP/IP traffic filtering, stateful inspection, and network address translation (NAT)."
Education

Parent Questions Mandatory High School Chemistry 866

Posted by Unknown Lamer from the redox-reactions-how-do-they-work dept.
Ollabelle writes "David Bernstein, a nonprofit executive who lives in Gaithersburg, Md., has two sons, ages 7 and 15. He has previously written about how schools fail students with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder. Now he turns his attention to mandated curriculum in public schools, and argues that his sons shouldn't be forced to take any science class." From the article: "There’s a concept in economics called 'opportunity costs,' which you may not have learned about because you were taking chemistry instead of economics. Opportunity costs are the sacrifices we make when we choose one alternative over another. ... When you force my son to take chemistry (and several other subjects, this is not only about chemistry), you are not allowing him that same time to take a public speaking course, which he could be really good at, or music, or political science, or creative writing, or HTML coding for websites."
Data Storage

Reiser4 File System Still In Development 317

Posted by timothy from the despite-it-all dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Reiser4 still hasn't been merged into the mainline Linux kernel, but it's still being worked on by a small group of developers following Hans Reiser being convicted for murdering his wife. Reiser4 was updated in September on SourceForge to work with the Linux 3.5 kernel and has been benchmarked against EXT4, Btrfs, XFS, and ReiserFS. Reiser4 loses out in most of the Linux file-system performance tests, has much stigma due to Hans Reiser, and Btrfs is surpassing it feature-wise, so does it have any future in Linux ahead?"
Earth

If Extinct Species Can Be Brought Back... Should We? 299

Posted by samzenpus from the gone-for-a-reason dept.
retroworks writes "Rebecca J. Rosen interviews experts in this edition of The Atlantic, to ask about the ethics and wisdom of using cloning, backbreeding, or genome editing. Over 90% of species ever to exist on earth are no more. The article ponders the moral and environmental challenges of humans reintroducing species which humans made extinct."
Patents

Apple and Samsung Both Get South Korea Bans 216

Posted by Soulskill from the can-we-do-this-in-every-country-until-they-stop-fighting dept.
New submitter Mackadoodledoo sends this quote from the BBC: "A South Korean court has ruled that Apple and Samsung both infringed each other's patents on mobile devices. The court imposed a limited ban on national sales of products by both companies covered by the ruling. It ruled that U.S.-based Apple had infringed two patents held by Samsung, while the Korean firm had violated one of Apple's patents. The sales ban will apply to Apple's iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4 and its tablets the iPad and iPad 2. Samsung products affected by the ban include its smartphone models Galaxy SI and SII and its Galaxy Tab and the Galaxy Tab 10.1 tablet PCs."
Businesses

Samsung Opens New Apple Store In Australia 154

Posted by samzenpus from the imitation-is-the-sincerest-form-of-flattery dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Samsung opened its first retail 'Experience' store in Sydney, Australia today and its design and ethos, even in the most generous light, bear an uncanny resemblance to those of the Apple Store. Now, to be fair, Samsung’s corporate color is blue and there are only so many ways you can design a retail experience. That said, it seems difficult to look at Samsung’s store and not immediately be reminded of Apple’s understated chain of brick-and-mortar retail stores which, at the time it debuted, was considered pioneering. And it’s awfully hard to imagine that the similarities between the two won’t further bolster Apple’s allegations that Samsung is a 'copyist.'" This comes on the heels of both companies claiming the other is "anticompetitive" during Tuesday’s summations in the Apple-Samsung trial.
Open Source

Dark Reign 2 Goes Open Source 41

Posted by timothy from the shhhh-now dept.
An anonymous reader writes "One of Activision's last RTS games, Dark Reign 2, has gone open source under the LGPL. Although the release by a former Pandemic Studios employee was some time ago, it had happened relatively silently. With the source code now available, it is hoped that online play that isn't dependent on WON servers will be implemented and possibly ports to other platforms."
Android

RIM CEO Says Company 'Seriously' Considered Switch To Android 283

Posted by Soulskill from the perhaps-reconsidering-now dept.
zacharye writes "RIM CEO Thorsten Heins's interview with the Telegraph on Thursday made headlines for his admission that the company can't keep up with Apple and Samsung without outside help. But there's another interesting nugget buried within the interview that didn't get quite as much attention: Heins says that RIM took a long, hard look at migrating to Android before deciding to plow forward with BlackBerry 10. Heins said, 'We took the conscious decision not to go Android. If you look at other suppliers’ ability to differentiate, there’s very little wiggle room. We looked at it seriously — but if you understand what the promise of BlackBerry is to its user base: it’s all about getting stuff done. Games, media, we have to be good at it, but we have to support those guys who are ahead of the game. Very little time to consume and enjoy content — if you stay true to that purpose you have to build on that basis. And if we want to serve that segment we can’t do it on a me-too approach.'"

Comment "Your" devices? (Score 1) 2

by Steve Max (#40868117) Attached to: Ubuntu for Android

AFAIK, you can't download and install it on your phone. A given carrier / manufacturer must talk to them, then they'll tailor the OS to a model, and then the users who buy that specific model can get Ubuntu. This is not a product for the end users, but a way for manufacturers to add value to their handsets.

Comment Nokia is dead (Score 5, Insightful) 105

by Steve Max (#40779349) Attached to: Nokia Aborts Meltemi Linux-Based Feature Phone

They had the dominant smartphone OS AND the dominant dumbphone OS. They had an experimental high end, Linux-based OS that was almost ready to retake the top spot in mindshare. They had the best development tools, which would allow one to target those 3 OSs simultaneously. And they were developing this new Linux-based dumbphone OS that would be created around those tools.

Now they have Windows Phone.
Cellphones

Samsung Galaxy S3 Stripped of Local Search 243

Posted by Soulskill from the it's-not-a-feature-it's-a-bug dept.
DavidGilbert99 writes "Ahead of a legal battle with Apple, Samsung has begun disabling the local Google search functionality on the international version of the Galaxy S3. This mean S3 owners will no longer be able to search contacts, messages, or other content stored locally on their phones using the in-built Google app. The interesting thing is that Apple has yet to sue Samsung over this feature in the EU or the UK and so it seems as if Samsung is being ultra cautious ahead of the the companies' big court date on Monday next."

Comment Re:What a bunch of bullshit (Score 2) 349

by Steve Max (#40741047) Attached to: World Population Grows Beyond 7 Billion

Actually, if this graph is to be trusted, it's very far from an exponential growth. You can see two breaks: one at about -5000, where the population started growing; and one at about 1700, where the growth rate increased dramatically. Also a hint for another, more recent break (~1950?), where the growth rate increased again. (Note for the mathematically impaired: an exponential growth means a straight line in a log graphic. You can divide this graphic in 3-4 different straight lines, so you have 3-4 different growth rates at different points in time)

Comment Re:For the last F*CKING time... (Score 1) 104

by Steve Max (#40735883) Attached to: Google Releases Jelly Bean Updates For the Nexus S

Updating a Galaxy is impossible (bar rooting) without OTA updates which are Carrier Specific. Should your carrier not be bothered with a phone/tablet that they offered 9 months ago you will never get updates regardless of whether every other carrier in the world has an update.

Actually, it's NOT impossible. Search for "Odin", and get the firmware files in .tar format from sources like SamMobile. You don't have to root at all to upgrade to the latest versions, even if they aren't offered for you as OTA, or through Kies.

Comment Re:If consumers didn't want big phones (Score 2) 660

by Steve Max (#40714095) Attached to: Don't Super-Size My Smartphone!

Asking for a 2.3'' touchscreen is nuts. I'm asking for a 4-4.3'' high end phone. Even a Galaxy SII (arguably the best of last year's dual cores) isn't 100% lag-free, the browser could be faster, the resolution isn't impressive anymore (they could use a DPI similar to the Galaxy Nexus, or even bigger, and have a qHD/720p screen on 4.3 inches). I want the phone to fit well in my pockets; when I use it, I can handle the "small" (which was considered "huge" only 2 years ago) screen. It's not like I can't see individual pixels on the current screen.

I'd rather have the same screen resolution with a high DPI in a reasonable (4-4.5'') screen size than with a low DPI in a huge (5-6'') screen.

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