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Unix

Submission + - Minix 3.2.1 Released (minix3.org)

Submitted by kthreadd
kthreadd writes: Minix, originally designed as an example for teaching operating system theory which was both inspiration and cause for the creation of Linux has just been released as version 3.2.1. Major new features include full support for shared libraries and improved support for USB devices such as keyboards, mice and mass storage devices. The system has received many performance improvements and several userland tools have been imported from NetBSD.
Google

Submission + - Will Apple Get Over Its 'Laptop Haphephobia'?

Submitted by theodp
theodp writes: Ridiculed as a very uncool Microsoft thing by Apple CEOs Steve Jobs and Tim Cook, the idea of touchscreens on laptops and desktops got a major boost this week from cool kid Google, who essentially called BS on 'Gorilla Arm Syndrome' FUD with the introduction of its high-end Pixel Chromebook. So, with Google Pixel validating Microsoft's touch strategy, will Apple be forced to get over its 'laptop haphephobia' and join the c'mon-c'mon-c'mon-c'mon-now-touch-me laptop club? Hey, 'vertical touch' could yet become a 50-year-old 'overnight' success!
Cloud

Submission + - Microsoft Azure total outage for secured storage (sfgate.com) 2

Submitted by rtfa-troll
rtfa-troll writes: There has been worldwide (all locations) total outage of storage in Microsoft's Azure cloud. Apparently "Microsoft unwittingly let an online security certificate expire Friday, triggering a worldwide outage in an online service that stores data for a wide range of business customers." according to the San Francisco Chronicle (also Yahoo and the Register). Perhaps too much time has been spent sucking up to storage vendros and not enough looking after the customers? This comes directly after a week long outage of one of Microsoft's SQL server components in Azure. This is not the first time that we have discussed major outages on Azure and probably won't be the last. It's certainly also not the first time that we have discussed Microsoft cloud systems making user's data unavailable.
The Military

Submission + - There is Plenty to Cut at the Pentagon 2

Submitted by
Hugh Pickens writes
Hugh Pickens writes writes: "William D. Hartung, director of the Arms and Security Project at the Center for International Policy, writes that although we have been bombarded with tales of woe about the potentially devastating impacts of cutting the Pentagon budget 8% under the sequester, examples of egregious waste and misplaced spending priorities at the Pentagon abound and one need look no further than the department's largest weapons program, the F-35 combat aircraft which has just been grounded again after a routine inspection revealed a crack on a turbine blade in the jet engine of an F-35 test aircraft in California. Even before it has moved into full-scale production, the plane has already increased in price by 75%, and it has so far failed to meet basic performance standards. By the Pentagon's own admission, building and operating three versions of the F-35 — one for the Air Force, one for the Navy and one for the Marines — will cost more than $1.4 trillion over its lifetime, making it the most expensive weapons program ever undertaken. And in an era in which aerial combat is of diminishing importance and upgraded versions of current generation US aircraft can more than do the job, it is not at all clear that we need to purchase more than 2,400 of these planes. Cutting the two most expensive versions of the F-35 will save over $60 billion in the next decade. But some say the F-35 program is too big to kill. The F-35 funnels business to a global network of contractors that includes Northrop Grumman and Kongsberg Gruppen ASA of Norway. It counts 1,300 suppliers in 45 states supporting 133,000 jobs — and more in nine other countries, according to Lockheed. “It’s got a lot of political protection,” says Winslow Wheeler, a director at the Project on Government Oversight’s Center for Defense Information in Washington. “In that environment, very, very few members of Congress are willing to say this is an unaffordable dog and we need to get rid of it.”"

Comment Re:How long until the PS4 is irrelevant? (Score 1) 587

by ulricr (#42962681) Attached to: Sony Announces the PS4
running an emulator on your pc is rrelevant because 1) it'd a terrible user experience, and not mainstream. console is about simple and plugged to your tv set 2) even if it became so, Sony loses money on the hardware, the business model is royalties on selling the games. 3) if your pirating the software anyway, see 2).. Sony wasnt making money with you buying the hardware

Comment Re:What the ??? (Score 1) 398

by ulricr (#42738281) Attached to: How <em>EVE Online</em> Dealt With a 3,000-Player Battle
using thread is not necessary to do multiprocessing and use multicore machines, it's just one approach, one that is seldom used on multi cpu servers, especially back then. the alternative is to use multiple concurrent processes, which has been the UNIX way to do things since the beginning and is still widely used today for scalable systems - especially those that will also use multiple separate machines that don't share RAM

Comment Re:Punishment to fit the crime (Score 1) 390

by ulricr (#42665423) Attached to: MIT Warned of a JSTOR Death Sentence Due To Swartz
he violated the JSTOR Eula against using bots AND he did that not to download the documents for his own personal use, but for the purpose of redistributing them outside of JSTOR. This is his own admission. it's totally irrelevant whether he had the rights to read the documents, he never had any intentions of reading 4 million documents. also, he crashed the computer in the process by overwhelming the server
Software

German City Says OpenOffice Shortcomings Are Forcing It Back To Microsoft 480

Posted by Soulskill from the can-of-worms dept.
The city of Freiburg, Germany adopted OpenOffice back in 2007, mostly replacing the Microsoft Office software it had been using previously. Now, an anonymous reader tips news that the city council is preparing to abandon OpenOffice and switch back. "'In the specific case of the use of OpenOffice, the hopes and expectations of the year 2007 are not fulfilled,' the council wrote, adding that continuing use OpenOffice will lead to performance impairments and aggravation and frustration on the part of employees and external parties. 'Therefore, a new Microsoft Office license is essential for effective operations,' they wrote. ... 'The divergence of the development community (LibreOffice on one hand Apache Office on the other) is crippling for the development for OpenOffice,' the council wrote, adding that the development of Microsoft Office is far more stable. Looking at the options, a one-product strategy with Microsoft Office 2010 is the only viable one, according to the council." The council was also disappointed that more municipalities haven't adopted OpenOffice in the meantime. Open source groups and developers criticized the move and encouraged the council to consider at least moving to a more up-to-date version of the office software suite.

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