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Linux

Adobe Released 64-bit Flash For Linux 274

Posted by samzenpus from the included-free-of-charge dept.
kai_hiwatari writes "Adobe has been taking quite a bashing from Linux supporters of late. First, there was the issue of them dropping AIR for Linux and then came the bashing because of the lack of updates on the experimental 64-bit Flash for Linux. Well, guess what! They have just released Flash 11 and it includes native 64-bit support for Linux as well. When they discontinued their experimental 64-bit Flash earlier this year, Adobe promised to release a 64-bit version of Flash for Linux when they release the next major version. They have kept that promise."
Technology

Submission + - Real-time text over Jabber/XMPP/Google Talk (realtimetext.org) 1

Submitted by
mdrejhon
mdrejhon writes: "Geeks who miss the UNIX 'talk' days, have a new modern savior: XMPP.org has published the new XEP-0301 Real-Time Text standard, which allows streaming text that is continuously transmitted as it is typed or otherwise composed. It allows conversational use of text, where people interactively converse with each other."
Australia

Telstra Fears LulzSec Attacks, Hesitates On Internet Filter 188

Posted by timothy from the well-wouldn't-you dept.
After the earlier report that some of Australia's largest telcos (and ISPs) were to start censoring internet traffic based on a blacklist, rdnetto writes with the news that "Telstra is now hesitating to deploy the internet filter it had previously promised to implement, fearing reprisals from online vigilantes." The linked article specifically names LulzSec as the source of such reprisals.
Robotics

Volkswagon Shows Off Self-Driving Auto-Pilot For Cars 140

Posted by Soulskill from the car,-take-me-to-white-castle dept.
thecarchik writes "The future of driving, in major cities at least, is looking more and more likely to be done by high-tech computers rather than actual people, at least if the latest breakthroughs in self-driving vehicle technology mean anything. Internet search engine giant Google has logged some 140,000 miles with its self-driving Toyota Prius fleet and Audi has had similar success with its run of autonomous cars. Now, Volkswagen has presented its Temporary Auto Pilot technology. Monitored by a driver, the technology can allow a car to drive semi-automatically at speeds of up to 80 mph on highways."
Printer

From Austria, the World's Smallest 3D Printer 120

Posted by timothy from the make-it-with-a-makerbot dept.
fangmcgee writes "Printers which can produce three-dimensional objects have been available for years. However, at the Vienna University of Technology, a printing device has now been developed which is much smaller, lighter and cheaper than ordinary 3D-printers. With this kind of printer, everyone could produce small, tailor-made 3D-objects at home, using building plans from the internet — and this could save money for expensive custom-built spare parts."
Cellphones

White iPhone 4 Coming Today 195

Posted by samzenpus from the black-tulip dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Initially, the white iPhone 4 will be available in 28 countries including the US, UK, Australia, China, Japan, and Italy. It will be available for a suggested retail price of $199 (US) for the 16GB model and $299 (US) for the 32GB model with a new two year agreement through the Apple Store, AT&T and Verizon Wireless stores (as rumored earlier) and select Apple Authorized Resellers."

Comment hard to even get a provider (Score 1) 406

by brezel (#35880960) Attached to: IPv6 Traffic Remains Minuscule

i don't know how it looks in other parts of the world but here in austria it is close to impossible to even find a provider that will offer you a routable ipv6 address. i checked the biggest providers available in my area and the only thing i could get would have been a tunnel.
Microsoft

MS Removes HTTPS From Hotmail For Troubled Nations 147

Posted by timothy from the well-that'll-sure-end-their-troubles dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Microsoft has removed HTTPS from Hotmail for many US-embargoed or otherwise troubled countries. The current list of countries for which they no longer enable HTTPS is known to include Bahrain, Morocco, Algeria, Syria, Sudan, Iran, Lebanon, Jordan, Congo, Myanmar, Nigeria, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, and Kyrgyzstan. Journalists and others whose lives may be in danger due oppressive net monitoring in those countries may wish to use HTTPS everywhere and are also encouraged to migrate to non-Microsoft email providers, like Yahoo and Google." Update: 03/26 17:08 GMT by T : Reader Steve Gula adds the caveat that "Yahoo! only does HTTPS for authentication unless you're a paying member."
Science

Submission + - Christchurch Earthquake: it can happen here (ibtimes.com)

Submitted by RedEaredSlider
RedEaredSlider writes: Ask most Americans where they expect an earthquake, and you'll likely hear about California. Missouri isn't usually on the list, but a major tremor would be far more devastating there because nobody expects it. ...
In California, earthquakes are common enough that many people remember being in one. The Loma Prieta quake, which killed 63 people in the San Francisco Bay region, was in 1989, and the Northridge earthquake, which killed 33, was in 1994. But the last big earthquake in the New York City area was in 1884, a magnitude 5 tremor that damaged homes but did not result in deaths. Williams notes that the harder, denser rock in the northeastern U.S. carries the energy of earthquakes much farther and faster than on the west coast. That means a quake of the same intensity as the one in Christchurch — magnitude 6 or more — would be far more dangerous
Intel

Intel Unveils Next Gen Itanium Processor 169

Posted by CmdrTaco from the who-doesn't-like-faster dept.
MojoKid writes "This week, at ISSCC Intel unveiled its next-generation Itanium processor, codenamed Poulson. This new design is easily the most significant update to Itanium Intel has ever built and could upset the current balance of power at the highest-end of the server / mainframe market. It may also be the Itanium that fully redeems the brand name and sheds the last vestiges of negativity that have dogged the chip since it launched ten years ago. Poulson incorporates a number of advances in its record-breaking 3.1 Billion transistors. It's socket-compatible with the older Tukwila processors and offers up to eight cores and 54MB of on-die memory."

Comment the problem with linux on the corporate desktop (Score 1) 901

by brezel (#35277660) Attached to: German Foreign Office Going Back To Windows

is maintainability. we have around 150 desktops here where i work (all servers except one run linux) and we were thinking about migrating the desktops to linux. i have used linux exclusively as a desktop OS for the last 8 years (also at work, i am a programmer), but i have to agree that it's just not possible to run and maintain a mid- to large scale client network of linux desktop computers. here's why:

1.) linux aims at providing the most possible freedom to its users
this is what you don't want when you administer hundreds of computers. you want the possibility to restrict the user as much as possible, so that they don't break everything all the time and require your assistance.

2.) AD, logonscripts, group policies, authentication
again the same story. linux is built from ground up to fulfill the user's wishes, not the admin's. just take for example some very basic thing like browser-settings. you cannot force firefox, konqueror, opera or whatever to use a proxy server while inhibiting the users to change it themselves. (yes transparent proxying but that sucks). it looks like chrome is trying to make something like that possible with the policies.d directory, but this is not widely available. the whole configuration-concept of unix-based programs is to load system-wide settings first, and let the user override them. windows' concept is exactly the other way around, which is why it is so successful in companies.

what is also done very well on windows is the logon process. no matter if the PDC is there you can still use your computer. did you ever try that on linux with /home mounted via NFS? impossible. kerberos and ldap auth are a step in the right direction on the server side, but client support for these things is poor at best.

3.) MS office
this point can be illustrated ad infinitum, so i won't go into details, but eveyone who actually works with office documents that contains at least macros, pivots or charts will agree that openoffice/libreoffice is not usable there, as soon as you need to be compatible with clients. MS access is another story of its own.

4.) printing
cups has improved a lot over the years, but there are still lots of specific printer features that you cannot use if you use cups. this is why we have exactly 1 windows server. especially larger printers (in the 3-10k euro area) work only half-assed via cups. either you cannot do accounting or page stats, or you cannot privilege jobs or whatever.

5.) ACL
there is no possibility to set ACLs via a gui on linux. also posix acls suck. i am very happy to see that nfs4 acls are more and more adopted, but there is still a long way to go until they will be widely available. you can just not explain some sales guy or client service lady how to use setfacl to share a document with a different group via commandline, when all they have to do in windows is check a checkbox.

it breaks my heart to say this as a long time linux user and open source developer, but linux on the corporate desktop is an illusion. not because linux is bad, but because the concept is fundamentally incompatible with what administrators of hundreds if clients need.

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