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Linux

Submission + - An In-depth Look at Gentoo Linux (kernelnews.com)

Submitted by dhalley
dhalley writes: This is the first "review" of Gentoo Linux I have seen in recent times. Why don't other reviewers cover Gentoo Linux anymore ? Anyway, this article gives a good overview of how Portage works and even gives good advice and examples of how to configure Gentoo's USE Flags. It also gives compelling reasons why you may or may not want to give Gentoo Linux a try. Nice article, worth a read.
Desktops (Apple)

Submission + - Interview with Marc Laidlaw, writer at Valve (themacgamer.com)

Submitted by themacgamer
themacgamer writes: In a recent interview Marc Laidlaw, a writer at Valve, presents an earnest, matter-of-fact perspective to the relationship between story design and gameplay, which seems flavored by his experiences from Half-Life 2 and which illuminates moments of not-so-quite-serendipity when story design, art, level, and gameplay coalesce.
Open Source

Submission + - PA-DSS and Opensource Applications (wordpress.com)

Submitted by ducomputergeek
ducomputergeek writes: Payment Application Data Security Standard (PA-DSS) certification requirements is now 60 days away. After July 1st, 2010 merchants will be required to process credit card transactions with PA-DSS certified software or face fines and/or terminal of their merchant accounts by Visa. (Mastercard, Discover, Amex as well, but Visa is the one leading the charge). And from experience the author is dead on.

We forked an opensource Point-Of-Sale application because the original project flat out said they were not going to get PA-DSS certified and seemed to think that it some how did not apply to them. We currently going through the PA-DSS certification process. Technical changes to the software to meet PA-DSS needs were minimal. That only took a couple weeks. We are in month 5 of writing documentation and shortly going to have the on-site inspection.
AMD

Submission + - AMD's Leo six-core desktop platform analyzed

Submitted by J. Dzhugashvili
J. Dzhugashvili writes: Earlier this week, AMD introduced its new Leo enthusiast platform with six-core Phenom II processors starting at just $199. By now, reviews of not just the processors themselves, but also new motherboards based on the simultaneously launched AMD 890FX chipset have made their way onto the web. The verdict might surprise you. While Intel still wins from a power efficiency pesrpective, the new Phenom II X6s dethrone the famous Core i5-750 in value comparisons, and 890FX motherboards from Asus, Gigabyte, and MSI show AMD has a more compelling overall enthusiast platform than Intel. 890FX mobos don't just have more PCI Express lanes than their Intel X58 counterparts; they have built-in Serial ATA 6Gbps connectivity and excellent all-around performance, too. Could AMD be on its way to becoming an enthusiast darling at the high end once again?
The Internet

Submission + - HotelChatter's Annual Hotel WiFi Report 2010 (hotelchatter.com)

Submitted by
Ant
Ant writes: "HotelChatter's Annual Hotel WiFi Report 2010 — "This year marks HotelChatter's sixth annual hotel wifi report. Over the years we've documented the progression of hotel WiFi, from blatant disregard, to price-gouging for WiFi access, and reliable WiFi for loyalty program members, through guests taking matters in to their own hands with wireless laptop/notebook cards and 3G access. A year ago, we thought guest demand for free, reliable, hotel WiFi might just go away, thanks to 3G.

Well guess what? The demand for hotel WiFi has not gone away, quite the opposite, a growing number of hotel guests not only demand the hotel they book have proper wireless access but most will consider *not* staying at a hotel that can't meet their basic access needs. That's right, WiFi is a make or break amenity for many hotel guests that can sway booking decisions — and that isn't going away..."

Seen on Boing Boing."
Announcements

Submission + - All of Gopherspace Available for Download

Submitted by
An anonymous reader writes: Cory Doctorow tells us that in 2007, John Goerzen scraped every gopher site he could find (gopher was a menu-driven text-only precursor to the Web; I got my first online gig programming gopher sites). He saved 780,000 documents, totalling 40GB. Today, most of this is offline, so he's making the entire archive available as a .torrent file; the compressed data is only 15GB. Wanna host the entire history of a medium? Here's your chance!

Go get yourself a piece of pre-Internet history here!
Businesses

Submission + - Japan hopes for humanoid robot on moon by 2015 (examiner.com)

Submitted by JoshuaInNippon
JoshuaInNippon writes: A Japanese manufacturing cooperative named Astro-Technology SOHLA announced on April 27th that they are planning to create and send a two-legged humanoid robot to the moon, have it draw the Japanese flag on the surface, and hopefully then get it to return to the Earth, all by the year 2015. The group wants to inspire people, particularly in Japan, about space and generate confidence among SMEs to create low-cost space technology. While the idea may seem far-fetched to some, SOHLA had success in building a small low-cost satellite, named "Maido-1", which was launched into space aboard a Japanese H-IIA rocket in early 2009. The group also commented that they want to have their future humanoid robot hitch a ride to the moon with a surveying rover that JAXA is building.
Open Source

Submission + - 145 year-old book + open-source = Profit

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: A bizarre new physics eBook, created almost entirely using open-source software and public domain artwork, has rocketed to become the top-grossing book on the iPad store, netting its creators a fortune. Built by two hobbyist programmers, the book uses the original, 145-year old illustrations and text from Lewis Carroll's Alce in Wonderland (now public domain), but makes the characters literally bounce around the page — all this without using any copyrighted material! The absolutely brain-popping result can be seen in a video here. It looks like a game-changer. A simple yet original idea, well executed.

The two programmers, Ben Roberts and Chris Stevens, used the open-source cocos2d framework to create this hallucinogenic vision of how books may look in the future. It's also a great example of the power of open-source frameworks, even within closed systems, and the wealth of public domain material that is now available to adapt for modern devices.
Games

Submission + - Atari founder Bushnell is back at Atari (develop-online.net)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Atari founder Nolan Bushnell has rejoined his former publisher through appointment to its board of directors, while other board members such as Phil Harrison have now officially left the company.

Bushnell – a widely-applauded entrepreneur who helped establish the home console business – will join the company along with online business veteran Tom Virden. Those two appointments come as former PlayStation WWS boss Phil Harrison now officially resigns from the company, joined by outgoing board member David Gardner.
Linux

Submission + - Xen 4 is released

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: The long awaited release of Xen is now out and is now fault tolerant — it has the ability to sync 2 machines and automatically switch over to the other one if the main one goes down. eWeek and The Register have more information.

In related news, Linux.com has an interesting article on Containers vs. Hypervisors in Virtualization and Kernel News has a good rundown of the Best Virtualization Solutions for a Linux Desktop.
Linux

Submission + - Linux Desktop Virtualization Shootout - Kernel New (kernelnews.com)

Submitted by mgpeter
mgpeter writes: Virtualization has become an important aspect of the functionality of todays computers and computer Operating Systems. Many that are new to Linux or new to Virtualization often are overwhelmed by the number of Virtualization options the Linux Desktop has and often ask: "What Virtualization Solution is best suited for my needs".

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