67330145
submission
sfcrazy writes:
Past few weeks were abuzz with stories that the EU parliament is planning to break-up Google to severe its search from products. The story sent a wave of chill across the pond and worried us of Europe’s decision, which appear to make no sense at all. It turns out that the story was a spin created by the anti-Google lobby to spread FUD against the company and the EU. We are not certain who are the lead actors but there are some companies who invest quite a lot in creating FUD against competitors.
67097939
submission
sfcrazy writes:
Chinese phone maker Meizu and Canonical, the parent company of Ubuntu signed an agreement yesterday. There is no press statement by the two companies. All we have is a Facebook post by Meizu which says: "Here is the news about Ubuntu version Meizu phone! Meizu and Canonical have signed a strategic agreement together on Nov. 25th in Meizu HQ. What do you expect from the cooperation?"
66800059
submission
sfcrazy writes:
Jolla's tablet campaign on Indiego has crossed the desired $380,00 goal and hit the half million mark with $731,764 raised. While there are Firefox OS and Android, Sailfish like Ubuntu Touch, is the only Linux based OS which can install and run traditional Linux applications. So Jolla is really going to be exciting tablet for Linux users.
66756277
submission
sfcrazy writes:
Nokia surprised everyone when it announced the N1 Android tablet during the Slush conference in Finland, today. There is a twist in the story though: This is not a Nokia device.
Nokia doesn’t have a device unit anymore: it sold its Devices and Services business to Microsof, in 2013. N1 is made by Chinese contract manufacturing company Foxconn, which also manufactures the iPhone and the iPad.
But Nokia’s relationship with Foxconn is different from Apple’s. You buy iDevices from Apple, not Foxconn; you call Apple for support, not Foxconn. You never deal with Foxconn.
In the case of N1, Nokia will be nowhere in the picture. Foxconn will be handling the sales, distribution and customer care for the device. Nokia is licensing the brand, the industrial design, Z Launcher software layer and IP on a running royalty basis to Foxconn.
66453165
submission
66153569
submission
sfcrazy writes:
In a nutshell openSUSE 13.2 is an impressive release with many new features, such as Snapshots, systemd and Btrfs, for users. openSUSE has become such a reliable distribution that it is hard to find any flaw in it. It continues to get better, more polished with each release.
66105275
submission
sfcrazy writes:
Mozilla, the organization behind the open source browser Firefox, is launching a brand new web browser targeted specifically at developers. As the market share of Firefox browser is falling, with Google Chrome taking over, Mozilla seems to be looking at new market segments. They launched an open source mobile operating system Firefox OS, then announced an OS for Raspberry Pi, called Foxberry Pi, they are working on a Chromecast like streaming stick and now they are building a browser for developers. The browser seems to be a by-product of what all Mozilla has been doing with Firefox and Firefox OS. They have created a lot of tools to enable developers create around Firefox. These tools, if enabled, make the consumer browser bloated and a bit complicated for casual users to use, at the same time making it hard for a developer to use with all those bells and whistles for a consumer. Taking those tools and package them in an in-house fork of Firefox makes a lot of sense for consumers, developers and Mozilla.
65946023
submission
sfcrazy writes:
LibreOffice is enjoying some serious adoption. CloudOn, a US-based company has launched a document editor for Apple’s iPad which is based of free and open source LibreOffice. The company says in a press statement that the app offers a, “new experience for creating and editing mobile documents with a gesture-first doc editor that removes all the clutter, overload and lag of yesterday’s tools. Now people can intuitively create and collaborate on thoughts, ideas and information in ways that fits with the way they work.”
65943581
submission
sfcrazy writes:
Kubuntu, one of the official Ubuntu flavours, that tries to offer the vanilla Plasma experience has decided to switch to Plasma 5 as the default desktop environment for 15.04. Jonathan Riddell, the project leader of Kubuntu, says that the development version will be called Kubuntu Vivid.
65863741
submission
sfcrazy writes:
ownCloud packages on Ubuntu repositories were pointing at older, insecure packages. When an ownCloud developer approached Canonical developers he was told that packages can't be removed as its maintained by the community and unless someone steps up and do something older, insecure packages will remain on the server. Which is quite a shocking approach leaving user vulnerable just because no one is there is 'remove' the insecure packages. The ownCloud devel was a bit surprised with this approach. Finally Kubuntu developer stepped up and fixed the problem.
65757779
submission
sfcrazy writes:
The two projects will merge to become a single release. The release will follow the development cycle of Factory but take the more appealing name ‘Tumbleweed’. Though Factory won’t disappear; it will remain the name of the development process where openSUSE’s new developments are integrated. It will become a ‘development project’ for creating the ‘user-ready’ Tumbleweed.
65544981
submission
sfcrazy writes:
We may finally see the patent reform that this country dearly needs, thanks to the nomination of Michelle Lee as the next head of the United States Patents and Trademark Office (USPTO). Michelle Lee is an ex-Googler and a vocal supporter of patent reforms.
65513123
submission
sfcrazy writes:
It seems to be the beginning of the end of the cable television in the US. Yesterday entertainment giant HBO announced they will start offering Internet subscription without requiring any cable subscription. Today CBS, yet another leading TV network, announced their move to the Internet. The most interesting aspect this ‘shift’ is net neutrality. With more TV networks moving to the web, how will it affect the net neutrality? Will they sign up deals with ISPs, similar to Netflix, and weaken net neutrality to dismiss competitors or will they become an ally and lobby for the net neutrality? HBO is owned by Time Warner, the cable company so it was not surprising when Time Warner CEO supported the idea of fast lane and 'paying' ISPs for content. Is it bad news for the internet that traditional cable companies are going online?
65313625
submission
sfcrazy writes:
Netflix can be run on Linux now without any tweaks or work-around what so ever. I just noticed it when I installed a new Ubuntu system (14.10), with Chrome Beta 39.x and out of curiosity opened Netflix. It worked flawlessly. No agent switcher required anymore.
65296849
submission
sfcrazy writes:
The openSUSE community has just announced the release of the first ‘release candidate’ of openSUSE 13.2. According to Kostas Koudaras of openSUSE, “This previous Beta release was a blast with almost 10.000 downloads. The community responded to the call and we had lot of eyes looking for bugs in openSUSE 13.2 Beta1. Many of them have been already squashed and openSUSE 13.2 Release Candidate 1 is here to prove it.”
