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Submission + - Most Android tablets fail at GPL compliance (networkworld.com)

Submitted by polar_bear` on Thursday December 30, 2010 @09:10PM

polar_bear` writes: Red Hat's Matthew Garrett has been checking to see who's naughty and nice. Most Android tablet vendors? Naughty, naughty, naughty, when it comes to GPL compliance. The current crop of Android tablets fails miserably when it comes to GPL compliance, with most of the vendors flouting the GPL and failing to ship source.

Submission + - Here Comes the Holodeck (technewsworld.com)

Submitted by bakercom1 on Friday November 19, 2010 @12:14PM

bakercom1 writes: recent breakthroughs bring holograms into reality!

Submission + - RIM's Jim Balsillie: Mobile is All About The Web (oreilly.com)

Submitted by blackbearnh on Tuesday November 02, 2010 @01:05PM

blackbearnh writes: There's been a lot of noise recently about which mobile devices will support what development environments, and whether the iPhone's lockout of Flash hurts Apple more, or Adobe. But Jim Balsillie, co-CEO of Research in Motion (you know, the Blackberry guys...) is betting the house that HTML5 and the mobile web is really where the future lies. In an interview promoting the Web 2.0 Summit, Balsillie talks about RIM's new emphasis on the web, what the reemergence of Microsoft in the mobile market might mean, and if cell phones and tablets need to converge. "You start asking the question: If you're carrying around a tablet, how much performance do you want in the smartphone? Because you want to do a certain set of tasks really well, but you don't want the smartphone to be a proxy for a tablet-type job because now you've got the tablet. The interplay is uncertain."

Submission + - GNOME's executive director resigns, joins Mozilla (networkworld.com)

Submitted by Julie188 on Tuesday November 02, 2010 @12:31PM

Julie188 writes: Stormy Peters is stepping down as GNOME's executive director and heading to Mozilla to work on developer engagement. Peters says she is leaving the GNOME Foundation to join Mozilla and work on "pushing freedom on the Web as much as we've pushed for it on the desktop." GNOME is in rough waters these days, what with Ubuntu's plans to move away from it in favor of its own Unity UI and the endless delays on GNOME 3.0.

Submission + - Fedora 14 Released (fedoraproject.org)

Submitted by TitusC3v5 on Tuesday November 02, 2010 @12:24PM

TitusC3v5 writes: Fedora 14, also known as Laughlin, is now available. KDE, XFCE, and other versions are available here.

Submission + - Android Code May Be at Risk (esecurityplanet.com)

Submitted by graychase on Tuesday November 02, 2010 @11:56AM

graychase writes: Writing for eSecurityPlanet.com, Sean Michael Kerner reports: "Google's Android mobile operating system may include a number of high-risk software flaws, according to a new report from static code analysis vendor Coverity. Coverity detected 359 software defects in the Android Froyo kernel that is used in the HTC Droid Incredible smartphone. Of those defects, Coverity has identified 88 defects or about 25 percent of the total flaw count, as being high-risk and potentially leading to security risk for Android users."

Andy Chou, Chief Scientist and co-founder of Coverity is quoted as saying, "We found that the Android kernel had about half the defect density that you would expect, compared to other industry average codebases of the same size. What that means is that a defect density of one defect per approximately one thousand lines of code is industry average, according to our measurements – for the Android kernel, the defect density was about 0.47."

Submission + - Fedora 14 Reviewed: Advanced, And Not For Wimps (itworld.com)

Submitted by jfruhlinger on Monday November 01, 2010 @04:00PM

jfruhlinger writes: Remember the days when being a Linux user was like being part of a select priesthood — arcane knowledge needed, but great rewards? Steven Vaughan-Nichols has tested out Fedora 14, and that was how it went. No Ubuntu-style handholding, but some powerful new features.

Ubuntu Moves Away From GNOME 514

Posted by CmdrTaco on Monday October 25, 2010 @11:00AM from the end-of-an-era dept.

An anonymous reader writes "It's official: Ubuntu has, with its ironically named 'Unity' interface, chosen to move away from GNOME for Ubuntu Natty Narwhal. Or at least move away from GNOME Shell. Mark Shuttleworth says that Ubuntu will still be 'GNOME,' even if it's not using GNOME Shell. Do you agree?"

Submission + - Ubuntu moves away from GNOME (networkworld.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 25, 2010 @10:15AM

An anonymous reader writes: It's official: Ubuntu has, with its ironically named "Unity" interface, chosen to move away from GNOME for Ubuntu Natty Narwhal. At least move away from GNOME Shell. Mark Shuttleworth says that Ubuntu will still be "GNOME," even if it's not using GNOME Shell. Do you agree?

Submission + - Adding a Gaming Layer to the Real World (oreilly.com)

Submitted by blackbearnh on Thursday September 23, 2010 @12:30PM

blackbearnh writes: Anyone who's ever seen a LARP (Live Action Role Playing) run at a science fiction convention know that you can take the real world and add a game on top of it. Kevin Slavin has been doing the same thing, but one a much bigger scale. He has spent the last decade designing "big games", games that are played out over entire cities using the existing landscape as part of the story. In an interview running today, he talks about the attraction of big games, why seemingly 'mindless' games like FarmVille have value, and why virtual realities like Second Life are going about it wrong. "One thing that Second Life and the movement toward augmented reality have in common is that they both believe the pleasure of a game and the meaning of a game and the experience of a game rest primarily in the optics. But I think that there's a fundamental misunderstanding about what makes games fun. Chess wouldn't be more fun if you had perfectly rendered kings and actual castles. I think one of the best examples of this is Tamagotchi. The creature itself was maybe eight pixels by eight pixels and black and white. What made it feel real wasn't that it looked real; it was that it acted real. It could articulate demands upon you that your eye itself couldn't do. In Tamagotchi versus Second Life, I'll go with Tamagotchi."

Submission + - The real truth about Oracle's "new" Kernel (networkworld.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 21, 2010 @09:50AM

An anonymous reader writes: Yesterday at OpenWorld Oracle announced a "new" Enterprise kernel for its so-called Unbreakable Linux. What's the real truth? The company is simply sticking a 2.6.32-based kernel on top of its re-branded Red Hat Enterprise Linux clone and trying to spin it as a new and innovative development.

Submission + - Bdale Garbee gives beard for Tasmanian Devils (ostatic.com) 2

Submitted by

polar_bear`

on Thursday January 22, 2009 @11:35PM

polar_bear` writes: "Linus Torvalds took garden shears to Bdale Garbee today to help save the Tasmanian Devil. Garbee's beard went up for auction at Linux.conf.au 2009 Wednesday night, and he went under the razor right after lunch today to entertain the LCA crowd and raise awareness about the plight of the endangered Tasmanian Devil."

Submission + - Perl PR: There's more than one way to do it! (zdnet.com)

Submitted by

polar_bear`

on Monday December 29, 2008 @11:32AM

polar_bear` writes: "The Perl Foundation took a shot at getting some coverage of the recent move to Git for Perl 5 development, but they'd have been better off saving the $80 bugs and sending a few emails instead. As all good Perl Hackers know — there's more than one way to do it, and it doesn't have to cost a dime."

Submission + - KDE 4.0 Beta 1 Released (kde.org)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 02, 2007 @04:22PM

An anonymous reader writes: August 2, 2007 (The INTERNET). The KDE Community is happy to announce the immediate availability of the first Beta release for KDE 4.0. This release marks the beginning of the integration process which will bring the powerful new technologies included in the now frozen KDE 4 libraries to the applications. Almost two months after the foundations of KDE 4 have been laid with the first alpha, KDE enters the stage of a full freeze of the library interface. From now on, the applications will focus on integrating the new technology refined during the last months, and the library developers will try to fix all bugs found during this process. No new applications will enter the official KDE modules and usability and accessibility work is of course an ongoing process. In the following weeks KDE developers will be able to add features to their applications until the next beta is released and the application features will be frozen as well.

Submission + - Apple May Track IPod Thieves & You (msn.com)

Submitted by

Ryan N. Kamfolt - ClickAway

on Thursday August 02, 2007 @03:21PM

Ryan N. Kamfolt - ClickAway writes: "Apple may begin implementing software in its I-Tunes suite to track serial numbers of I-Pods and compare them to a stolen I-Pod database. Due to the worlds most successful and popular product being on the #1 most stolen items list. This may alert the local police to come knocking on your door, if "Your" I-Pod is in question. Weather it be stolen or legit, people are not taking this to heart kindly at all. With the right to privacy walls closing in on us ever so fast, this seems to be another push to take our privacy rights away even more, or is it? Those who have had their I-Pods stolen love the idea. Others are not so happy about the idea. Some privacy right advocates have suggested implementing I-Pods or I-Phones with owner ID verification, such as a password or other forms of verification that must be entered into the devices before they will take a charge or allow you to place songs on the device. Or offer a service that is apart of Apple iCare, which allows users who feel they may become a victim of theft, to join this database, to further protect them in the even their I-Pod is stolen."

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