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AMD

Hidden Debug Mode Found In AMD Processors 154

Posted by timothy from the sooper-seekrit dept.
An anonymous reader writes "A hidden (and hardware password protected, by means of required special values in processor registers) debug mode has been found in AMD processors, and documented by a reverse engineer called Czernobyl on the RCE Forums community today. It enables powerful hardware debugging features long longed for by reverse engineers, such as hardware data-aware conditional breakpoints, and direct hardware 'page guard'-style breakpoints. And the best part is, it's sitting right there in your processor already, just read the details and off you go with the debugging ninja powers!"
Operating Systems

Can Windows, OS X and Fedora All Work Together? 375

Posted by timothy from the like-to-buy-the-world-a-coke dept.
greymond writes "In my ever growing job responsibilities, I've recently been tasked with documenting our organization's IT infrastructure, primarily focusing on cost analysis of our hardware leases and software purchases. This is something that has never been done in our organization before and while it's moving along slowly, I'm already seeing some places where we could make improvements. Once completed, I see this as an opportunity to bring up the topic of migrating the majority of our office from Windows 7 to Linux and from Exchange to Gmail. However, this would result in three departments each running a different system: Windows, OS X, and most likely Fedora. Has anyone worked in or tried to set up an environment like this? What roadblocks did you run into? Is this really feasible or should I just continue to focus on the cutbacks that don't require OS changes? (The requirement for having three different systems is that the vast majority of our administration, who rely solely on an install of Microsoft Windows, Word and Excel, are savvy enough that if they came in and saw Gnome running on Fedora with Open Office they'd pick it up fast. However, our marketing department is composed entirely of Apple systems, and the latest Adobe Creative Suite doesn't seem to all work under Wine. The biggest issue is with the Sales department though, as they rely on a proprietary sales platform that is Windows only — and generally, sales personal give the biggest push back when it comes to organizational changes.)"
Input Devices

Kinect Hacked, Adafruit Bounty Won 262

Posted by samzenpus from the what-took-so-long dept.
scharkalvin writes "Adafruit has announced a winner to their bounty for an open source driver for the MS Kinect. From the article: 'We have verified that it works and have a screenshot from another member in the hacking community (thanks qdot!) who was also able to use the code. Congrats to Hector! He's running all this on a Linux laptop (his code works with OpenGL) and doesn't even have an Xbox!'" We talked about Adafruit's bounty yesterday.
Apple

Submission + - Cable companies screwing us again (businessinsider.com) 1

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: If Business Insider http://www.businessinsider.com/apple-itv-metered-broadband-2010-8 is too be believed, cable companies are frothing at the mouth just waiting to pull the trigger on charging more for giving less. They want to use the excuse that Hulu, YouTube, et al are straining their systems? How can watching one video on Netflix use more bandwidth than the 60 TV channels I receive simultaneously 24 hours a day, whether I watch them or not. It's all coming through my coax. Can the internet side of that cable really put more strain on Comcast?
Software

Submission + - Leap Seconds May Be Eliminated (itworld.com)

Submitted by itwbennett
itwbennett writes: The International Telecommunications Union is seeking input through October on a potentially revised definition of Coordinated Universal Time that does not include leap seconds, an idea that has been under consideration for the past decade. Since their introduction in 1971, leap seconds have proved problematic for at least a few software programs. The leap second added on to the end of 2008, for instance, caused Oracle cluster software to reboot unexpectedly in some cases. Some computer professionals argue, however, that abolishing the leap second at this point will just cause another set of difficulties. The revision 'would cause more trouble than it naively claims to circumvent,' wrote programmer Rob Seaman, on the Leap Seconds mailing list.
Open Source

Submission + - Caanoo Released - Open Source Homebrew Console

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Gamepark have released their update to the GP2X Wiz, which is a Linux based homebrew handheld console. The Caanoo is a CPU ARM9 533MHz + 3D GPU powered console with 128megs of ram (full specs) which should be good for Playstation and Nintendo 64 Emulation on the handheld. The File Archive for the Caanoo is open and taking homebrew submissions and already the likes of Quake and more are being ported to the console. Sites like DCEmu carry the latest news on the console for those interested.
The Almighty Buck

Submission + - Pay the builder every time you sell your house (cnn.com) 5

Submitted by innocent_white_lamb
innocent_white_lamb writes: "You don't pay your builder every time you sell your house" comes up in almost every discussion of intellectual property, royalties and the like.

New houses are now being sold with a condition that you must pay the builder 1% of the purchase price every time the house is sold over the next 99 years.
Google

Submission + - Google Tests 'Instant Search' (computerworld.com)

Submitted by pickens
pickens writes: Computerworld reports that Google has been testing an instant search feature using ajax so that search results start popping up as the user types, changing dynamically as the user continues typing. According to industry observers the test is being run on a limited basis and that there's no telling whether the experiment will become a new feature offered to all Google users. Yankee Group analyst Zeus Kerravala notes that an instant search feature would put a lot of strain on Google's system. "I think it would initially [add a lot of system stress] so they might face some short-term pain to get to the longer-term gain," Kerravala says. "Google has built out a tremendously robust infrastructure. And my guess is that with their resources, though, if [the new feature] became a big hit, other search engines would have a hard time keeping up."
GNU is Not Unix

Submission + - Why GNU Grep Is Fast As Comapre To BSD Version

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: There is some flamage currently going on regarding BSD grep vs GNU grep performance. Mike Haertel, the original author of GNU grep added some interesting information regarding its performance — "#1 trick: GNU grep is fast because it AVOIDS LOOKING AT EVERY INPUT BYTE. #2 trick: GNU grep is fast because it EXECUTES VERY FEW INSTRUCTIONS FOR EACH BYTE that it *does* look at. Moreover, GNU grep AVOIDS BREAKING THE INPUT INTO LINES. Looking for newlines would slow grep down by a factor of several times, because to find the newlines it would have to look at every byte!
Games

Steam Not Coming To Linux 520

Posted by CmdrTaco from the put-yer-pants-back-on dept.
dkd903 writes "A rumor has been going around for about four months that Valve was working on a Linux version of Steam and this had a lot of people in the Linux community very excited. But, Valve has now officially killed the rumor. And it is not what people wants to hear – there is no Linux version of Steam in development. Doug Lombardi, the Marketing VP of Valve Corporation, in an interview, has put an end to all the rumors by saying that they are not working on Steam for Linux right now."
Games

Submission + - Confirmed: Steam Not Coming To Linux (digitizor.com) 5

Submitted by dkd903
dkd903 writes: A rumor has been going around for about four months that Valve was working on a Linux version of Steam and this had a lot of people in the Linux community very excited. But, Valve has now officially killed the rumor. And it is not what people wants to hear – there is no Linux version of Steam in development. Doug Lombardi, the Marketing VP of Valve Corporation, in an interview, has put an end to all the rumors by saying that they are not working on Steam for Linux right now.
Linux

Submission + - Peppermint Ice - The new cloud-oriendted distro (geekportal.co.cc)

Submitted by iqrash
iqrash writes: Ever since the release of Peppermint Ice, the main question has been that can it do the same magic for desktop PCs as Jolicloud and Google Chrome OS are doing for netbooks.ProsSuper fast operating system. Attractive shortcuts using the ice applet. ConsNot enough features to be marked as cloud oriented operating system. Cloud computing has emerged as a big bang, and cloud-oriented Linux distributions are much talked about these days. Peppermint Ice is a name that will be talked about for years...
Debian

Submission + - Distributed secure networking closer yet 1

Submitted by paxcoder
paxcoder writes: FreedomBox, a convenient personal server may be a step closer to reality than skeptics imagine. While Diaspora is arguably vaporware at this point, another distributed social network project, GNU social has recently hit alpha (preview) and as announced by Tim Berners-Lee(!), is now organizing a theme design contest.

In the same time, Debian is considering a special distro that would run on 'plug computers' for which some of the goals, along with the wiki and the mailing list have been set at Debconf 10, as early as 3 days after the now-famous Moglen's talk (first link). At present stage, developers are still proposing hardware and software which will make FreedomBox a reality, and particular attention is now being given to yet another GNU project, GNUnet, a versatile secure peer-oriented networking framwork.
Ubuntu

Submission + - Ubuntu Vibes: Play Hundreds of Free Games in Ubunt (blogspot.com)

Submitted by dartttt
dartttt writes: All these games are classic games, the one we used to play in 80's and 90's. Some people may find them too obsolete but they are meant for old school fun. These games are free to download and play. Watch the video for a quick tutorial and you will be ready for some nostalgia.The games run under dosbox. But you don't have to use command line. A simple GUI will make it easy.
Ubuntu

Submission + - Linux Distribution Popularity Trends Plotted (linuxtrends.com)

Submitted by __aajbyc7391
__aajbyc7391 writes: In order to get a sense of the popularity of various Linux distributions over the past several years, LinuxTrends entered their names into Google’s search insights tool and grabbed images of the resulting graphs. The graphs display some fascinating trends and bode well for the future of Linux, particularly its ability to adapt to changing requirements and opportunities. What’s especially noteworthy is that Android is the first Linux spin to take on a life of its own within consumer devices. It’s certainly not the first use of Linux as an OS for devices; what’s unique, however, is that it’s the first branded Linux-based OS to be widely marketed to consumers.

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