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Red Hat Software

Fedora 8 A Serious Threat to Ubuntu 334

Posted by CmdrTaco from the they-sure-couldn't-talk-more-about-themselves dept.
Tubs writes "According to MadPenguin.org's latest article, Fedora 8 from Red Hat is a serious threat to Ubuntu. The author writes, "I was never that swept up with past releases of Fedora. There was nothing compelling about it. But for the first time, I cannot help but feel that the Fedora team has been spoon fed an extra helping of Wheaties, which has put them into overdrive with their accessibility efforts."
Security

Schneier On the War On the Unexpected 405

Posted by kdawson from the security-theater-on-an-escalator dept.
jamie found this essay by Bruce Schneier, The War on the Unexpected. (It originally appeared in Wired but this version has all the links.) "We've opened up a new front on the war on terror. It's an attack on the unique, the unorthodox, the unexpected; it's a war on different. If you act different, you might find yourself investigated, questioned, and even arrested — even if you did nothing wrong, and had no intention of doing anything wrong. The problem is a combination of citizen informants and a CYA attitude among police that results in a knee-jerk escalation of reported threats... After someone reports a 'terrorist threat,' the whole system is biased towards escalation and CYA instead of a more realistic threat assessment... If you ask amateurs to act as front-line security personnel, you shouldn't be surprised when you get amateur security."
Displays

Bridgestone Shows Off Ultra-Thin, Full-Color e-Paper 177

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the magazines-of-the-future dept.
Bridgestone, the company which debuted the "world's thinnest" sheet of two-color e-paper last year, has turned around and delivered a new version which is capable of displaying over four thousand colors. "In case that wasn't enough, the company is also touting what it calls the "world's largest full color e-paper that is A3 size, which is equivalent to a 21.4-inch screen." As you'd expect, the latter is expected to be used solely for advertising and could hit the market as early as next year, while the former technology is set to be commercially available in 2009."
Portables

Replacing a Thinkpad? 902

Posted by kdawson from the swimming-against-the-race-to-the-bottom dept.
An anonymous reader writes "As a very happy Thinkpad T20 user (still working after 7 years), I always planned on replacing it with another Thinkpad T-series. However, Thinkpads are now produced by Lenovo, a Chinese company, and I can't quite bear to buy Chinese while the Burmese military are shooting at monks with the Chinese Government as their biggest backer. Maybe this is silly, as whatever I buy is likely to be made (at least in part) in China... but still, what are my options for something as well built as the Thinkpad T-series?"
Windows

The Downsides of Software as Service 326

Posted by Zonk from the with-a-little-ranting-to-boot dept.
JustinBrock writes "Dvorak's article yesterday, entitled Don't Trust the Servers, argues that the danger of software as a service was highlighted when 'the WGA [Windows Genuine Advantage] server outage hit on Friday evening and was finally repaired on Saturday. It was down for 19 long hours.' The whole fiasco raises an interesting perspective on the software as a service 'fetish'. Dvorak highlights it hypothetically: What if the timeline were reversed, and we were moving from online apps to the desktop. Hear his prophecy of the marketing: 'You can image the advertising push. "Now control your own data!" "Faster processing power now." "Cheaper!" "Everything at your fingertips." "No need to worry about network outages." "Faster, cheaper, more reliable." On and on. I can almost hear the marketing types brag about how much better "shrink wrap" software is than the flaky online apps. The best line for the emergence of the desktop computer in a reverse timeline would be "It's about time!"'"
Science

Bionic Arm With Muscle Emulation 118

Posted by samzenpus from the gentlemen-we-can-rebuild-him dept.
Gugo writes "German based company FESTO has develop a bionic arm that uses muscle emulation,(video included) with a product called 'fluidic muscle.' It works like a normal animal-human muscle but moved by air inside. This new type of prosthetic offers rapid response, small size, simple assembly and ease of control. On their website they show the range of fluidic muscles with a car race simulator."
OS X

Ubuntu Linux vs. Mac OS X 479

Posted by CmdrTaco from the begin-the-battle-royale dept.
An anonymous reader writes "An article on InformationWeek pits an Apple user against an Ubuntu Linux user (although he talks about other distros as well) as to which OS makes a better desktop operating system. As might be expected, the conclusion seems to be "different strokes for different folks," but it's interesting to see Microsoft cut (mostly) out of the equation."
Operating Systems

Submission + - Linux Gains Two New Virtualization Solutions

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: The upcoming 2.6.23 kernel has gained two new virtualization solutions. According to KernelTrap, both Xen and lguest have been merged into the mainline kernel. These two virtualization solutions join the already merged KVM, offering Linux multiple ways to run multiple virtual machines each running their own OS.
Linux Business

Submission + - On the rPath to virtual containerization (interopnews.com)

Submitted by
willdavid
willdavid writes: "According to Jeff Gould, it's becoming increasingly clear that the most important use of virtualization is not to consolidate hardware boxes but to protect applications from the vagaries of the operating environments they run on. It's all about "containerization." He talks about how Linux applications could be distributed much easier using a fully integrated OS-middleware-application stack. http://www.interopnews.com/news/on-the-rpath-to-vi rtual-containerization.html"
It's funny. Laugh.

Submission + - Linux lotto tickets?

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: I'm not quite sure where this Linux lotto ticket originates from... but can you identify the possible copyright violation? Release the hounds!
Media (Apple)

iPods and Pacemakers Don't Mix 152

Posted by CowboyNeal from the listen-to-your-heart dept.
fermion writes "The Register reports a study that indicates that iPods and pacemakers do not get along. While there do not appear to be any long term effects, iPods disrupt the operation of the pacemaker. It is noted that such effects have not previously been observed as iPods do seem to be popular with the pacemaker-wearing population."
Linux Business

Submission + - No Wine for Dell's Prebundled Linux Machines

Submitted by UCSF Geek
UCSF Geek writes: Mark Shuttleworth, the founder of Ubuntu Linux, does not want to position Ubuntu and Linux as a cheap alternative to Windows. As such, Dell will not include open-source software such as Wine, which lets users run Windows programs on Linux, with the PCs it plans to bundle with Ubuntu, he tells eWeek here(http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,2125848, 00.asp). He goes on to say that "while Linux is an alternative to Windows, it is not cheap Windows. Linux has its own strengths, and users should want it because of those strengths and not because it's a cheap copy of Windows."
Linux

Beryl User Interface for Linux Reviewed 271

Posted by CmdrTaco from the yo-ho-ho-and-a-beryl-of-rum dept.
techie writes "OSWeekly.com has published a review of Beryl, a very cool looking UI for Linux. Matt Hartley writes, "This release, in my opinion, was the most over-hyped and bug-filled to date. You will have to really hit Technorati to see more of what I'm talking about, but Feisty is as buggy as the beta I tested a short time ago. After completely tossing into the wilds of the ubber-buggy "network-manager," anything running with Edgy supported RT2500 driver shows up, but it will not connect without a special script. Those of you who are on Feisty and need help with your RT2500 cards are welcome to e-mail me for the bash script."

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