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Linux

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

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?
Math

Submission + - Winning the World Series with Math (sciencenews.org) 1

An anonymous reader writes: The fastest route around the bases, mathematicians show, is one that perhaps no major-league ball player has ever run: It swings out a full 18.5 feet from the baseline, early forming a full circle.

“I would definitely experiment with it,” says former American Major League Baseball outfielder Doug Glanville, who last played with the Philadelphia Phillies. “There’s no question in my mind that runners could be more efficient.”

Programming

Submission + - Where are they now? Original PC Programmers

Esther Schindler writes: In 1986, Susan Lammers did a series of interviews with 19 prominent programmers in a Microsoft Press book, Programmers at Work. These interviews give a unique view into the shared perceptions of accomplished programmers... the people who invented the tools you use today. In Programmers Who Defined The Technology Industry: Where Are They Now?, Esther Schindler tracked down the fate of these prominent developers — from Robert Carr (Framework) to Dan Bricklin (VisiCalc) to Toru Iwatani (author of Pac Man, I'm glad you asked).

It isn't just a shortened resume for each of these guys, though. The article quotes the developer's 1986 views on programming, the business, and the future of computing, and in two cases (Bricklin and Jonathan Sachs (Lotus 1-2-3)) spoke with them to learn how-and-if their views changed.

One meaty example: In 1986, Bill Gates said, on Microsoft’s future: “Even though there’ll be more and more machines, our present thinking is that we won’t have to increase the size of our development groups, because we’ll simply be making programs that sell in larger quantities. We can get a very large amount of software revenue and still keep the company not dramatically larger than what we have today. That means we can know everybody and talk and share tools and maintain a high level of quality.” At the time, Microsoft had 160 programmers.
Software

Submission + - Australian Code Repository Company Buys Competitor

Roblimo writes: Wow. They sent press releases out about this, and we're happy for them. But isn't Git easy to install and use — for free, even if your project is proprietary and secret, not Open Source and public? Whatever. Some people seem to feel better about proprietary software than about FOSS, so I suppose this business story is news. Sort of. At least the featured company, Atlassian, has free versions of its repository for FOSS and small-scale proprietary developers. Which is sort of nice.
Linux

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

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.
Technology

Xerox PARC Celebrates 40th Anniversary 57

CWmike writes "For 40 years, the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center has been a place of technological creativity and bold ideas, writes Todd Weiss. The inventions it has spawned, from Ethernet networking to laser printing and the graphical user interface, have led to myriad technologies that allow us to use computers in ways that we take for granted today. When it opened on July 1, 1970, PARC was set up as a division of Xerox Corp. The idea was to invest in PARC as a springboard for developing new technologies and fresh concepts that would lead to future products. 'Conducting research at PARC four decades ago was like magic,' says Dr. Robert S. Bauer, who worked at PARC from 1970 to 2001. 'In an era of political and social upheaval, we came to work every day with a passion to free technology from the grip of the military-industrial complex and bring computation to the people.' Indeed, the company's 'technology first' culture has sometimes brought it under fire. PARC has often been criticized for its past failures to capitalize on some of its greatest inventions, allowing other companies to cash in on its ideas. (Today, PARC has a team working to protect its intellectual property.) Nevertheless, its reputation as a technology innovator is impeccable."

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