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Google has launched Go, a new systems programming language born with concurrency, simplicity, and performance in mind. Go is open source and its syntax is similar to C, C++ and Python. It uses an expressive language with pointer but no pointer arithmetic. It is type safe and memory safe.

Amarok is a great music player for linux. In the current release of Kubuntu 9.10 Karmic also the current stable version of Amarok was introduced into the repositories. However Amarok is under heavy development and updates won't be included in the official repos. If you want to be up-to-date and have the latest Amarok version available, you'll need to compile it yourself. Compiling Amarok isn't really hard but there are a few dependencies that it needs and a few things to look out for.

There are many secrets about Nautilus normal users might not familiar with them; therefore, in this article, I will try to shed light on some of them. Although I am using Nautilus on Ubuntu 9.10 in this tutorial, everything mentioned will be valid also on most of other distributions like Fedora, Mandriva or OpenSUSE.

In my last article, Teaching with Tux, I wrote about teaching children with the Tux Educational programs. Today, I'm going to discuss the Gcompris education suite. Gcompris is meant for younger children from 2 to 10 years old, though it seems to focus on the younger part of this range.

Jono Bacon goes on at length at his blog on the contrast between the euphoria over the release of Ubuntu 9.10 (Karmic Koala) and the reports of problems by users. Read the 10 or so entries below this one and you can see the problems I've had. It's time to put this in perspective. I've had plenty of problems with all manner of Linux and other Unix-like operating systems over the past few years. Given all the hardware that a modern OS must contend with (and I'll include Windows in that number since it runs – or is supposed to, anyway – on a wide variety of hardware), there's bound to be breakage.

It was over a year ago that I wrote about the “Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement” (ACTA), a new global standard for the enforcement of intellectual monopolies currently being discussed by representatives of the United States, the European Commission, Japan, Switzerland, Canada, Australia, Korea, Mexico and New Zealand. Since then, the secret negotiations have been continuing, and the threats it poses to the Internet as we know it grow ever larger.

The purpose of this document is to help a reader to get started with Computer Vision library OpenCV on Linux system. OpencCV is a multi-platform library, but this article will be focused only on OpenCV using Linux operating system. ( although, just the installation of the OpenCV library and video camera is platform-specific, all examples in this article should compile on any platform where OpenCV is properly installed such as Mac OS, MS Windows and etc.) Reader will be guided through a step-by-step guide on how to install and use some of the basic functions of OpenCV library such as displaying images, playing a video or using a video camera to process a video input stream.

The Moblin project released the first beta of Moblin 2.1, fixing numerous bugs while adding support for a 3G modem. Other touted improvements to the netbook-focused Moblin 2.1 include a faster browser with plugin support, Bluetooth discovery support, higher screen resolution support, and an enhanced ConnMan.

ESP has published an analysis of what the Justices said at the Bilski hearing that could impact software patentability

An interface and language for dynamic kernel analysis

The Free Software Foundation is having a video contest on the subject "Why is free software important to you?" It's a timely topic, with Windows 7 just out and with the free software community's bickering so bitter as of late that common goals sometimes seem in danger of being forgotten. I lack any talent for making videos, but the contest has me thinking: Why is free software important to me? And why isn't it important to most people around me? The two questions are more closely connected than you might at first think.

Canonical has been touting its Ubuntu One cloud-storage solution, which allows you to mirror up to 2 GB of files for free and up to 50 GB for $10/month. The service also allows you to sync Tomboy Notes and Evolution contacts across multiple Ubuntu installations. I gave Ubuntu One a try on my recently upgraded Ubuntu 9.10 system, and it appears that Ubuntu One just doesn't do very much that I need. And whether it's the service's simplicity or lack of decent documentation, it took me awhile to figure out just how you get stuff synced with Ubuntu One.

Opponents of cloud computing cite data loss and vendor lock-in as a primary dangers of relying on such services. They're valid points, but since cloud computing isn't going away anytime soon, it's time to start finding solutions instead of simply sounding alarm bells. Today's guest editor, Rafael Laguna, CEO of Open-Xchange, shares his thoughts about what it would take to make cloud services more reliable and trustworthy.

Samsung announced an "open" mobile platform called "Bada," which appears to be a programmable UI layer that runs on its proprietary feature phones, although one report defines Bada as Samsung's own Linux OS. Meanwhile, a Korean analyst report claims that Samsung plans to discard Symbian and downshift Microsoft's Windows Mobile.

Oct. 30 (Bloomberg) -- To find the latest threat to business-software makers like SAP AG and Oracle Corp., go to an unlikely location: a 150-year-old farmhouse in Belgium. That’s where closely held Tiny Sprl, run by 30-year- old Fabien Pinckaers, develops free business applications that are picking up customers during the recession.

In a talk at the Embedded Linux Conference Europe in Grenoble, France, a speaker took a critical look at the design and development model of Google's first step toward Linux.

"We want to make it a lot easier for Windows developers to get their hands dirty on Linux, deploy on Linux and debug their software on Linux," Miguel de Icaza, Mono project founder and vice president of developer platforms at Novell, told InternetNews.com. "We're trying to eliminate the barriers to adoption for Mono and Linux and address the developer concerns that we've heard over time."

Please don't shoot the messenger, but all is not well in Firefox land. According to one new report, Firefox is responsible for some 44% of all the browser vulnerabilities that were reported during the first six months of 2009 and that's far more problematical than Internet Explorer.

The European Commission has launched an in-depth investigation of Oracle's planned takeover of Sun Microsystems. According to a press release, preliminary investigations have indicated that there may be competition problems in the database market. The investigation now has to decide by 19th January 2010 whether the merger will seriously hamper effective competition.

While I like the Linux desktop a lot, I don't pretend that it's that popular. That's why I found it fascinating that, despite everything Microsoft has been able to throw at it, desktop Linux still managed to claim 32% of the netbook market. And Microsoft has thrown everything but the kitchen sink at desktop Linux. For example, the Redmond giant has strong-armed vendors into not selling Linux-powered netbooks; lied about Linux sales; and all but gave XP Home away to keep vendors from including Linux instead . Despite all that, it seems, according to ABI Research, that desktop Linux has actually grown in the last year.