Showing headlines posted by Scott_Ruecker

The BBC has tried to draw a line under its decision to bar open source implementations of RTMP (real-time messaging protocol) streaming in the iPlayer, after The Register revealed the Corporation's quiet switcheroo last week. BBC online managing editor Ian Hunter claimed in a blog post today that the term "open source" had been "conflated" by users who had grumbled about third party RTMP plugins being locked out of the catch-up service.

A lot of the news I come across is contentious — of the Linux vs. Microsoft variety — and then there are the lawsuits, claims and counterclaims, and forum flame-throwing that go along with it. That’s why I was charmed by this little story by columnist Mike Cassidy from last week’s Southern California Linux Expo about three young girls who submitted proposals for their own presentations. Sisters Saskia and Malakai Wade (ages 8 and 12, respectively) and friend Mirano Cafiero (also age 12) talked about Gimp, TuxPaint, and OLPC XO computers. Malakai showed a stop-action Barbie video that she made with OpenShot.

At CeBIT this week, Motorola demonstrated an Android-based "HS1001" cordless IP phone manufactured by Binatone and built around the DSP Group's DECT-compatible XpandR chipset. Meanwhile, DSP Group showed its own Android-based IP phone reference design based on the XpandR II chipset.

Linux at retail has been a hit-and-miss proposition for more than a decade. Canonical's new CEO explains her company's strategy for getting desktop Linux into more customers' hands.

In all the talk about New York financier Paul Singer’s plan to go all Gordon Gecko on Novell, one word has not been mentioned nearly enough. Microsoft. Microsoft needs a viable Novell, and Novell’s Linux business was on the verge of becoming viable when Singer’s Elliott Associates swooped in with an offer to break up the company, seize its cash, split off the old NetWare business, and auction off Suse Linux.

During a visit to Google's London HQ we grabbed some time with Chris DiBona. He's the Open Source Programs Manager for Google, overseeing everything the corporation does that's open sourced and making sure it's "correct and useful." We talked Google Chrome and, later, Android. We put to DiBona the issue that if users buy a netbook, they still tend to expect Windows on it, so will they take to Chrome OS? "Yeah. Windows or Mac. Is this going to change? We're going to find out. We're willing to say, you know what, let's give it a try, let's see if it works.

The Linux ecosystem is a complex entity. On one hand everyone gets along and benefits from work done by others, while on the other there’s often animosity and conflict between distributions and their communities (remember when Ubuntu came along?). People often complain that there is simply too much choice in the Linux world and that we’d all be better off if there was just one, or two. However, nothing could be further from the truth. The multitude of Linux distributions exists for a reason. They exist because not one single distribution can satisfy the desires of every user on the planet. Different people like different ways of doing things. Not only that, the distribution that one might want to use for a server won’t necessarily suit a laptop. So thankfully there are thousands of distros to choose from.

You are reading a standard-form news article, and when new information comes to light, the piece you're reading might just be referenced in a follow-up — but it won't be displayed in context or be easy to navigate. However, if Google's Living Stories experiment takes off following the release of its code, that won't always be the case.

A loop in music is a section of the music that repeats itself continuously until receiving a signal to either stop or move on to the next section. A loop can be assigned to a single instrument or to a group of instruments. Compositionally, loops are used for a variety of purposes. For example, they may function as formal bass patterns over which a composition is built, or they may suppy a long but consistently repeating series of chords used to define the harmony for independently composed bass and melody lines. For many computer-based music-makers the loop's most popular implementation is the drum loop, a rhythmic pattern of one or more measures of percussion sounds that can be repeated unchanged for simple lines or mixed & matched with other loops for more life-like variation.

Kontron is readying an Intel Atom Z530-based box computer designed for rugged railway applications. The MicroSpace MPCX28R Railway Box PC is protected for railway use with EN50155 certification, TX compliance, extended temperature support, 1.5kV isolated power, and M12 connectors for Fast Ethernet, USB, and power, says the company. The Linux-compatible MicroSpace MPCX28R is suitable for passenger infotainment, security, and other railway applications, says Kontron. Built around the original 1.6GHz Intel Atom Z530 CPU and SCH US15W northbridge/southbridge, the MicroSpace MPCX28R supports up to 1GB of DDR2 RAM, the company says.

A long while ago, I pledged Magnatune to pay 10% of its sales due to Rhythmbox (a fantastic music player for Linux), back to the GNOME Foundation. Today, I wrote the check. Rhythmbox has really excellent integration with Magnatune (for four years now!), which makes for a wonderful marriage between open source and open music. The latest versions support Magnatune memberships, for all-you-can-eat music support on Linux.

Canonical is replacing its signature brown color scheme with the debut of Ubuntu 10.04, the next major release of the popular Linux distribution. Departing from six years of interface tradition, Canonical has revealed a new "light" default theme and updated Ubuntu logo that introduces a pallet of purple, orange, slate grey, and tan. The new look made its public debut on the blog of Ubuntu Community Manager Jono Bacon on Wednesday.

Building a Linux distribution with the novice user in mind has been tried many times over the years. If you had to pick one area where many new users struggle, it would have to be installing new applications. Missing dependencies or improperly configured repositories lead to frustration and, ultimately, abandonment of the entire platform.

Last week brought the arrival of a new Linux kernel, version 2.6.33. With it, came quite a few changes likely to interest device developers. So, here is a breakdown of the most significant mobile/embedded updates to come in the latest kernel. For instance, Android patches were dropped from the staging tree, due to lack of maintenance. Many were surprised that Google has apparently opted to maintain its kernel patches "out-of-tree." However, the ensuing discussions certainly stand to raise the general awareness level around embedded Linux best practices, which generally start with "work your changes upstream.

Just a week and a half after signing a patent licensing deal with Amazon covering the e-tailer's use of Linux, Microsoft announced it has inked another Linux patent licensing agreement, this time with a Japanese hardware company. Neither Microsoft nor the Japanese company, I-O Data Device, revealed details of the agreement. However, in a short joint statement, the two said the deal "will provide I-O Data's customers with patent coverage for their use of I-O Data's products running Linux and other related open source software."

The North Korean government appears to have developed its own graphical Linux-based "Red Star" operating system, though its people still prefer that symbol of Yankee high-tech imperialism, Microsoft Windows. That's according to the blog of a Russian college student, 'Mikhail,' studying at a university in North Korea's capital city, Pyongyang. According to translations of the blog by Russian satellite news channel, Russia Today, as well as Google's Translate tool, installation DVDs of Red Star can be freely purchased in Pyongyang for $5 and come in both client and server versions.

The LiMo (Linux Mobile) Foundation has endorsed a new Wholesale Applications Community (WAC) industry group established by mobile carriers to devise a common app format. The WAC format will build upon two web-based mobile widget standards: the Open Mobile Terminal Project's BONDI and the Joint Innovation Lab's JIL initiative.

The topic of the difficulties women face in the open source community comes up often. Here at OStatic we've discussed everything from the gender bias and harassment some women say they face, to highlighting the projects that are helping change the way females experience the developer community. A new project has gotten underway recently that aims to foster a healthy and respectful environment between female PHP developers and the PHP community. PHPWomen has teamed up in a partnership program with six open source projects that it feels represents the best the community has to offer in terms of an open, respectful, and friendly community.

Ever wondered how attackers know what ports are open on a system? Or how to find out what services a computer is running without just asking the site admin? You can do all this and more with a handy little tool called Nmap. What is Nmap? Short for "network mapper," nmap is a veritable toolshed of functionality to perform network scans. It can be used for security scans, simply to identify what services a host is running, to "fingerprint" the operating system and applications on a host, the type of firewall a host is using, or to do a quick inventory of a local network. It is, in short, a very good tool to know.

Canonical has revealed the style of the new default theme that will be used in Ubuntu 10.04, the next major version of the popular Linux distribution. In a significant departure from tradition, Ubuntu is shedding its signature brown color scheme and is adopting a new look with a palette that includes orange and an aubergine shade of purple.