Showing headlines posted by Scott_Ruecker

Mystery surrounds the identity of four winners in Google's $10m Android mobile applications competition, announced last November. The search giant Tuesday named 47 of 50 developers who've won the first round of its challenge to build mobile applications for the yet-to-materialize Android phone. The individuals will each get $25,000.

Mark Shuttleworth, head of Canonical and founder of the Ubuntu project, has called on other Linux developers to synchronize releases of new versions of their distros. He also pledged to deliver the next Long Term Support (LTS) release of Ubuntu, version 10.4, in April 2010 - unless, of course, Red Hat, Novell and Debian decide to co-operate on a synchronized release at a different time.

The Fedora distribution has a reputation for innovation, and the new Fedora 9, released today, is no exception. With features that range from easy filesystem encryption to support for the ext4 format, it includes a wide range of features that are likely to become standard in other distributions in the next six months. But for Paul W. Frields, who became Fedora project leader in February, what distinguishes the release is less the technology than the community that supports it, and how the technology contributes to the larger free software world.

Debian has warned of a vulnerability in its cryptographic functions that could leave systems open to attack. The use of a cryptographically flawed pseudo random number generator in Debian's implementation of OpenSSL meant that potentially predictable keys were generated. Versions of Debian's OpenSSL packages starting with 0.9.8c-1 (released in September 2006) are potentially vulnerable.

The Fedora project today released a new version of its completely free and redistributable Linux distribution. Showcasing lots of next-generation Red Hat features, Fedora 9 also boasts new features of its own aimed at making the distribution appeal more to newer Linux users.

Linux Game Publishing has announced a Linux port of "Sacred Gold," an action role-playing game first published for Windows three years ago. The U.K.-based game publisher plans to ship the title in August of this year, priced at 27 GBP (~ $50). Sacred Gold was created by Ascaron Entertainment, of Gutersloth, Germany. It will be the first action role-playing game carried by LGP, the company said.

A British watchdog agency said Tuesday it had complained to European Union regulators that Microsoft Corp.'s new file format for storing documents discouraged competition. Britain's agency for education and information technology said it wanted to help the EU with an investigation it launched in January into whether the software giant deliberately withheld information from rivals. The current controversy centers on the ability of other companies to create products compatible with Microsoft's new file format, Office Open XML, which stores Word, Excel and PowerPoint files.

"About 45% architecture updates (counting the include files too), about 30% drivers, and about 25% odds-and-ends. The odds-and-ends are mainly Documentation, filesystems (mostly cifs) and core kernel (scheduler updates etc)," said Linux creator Linus Torvalds, announcing the 2.6.26-rc2 kernel. He added, "if you read the shortlog and get the feeling that most of it is pretty boring small details, you'd be right. There is little exciting there."

Linspire, the San Diego, Calif.-based Linux distributor, is continuing to build up its CNR (Click-N-Run) software installation system with partnerships with Ubuntu parent Canonical and the Ubuntu-based Linux Mint distribution. Linspire recently announced that its beta CNR service now supports the Ubuntu 8.04 Hardy Heron release and Linux Mint versions 4.0 and 5.

Blue Heron Network has demonstrated an Ubuntu Linux-based touchpanel PC aimed at helping patients in the early stages of neuro-degenerative conditions like Alzheimer's stay independent for as long as possible. The WiFi-enabled Reside@Home Monitor keeps homecare patients connected to family and caregivers via the Internet, the company says.

All communities develop rituals over time. One of the enduring linux-kernel rituals is the regular heated discussion on development processes and kernel quality. To an outside observer, these events can give the impression that the whole enterprise is about to come crashing down. But the reality is a lot like the New Year celebrations the author was privileged enough to see in Beijing: vast amounts of smoke and noise, but everybody gets back to work as usual the next day.

This is an advertisment for Vista on the Novell website. I especially like the line "Migrating to Vista? We can help you make the leap" alongside a picture of man in suit and tie plummeting to the earth off a tall building. Equally helpful was the ominous exhortation "Prepare now, Windows Vista is coming".

Are you looking for a free and open source music player that you can use no matter which operating system you boot or switch to during the day? Meet aTunes, a small competitor to both Amarok and Apple's iTunes. Its name sounds like a hybrid of the two, and it tries to have a unique combination of the best of both user experiences. aTunes is a Java-written, cross-platform music player. It supports a variety of common audio formats, including both open source and proprietary codecs, due to its MPlayer audio engine back end. Like many quickly evolving programs, it has a few issues, but the better outweighs the bitter.

On April 28, a California jury found Hans Reiser guilty of first-degree murder. There has been a lot of speculation in the press, both before and after the conviction, on what the loss of Mr. Reiser will mean for the Linux community. Much of that speculation, it seems, lacks an understanding of what Mr. Reiser's role in the community really was. Your editor will take no position on whether his conviction was correct or just. But there are things to be said about what this conviction will mean.

Dear me. Just because I recently talked about Windows XP SP3's virtues and vices, some people seem to think I've turned away from my beloved Linux systems. Nope, I'm still a rock-solid Linux desktop user. In fact, I'm writing this tale on my #2 desktop, which runs openSUSE 10.3. But, just because I use Linux all the time-my current office's desktop offerings include the aforementioned openSUSE, Mint 4.0, Ubuntu 8.04, MEPIS 7.0, Freespire 2.03-doesn't mean that I don't run other desktop operating systems. I do. XP SP3 has the lead with three systems running it-two on virtual machines under Linux and one natively; two Macs running Tiger and Leopard; a copy of the newest OpenSolaris that I'm still tuning, and one system that I tolerate having Vista SP1 on.

We finally finished our review of Shuttle's KPC K-4500, the Foresight Linux-based small form factor desktop that Shuttle announced a few weeks back. This review covers the lowest end complete system. Shuttle also offers a bare-bones K45 model (with no operating system) as well as a few others with higher-end hardware and Vista Basic.

Join us for an interesting discussion on open source clinical trial software the DIA Annual Meeting June 24th in Boston. This presentation will evaluate how open, standards-based software can alleviate the challenges of flexibility, interoperability, and cost in regulated clinical research environments. Presenters will discuss the unique advantages and challenges in developing and using open source software for tasks such as electronic data capture, and provide an overview of other open source technologies currently being used in clinical trials.

Fedora 9, the latest release from the Fedora Project, goes up for download on Tuesday. The ninth release of Fedora ushers in a number of changes aimed at making the venerable distribution a more newbie-friendly desktop, but longtime users needn't fear a great dumbing down; version 9 packs plenty of power user punch as well. Fedora is a community-driven distribution sponsored by Red Hat and, while Fedora may be best known as a popular server OS, most of the changes in Fedora 9 are aimed at making the system friendlier for desktop users.

"I like to make browsers do things that they weren't supposed to do," Brad Neuberg likes to say. As a developer advocate for Google Gears, Neuberg has a wide scope for pursuing this interest, not only as an active developer, but also as a frequent speaker at conferences. His message is that Gears is not a means of working offline with Internet content -- which, so far has been its main function in applications like Google Reader and Google Calendar -- but also a potential universal update mechanism for browsers that could help to keep the Web free.

What do you want your cell phone to be able to do? Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor Hal Abelson put that question to about 20 computer science students this semester when he gave them one assignment: Design a software program for cell phones that use Google Inc.'s upcoming Android mobile operating system. In the process, they revealed the power of an open system like Android to shake up the mobile phone industry, where wireless companies are being pressured to loosen the control they have maintained over what devices do. If the brainstorms of these MIT students are an indication, phones will soon challenge the Internet as a source of innovation.