Showing headlines posted by bob

With one week to go until the soft feature freeze for KDE 4.11, there's a better idea for the features that are likely to come to the next major release of the KDE Plasma desktop...

NEC has announced an Android smartphone that uses a water-cooling system to keep its quad-core 1.7GHz Snapdragon S4 Pro system-on-chip (SOC) from overheating. The NEC Medias X 06E integrates a liquid cooling pipe near the SOC to cool off the 4.7-inch phone, which is being marketed at Japanese women. Liquid cooling has been used in [...]

The Linux Foundation has confirmed that NASA will be switching to Debian 6 Linux for its laptop requirements inside the Space Shuttle and International Space Station (ISS) operations.

The open education landscape is set to grow a little more as Stanford University announces plans to team up with edX to build an online learning platform that universities and developers around the world can access for free. edX, a not-for-profit online education project founded in 2012 by MIT and Harvard University, develops online learning courses for students. The project encourages collaboration between teachers, students, and faculty to fit the needs of individual institutions.

Texas Instruments (TI) announced an evaluation kit for its next-generation digital-light-processing (DLP) chipset, offering much higher resolution and brightness than its predecessor. The DLP LightCrafter 4500 is aimed at 3D imaging applications such as machine vision, quality control, dental and retinal scanning, spectrometers, augmented reality devices, and 3D printers. The DLP LightCrafter 4500 is built [...]

As an organization or even individual there always seem to be questions when considering whether or not to make your project or code snippet open source. Many times, it starts with trying to figure out which license to use. But there are many other things to consider. We derived a list for you the next time you ask yourself: Should I open source my code?

First-quarter 2013 shipments of “smart mobile devices,” including notebooks, tablets, and smartphones, swelled by 37.4 percent year-on-year to 308.7 million units, reports mobile market analyst Canalys. From the operating system perspective, Android grabbed a healthy majority of units shipped, at 59.5 percent. Of the other leading smart mobile device OS vendors, Apple’s iOS accounted for [...]

Want to run Linux on the Google Computer Engine cloud? Starting immediately, Debian Linux is Google's Linux of choice.

Last week, The White House published an Executive Order by which the default method for government data collection and dissemination must now be:

At the Open Source Business Conference 2013, conversations on innovation, disruption, and open source leadership dominated the sessions. The conference chair, Matt Assay, crafted a program where each presentation and conversation reinforced how traditional business strategies are being disrupted by new market dynamics. The dynamics are shifting power away from closed, proprietary corporate leadership towards open collaboration and user-led innovation. The shift is disrupting traditional business strategies, IT operation practices, and market dominance.

One of the keys to a successful open data portal is to make it useful for the end user. Citizens and developers should be able to understand data sets without needing a PhD. I've been following the progress of Raleigh, North Carolina's open data initiative, which launched a beta of their data.raleighnc.gov portal in March 2013.

Timothree Besset, perhaps better known amongst Linux gamers as "TTimo" and the former main "Linux guy" at id Software, has announced es_core. The purpose of es_core is to provide an experimental framework for low-latency, high-FPS multi-player games...

'Windows 8 is a good product ... really!' Updated Microsoft has taken quite a pounding in the press over Windows 8, and it has only intensified the rumors that the planned update to the OS might roll back some of its more controversial features. But Redmond has had quite enough now, and it wants it all to stop.…

The eCryptfs pull for the Linux 3.10 kernel has been merged. What's noticeable about this feature pull is the improved encryption performance for modern AMD/Intel CPUs supporting AES-NI...

Aaeon announced a Linux-friendly ‘EPIC’ form-factor SBC (single-board computer) based on a 1.6GHz Intel Atom N2600 processor, which is bottom-mounted for efficient heat transfer. The EPC-CV1 supports up to 2GB RAM, offers dual-display HD video output, provides Gig-Ethernet, USB, serial, and SATA ports, and accommodates a 3G cellular module and SIM. Aaeon expects the EPC-CV1 [...]

I’m happy to announce the Version 3 release of Froide, the open source, Python-based platform for running Freedom of Information portals: allowing you to make requests to public entities by email and track responses, as well as, customize your instance to fit your campaign for government transparency. Froide has been in development for nearly two years. It has powered the FOI portal in Germany for over a year and a half and has recently been used to launch an Austrian FoI site. Full instructions for getting started with Froide can be found here, and the source code is on Github here. This latest release comes with the latest version of the Python web framework Django 1.5 and Bootstrap 2.3. All other dependencies have also been upgraded. Some of the major features include:

Today, the many in the world focus on making things as environmentally-friendly as possible to reduce the negative impact daily life has on the environment to protect it for future generations. This includes major corporations, such as Facebook. Facebook is at the forefront of creating greener ways to operate their servers that contain everything that makes the website run for its millions of users. With their state-of-the-art open source data centers, they are helping companies around the world match their stride.

Does Linux really need another application packaging and installment system? Ubuntu will be adding another one for its Ubuntu Touch smartphones and tablets.

In the wake of the Boston Marathon bombings, I cannot help wondering what it is the role open source and open education have in global or national security measures.

Faster, less clunky than old-school Linux installers In a move that could see Ubuntu veer even further away from the Linux mainstream, Canonical has proposed a new software packaging format designed to make it easier for developers to publish apps for Ubuntu's tablet and phone–friendly future incarnations.…