Showing all newswire headlines

Supercomputers are getting faster than ever, but the next generation, which will be able to do a quintillion floating point operations per second, needs software that can keep up. Anyone who programs for high-performance computing (HPC) knows that what works for standard computing doesn't work for supercomputers.

The Apache Software Foundation is out with a pair of important updates to its namesake Apache HTTP Server. The new updates are the Apache 2.0.65 and Apache 2.2.25 releases. Of particular note is the fact that the Apache 2.0.65 release is the final release of the Apache 2.0.x line of HTTP server.

It's Friday and that means it's time for our weekly feature where we search the Web looking for 5 interesting, funny and poignant links for developers and IT Pros. If you missed our most recent post, The enterprise needs to embrace the App Store, please check it out. The enterprise app store concept makes so much sense for organizations. That's why it's so surprising that according to Gartner only 25 percent are expected to build one by 2017.

Christine Hall at Foss Force considers whether or not Linux offers too much in the way of choice for users. Do we have too many distros available? Has that hurt the adoption of Linux on the desktop? I'm inclined to agree with her that choice isn't the problem with desktop Linux. In fact, the range of choices available are one of the primary strengths of Linux. It's what sets Linux apart from Windows (gag!) and OS X (pretty but locked up tight by Apple).

The poll asked the question, “If your hosting company offered a choice of the following operating systems, which would you choose?” Those taking the poll could choose from CentOS, Debian, Fedora, Scientific Linux, openSUSE and Ubuntu.

Verizon announced it joined the Ubuntu Carrier Advisory Group, which means it will likely be marketing Ubuntu mobile devices when they become available, but is there room for another phone OS in the US, even an open source one?

Our latest look at the current development state of Ubuntu 13.10 is comparing the "Saucy Salamander" performance against that of Ubuntu 13.04, 12.10, 12.04.2 LTS, and 11.10. Testing was done with an Intel Sandy Bridge system to see how the Ubuntu Linux performance has evolved over the past two years in the road to the October release of Ubuntu 13.10.

Microsoft Corp. has decided its entire business needs a new operating system. CEO Steve Ballmer is restructuring the company to cope with a quickening pace of technological change that has left the world's largest software maker a step behind its two biggest rivals, Apple and Google. In an effort to catch up, Microsoft is dismantling a management structure that separated the company into sometimes disjointed divisions and hatching a more cohesive product line-up. The new set up revolves around software, devices and services connecting those devices to applications stored in remote data centers — a concept that has become known as "cloud computing."

The release of the Open Data Charter by the G8 is testimony to the growing importance of open data worldwide. The Charter recognizes the central role open data can play in improving government and governance and in stimulating growth through innovation in data-driven products and services. It endorses the principle of open by default— also supported in President Obama’s recent Executive Order on open data—and makes clear that open data must be open to all and usable by both machines and humans (as per the Open Definition).

We have fully embraced GNOME Shell here and wanted a modern, updated site to go with the new look of the desktop. In this release we have: Linux Kernel 3.2, GNOME 3.4.1, WINE 1.5.6, Skype 4.0, TeamViewer 7, XBMC-PVR 11.0 Eden, GNOME Shell Extension Updater and everything else that was present in the previous beta release. The GDM login is now themed to match the desktop. The distro comes with two menus - Cardapio (eefault) but also includes the Axe menu that is disabled.

Photographers still irked about about Adobe’s decision to make Photoshop rental-only have a new alternative with the re-release of the pioneering LightZone application as a free, open-source program for Windows, Linux and (eventually) Mac OS. LightZone, initially released in 2005, was one of the first programs to offer 16-bit. non-destructive editing of RAW images, plus the ongoing ability to selectively withdraw adjustments and innovative batch-processing options.

Canonical has announced that Verizon Wireless has joined the Ubuntu Carrier Advisory Group (CAG). Samir Vaidya, a director at Verizon's Device Technology Team said the company was joining to "participate in technology discussions around this new platform, which has the ability to bring new and exciting features to developers and ultimately, customers."

For some people the barrier to getting Linux is the install itself. This is just a quick guide to show some of the options available for buying a laptop with Linux pre-installed

Check-It Solutions is shipping a Linux-based control and monitoring appliance for home and commercial building automation and energy management. The CG-300 Controller runs on a 1.2GHz Marvell Armada 300, offers Ethernet, ZigBee, Z-Wave, and optional LTE, and is available in a turnkey Energy Management Starter Kit with smartphone accessible web-portal services, Energy Star benchmarking, and a Dent metering device.

Since the emergence of strong cloud service providers like Amazon Web Services, Google and Rackspace, software development and deployment is increasingly taking place in the cloud. According to Gartner, cloud computing is expected to grow at a rate of 19% this year. Big industry players including Netflix and eBay already have turned to the cloud for significant proportions of their operations and offerings. And in the next few years, we are likely to see more and more innovative startups like Coupa completely suspended in the cloud, relegating on-premise computing to a vestige of a bygone era.

On server it’s useful to monitor, and collect, data about the use of your bandwidth, in the past I’ve wrote an article about “Monitor your bandwidth from the Linux shell” and I’ve also presented 4 useful tools that you can use to have a real time monitoring of the bandwidth. They are all good I suggest to read my old articles to have a small introduction about them, today I want to show you vnstat, this small program has something more than the others, it can show real time statistics, but the feature that this small program shines it’s its ability to collect data over a long period of time.

Witech Embedded announced a $199 ARM Cortex-A8 development kit with a 7-inch capacitive touchscreen and BSPs for Linux and Android. The OK210-A subsystem is based on a CPU module containing a 1GHz Samsung S5PV210 (Hummingbird) processor, 512MB RAM, and 1GB flash, and includes two expansion slots, Ethernet, HDMI, and five USB ports, plus optional WiFi, cellular, and GPS add-ons.

My new Android phone makes my old iPhone feel like a dinosaur. I did not root my phone. Every app you see here is a standard product, available from the Google Play store. This is what you can do right out of the box.

Canonical top man Mark Shuttleworth says that Mir, the company's ground-up replacement for the X Window System graphics stack, is almost complete, and that the technology will ship with the next version of the Ubuntu Linux distribution in October.

Canonical has had good luck getting European telecomms to back Ubuntu on smartphones. But until July 11th, it hadn't managed to persuade any US carriers to back its Linux phone. Now, Verizon Wireless has joined the Ubuntu Carrier Advisory Group. This move sets Verizon up to be the first carrier to bring the Ubuntu-Linux based smartphone to the US.