Red Hat intros 'second generation' tools, despite Oracle buyout rumors
While its rival Novell introduced the latest version of SuSE Linux Enterprise at the Open Source Business Conference (OSBC) in San Francisco, Red Hat -- the world's other major Linux distributor -- issued its tools announcement in conjunction with EclipseCon. The conference in Santa Clara focuses on the Eclipse cross-platform development environment.
The new JBoss Developers Studio 2.0 - Portfolio Edition (JBDS-PE) rolled out by Red Hat today is a major update to Red Hat's earlier Eclipse-based software development kit.
OnLive threatens the typical PC gamer lifestyle
PC gaming is a lifestyle. It's not like console gaming, where a user can just plop down in front of his TV, turn on a game for a couple of hours, and walk away satisfied. Side effects include fanatical hardware consumption and relentless resource tweaking.
The newest and most cutting-edge games demand the most from a user's system, and this drives PC gamers to have, at the very least, knowledge of what's newest in graphics, processing, sound, and peripherals. Moreover, it causes much of PC gamerdom to fall in the "power user" category, or those who put heavy demands on their computers for long periods of time. It's been that way since the dawn of the Sound Blaster, and many after school jobs been taken to feed the need for more gear. Of course, the PC gamers I grew up with also had part-time careers as electronics store shoplifters, but that's another story.
Final SuSE Linux 11 includes Moonlight 1.0 for Silverlight
As reported here earlier today, the release edition of SuSE Enterprise Linux 11 announced today is the first commercial product to feature Moonlight 1.0, the Linux-based runtime for Web sites released last month, geared to show video and graphics for Microsoft Silverlight 1.0.
But another of the immediate benefits that Linux users will be seeing is that sites with built-in WMV format videos, may play using Moonlight 1.0. For many users, it will be the first step toward something resembling ubiquity, as Linux users -- who note there aren't many, if any, sites developed "for Linux" -- will at last be able to run Web sites that clearly give off the appearance of having been developed "for Windows."
Zeevee releases HTPC movie browser Zinc Beta 3
Download Zinc Beta 3 from Fileforum now.
Zinc is a video-centric browser formerly known as Zviewer, and designed for use on home theater PCs and Windows Media Center PCs. The software is similar to Boxee in purpose, letting users access online video content and their own stored media on their television.
Controversial copyright violator provision struck down in New Zealand
The world continues to wrestle with the problem of who is truly responsible for copyright infringement over the Internet, if it is allowed to persist. Over the years, Internet service providers have fought for, and won, protections from liability for the conduct of customers they can't always monitor. In the US, ISPs have an interest in limiting online file-sharing, mainly because the heaviest perpetrators are also the ones using the most bandwidth. Here, legislation under consideration by Congress would prohibit ISPs from taking bandwidth-throttling actions against customers based solely on their perceived online behavior.
But in New Zealand, the opposite approach was about to be tried and then, yesterday, failed in Parliament: A provision of an amendment to the country's Copyright Act, based on language that it appeared to have intentionally omitted, would have enabled authorities to instruct ISPs to disconnect customers on the mere suspicion of illicit file trafficking. That provision -- now known notoriously throughout the country as Section 92A -- was struck down yesterday, in a move that ended up being heralded by someone once thought to have supported the idea, Prime Minister John Key.
DialUsername seeks your identity here and there
It's allegedly designed to help folk manage their online identities by spotting where "their" usernames might be in use without their knowledge, but DialUsername can also provide some amusement for a slow day at work. Find all the services you never even heard of among their list of 68, then rush to them and register your preferred username, just in case the service becomes popular. We can call it Land Rush Tuesday or something.
Novell intros SuSE Enterprise Linux 11, with Windows and data center support
At the Open Source Business Conference (OSBC) in San Francisco today, Novell is releasing the final version of SuSE Enterpise Linux 11, its first set of Linux software products to be based on the Linux 2.6.27 kernel.
Aside from Enterprise Server 11 and Enterprise Desktop 11, two operating systems that run on x86 PC hardware, the release includes three other products: Mono Extension, for Windows application support; High Availability (HA) Extension, for server cluster management; and the mainframe-based Enterprise Server for System z.
Sprint to provide 3G connectivity to Ford in-dash PC
Sprint Nextel's iDEN network has a special place in job site communication. The network's push-to-talk feature is ideal for maintaining constant contact with multiple individuals in separate locations, and its familiar "chirp" is a sound heard echoing across construction sites throughout the country.
Today, Sprint has gone further into the field and announced its partnered with Ford Motor Company in its Ford Work Solutions in-dash PCs. The lineup of Ford F- and E-Series vehicles offering the computers will be available this spring, according to the company.
Chinese Internet is 'open enough,' says foreign minister
Yesterday evening, YouTube reportedly became inaccessible in most of China, possibly due to the presence of graphic videos of violence against Tibetan separatists in Lhasa. The site is normally filtered for content, not only for intellectual property violations, but also for videos deemed subversive or critical of the Communist Party.
Last week, in the Vatican's continuing efforts to utilize the Internet to spread the Catholic church's message, it released a Chinese site, which many expected will be blocked, since observation of the Pope as an authority figure defies Communist rule.
Sony Ericsson takes a merciless beating
Mobile phone joint venture Sony Ericsson has faced dwindling profits for more than a year as its main markets strain under economic pressure. In the third quarter of 2008, the company dropped to a €25 million loss. Just one year prior, by contrast, the company reported a profit of €267 million. Last quarter, Sony Ericsson's earnings slipped to a €73 million loss.
On Friday, the joint venture announced that it could post a loss of between €340-390 million for the first quarter of 2009.
Mozilla experiments more with 'New Tab' in Firefox 3.1
The engineer behind the ambitious Ubiquity project, Mozilla Labs' Aza Raskin, is already on record as not being too keen on the completely blank "New Tab" feature in current production editions of Firefox 3.0.
"Right now, when you open a new tab, you get a blank screen," Raskin wrote on his laboratory's blog last August. "While clean, it has a 100% probability of not getting you where what you want to be. While it's good to not intimidate with an explosion of information, we can get a much more streamlined workflow -- thereby saving huge amounts of aggregate time-- by showing something. The question is, 'What?'"
ExecuTweets sees the C-level side of Twitter
Twitter-populated and Microsoft-sponsored, ExecTweets may be the first step on the path toward -- depending on your point of view -- a revenue stream for the microblogging model or a sign that the service is selling out. That's the conversation inside the Twitterati beltway; most of the rest of the world, on the other hand, will probably just be amazed to hear that actual C-level execs tweet.
Yes -- 77 of them so far, according to the list on ExecTweet's About page. According to that page, ExecTweets "empowers the community to surface the most insightful, business-related tweets," though one may well ask how Guy Kawasaki's tweet Monday that "Cassettes Are Cool Again: Jimi Hendrix Tape Portrait" fits into that vision.
The big squeeze: JPEG to jpeg to jpge to jphzepxpg
David Elliott has an interesting video that demonstrates just how lossy the JPEG format really is. The UCLA MFA candidate chose an image and saved it repeatedly -- 600 times, to be exact -- ratcheting up the compression each time. He's posted the results as a 20-second clip on Vimeo. Very cool; check it out. (HT Laughing Squid)
Cox to roll out tru2way, new UI this summer
Cox Communications may finally be making tru2way a reality. Tru2way is a common software platform that allows software developers, cable companies, or in this case set top box DRM maker NDS, to create interactive software and Web-based applications for use on the TV.
The initiative, which began as the OpenCable platform over ten years ago, has enjoyed only a moderate push from a few big names, like Panasonic, but hasn't yet made a tremendous splash. Cox announced today that tru2way services -- which will include integrated voice communications, e-mail, news, weather, and entertainment gadgets -- will be rolled out, along with a new user interface, this summer.
Sprint and Verizon take top wireless quality honors
CDMA for the call-quality win? The annual J.D. Power & Associates survey of wireless service quality has been released, and Verizon, US Cellular, and Sprint Nextel -- that's right, Sprint -- took top honors. The survey evaluated wireless call quality as measured in the number of problems (dropped connections, echoes and distortion, slow voice mail / text notification, static, or failure to connect) per 100 calls.
Service is, for J.D. Power's purposes, divided into six regions, and US Cellular stands alone in the North Central part of the country, winning its seventh consecutive nod there. Verizon won everywhere else (including its ninth consecutive best-of nods in the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic regions), tying in the West with Sprint Nextel.
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