Showing headlines posted by RandallDownes

The MeeGo Project released the baseline source code for the handset version of the Linux-based mobile OS to the development community. This code is being developed as MeeGo 1.1, which is slated for an October release. The MeeGo team also released the MeeGo UI design principles and interaction guidelines.

No more fees and new promotions both hope to stimulate the Linux-based webOS ecosystem. In an effort to boost webOS app development, Palm dropped its US$ 50-per-app fee required to get an app featured in Palm's official app catalog. Palm is also retroactively refunding any US$ 50 fee accrued during webOS development.

Just more than a month since the release of Linux Mint 9, the Linux Mint team has released a KDE-flavored release candidate, complete with new applications, a new software manager, a new incremental backup tool, and USB and Windows installers, to name a few.

Mozilla Messaging released Thunderbird 3.1 a small update for the open source email client that features bug fixes, improvements, and a few new functions for end users. The most immediately recognizable update is an added Filter Bar that allows to quickly index the messages in your inbox, or any other tab you have open. In addition, there is a Setup Wizard and a Migration assistant that allows you to keep you existing buttons and layout or switch to the default view for 3.1.

Canonical became the first Associate Member of the Open Inventions Network, a patent organization founded by IBM, Sony, NEC, Novell, Philips and Red Hat to enable royalty-free use of patents to influence collaboration within the Linux community. The weird thing is that in both the press release and website, the actual requirements and commitments of an Associate Member are nowhere to be found.

Nokia announced that Symbian would no longer be used to power the company's popular N series of smartphones. The replacement? MeeGo, the jointly developed, Linux-based OS developed by Intel and Nokia.

MeeGo, the open source operating system shepherded by Intel and Nokia, announced the first annual MeeGo Conference. Slated for November 15-17, the conference takes place in Dublin Ireland with more details set to come. As of now, registration and paper submissions have yet to be announced and sponsors haven't even been nailed down.

Google VP of Engineering Andy Rubin announced the full availability of Android 2.2 today at Verizon's Droid X event. This makes the Linux-based mobile OS available for over-the-air updates and allows OEMs to package new products with the operating system pre-installed.

SkypeKit gives Linux developers access to core functionality, allowing Linux developers to add video, calling and instant messaging features to desktop applications. The SDK also comes with the freshly royalty-free SILK codec for high-end audio. Skype is hoping that the inclusion of SILK will popularize the codec, extending its reach. Currently, the SkypeKit beta is only available for Linux on an invite-only basis, with Windows and Mac versions planned in coming weeks. The SDK does not cover Android or Mac, an odd choice considering the announcement of SkypeKit championed itself for extending the functionality of Skype to multiple platforms and devices. Including smartphones in the SDK seems like an obvious move.

The Tor Project and the Electronic Frontier Foundation have released HTTPS Everywhere, a Firefox extension that activates SSL/TSL encryption on sites that support the security setting, but don't feature it as a default when visiting because of partial support, unsecured trackback links or other issues. To alleviate this problem, HTTPS Everywhere writes all requests in HTTPS.

Google engineer John Koleszar asked the open source community for help optimizing the VP8 codec for the WebM project, Google's open source project for watching video online. In soliciting help, Koleszar gave a sort of State of the Codec Address regarding VP8, it's functionality and the headway he and his fellow programmers have made since the WebM announcement at Google I/O 2010.

"Making significant architectural changes" the official answer. Adobe has discontinued 64-bit Flash 10.1 development for Linux stating that significant architectural changes were being made to the plugin that would add improved security.

Twilio Cloud Communications announced the release of OpenVBX, an enterprise telephony solution that provides Google Voice like functionality and scalable performance. Unfortunately Twilio doesn't offer hosting, leaving that up to an admin to decide.

One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) announced the inclusion of the GNOME desktop environment in its XO-1.5 line of computers. The inclusion of GNOME allows for students to quickly move from a learning environment to a productivity environment quickly and easily.

The Khronos Group announced version 1.1 of OpenCL, the multiprocessor programming standard. OpenCL 1.1 features a variety of enhancements, the one that really caught my eye was Improved OpenGL interoperability through efficient sharing of images and buffers by linking OpenCL event objects to OpenGL fence sync object. That'll come in handy.

The Chromium Project, Google's open source project that created the Chrome browser, has released the Chrome Frame beta from the developer preview. The Chrome Frame is a free plug-in for Internet Explorer that brings the full HTML5 experience to legacy versions of IE (IE 6, 7 and 8, to be exact).

Christopher Blizzard thinks Apple's new demos, "entirely miss the point of the web, interoperability, standards and html5." Apple recently released an HTML5 showcase intended to highlight the company's commitment to open Web standards. The demo, which championed the inclusive nature of open Web standards such as CSS3, JavaScript, and HTML5 had one problem –– it only worked within Apple's proprietary Safari Web browser.

OpenOffice.org surpassed 150 million downloads, 30 million of which came from the 3.2.0 release earlier this year.

Embedded Linux is more popular now than ever, but because of its ease-of-use, flexibility, and, importantly, free licensing cost, developers have taken the mobile OS in a variety of directions. Google's Android, Intel and Nokia's MeeGo, and Palm's webOS are just three Linux-based distros found on mobile device today, with Ubuntu Lite both entering the tablet scene later this year.

Intel's Computex press release highlight a variety of initiatives by the company, and slipped in added netbook support for the Linux-based MeeGo operating system, an open source joint venture between Nokia and Linux itself.