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Transferring data off TiVo devices to watch them on laptops or desktops has often required expensive proprietary tools. Here are reviews of three free, Open Source tools that allow you to do this.

Android, Ubuntu, LiMo and Moblin have been battling it out in the Open Source mobile Operating system space for Mobile phones and Netbooks. Now, Novell has teamed up with Intel to push Moblin, instead of a version of OpenSuSE.

Eucalyptus is an Open Source project that allows users to create and manage 'Private Clouds', and is API-compatible with Amazon's EC2. The founding professor, Rich Wokski, recently launched a company, backed by $5.5M in venture capital. Here's why he did so.

Ben Kepes at Cloud Ave. offers some interesting analysis of a question Yuuguu CEO Anish Kapoor recently tackled on his company's blog: Has software as a service (SaaS) killed open source as a business model? The question raised, of course, is why these concepts are at odds at all -- why are they mutually exclusive? They aren't, per se (SaaS companies can -- and do -- offer their code under open licenses), but Kapoor imagines that for some companies, SaaS takes a bit of the shine from open source. Kepes counters that while this might be the case, SaaS has a fair bit to gain from the open source model.

Obama's inauguration must have brought out the optimist in tech journalists. In the last week, Ron Miller and Charles Babcock have written to implore Microsoft to open source Windows. While inspired and with some solid reasoning, I don't think it's going to happen anytime soon. Here's why. As much as I believe in open source, I don't think it's realistic to expect Microsoft to change course so quickly or drastically, even though Vista has been a pretty big mess for the company. (I would, however, be happy to be proved wrong on this front.)

According to the BBC, "Good teachers will always be looking to move forward but they are so busy that they are often conservative." Datamation's Matt Hartley has a completely different take on why open source can't get a foothold in American classrooms, and he claims it's largely because teachers and school IT professionals are "misinformation junkies."

The BBC has posted an insightful piece on open source software in schools that not only touches on the strengths of the software, but also the complexities of deploying it in these environments. It's not always about cost, upfront or long-term. And while the "new software learning curve" is always mentioned, it's not necessarily learning the software that throws the wrench in plans. It's often the sheer act of timing, planning, and learning enough to make the right choice for schools.

If you're a fan of offbeat applications of open source principles, you'll definitely want to take a gander at the "EDAG open source Light Car" from German design firm EDAG. Shown here and below, it's slated to debut at the Geneva Motor Show in March, and is based on a core chassis which can accommodate many modular types of exterior designs. Going further with the modularity concept, it has daisy-chained organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs) under its surface that allow the user to configure the look of everything from headlamps to brake lights to the car's interior. Although EDAG is approaching other companies to help with the design, it's a stretch to call this car open source, but it does leverage open source concepts.

If you've been following President Obama's search for a CTO for the country, you may have seen BusinessWeek's report that the choice he will make has narrowed down to two candidates, both born in India: Padmasree Warrior, the chief technology officer of Cisco Systems, and Vivek Kundra, CTO in the government of Washington, D.C. Now, ex-Sun CEO Scott McNealy has revealed that he has been asked to prepare a paper for the Obama administration on how open source technologies are the key to a more secure, more efficient government.

A few days ago, Kristin wrote about Marketcetera's first full production release of its open source automated trading platform. Aimed at hedge fund managers, traders, brokers and dealers, the system is standardized, open, scalable and modular. Ars Technica also points out that over 20 financial institutions have already adopted Marketcetera. The question is: Why doesn't the financial community at large wake up to this kind of opportunity to reduce costs and customize trading through an open source offering?

The seventh annual Southern California Linux Expo (SCALE) is scheduled to get underway early next month. I caught up with one of the event's organizers, Gareth Greenaway, to find get the inside scoop on what's new, what's different, and what they've learned from past events.

Black Duck Software released a list of the top 10 projects launched in 2008 that have the most promising future in the open source community. The company also says if you're trying to decide which FOSS horse to back in the next year or so, you should put your money on mobile apps.

The Open Source Alliance (OSA) published its Annual Predictions Survey this week. It serves up the opinions of business leaders about Obama's impact on IT, where they think the technology market is headed, and why it's a bad idea to put projects on hold until the economy turns around. Anthony Gold, VP & GM of Open Source Business at Unisys, says he expects the new presidential administration to favorably impact the IT industry because President Barack Obama clearly understands the importance of technology.

Providing another indication of convergence between open source and the cloud, Evans Data researchers are reporting today that nearly half of developers working on open source projects plan to offer applications as web services via cloud providers.

OpenSimulator, sometimes described as the "the Apache of virtual worlds." The open source project originated as a reverse-engineered spinoff of Second Life's GPL-licensed viewer code, and continues growing and evolving far beyond it. Especially with the recent addition of an important feature: the "Hypergrid", a new core OpenSim network architecture which may well establish the HTTP protocol of the metaverse.

Ubiquity is a very popular Firefox extension that adds a flexible natural language command line to Firefox, and is developed by the folks at Mozilla. It's now out in a more useful new version, with a sleeker look, a more stable core, and the ability to create good looking skins. If you're familiar with using the Awesome Bar in Firefox, you'll take to Ubiquity quickly, although it pays to spend a little time learning how its commands work. Here's a peek at the new version.

Google has its own alternative to Twitter, Jaiku, which it acquired in October of 2007. It hasn't gone far on its own, but Google has just announced that it will no longer actively develop the Jaiku codebase and will open source it.

At this year's CES show, there was no shortage of netbooks, which have become a surprisingly strong challenge to the whole traditional notebook market. I remain surprised that more people in the open source community don't herald this trend as extremely positive for Linux, because Linux is making its way onto millions of netbooks and pre-loaded open source applications arrive with them.

[Yes they can come pre-loaded with Linux. But I know how many were actually running Linux at CES, one.- Scott]

Toshiba will OEM their laptop line with OpenSolaris beginning in early 2009. This is a big win for OpenSolaris, and big win for Open Source, given the increasing number of Linux devices coming online next year.

HP has been quirky over the years when it comes to open source. It has been, traditionally, a company that supports open source -- especially in larger enterprises. While large businesses are a major focus for HP -- and it has supported open source in other ways -- a "smaller business" line of open source products has been a long time coming.