Linux/Open Source News Headlines - Yahoo! News

Google pushes new video standard that could cut bandwidth use in half

Thu, 16 May 2013 23:30:12 -0400

One of the constant complaints we hear from wireless and even some wireline ISPs is that the surge in online video demand has put a strain on their networks that leaves them with no choice but to implement unpopular policies such as bandwidth caps. But CNET reports that Google is hoping to make help ISPs significantly ease the strain of video on their networks by pushing its new V9 video technology standard that the company says can help content providers “save about 50% of bandwidth by encoding your video with VP9.” Of course, the VP9 standard hasn’t even been finalized yet and won’t be available for general use until mid-June at the earliest. All the same, Google is promising developers

Google CEO Page: Microsoft’s Outlook Google Talk integration is ‘milking off’ Google innovation

Wed, 15 May 2013 15:05:57 -0400

Google CEO isn’t very happy that Microsoft decided to integrate its Google Talk messaging service into its Outlook webmail platform without extending a similar offer to Google for the Gmail platform. Page, speaking during the Google I/O developers conference Wednesday, said that Google always pushes to have open-source platforms that other companies can use but lamented the fact that much of the tech industry doesn’t extend the same courtesies for many of its own innovations. Page went onto say that he was “sad” that companies such as Microsoft were “milking off” Google’s innovations by not being as open with their own software.

Google’s new Android boss says software like Facebook Home could be blocked

Tue, 14 May 2013 11:50:21 -0400

Android will likely always be open source, but just how open the platform will remain is an ongoing question. In a recent interview with Wired, Google’s new Android boss covered a lot of bases. He discussed the future of Android and dispelled speculation that it might merge with Chrome OS, but he also gave a somewhat unexpected answer to a question that many industry watchers have pondered for some time now: Just how open will Android be in the future? From Wired’s recent interview with Sundar Pichai: Some people worry that Google might respond to Facebook Home by blocking this kind of approach in a future release. We want to be a very, very open platform, but we want a way by

HP Signs The Python Software Foundation Contributor Agreement

Mon, 13 May 2013 11:20:53 -0400

Mark Atwood

A Journey Through Red Dwarf: OpenStack Database-as-a-Service on HP Cloud

Fri, 10 May 2013 13:40:06 -0400

Mark Atwood

The Obama administration takes aim at 3D-printed guns

Fri, 10 May 2013 11:26:20 -0400

The State Department says posting instructions for the gun online may be illegal

Print, Aim and Shoot: What Does a Plastic Handgun Mean for the Future of 3-D Printing?

Fri, 10 May 2013 06:30:00 -0400

Print, Aim and Shoot: What Does a Plastic Handgun Mean for the Future of 3-D Printing?

Some Facets of the Geology of Diamonds

Thu, 09 May 2013 08:07:00 -0400

Some Facets of the Geology of Diamonds

'Space Hackers' Take On Citizen Science for Suborbital Spaceflight

Tue, 07 May 2013 12:14:43 -0400

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. — The increasing demand for flying experiments in space was clearly in evidence over the weekend as a standing room only crowd of 100 people packed into a room here at the Hacker Dojo to hear about a new era of citizen science.

Amazon launches Android app store in China

Mon, 06 May 2013 02:17:23 -0400

SHANGHAI (Reuters) - Amazon.com Inc launched an Android application store that offers paid apps in China, beating Google Inc, as the online retailer seeks to increase the amount of digital content it offers in the world's largest mobile phone market. Amazon, which opened its Kindle e-book store in China in December, launched its Android app store over the weekend for China users to download both free and paid apps, Amazon China spokesman Billy Huang said on Monday. Google's official app store only offers free apps in China. Google China declined to comment for this story. ...

PlayStation 'Heritage Sale' Discounts Nine Long-Running Franchises

Tue, 30 Apr 2013 18:34:00 -0400

Dubbed "Sony Smash Bros." by fans, after Nintendo's crossover brawler, PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale features characters from Sony PlayStation games fighting each other in stages which mix their own titles. The characters featured include everyone from first-party favorites Nathan Drake (from Uncharted) and Sackboy (from Little Big Planet) to the armored Big Daddy from 2K Games' Bioshock. ...

New Ubuntu 13.04 Release Comes in Seven Different Varieties

Tue, 30 Apr 2013 14:47:00 -0400

You wouldn't know it to look at Ubuntu.com -- the homepage for the world's most popular free alternative PC operating system -- which only promotes the new 13.04 version of Ubuntu in its normal, familiar flavor. But versions of Ubuntu which work completely differently, or were designed for audiences from educators to creative professionals, also exist for free download.

Android design chief praises Facebook Home, calls it incredibly polished

Mon, 29 Apr 2013 17:25:00 -0400

Facebook unveiled Facebook Home, an application that replaces your Android phone’s homescreen with Facebook photos and status updates, earlier this month for select Android smartphones. Google chairman Eric Schmidt previously called the software “fantastic” and said it was a creative tweaking of the operating system that fits in well with Google’s conception of Android as an open source platform. He isn’t the only Google executive who finds Facebook Home intriguing, however: Android design chief Matias Durate told ABC News that Facebook’s homescreen replacement “shows an incredible amount of polish and attention to design detail,” which is impressive especially because it “didn’t come from a hardware manufacturer.” He added that “with the Home experience, they did a nice job expressing the Facebook

HP Jumps on 7-Inch Tablet Bandwagon with $169 Slate 7

Fri, 26 Apr 2013 17:57:00 -0400

When most people think of PC manufacturer HP and "tablets," they probably think of a Windows 8 device. Either that, or the ill-fated TouchPad, an iPad-sized webOS gadget which sold so poorly that HP had to dump them all in a $99 fire sale just a few months in.

Ubuntu 13.04 'Raring Ringtail' Now Available as Free Download

Thu, 25 Apr 2013 18:00:00 -0400

The new version of the world's most popular free (and open-source) PC operating system, Ubuntu, is now available as a free download from Ubuntu.com. Ubuntu 13.04 "Raring Ringtail" largely contains under-the-hood improvements that most people won't notice, but does contain a few new user-facing features ... such as a more visible notice about how its Unity search feature logs your keystrokes and sends them to websites like Amazon.

Google Predicts Stock-Market Crashes, Study Suggests

Thu, 25 Apr 2013 09:10:40 -0400

On Tuesday (April 23), a tweet from a hacked Associated Press account claiming there had been explosions at the White House sent the Dow Jones Industrial Average plummeting 145 points almost instantaneously. The incident was an example of how quickly the Internet can send shock waves through the financial world, given how many trades are completed by computers rather than humans.

Archos to Release Three 'Pure Android' Prepaid Smartphones

Wed, 24 Apr 2013 11:58:00 -0400

Despite being ubiquitous, "Android" can be awfully hard to find. Many smartphones and tablets that use Google's open-source Android operating system, such as the Kindle Fire and Samsung's latest phones, barely mention this fact in a footnote.

A new contender enters the fray: First Firefox phone now available

Tue, 23 Apr 2013 18:25:30 -0400

Apple’s iOS and Google’s Android platforms have a stranglehold on the global smartphone market that doesn’t appear to be slipping anytime soon. But as a bloody battle rages for the No.3 and No.4 positions in the smartphone race, a new contender with a very different strategy has now hit the market: Firefox OS. Beginning immediately, the first two Firefox-powered smartphones are available to developers and the general public. Or, they were available — it’s hard to say if consumers at large have had their interest piqued by Firefox OS, but both the Keon ($119) and Peak ($194) were sold out on Tuesday morning shortly after becoming available so developers are certainly intrigued. We don’t know how many units were stocked

A review of Facebook Home – by someone who can’t stand Facebook

Tue, 23 Apr 2013 12:00:11 -0400

In many circles on competing services like Twitter, Facebook is the Nickelback of social networks. People love to discuss how awful it is and to joke about it constantly, mocking various aspects of the service and business such as how fast and loose it plays with users’ privacy. Everyone seems to have a Facebook account and yet no one seems to use the service actively. But just as Nickelback manages to sell millions of albums each year despite seemingly having no fans, Facebook — the social network people love to hate — has a billion monthly active users. As a user, I count myself among those who are often very critical of Facebook. To be clear, I do not dislike Facebook

Asus Launches New 10.1 Inch Netbook, but Calls it a 'Notebook' Instead

Tue, 23 Apr 2013 11:04:00 -0400

Asus, the company that built the first Eee PC netbook, seems to have gotten the memo that netbooks aren't "in" anymore. It's calling its new 10.1-inch laptop the "1015E Series Notebook," and nowhere on Asus' product page does the word netbook appear, even though its screen size and $299 price tag put it in line with pretty much every netbook ever made.

First Firefox Phone Costs $119 Plus Shipping

Tue, 23 Apr 2013 11:01:00 -0400

In an age where bigger is seen as better when it comes to smartphones, and 5- or 6-inch screens are becoming more common, Mozilla -- the nonprofit organization which leads development of the open-source Firefox web browser -- made it a goal to help smartphone manufacturers produce "entry-level smartphones" with its Firefox OS platform. Most of these gadgets are about the size of the original iPhone, with low-end hardware specs and price tags to match.

Android predicted to beat Apple in China – thanks to its potential for ‘oppression’

Mon, 22 Apr 2013 12:35:45 -0400

We tend to think of an open source operating system as something that gives both smartphone vendors and end users more freedom to customize their experiences. But as Bronte Capital’s John Hempton points out, open source software can have a dark side as well if it is changed by authoritarian governments to limit the information that end users can access. Hempton says he bought a Samsung Desire HD off of eBay from a Middle Eastern country a couple of years ago and found that “it did not contain any access to the Google market place (Google’s equivalent of the App store),” that “it had limited apps and no possibility of adding more” and “it contained a non-standard web browser and a

First Firefox Smartphones to Launch This Week

Mon, 22 Apr 2013 11:40:00 -0400

After teasing subscribers to its Facebook page with a photo of boxed smartphones ready to ship in a factory, Geeksphone -- one of Mozilla's partners for the new breed of Firefox smartphones -- announced in an email Wednesday that "Next week at last" its smartphones would finally ship. Once ready, they'll be available in Geeksphone's online store.

Alienware Launches First Linux Gaming PC

Fri, 19 Apr 2013 13:02:00 -0400

This isn't the first time that Dell has sold PCs with Ubuntu, a free computer operating system based on Linux. Not too long after it bought out Alienware, then an independent maker of gaming PCs, it started selling Ubuntu-powered desktop and laptop PCs, but only online, and only on a limited selection of models.

Pressure cooker bombs used in past by militants

Tue, 16 Apr 2013 19:13:50 -0400

CAIRO (AP) — Homemade bombs built from pressure cookers, a version of which was used in the Boston Marathon bombings, have been a frequent weapon of militants in Afghanistan, India and Pakistan. Al-Qaida's branch in Yemen once published an online manual on how to make one, urging "lone jihadis" to act on their own to carry out attacks.

Google's Schmidt sees one billion Android phones in use in nine months

Tue, 16 Apr 2013 17:57:43 -0400

By Alexei Oreskovic SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Google Inc Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt predicted on Tuesday that there will be more than a billion smartphones in use featuring its Android software within the next six to nine months. Schmidt also noted that Google had no intention of blocking access to a new app from Facebook Inc, saying he was "phenomenally happy" with the app from Google's rival, which replaces the homescreen on Android phones. The new Facebook Home app was released on Friday and gives the social networking service prominent placement on Android phones. ...

Google chairman says Facebook Home is ‘what open source is all about’

Tue, 16 Apr 2013 12:05:18 -0400

Android users may not like Facebook Home very much, but Google chairman Eric Schmidt sounds like an enthusiastic supporter. During AllThingsD’s D: Dive Into Mobile conference on Tuesday, Schmidt called Facebook’s Android overlay “fantastic” and said it was a creative tweaking of the operating system that was “what open source is all about.” Schmidt’s endorsement of Facebook Home is particularly interesting because there has been speculation that Google would clamp down on third-party Android overlays in the future so it could keep its own services such as Gmail and YouTube at the center of the Android experience. But if Schmidt’s comments are any indication, then Google may be more welcoming of software overlays such as Facebook Home than many had

Can You Buy Exoplanet Naming Rights? No, Astronomy Group Says

Sat, 13 Apr 2013 09:30:11 -0400

There may not be an alien planet named Heinlein any time soon if the International Astronomical Union (IAU) gets its way. The astronomy group issued a reminder Friday (April 12) that it is the only body authorized to give exoplanets their official names, despite recent naming initiatives by companies like Uwingu.

Microsoft’s Android antitrust complaint called ‘an attack on open source’

Fri, 12 Apr 2013 11:45:33 -0400

When a Microsoft (MSFT)-led group called Fairsearch Europe filed an antitrust complaint against Google (GOOG) and its Android platform this week, it didn’t merely say that the company was rigging its search results to benefit its own products. Instead, it went a step further and said that Google was unfairly promoting Android to device manufacturers by making it free to use, while also accusing the company of employing “predatory distribution of Android at below-cost.” Ars Technica’s Timothy Lee finds this sort of attack on Android to be very dangerous on Microsoft’s part since it seemingly isn’t just attacking Google but the entire nature of open-source software. “Apparently, Fairsearch believes that it’s ‘predatory’ for a company to gain market share by giving

New Thunderbolt Port Could Enable Desktop Retina Display Monitors

Mon, 08 Apr 2013 18:09:00 -0400

Ever since it debuted the first iMac with USB instead of legacy ports -- at a time when not including a floppy drive was also considered daring -- Apple has been ahead of the curve when it comes to the ports and interfaces on its computers. In early 2011, it replaced its DisplayPort technology with the Thunderbolt port, developed by Intel, which let its laptops connect to a new Thunderbolt display along with high-speed external hard drives.