Recommended Reading
Five days with the Classmate PC and Mandriva (Linux.com)
Tina Gasperson
reviews
the Intel Classmate PC on Linux.com.
"
Some say the Classmate PC is Intel's answer to (or competition with) the One Laptop per Child (OLPC) effort. Intel is hawking the lilliputian laptop in "emerging markets" like Nigeria, India, and Mexico as a solution for worldwide education of primary and secondary students. It's to be officially released and shipped en masse to schools in Africa and South and Central America by the end of June. Recently my children and I borrowed a Classmate PC loaded with a custom version of Mandriva Linux. Most of us had fun."
Comments (24 posted)
Dell launches three Ubuntu Linux PC (Computerworld)
Computerworld
covers Dell's launch of three PCs that will ship with Ubuntu Linux.
"
Dell Inc. will officially launch its first three consumer PCs running the Ubuntu 7.04 Linux OS on Thursday -- two desktops and an Inspiron E1505n notebook PC.
The new models give buyers a third choice when shopping for a PC at Dell: a machine with Windows installed, a machine with no OS, on which they can install one of their choice, and now a machine with Ubuntu Linux already installed. Other PC makers, including Hewlett-Packard Co. (HP) and Lenovo Group Ltd. also sell PCs that run Linux, but mainly on customized machines, because retail demand for the open-source OS is tiny compared to that for Windows."
Comments (25 posted)
Trade Shows and Conferences
Hugin developer launches photographic distortion correction database
(Linux.com)
Linux.com
covers
Pablo d'Angelo's presentation at the Libre Graphics Meeting. "
The
lead developer of the Hugin panorama-stitching application, Pablo d'Angelo,
has proposed a new open database for collecting camera lens information
that could be used to correct systematic distortion in photographs. The
database would be populated by user-submitted calibration data and some
data donated from a competitor, but the exact format and licensing of the
database are still under consideration. One developer's suggestion would
make proprietary software that uses the database pay for the
privilege."
Comments (2 posted)
64-Bit Linux Spotlighted at Gelato ICE (HPCwire)
HPCwire
covers the
Gelato ICE Itanium Conference & Expo. "
Scientists, developers,
and engineers from 56 companies and institutions convened from all around
the globe for the April 2007 Gelato ICE: Itanium Conference & Expo held
in San Jose, California. The event was organized by the Gelato Federation,
an international technical community dedicated to advancing Linux on the
Intel Itanium architecture. Conference sponsors included HP, Intel, and the
Itanium Solutions Alliance, and media sponsors HPCwire and
GRIDtoday."
Comments (none posted)
Companies
MS Goes Open Source to Boost Identity Management (eWeek)
eWeek
covers open
source projects at Microsoft. "
Microsoft is launching a slew of
initiatives to help Web sites identify visitors. First, the company is
kicking off four open-source projects to support the development of ID
cards for online users. Microsoft is also releasing one of its identity
management specs, Identity Selector Interoperability Profile, under its OSP
(Open Specification Promise), meaning the specification is clear of
licensing fees or patent worries."
Comments (2 posted)
Novell to detail Microsoft patent pact (ZDNet)
ZDNet
reports that Novell will soon announce more information in
its patent agreement with Microsoft.
"
Novell plans to reveal the details in conjunction with filing its upcoming annual report with the Securities and Exchange Commission, spokesman Bruce Lowry said Wednesday at the Open Source Business Conference here. The report had been held up by Novell's investigation into its stock option compensation practices.
"We will be filing our SEC filing by the end of this month. We will be publishing the Microsoft agreements as attachments," Lowry said during a panel discussion. The agreements will have some details redacted, he said."
Comments (none posted)
Linux at Work
Windows firewall squeezes into USB key (LinuxDevices)
LinuxDevices
looks at the
Yoggie Pico. "
Yoggie Security Systems has squeezed a complete
hardware firewall for Windows systems into a USB key sized form-factor. The
"Yoggie Pico" runs Linux 2.6 along with 13 security applications on a
520MHz PXA270, a powerful Intel processor popular in smartphones and other
high-end consumer devices."
Comments (11 posted)
Legal
Hey Microsoft, Sue Me First (Linux Journal)
Nicholas Petreley
discusses
the
Sue me first Microsoft list in a Linux Journal posting.
"
I bought the domain name HeyMicrosoftSueMe.org at the suggestion of Marcel Gagné after posting a blog entry on the topic. The idea was to ask Linux users to join me in calling Microsoft's bluff. Let's get the patent infringement claims tried in court and get this over with. Several people talked me out of it. Fortunately, a lawyer named Christian Einfeldt had the same idea and followed through."
Comments (9 posted)
Eben Moglen: GPLv3 not about MS and Novell (Linux.com)
Linux.com has
a series of
videos of Eben Moglen talking about GPLv3 in Ogg format. "
One of
the highlights of my visit to San Diego for the Red Hat Summit was the
opportunity to sit down one-on-one with Professor Eben Moglen. From that
interview, we have selected six segments on various topics for your viewing
pleasure, and will be publishing one each day this week. First up, an
explanation of all the things that GPLv3 is about other than the MS/Novell
deal." In the second segment, Eben
explains
why MS should remove patents from the Novell agreement.
Comments (none posted)
Interviews
People Behind KDE: Jason Harris (KDE.News)
KDE.News
introduces this
People Behind KDE interview
with Jason Harris. "
In what ways do you make a contribution to
KDE? I'm the lead developer of KStars, the desktop planetarium, and I
wrote KPlotWidget, which is now part of kdelibs. I'm also one of the admins
for the kde-edu mailing list, I was involved in Google Summer of Code 2006,
and I initiated the KDE 4 Release Team."
Comments (none posted)
Resources
Firefox extension lets you remove elements from Web pages (Linux.com)
Linux.com
looks at
the RIP (Remove It Permanently) extension for Firefox. "
Are you
irritated by huge graphical ads smack in the middle of an article? Or maybe
you don't want to waste bandwidth viewing the dozens of images in a review,
or user icons in forum boards? You can remove them for good with a single
click by using Firefox's RIP extension, which zaps anything out of a Web
page, permanently."
Comments (6 posted)
New tool screens spam, digitizes books (ZDNet)
ZDNet
looks
at the
ReCaptcha project. "
A group of Carnegie Mellon University programmers has launched a service
called ReCaptcha that can help cut down on spam while letting people
digitize books. The project is a variation of the widely used "Captcha"
technique to weed out computer abuse such as e-mailing spam or posting spam
on blog comments. Captchas require users to pass little pattern recognition
tests, commonly reading distorted or obscured words."
Comments (6 posted)
Tone-mapping HDR photos with Qtpfsgui (Linux.com)
Nathan Willis
explores Qtpfsgui on Linux.com.
"
A lot of photos tagged with "HDR" turn up on Flickr and similar photo sharing sites these days. They're unnatural, surreal, sometimes crazy-looking images with the bright areas darkened, the dark areas brightened, and lots of saturation. You can get in on the craze under Linux using Qtpfsgui."
Comments (none posted)
Reviews
Unveiling the Art of Illusion (Linux.com)
Linux.com
reviews
Art of Illusion.
"
Blender gets the lion's share of press among free 3-D modeling applications, but it is not the only player in the field. Art of Illusion (AOI) is a mature, GPL-licensed 3-D modeler with robust editing, animation, and rendering features, and it's a lot easier to use than Blender."
Comments (none posted)
First-Person Shooters (OS Reviews)
OS Reviews
compares
three open source games. "
Entering the arena are three different
offsprings of id Software's various liberated engines. First, there is
PrBoom, which is based on the Doom engine. Moving one step further in FPS
history comes Nexuiz, being built on top of the DarkPlaces engine, which in
turn is derived from Quake I. The Quake III Arena engine is the one most
recently released under the GPL and serves as the basis for
OpenArena."
Comments (9 posted)
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