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Monthly Archive:: January 2010

Windows XP Users Must Update Flash Now

"Microsoft has confirmed that the version of Adobe Flash bundled with Windows XP contains multiple bugs, and urged customers to upgrade to a newer edition of the multimedia player plug-in. In a security advisory issued alongside a one-patch update for the month, Microsoft acknowledged that Flash Player 6 contains numerous vulnerabilities. Flash Player 6 is the version of Adobe's software that Microsoft includes in Windows XP, even in the copies it continues to sell to computer makers, who offer the eight-year-old operating system on netbooks, laptops and some desktop PCs."

Google Releases Nexus One SDK

"The Android variant found on Google's Nexus One handset now has an SDK, answering one of the criticisms aimed at the search giant's foray into hardware. The Android 2.1 SDK includes APIs for creating animated wallpapers, as well as some additional telephony functions and a couple of improvements to interaction with the WebKit browser, all of which are used by Google's own Nexus One applications and are now available to other developers too."

Intel’s Home Dashboard Research Project

Intel has created a web site for its Intelligent Home Energy Management Proof of Concept. In its current incarnation, the device is a beautiful, wall-mounted Atom-based device that allows a homeowner to view and control various home-tech-related displays and dashboards. It's being promoted as primarily a home energy monitoring tool, with real time and historical reports on energy usage. Even the clock feature has an in-line graph displaying current home energy usage. Being a home automation enthusiast, though, I'm more excited about this device's potential as the interface to the home's nerve center.

Typeface Designers Wrestle with the World of Pixels

"Imagine that you are a super-successful movie director, who's been given hundreds of millions of dollars and lots of whiz-bang technology to make a cinematic epic. Sounds good? Not once you are told that people will have to watch it on fuzzy old black and white television sets. Something similar happens to the text that appears on your computer screen whenever you log on to a Web site. The site's owner has so little control over the fine details of what you will see that the typeface in which the text appears is bound to be distorted. Pity the poor designer who struggled to perfect it."

Windows, Office Rentals Now OK with Microsoft

"At one time or another you may have used a rented-out Windows PC, be that at business kiosks or Internet cafes. Technically speaking, though, doing so has never been legal. As of January 1, 2010, the licensing terms for Windows and Microsoft Office have been tweaked so that those that wish to rent, lease, or outsource desktop PCs to third parties with either software can do so by paying an extra fee."

Near-Final Firefox 3.6 Out for Testing

"Mozilla has released its first release candidate, RC1, for Firefox 3.6 for Windows, Mac, and Linux. The new version includes Personas, which lets people customize the browser's appearance; blocks third-party software from encroaching on its file system turf to increase stability; and perhaps most significantly given the competitive threat from Google Chrome, shortens start-up time and improves responsiveness and JavaScript performance. Firefox 3.6 RC1 is also available from Mozilla's download site."

Arch Linux Team

A few weeks ago, we asked for the OSNews community to help with some questions we were going to ask Aaron Griffin from the Arch Linux team, and the response was glorious and somewhat phenomenal. We added those questions to our own and sent them on over, and then we were surprised by receiving not only Aaron Griffin's responses but answers from various individuals from the team.

25 Microchips that Shook the World

"Among the many great chips that have emerged from fabs during the half-century reign of the integrated circuit, a small group stands out. Their designs proved so cutting-edge, so out of the box, so ahead of their time, that we are left groping for more technology cliches to describe them. Suffice it to say that they gave us the technology that made our brief, otherwise tedious existence in this universe worth living."

Lessig on Copyright and Science at the University of Amsterdam

Last Friday, January 8, the University of Amsterdam (I'm with the competition) handed out an honorary doctorate to Harvard prof. Lawrence Lessig, known to you all (I may hope!) as one of the founding members of the wildly successful Creative Commons project. During the acceptance ceremony, he held one of his keynote presentations - and one that is required listening material for everyone. And with everyone - I mean everyone.

Mozilla Drumbeat Aims to Expand Web Participation

"Open source has dramatically reshaped the software development landscape. Yet is it enough to help propel the Web itself forward for the next decade? That's what Mozilla believes. After having been synonymous with open source for over a decade, thanks to its efforts behind the popular Firefox Web browser, Mozilla is now creating a new effort to help shaping the Internet's development using the same sorts of techniques that have made open source a success. The goal of the new Mozilla Drumbeat effort is to go beyond open source code to encourage and nurture projects that help to expand understanding and participation in the open Web. While Drumbeat is today only in its early stages of development, Mozilla is budgeting more than $1 million in funding for the effort - a project that it thinks could help to direct the very future of the Internet."