Monthly Archive:: January 2014

CentOS Project joins forces with Red Hat

Thom Holwerda 2014-01-08 Red Hat 35 Comments

With great excitement I'd like to announce that we are joining the Red Hat family. The CentOS Project is joining forces with Red Hat. Working as part of the Open Source and Standards team to foster rapid innovation beyond the platform into the next generation of emerging technologies. Working alongside the Fedora and RHEL ecosystems, we hope to further expand on the community offerings by providing a platform that is easily consumed, by other projects to promote their code while we maintain the established base.

Well, that's certainly a different tune from Red Hat. Welcome though!

The gaming press and Steam Machines

Thom Holwerda 2014-01-07 Games 90 Comments

Polygon:

A Steam Machine is a PC that can do fewer things, and run fewer games, than the system you have in your home right now.

That's the marketing challenge that’s in front of Valve and its partners, and the fact that Valve had a rare CES press conference was interesting, but there were precious few details about what the platform adds to the world of gaming.

The cold and harsh reality is that six of the top ten games on Steam run on Linux/SteamOS - and with Steam having such a huge base of active subscribers, that's a lot of users covered with just those six games. On top of that, there's almost 300 more Linux games on Steam. In the meantime, the PS4 and Xbox One combined have like 10 games, most of which are available on the Xbox 360/PS3 as well, and the remainder are rushed titles nobody gives two rat's asses about.

The Xbox One and PS4 are sold not on what they offer now, but on what they will offer in the future. I see absolutely no reason why Steam Machines ought to be treated any differently.

Reality check: right now, spending $499 on a Steam Machine gets you access to a lot more games and a lot more functionality than the Xbox One and PS4 offer combined. Of course, a Windows PC will offer even more games (not functionality, Linux has that covered just fine) - but that applies just as well to any console.

I've been baffled these past few days about the attitude of the gaming press towards Steam Machines. The gaming press' reviews of the new consoles was full of "just you wait until the actually good games arrive!/new functionality is added, but here's a 9/10 anyway on that promise!", but for some reason, the same sloppy reviewing is not applied to Steam Machines.

There's a word for that.

Submitted by M.Onty 2014-01-07 Games 26 Comments

Valve officially showed off the 13 official Steam Machines during its brief CES press event this evening, but it was in the aftermath where we got a closer look at the devices. Below, Reviews Editor Lee Hutchinson snapped photos of all the Steam Machine variants in their glorious array of shapes and sizes.

They start at $499, and come in all shapes and sizes.

Transformer Book Duet combines Windows with Android

Thom Holwerda 2014-01-06 Hardware 31 Comments

Also from CES:

On stage at CES today, Jonney Shih proclaimed his company's new Transformer the world's first 4-in-1 device. By that he meant that it's a Windows laptop and tablet as well as an Android laptop and tablet. This new 13.3-inch slate transforms both physically and virtually thanks to the company's new dual-OS setup. A quick switch of three or four seconds is all that's required to morph you from the Windows 8 environment into the familiar Android UI and vice versa.

And all this is actively promoted and supported by Intel. So, Microsoft creates an operating system that is supposed to be both desktop and tablet operating system. However, nobody wants it. So, Intel and PC makers confuse everything even more by... Adding Android to the mix? What?

Samsung launches bunch of new tablets at CES

Thom Holwerda 2014-01-06 Wireless 20 Comments

Samsung's goal with the new tablets is to better straddle the gap between a normal tablet and a laptop computer. The Galaxy NotePro and 12.2-inch Galaxy TabPro feature new four-pane multi-window multitasking, while all of the tablets offer multiple layered pop-up windows for multitasking. The panes in the multi-window system can be resized freely, and it's possible to open two instances of the same app at once to compare them side-by-side.

The same plasticy everything-and-the-kitchen-sink-software products as always from Samsung, but it does make one thing even clearer: stock Android really needs multiwindow.

Rebooting webOS: how LG rethought the smart TV

Thom Holwerda 2014-01-06 Hardware 30 Comments

On the eve of LG's launch, I sat down with webOS's head of product management and design, Itai Vonshak, as well as Colin Zhao, director of product management for LG's Silicon Valley Lab. As they demoed LG's new interface to me, I was by turns intrigued, bemused, and doubtful that it was up to the task of convincing people that it would be worth buying a new TV for. Most of all, I was impressed by the clarity of vision behind the new interface. For better or worse, webOS has an opinion about how smart TVs should treat their users, and by all appearances that opinion is executed very, very well. LG is better known for pretty schizophrenic Android skins on its smartphones, so to see the company produce something this coherent was a shock.

It looks quite amazing - but I still find it very hard to be excited over a TV.

Google, automakers form Open Automotive Alliance

Thom Holwerda 2014-01-06 In the News 30 Comments

Audi, GM, Google, Honda, Hyundai and NVIDIA have joined together to form the Open Automotive Alliance (OAA), a global alliance of technology and auto industry leaders committed to bringing the Android platform to cars starting in 2014. The OAA is dedicated to a common platform that will drive innovation, and make technology in the car safer and more intuitive for everyone.

A potentially very lucrative market.

Some of what we did at Danger: the future that everyone forgot

Thom Holwerda 2014-01-05 Wireless 35 Comments

I came across a website whose purpose was to provide a super detailed list of every handheld computing environment going back to the early 1970's. It did a great job except for one glaring omission: the first mobile platform that I helped develop. The company was called Danger, the platform was called hiptop, and what follows is an account of our early days, and a list of some of the "modern" technologies we shipped years before you could buy an iOS or Android device.

Written by one of Danger's first employees, Chris DeSalvo. Amazing detailed look at some of the revolutionary things Danger did - years before iOS and Android.

It should come as no surprise that I loved this article. I hate how everything is framed as "iOS/Android invented this" - while in fact, both of those platforms rely very, very, very heavily on those that came before, such as PalmOS and Danger.

Intel’s CES plan: Android and Windows in the same computer

Thom Holwerda 2014-01-03 Hardware 122 Comments

The PC industry isn't doing so well. Sales have dramatically slumped, despite the industry's efforts to tempt consumers with Windows 8 tablets and transforming touchscreen laptops. But next week, the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas may be the launching pad for a new push - a new brand of computer that runs both Windows and Android.

Sources close to the matter tell The Verge that Intel is behind the idea, and that the chipmaker is working with PC manufacturers on a number of new devices that could be announced at the show. Internally known as "Dual OS," Intel's idea is that Android would run inside of Windows using virtualization techniques, so you could have Android and Windows apps side by side without rebooting your machine.

I'm going to make a very daring prediction, that is sure to send ripples across the entire industry: this is not going to turn the tide for the PC.

Jolla outsells iPhone, Galaxy S4, high-end Lumias on DNA, Finland

Thom Holwerda 2014-01-03 Wireless 32 Comments

More good news for Jolla and Sailfish. On the Finnish carrier DNA, the only carrier currently selling the device, Jolla outsold the iPhone 5S, 5C, Galaxy S4, and every Lumia except the 520. Jolla ended up as number five, preceded by the Lumia 520 in fourth place, the Galaxy SIII 4G in third, and two cheap Galaxy phones as two and one. Sales cover the holiday period.

Of course, with Finland having a small population and Jolla having the home team advantage, this isn't exactly representative for, well, anything, but it's still impressive and good news for the young platform. The fact that Jolla outsold the flagships of iOS, Android, and Windows Phone holds promise for the future. On top of that, out of that top five, the Jolla is the most expensive phone (save for perhaps the Galaxy SIII).

I'm curious to see if they'll be able to maintain this momentum. It's not going to be easy.

The lost secrets of webOS

Thom Holwerda 2014-01-02 Wireless 12 Comments

The Verge has an interesting story up detailing the various hardware and software prototypes that could have had a future hadn't HP botched pretty much every aspect of its Palm acquisition. Both in features as well as design, the next version of webOS, codenamed 'Eel', looked quite promising, and the hardware designs certainly stand out too.

Sadly, as I stated in my detailed history of Palm, webOS was, at its core, simply not a Palm product. As I wrote:

A cool UI doesn't hide the fact that it's slow and unresponsive. A cool UI doesn't hide the fact that the underlying system is unoptimised. A cool UI doesn't hide the fact that it sucks battery like a there's no tomorrow. A cool UI doesn't hide the fact that the hardware was of appallingly low quality.

A cool UI doesn't hide the fact that the operating system has absolutely nothing to do with what Palm is supposed to stand for.

WebOS probably looked like the bee's knees to someone used to the version of Android and iOS at the time, but having had a long history using PalmOS products, webOS was a total and utter letdown. WebOS was a badly sewn together set of compromises, unfinished parts and shortcuts - and it showed. From The Verge's article, I get the impression that Eel slapped on a new coat of paint and new user-facing features - but that the lower levels and core of the operating system were still very much the same unoptimised mess.

I'm definitely curious what LG's webOS TV is going to be like - it looks nice - but if it's anything like Palm's and HP's webOS products, it won't light any of my fires.

Guest post by MOS6510 2014-01-02 In the News 28 Comments

The findings, published in Nature, are probably best described as "mind blowing." Devices with this level of complexity were not seen again for almost 1,500 years, and the Antikythera mechanism's compactness actually bests the later designs. Probably built around 150 B.C., the Antikythera mechanism can perform a number of functions just by turning a crank on the side.

Submitted by 2014-01-01 Privacy, Security 37 Comments

Remember when I wrote about how your mobile phone runs two operating systems, one of which is a black box we know and understand little about, ripe for vulnerabilities? As many rightfully pointed out in the comments - it's not just mobile phones that have tiny processors for specific tasks embedded in them. As it turns out, memory cards have microprocessors though - and yes, they can be cracked for remote code execution too.

Today at the Chaos Computer Congress (30C3), xobs and I disclosed a finding that some SD cards contain vulnerabilities that allow arbitrary code execution - on the memory card itself. On the dark side, code execution on the memory card enables a class of MITM (man-in-the-middle) attacks, where the card seems to be behaving one way, but in fact it does something else. On the light side, it also enables the possibility for hardware enthusiasts to gain access to a very cheap and ubiquitous source of microcontrollers.

There's so much computing power hidden in the dark.

The Mac Pro review

Thom Holwerda 2014-01-01 Apple 15 Comments

All in all the new Mac Pro is a good update to its aging predecessor. Apple did a great job with the new chassis and build a desktop that's extremely dense with compute. When I had to dust off the old Mac Pros to prepare them for this comparison I quickly remembered many of the reasons that frustrated me about the platform. The old Mac Pro was big, bulky, a pain to work on and was substantially behind the consumer Macs in single threaded performance. The new Mac Pro fixes literally all of that. If you have a workload that justifies it and prefer OS X, the Mac Pro is thankfully no longer just your only solution, it's a great solution.

The only Mac Pro review that matters. Still want one. Won't buy one - but want one.