Intel launches new online dev magazine

Visual Adrenaline offers tips on multi-threading and code optimisation for games devs
Leading component and software vendor Intel has launched a brand new digital magazine targeting the games development sector.

Entitled Intel Visual Adrenaline, the mag is free to those who sign up to the Intel Software Dispatch news service. The digital publication covers the use of multi-threading and code optimisation in the rendering of games and apps, as well as information on the latest tools and development products.

The mag will be released once per quarter and takes the form of a downloadable PDF.

Resource - Develop

Three Reasons Why Netbooks Just Aren’t Good Enough

The debate about Netbooks, which are very small and very cheap laptop devices, is beginning to heat up. The category is only about a year old but sales are expected to top 5 million this year.

Lots of people think Netbooks are the next big volume market because they allow people who previously couldn’t afford computers to own one. People got so bullish on the devices that sales projections reached 50 million units by 2012.

I’ve had a chance to test many of the units, though, and I can say that the promise is much bigger than the payoff. Perhaps that’s why Intel is rethinking whether the devices are as great as everyone’s expectations.

A typical Netbook has a 7 inch screen, an Intel Atom or Via Nano processor, a solid state (flash) hard drive and a keyboard that’s 80-85% standard size. Most have Wifi. Some have other bells and whistles like bluetooth, a camera, etc.

I find Netbooks unusable for three reasons: they’re underpowered as PCs, the screen is too small for web surfing, and the keyboard is so small that effective typing is impossible.

The basic problem as I see it: Netbooks are designed to appeal to two very different markets - the price sensitive and the size sensitive. The two are really mutually exclusive.

Too Little Horsepower

Netbooks use Intel Celeron, Intel Atom, or Via Nano CPUs. All are x86 compatible, and they have great power usage. At best the devices have 1 GB of memory, and some make do with as little as 256 MB.

Most of these machines are running Windows XP or Vista. A few have some flavor of Linux. Combining that UI, even the lower end XP and Linux, with normal computing is a heavy chore for these machines. If you have an email application open and a couple of tabs in a browser, there’s a lot of slow down. One Vista machine I’ve been testing tends to crash after a few minutes of use.

This is not the computing experience that most people are familiar with. The Atom just can’t compare to a dual-core laptop when it comes to performance Anyone with an alternative will quickly be unhappy at how sluggish these machines are.

Then There’s The Screen

These machines have screens ranging from 7 inches on up. The worst thing about the screens is vertical resolution, which is generally 600 pixels. Even if you aren’t using a lot of toolbars and plugins on the browser that take up vertical space, they annoyance factor is high. This is, at best, how much of a web page you’ll see on the screen:

You are constantly scrolling down on these devices. You have to scroll down just to see the title of the first article on the NYTimes, for example. And unlike the iPhone, you can’t just swipe your finger. You have to use the keyboard or trackpad to scroll down, and it means taking your eyes off the screen. It’s annoying and, again, if you have a different device, you are going to stop using your Netbook.

Remember that the iPhone has 480 vertical resolution, and you can resize text to fit a lot of it on the screen. The image above shows 8 lines of text in the post (net of title, etc.). The iPhone shows 22 lines of text.

In other words, the iPhone or iPod Touch, with a tiny 3.5 inch screen, has a vastly better browsing experience than any Netbook (it’s faster too).

The Keyboard

Then there’s the keyboard. It’s tiny - most of them are just 80% of regular size. Any normal adult can’t type fast on it without constantly hitting the wrong keys because there is no space between them. It isn’t much better than a Blackberry-type mobile keyboard when it comes to speed and accuracy of input.

Convergence Of Mobile And Laptop

There is a big fat hole in the market between mobile devices like the iPhone and regular laptops. But smaller, underpowered laptops aren’t the answer for the mass market. Most of the Netbooks aren’t much cheaper than very low end laptops (and those laptops have normal keyboard and much bigger screens).

The problem with Netbooks is they are trying to address two markets at once: emerging markets where price is very important, and developed markets where people want a second computer. The emerging markets don’t care about size, they just want it at a low cost - so offer them something that’s bigger and works better at the same price (remember, bigger = cheaper for most computer parts except the screen). Developed markets don’t care about price as much as performance, and Netbooks cut too many corners. Perhaps that’s why Netbook screens are starting to inch up to 10 and 11 inches. Which doesn’t really make them much different from normal laptops (and the prices are about the same).

So what’s the answer? Well, we have our own ideas. When you ditch the operating system and all it’s weight and focus on a device that runs a browser only (a true netbook), you can make do with mobile phone level hardware. Give people a big screen to really experience the Internet. Make it a touch screen or add a normal keyboard. And keep it really inexpensive. That’s a device people will want.

The sub notebooks can get bigger and more useful without sacrificing cost, which is great for emerging markets and students. Tiny notebooks that perform well will be higher cost, and there’s a market for those, too.

Resource - TechCrunch

FreeBSD 6.4 Released

Even though FreeBSD 7.x is already out and updated, the FreeBSD team keeps working on the FreeBSD 6.x branch, now designated the legacy branch. They released FreeBSD 6.4 today, with lots of new features, fixes, and updates. They are expecting FreeBSD 6.4 to be the last release in the 6.x branch.

The highlights of the release are listed as follows:

• New and much-improved NFS Lock Manager (NLM) client
• Support for the Camellia cipher
• boot loader changes allow, among other things, booting from USB devices and booting from GPT-labeled devices with GPT-enabled BIOSes
• DVD install ISO images for amd64/i386
• KDE updated to 3.5.10, GNOME updated to 2.22.3
• Updates for BIND, sendmail, OpenPAM, and others

The complete release notes are of course also available, as is the errata list. This release is supposed to be supported by the security team until November 30th, 2010. Using torrents for downloading this release is usually preferred, but you can of course also check your local mirror.

Resource - OSNews

Aonuma can't quit Zelda until he beats Ocarina of Time

As co-director of a game that many consider the greatest of all time, you'd think Eiji Aonuma would be content to put his feet up and soak up the praise. It's what we would do, but that's probably why we'll never create anything as awe-inspiring as The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time.

Speaking to Nintendo Power about his past work on most of the Zeldas since Ocarina of Time, Aonuma insists that he can't stop making the games, because he's yet to beat what he achieved with Ocarina. "I'm happy that a title I worked on some time ago remains highly praised to this day," he says, "but that also shows how none of the subsequent games in the series have surpassed it."

He adds that this alone may be what motivates him to make more Zelda and keep putting more happy in our heads. A revealing insight into the perfectionist mindset of a top game designer!
Resource - Wii Fanboy

Pixel Qi conjuring up black magic technology for 40-hour laptops

Sure, you can go out and get yourself a laptop right now that'll go 12.5-hours strong, but what if your portable computer could nearly outlast your Aigo A215? While L's mythical quad core lappie came close in theory, Mary Lou Jepsen's (the former CTO at OLPC) startup is hoping to eventually create a machine that can last between 20 and 40-hours between charges. Pixel Qi is being pretty closelipped right now (and understandably so) about what exactly it has going on, but we get the idea the secret sauce is in a highly efficient display that will require far less power than traditional LCDs. The best part? We could see one of these longevous notebooks in the pipeline as early as 2H 2009, so we'd probably start stocking up on Red Bull right about now.
Resource - Engadget

Linux hits the iPhone

We knew this day would eventually come, but somehow we're still misting up a little -- Linux has been ported to the iPhone and iPod touch. Dev Team member planetbeing is the mastermind in charge of bringing everyone's favorite open-source OS to Apple's handhelds, and while it's a little rough around the edges (read: no touchscreen drivers, sound, or WiFi / cell radio support), it's definitely the first step on the road to hacking nirvana. The team is hard at work, and it even sounds like they're thinking about porting Android in the near future (!), so hit the read link to try it out and lend a hand if you can -- or just head on past the break for a quick vid of the port in all its text-scrolling glory.

Resource - Engadget

Nokia Quake III gains on-phone server, Bluetooth keyboard and mouse support

Remember when playing Quake III at a decent resolution required a $5,000 Alienware? Man, those were the days. Now, we can't help but be thankful for a few special Nokia handsets (the N95 8GB, E90 and N82 in particular) that can all handle the game by their lonesome. In fact, the latest version of the software adds a few remarkably awesome extras. For starters, users can now take advantage of on-phone server support, meaning that your handset can actually host a Quake III multiplayer battle (and may we recommend the server name "trashaccident?"). Also of note, the devs have tossed in support for Bluetooth mice and keyboards. We know, right? Tap the read link for all the juicy installation instructions.
Resource - Engadget

Intel evaluating new netbook concepts, form factors

Netbooks have been one of the major success stories of 2008, but recent comments from Intel indicate that the company isn't satisfied with current device form factors. Speaking at a Raymond James IT Supply Chain conference last week, Stu Pann, an Intel VP of sales and marketing, admitted that Intel initially miscalculated the market segments that netbooks would appeal to.

"We originally thought Netbooks would be for emerging markets and younger kids... It turns out the bulk of the Netbooks sold today are Western Europe, North America, and for people who just want to grab and go with a notebook," Pann said. "We view the Netbook as mostly incremental to our total available market."

Pann also noted (his comments can be streamed here) that netbook screen sizes don't lend themselves to long-term use, saying, "if you've ever used a Netbook and used a 10-inch screen size, it's fine for an hour. It's not something you're going to use day in and day out."

Consumer interest in netbooks definitely caught Intel off-guard, and it took the company months to ramp Atom production in order to satisfy demand. I agree with Pann, when he portrays netbooks as providing an "incremental" increase to Intel's total market, but I'm not sure he's right when he states that consumers won't use a netbook on a daily basis. It's true that the majority of us would have a massive headache after trying to work on a 10" LCD all day, but why assume that a netbook user is perpetually limited to the device's display?

A typical Western netbook user will have access to a much larger secondary display, as well as a keyboard and mouse at both work and home. Combined, these three simple devices negate the unfortunate physical aspects of netbook use. Mobile users, meanwhile, are more likely to use a netbook for short spans of time, which would fit within Pann's "fine for an hour" distinction.

Given how popular they've become, it's easy to forget that netbooks are only a year old, while the Atom itself has only been on the market for approximately six months. The device manufacturers themselves are still experimenting with features, sizes, and price points; it would be downright short-sighted for Intel to bring down the gates on experimentation and categorically lock the definition of the netbook form factor. What Pann failed to address—and it's a significant point—is that the sudden jump in netbook sales might be indicative of a long-term purchasing shift.

It's been posited that one reason netbook sales spiked in 2008 is because consumers were concerned about the economy and opted to purchase a cheaper, more portable system, which would fit Pann's "grab and go with a notebook," theory. But the continuing popularity of these smaller systems indicates that consumers like them, and have generally found that they provide an adequate amount of horsepower. Ultimately, yes, a netbook is just a smaller notebook, but a significant number of shoppers appear to want a smaller, cheaper, notebook.

Full-size notebooks aren't going to go away, anymore than full-size desktops are; there will always be a group of buyers who want more computing power and will trade portability for it. Nevertheless, I think the rise of netbook sales in 2008 is the beginning of a buying pattern rather than a trendy spike.

Second-generation netbooks, including hypothetical models with larger screens, will cast a wider net and capture groups of buyers that weren't interested in earlier models. Meanwhile, existing netbook owners already seem to be using these devices "day in and day out." If you're a current netbook owner, or are interested in buying one, what's your take on this? Are you buying it as a device you intend to use on a daily basis (even if it isn't your only system) or will it be confined to occasional portable use?

Resource - Ars Technica

Renesas to Announce Full HD Video Processor for Mobile Phones

Renesas Technology Corp will announce an application processor that enables mobile phones to process 1920 x 1080 (1080p) resolution 30fps full HDTV video at ISSCC 2009, which will take place in San Francisco, California, from Feb 8 to 12, 2009 (session code 8.7).

Renesas announced in May 2008 that it was developing a full HDTV video processor (See related article).

The session is titled "A 342mW Mobile Application Processor with Full HDTV Multi-Standard Video Codec." The processor's CPU core has the maximum operating frequency of 500MHz. It supports MPEG-4AVC/H.264, MPEG-2 and MPEG-4 video formats.

The 6.4 x 6.5mm chip was manufactured using 65nm CMOS technology. Its power consumption is 342mW when it is processing full HDTV video in real time via 166MHz 64-bit DDR-SDRAM.

Some overseas semiconductor manufacturers have already started sample shipments of their HDTV-compatible application processors. Broadcom Corp announced its HDTV-compatible processor in October 2007, while Nvidia Corp and Texas Instruments Inc announced theirs in February 2008. All these processors can encode and decode 1280 x 720 resolution 30fps HDTV video but are not compliant with full HD video.

Resource - Tech-On

Ubuntu launches Free Culture Showcase

The Ubuntu project has announced the launch of its second Free Culture Showcase initiative. The developers behind the popular Linux distribution are giving artists in the free culture community a unique opportunity to have their creative works included in the next major version of Ubuntu.

Participants can submit music, video clips, or images, which will be evaluated by a panel of judges. The winning items will be included on the Ubuntu 9.04 Live CD and in the default installation. In order to qualify, all creative works submitted to the contest must be licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike license, which permits modification and redistribution of content.

"The Ubuntu Free Culture Showcase is an opportunity to bring the best of two great worlds together by showing off high quality Free Culture content in Ubuntu," wrote Ubuntu community manager Jono Bacon in a blog entry. "The winning submissions will be made available on the shipped CDs and download images of the Ubuntu 9.04 release. Every user will be able to find the content in the Examples/ folder in a home directory."

The showcase will be accepting submissions until February 6. A panel of judges will choose an assortment of the best submissions and then the Ubuntu Community Council will select the actual winners from among those finalists. There is a limited amount of space on the installation CD for including free culture art, so submissions must stay within the size constraints dictated by the contest rules. For more details, see the Free Culture Showcase page at the Ubuntu wiki and the announcement at the official Creative Commons blog.

Resource - Ars Technica

Mobile Browser Battlemodo: Which Phones Deliver The Real Web

Before 2007, using the internet on your phone would make you want to kill yourself, if you were dumb enough to believe the crap splattered across that tiny screen even was the "internet." But the combination of increased bandwidth and better mobile software means that more phones really are promising to deliver the real internet, in living color. We tested eight different browsers, and while some put smiles on our faces, others proved that rendering HTML correctly is a far cry from actually giving you an awesome web experience. And what about 3G vs. Wi-Fi? Everything the carriers have told you is a lie. This is the true state of mobile web.

Before we give you the rundown of each of the most prevalent mobile browsers, here's how they all stacked up in a timed test of how fast (and how well) they could render websites, chosen for their diversity and particular challenges:

CHART KEY: Number value is time for complete page load in seconds; page rendering is rated from "Fail" to "Excellent" for each; and the color (red, yellow, green) indicates overall performance taking into account both speed and rendering accuracy: Green = good overall, Red = fail overall.

This second chart runs through the same procedure with all of the phones that had Wi-Fi options:

It's a pretty daunting pile of numbers, so let's break it down into standard prose, rating each browser as we go:
Android
A fast, smart mobile browser based on WebKit. It tackles most sites with (almost) unrivaled grace and speed. Panning and zooming could be smoother and more responsive, but with a ton of options for getting around a page—various touch methods and the trackball—few sites will be challenging to zip around. The only thing we really miss is multitouch for zoom. Buttons just aren't a very elegant or precise solution, and while the whole-page magnifying glass technique is nice, we'd love something a bit more refined. Overall though, we're happy campers on Android's browser. Grade: B+

BlackBerry Bold
Leaps and bounds ahead of the browser BlackBerry users have put up with for years, it renders most pages correctly, even if scripts give it a conniption fit (hence its long load times for Wikipedia and the WSJ). It uses the standard "click to zoom" metaphor, which works well enough, though getting around a page with the trackball can be kind of a work out for you thumb. The Column View, which squeezes a whole page into a single column, is fairly convenient and makes it easier to get around wider pages, even if it doesn't work equally as well on every site (nice on Wikipedia, ugly on Giz). Hopefully they fix the script performance in the Storm, which is using an updated version of the Bold's browser. We humbly suggest they ditch their home-baked browser for one based on WebKit, which would help out there. Grade: B-/C+

iPhone
What can we say? It's still got the best mobile browser around. It crushes basically everything but Android's browser—which is also based on WebKit—in speed and outclasses its still classy brother-from-another-mother (and everyone else) with the ease and elegance of its multitouch zooming. Some pages still give it fits, and it's missing Flash support, but it really does deliver an unrivaled mobile web experience. We love it, but make no mistake we're eagerly waiting for something better. (Mobile Firefox? Is it you?) Grade: A-

Nokia E71 Symbian S60
Hey look, another web browser with WebKit guts! It doesn't perform quite as well as Android's or iPhone's iteration where speed or render accuracy are concerned (can any Symbian nuts explain why?), but it does a serviceable job. The big thing it has going for it is Flash Lite 3 support, though performance there is kinda assy and memory intensive. Navigation is tougher with the E71's d-pad than with a trackball, but the whole page magnifying approach makes it easy enough to get around (too bad you have to dig through a menu or two to get to it). Not bad, but short of excellent. Grade: B-

Internet Explorer on Windows Mobile
Jesus Christ. This is a joke, right Microsoft? Hahaha. No really, this is the worst smartphone browser on the planet. It couldn't render its way out of an ASCII-art paper bag. It totally screwed up every single test page, except for Wikipedia, which it only mostly screwed up. Good luck navigating a page if you're granted the miraculous occurrence of it being rendered in a state that's usable. Grade: F-

Opera Mobile on Windows Mobile
Microsoft's own intentions notwithstanding, you can use the internet on a Windows Mobile phone. You just need Opera Mobile. It's kind of hobbled by Windows Mobile's assy performance, but it usually gets the job done. Not as quickly or always as accurately as its WebKit rivals, but it's definitely usable. Interestingly, it benefits more from the extra bandwidth offered by Wi-Fi than the WebKit browsers do. Menu-based zoom is annoying and imprecise. Touch-based panning worked okay, though a little laggy. We mostly navigated with the Samsung Epix's optical cursor, which worked pretty well, somewhere in between a d-pad and a trackball. Grade: C

Sprint Instinct
Holy CRAP. This is not the painfully lousy browser the Instinct shipped with not by a long shot. The original was slow and fairly feeble, even if it was the head of its (dumbphone) class. The new 1.1 browser really is a life-changing upgrade. It suffers in the chart because it's much slower than most other browsers, and zooming is still clumsy, but once the page loads, it's much smoother to pan and actually move around. I got a bit annoyed that it lied about pageload time, hanging at the last 2 percent of the status bar for half the load, but it usually gets things right. This is the best non-smartphone browser you can get. Grade: C+

LG Dare
Like the Instinct, the Dare proves you can actually get a usable browsing experience on a feature phone. It's a little nimbler at loading pages than its Korean blood rival, but the reason it ultimately posts lower marks than the Instinct is that it buckles way more easily under a moderate to heavy pageload, turning it into an unresponsive picture of the website you were trying to look at. Still, it renders most pages fairly accurately, and we like the sliding zoom scroll bar, at least in theory, since it seems like an intuitive way to deal with the zoom issue. Unfortunately, it works more like a glorified pair of buttons. (Note: I don't think the speed was actually a piddly 300 Kbps—I think it just had a problem dealing with DSL Reports' mobile speedtest, even though it's text-based for the dumbest of phones.) Grade: C

Methodology
We tested every browser only using the full—not mobile—versions of selected sites, over 3G and, whenever possible, Wi-Fi. All scripts were turned on, and the cache was cleared before each round of testing. We took the average of a series of five sequential speedtests to give us an idea of the bandwidth we're dealing with, and timed how long it took to completely load a site according to each browser's progress bar. We assessed whether or not it rendered the page correctly, on a scale ranging from "excellent" to "good" (a couple things out of place) to "utter fail" (I've seen prettier train wrecks).

A few additional issues to note: Internet Explorer would not work on Wi-Fi. Opera yes, our Skyfire install, yes, Internet Exploder, no. (Samsung suggested it might be because of Opera.) We didn't pursue the matter because of how IE did in the 3G tests: A page that looks like a pile of blended dog poo is going to look like that no matter how much faster it loads. Sprint's updated Instinct and Verizon's Dare, which we included as best-of-class examples of feature phones, don't have Wi-Fi capabilities. We left out Opera Mini and Skyfire, since they both leave most of the hard work to servers which essentially spit out a kind of image file—besides, we don't think this kind of internet-by-proxy browser will be around for much longer.

The Big Gulp
Remember our mantra it's code that counts? It's true for mobile internet too. An awesome browser can make up for a mediocre network, but a terrible browser delivers a crappy experience no matter how great the network is. It's all about the browser. As it stands, WebKit is clearly the best thing going, but even then, software implementation matters, or Nokia would deliver as good a performance as Android and iPhone. Proving the point, it's striking how little Wi-Fi actually boosted speed beyond 3G—hell, WebKit browsers on 3G slid past some of the others that were running on Wi-Fi.

Another thing to note is that the zoom metaphor is a tricky thing to nail. Buttons are too brutish, the magnifying glass is imprecise. Multitouch seems to be the best way to handle zooming in and out in a way that's intuitive and precise. Hopefully we'll see other developers start to use multitouch interfaces in touchscreen phones (*cough*ANDROID!*cough*).

As much as this blow-by-blow battlemodo shows you all the problems we encountered, the big picture is that really, mobile web is pretty dandy right now, and getting dandier. It could be more reliable, faster, maybe a little more versatile, but for the most part, yes, you can access the internet on your phone. Compared to just two years ago, that's really saying something. We can't wait to see what it'll look like in two years. Maybe Internet Exploder will actually work. Nah, that's a little too sci-fi.

Resource - Gizmodo

Nokia's 5800 XpressMusic goes on sale somewhere in the world

If you've been gritting your teeth and letting the PR onslaught of the iPhone 3G, Storm, and G1 knock you around as you waited for Nokia's entry into the widescreen, touchscreen superphone market -- that wait appears to be nearing it's end. Nokia has gone and gotten all official and release-y with it's anticipated (if somewhat disappointing) 5800 XpressMusic... or as we know it, the Tube. According to the company's PR, the device "is now, or will be soon" available in Russia, Spain, India, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Finland, "among others." If you'll recall, the phone boasts a 3.2-inch, 16:9 resistive touchscreen (hey, they throw in a guitar pick stylus), a 3.2-megapixel camera, 8GB of on-board storage, and the constant assurance that you're using a phone once called the Tube. No word on price or plans, but we expect cheap, and lots.
Resource - Engadget

350 Open-Source-Lösungen für Unternehmen Meldung vorlesen und MP3-Download

Das Schweizer System- und Baratungshaus Optaros hat seinen Open Source Katalog 2009 vorgestellt. Das 64-seitige Verzeichnis liefert zu über 350 Open-Source-Anwendungen vom Betriebssystem über Entwicklerlösungen bis zu Geschäftsanwendungen eine kurze Beschreibung und bewertet die Unternehmenstauglichkeit. Daneben finden sich Informationen zum Reifegrad, den Funktionen, der Aktivität der hinter dem Projekt stehenden Community, dem verfügbaren Support und der Lizenz.
Die Inhalte des Open Source Katalog 2009 basieren auf Optaros' Enterprise Open Source Directory, einem Online-Verzeichnis von Open-Source-Lösungen für Unternehmen. Der Katalog ist als PDF-Datei zum freien Download oder in gedruckter Version für 8 Euro erhältlich. (odi/c't)
Resource - heise-online

Free Software We're Most Thankful For

Dear free software developers: Before we American nerds sit down to our turkey and mashed potatoes today, know that your creations are at the top of the list of things we're most thankful for. Whether you're an indie hacker putting out the occasional script or an employee at a giant internet company building out a webapp with millions of users or a voluntary coder contributing to an open source project, we salute you this Thanksgiving in gratitude for all the things your work enables us to do every day. Short of covering you in candied yam kisses and cranberry sauce hugs, please accept our hearty thanks for your work. We like you. We really, really like you.

While our thanks goes out to ALL developers of ALL the free software we've featured on these pages, a few projects deserve special mention. On Monday we asked exactly what free software you're most thankful for, and thousands of votes later, we've boiled down the list to the top 40 or so. While we're offline for the day, feast your eyes and mouse on this prodigious list of some of the best free software we're most grateful for. Happy Thanksgiving! (Back to a more regular posting schedule tomorrow.)

The 46 Free Desktop Software Applications, Webapps, and Projects We're Most Thankful For

1. Firefox (see also: The Power User's Guide to Firefox 3)
2. VLC Media Player (see also: Master Your Digital Media with VLC)
3. Ubuntu (see also: Hardy Heron Makes Linux Worth Another Look)
4. Open Office (see also: A First Look at OpenOffice.org 3.0)
5. Pidgin (see also: Ten Must-Have Plug-ins to Power Up Pidgin)
6. Launchy (see also: Take Launchy beyond application launching)
7. Digsby (see also: Digsby Improves Performance, Supports LinkedIn)
8. Gmail (see also: Our full Gmail coverage)
9. Adium (see also: Adium Chat Improves Menu Bar Item, Corrects Your IM Grammar )
10. CCleaner (see also: CCleaner 2.0 Decrapifies Your PC)
11. Picasa (see also: Organize your digital photos with Picasa)
12. AutoHotKey (see also: Turn Any Action into a Keyboard Shortcut)
13. Google
14. Quicksilver (see also: A beginner's guide to Quicksilver)
15. GIMP
16. Foobar 2000 (see also: Roll your own killer audio player with foobar2000)
17. Thunderbird (see also: Eight killer Thunderbird extensions)
18. 7-Zip (see also: Top 10 Windows Downloads, #10: 7-Zip (file archive manager) )
19. DropBox (see also: Dropbox Syncs and Backs Up Files Between Computers Instantaneously)
20. uTorrent (see also: Our complete uTorrent coverage )
21. Winamp (see also: Our complete Winamp coverage)
22. Google Apps
23. AVG Antivirus (see also: AVG Free Anti-Virus 2008 Released, Much Improved)
24. Evernote (see also: Expand Your Brain with Evernote)
25. IrfanView (see also: Download of the Day: IrfanView (Windows) )
26. Opera (see also: Opera Updates to Version 9.6, Gets Faster, Adds Features)
27. Chrome (see also: The Power User's Guide to Google Chrome)
28. Google Calendar (see also: Black-belt scheduling with Google Calendar)
29. HandBrake (see also: HandBrake Media Converter Gets Even Better)
30. Skype (see also: Our complete Skype coverage)
31. Linux (see also: Our complete Linux coverage)
32. Paint.NET (see also: Top 10 Windows Downloads, #3: Paint.NET )
33. Ad-Aware (see also: Cleanse thy PC with Ad-Aware)
34. Avast Antivirus (see also: Download of the Day: Avast anti-virus)
35. Google Docs (see also: Our complete Google Docs coverage)
36. LogMeIn (see also: Use LogMeIn for remote tech support)
37. Transmission (see also: Manage Your BitTorrent Downloads with Transmission)
38. TrueCrypt (see also: Secure your data with TrueCrypt)
39. Amarok (see also: An Early Look at Amarok 2)
40. FileZilla (see also: FTP File Transfer Across Platforms with Filezilla 3.0)
41. Notepad++ (see also: Top 10 Windows Downloads, #6: Notepad++)
42. PortableApps.com (see also: Download of the Day: PortableApps Suite 1.0 (Windows))
43. Rocket Dock (see also: Download of the Day: RocketDock (Windows))
44. Spybot Search & Destroy (see also: Spybot Search and Destroy crushes evil)
45. UltraVNC (see also: Tech support with UltraVNC SingleClick)
46. VirtualBox (see also: VirtualBox 2.0 Adds 64-bit Support, Updated Interface)

A note on the numbers: Mozilla Firefox took first place in this exercise in gratitude with an insanely commanding lead; in fact, Firefox got more than three times the amount of votes the second-place mention (VLC) did. Here's a chart of the top eight on the list so you can see how the votes were spread out relative to one another.

About our vote count: We (ok, I) grossly underestimated how many votes we would get on this particular post. Almost 800 comments in total—many of which contained more than half a dozen free software projects—made finishing the total count (36 pages of comments) before Thanksgiving 2011 impossible. So, this represents just over 1,100 votes, only one third of the total comments we received. This list of 40 contains all the apps that received 10 or more votes. As almost 200 mentions got only a single vote, we think that even though it's incomplete, it's closely representative of the general consensus. (You can check out our complete vote count spreadsheet here.) Our apologies for the incomplete count—lesson learned. Next time, we'll use a proper survey tool.

Resource - Lifehacker

Internet worm exploits Windows vulnerability

A worm dubbed Win32/Conficker.A is making the rounds on Windows machines, exploiting a security hole that Microsoft released a patch for in October, Microsoft said on Wednesday.

The number of attacks have increased over the past couple of days, exploiting a critical vulnerability that was addressed by security update MS08-067.

The malware mostly was spreading inside corporations, but also hit several hundred home PCs, Microsoft said in a posting on the Microsoft Malware Protection Center Blog.

"It opens a random port between port 1024 and 10000 and acts like a Web server. It propagates to random computers on the network by exploiting MS08-067. Once the remote computer is exploited, that computer will download a copy of the worm via HTTP using the random port opened by the worm. The worm often uses a .JPG extension when copied over and then it is saved to the local system folder as a random named dll," the posting said.

"It is also interesting to note that the worm patches the vulnerable API in memory so the machine will not be vulnerable anymore. It is not that the malware authors care so much about the computer as they want to make sure that other malware will not take it over too," Microsoft said.

Most of the infections are in U.S. PCs, but there have been reports from Germany, Spain, France, Italy, Taiwan, Japan, Brazil, Turkey, China, Mexico, Canada, Argentina, and Chile. The worm avoids infecting Ukrainian computers, for some reason, Microsoft said.

Several bots, under the generic name Backdoor:Win32/IRCbot.BH, also are exploiting the security hole. They drop a backdoor Trojan that connects to an IRC server to receive commands.

Resource - C|Net

WordPress 2.6.5

WordPress 2.6.5 is immediately available and fixes one security problem and three bugs. We recommend everyone upgrade to this release.

The security issue is an XSS exploit discovered by Jeremias Reith that fortunately only affects IP-based virtual servers running on Apache 2.x. If you are interested only in the security fix, copy wp-includes/feed.php and wp-includes/version.php from the 2.6.5 release package.

2.6.5 contains three other small fixes in addition to the XSS fix. The first prevents accidentally saving post meta information to a revision. The second prevents XML-RPC from fetching incorrect post types. The third adds some user ID sanitization during bulk delete requests. For a list of changed files, consult the full changeset between 2.6.3 and 2.6.5.

Note that we are skipping version 2.6.4 and jumping from 2.6.3 to 2.6.5 to avoid confusion with a fake 2.6.4 release that made the rounds. There is not and never will be a version 2.6.4.

Get WordPress 2.6.5.

Resource - Wordpress 2.6.5

Nokia to cease sales in Japan (Reuters)

TOKYO (Reuters) - Nokia, the world's biggest mobile phone maker, said on Thursday it will stop selling mobile phones in Japan except for its luxury Vertu brand after struggling to expand its presence.

Finnish Nokia has previously said it will cut costs 'decisively', expecting global mobile phone sales to shrink next year amid an economic downturn.

Japan is the world's fourth largest mobile phone market after the United States, China and India. But it makes up only a tiny part of sales at Nokia, whose products have failed to lure customers away from more sophisticated Japanese ones.

Mobile phone companies also see limited scope for growth in Japan, where 109 million subscribers, or some 85 percent of the population, already own a mobile phone. In addition, a new sales model based on higher handset prices is expected to slash annual mobile phone sales in Japan by some 20 percent.

"In the current global economic climate, we have concluded that the continuation of our investment in Japan-specific localized products is no longer sustainable," Nokia executive vice president Timo Ihamuotila said in a statement.

He added that Nokia's Japanese business would concentrate on research, development and sourcing for the global market as well as specific projects such as the Vertu brand.

The quirks of Japan's mobile phone market have prevented foreign companies, including Nokia's rivals such as Samsung Electronics and LG, from successfully targeting Japanese consumers.

Most of the mobile phones used in Japan are part of third-generation networks and boast features such as TV broadcasting and electronic payment functions.

This makes it tough for foreign manufacturers to compete with domestic handsets.

Foreign companies, excluding Sony Ericsson, only occupy around 5 percent of Japan's mobile phone market, according to IDC Japan, a research firm. Japanese manufacturers, in turn, have only a small presence outside their home market.

"Nokia is facing global earnings problems and many other issues, and this shows Japan was a low-priority market at a time when they are shoring up global operations, even though it may still be attractive," IDC Japan analyst Michito Kimura said.

"I'm not very surprised by the decision."

The move was still rather abrupt as NTT DoCoMo Inc, Japan's biggest mobile phone operator, said just this month that it would sell a new Nokia smartphone as part of its product line-up for the winter shopping season.

Third-ranked Japanese operator Softbank Corp also sells Nokia phones.

Nokia, which has a nearly 40 percent global market share, had originally said it aimed to increase its market share in Japan to a double-digit figure. It took only around 0.3 percent of the Japanese market last business year, according to the Nikkei newspaper.

Instead of a broad expansion, it will now focus on Vertu, its luxury unit.

The Yomiuri newspaper reported on Saturday that Nokia plans to launch mobile phone services for Vertu customers in Japan, using DoCoMo's network.

Vertu, founded in 1998, sells gem-encrusted, hand-built mobile phones with prices ranging from 3,500 euros to over 100,000 euros.

Resource - Yahoo! Tech

Elpida Develops 50nm DDR3 SDRAM

Elpida Memory Inc has completed development of a 50nm process DDR3 SDRAM. The DRAM product features what it said is the lowest power consumption in the industry, 2.5Gbps ultra high speed and a 1.2V low voltage operation based on the industry's smallest chip size.

Developed using 193nm (ArF) immersion lithography technology and copper interconnect technology, the 50nm process DDR3 SDRAM has a chip size of less than 40mm².

In addition, the eco-friendly SDRAM operates on not only DDR3 standard 1.5V supply voltage but even lower voltages of 1.35V and 1.2V. It contributes to the low-power operations of high-density memory systems such as servers and data centers.

The DDR3 SDRAM will initially find applications in high-end desktop PCs. The company said applications are possible elsewhere based on the current shift away from DDR2 SDRAMs in notebook PCs and server equipment.

Mass production of the 50nm DDR3 SDRAM is scheduled to begin in the first quarter of 2009.

Resource - Tech-On

Toshiba to Launch 16GB microSDHC

Toshiba's 16GB microSDHC, and 8GB, 16GB SDHC Cards

Toshiba Corp has reinforced its memory card line-up with the launch of a 16GB microSDHC card, offering what it said is the largest capacity available in the market. The company also extended its range of memory card solutions by adding ultra fast read write 8GB and 16GB SDHC cards to its line-up.

All the SD memory cards comply with the SD memory standard v.2.00, and the SDHC cards support class 6 ultra fast read write speed, with a maximum write speed of 20MB/s. The new memory cards deliver the performance level necessary for continuous shooting of still images and recording video images, and meet strong market demands for cards combining high capacities with high speed data read and write. The microSDHC can be used with an adapter that allows it to be used in SDHC slots.

Mass production of the SDHC cards will start in December, with production of the microSDHC slated to start in January 2009.

Resource - Tech-On

Hynix Introduces 7Gbps, 1Gb GDDR5 Graphics DRAM

Hynix's 1Gb GDDR5 Graphics DRAM

Hynix Semiconductor Inc of Korea has developed what it said is the industry's first and fastest 1Gb GDDR5 Graphics DRAM.

Built on the company's 54nm process technology, the 1Gb GDDR5 is said to operate at the fastest speed of 7Gbps. This represents an improvement of 40% compared to 5Gbps GDDR5. The graphics DRAM processes up to 28Gbyte of data per second with a 32-bit I/O. In addition to its improved speed, the product is also designed to minimize power consumption at 1.35V power supply. Such features make the DRAM suitable for use in high-end applications, such as game PCs, game consoles and graphic cards.

The 1Gb GDDR5 graphics DRAM meets JEDEC standard. Volume production is expected to start in the first half of next year.

Resource - Tech-On

Australia Ratings Board Blocks F.E.A.R. 2

Monolith Productions’ upcoming horror themed first-person shooter F.E.A.R. 2: Project Origin has been refused classification in Australia, effectively banning the game from sale.

Due to be released in February by Warner Bros., the original game was praised for its mix of standard shooter elements and horror sequences inspired by Asian movies like The Ring. The original was given an ‘M’ for mature rating in the U.S., with similar equivalent ratings granted in other countries.

The Australian Classification Board and Classification Review Board currently offers no information on specifically why the sequel has been refused classification; Australia again proves one of the strictest countries around the world in terms of age ratings.

The inflexibility stems from the lack of an R18+ rating for video games, despite the age rating being available for non-interactive media. As a result, the highest possible rating for a video game in Australia is MA15+. Several attempts have been made to introduce a R18+ rating for games, so far without any success.

Recent games initially refused classification in the country include Fallout 3, Dark Sector, Silent Hill: Homecoming and Shellshock 2: Blood Trails. All of these titles were later censored to meet the MA15+ restrictions, but it is so far unclear whether Warner Bros. will pursue a similar policy with F.E.A.R. 2.

Resource - Gamasutra

Have it all: Lunascape, the browser with three engines

You know what I'm sick of? Running three browsers on my Windows system. Not because I want to, but because I have to. I need Internet Explorer (which uses the Trident engine) for some CNET corporate pages and to run Outlook Web Access. I have to use Firefox (Gecko engine) for our blog publishing system and to run all the plug-ins I like. When I want to just browse quickly I turn to Chrome (Webkit). This is no way to live.

But a new browser, Lunascape, handles all three of the rendering engines at once. When you open a new tab or click on a link in Lunascape, you can tell the browser which engine you want to use. You can also set up certain sites to open using a particular engine. If you're trying to figure out which engine is best for a given page (or if you're a Web developer and need to test your site in the three engines), you can reload any page with another engine.

The developers claim the browser is faster than all others, thanks to its optimized implementation of Gecko. That may be, if you're running benchmarks, but I found the alpha version of Lunascape 5 (the version coming out today) to be very slow to start up and with some user interface quirks that slowed me down.

It is, no doubt, a browser for geeks. It is incredibly full-featured. It has native support for RSS feeds, inlcuding podcasts. It saves data--not just passwords--that you enter into forms, so you can get info back if your page closes or crashes before you submit. The browser supports mouse gestures for navigation, and it has more menu access to engine tweaks than any browser I've seen. It's the antithesis of the super-simple Chrome interface, but if you want to do things like quickly extract all the images on a page to a directory on your system, it might be the tool for you.

Lunascape supports its own plug-ins and themes, as well as the add-ons for IE. It does not, however, support Firefox add-ons, which is a real drag. The browser's address bar is also bare-bones, lacking the useful intelligence of the Firefox "awesome bar" or Chrome's even-better psychic search and URL entry field.

I wouldn't recommend Lunascape 5 alpha to anyone in the real world. I'm going to continue to run the three browsers I do instead of moving over to this product. I may change my mind as the product matures, though. Developers and Web geeks might get a kick out of it right now

Resource - CNET

Get Your Own PlayStation Credit Card

You may have seen the mailers, and it’s true. We’ve introduced our very own PlayStation credit card to offer fans a new way to show off their PlayStation pride and earn reward points towards the purchase of PlayStation and SONY products.

We’ve even sweetened the pot with a special introductory offer. Starting today until December 31, 2008, you could save $150 on the purchase of a PLAYSTATION 3 this holiday. There are a couple ways to do this. You can go to to www.sony.com/newpscard to get instant approval for your card, and an immediate $150 credit when you purchase a PS3 directly through the website.

Or you can go www.sony.com/getpscard to apply for the card and upon receipt of the card, use it at any authorized PlayStation retailer to purchase a PS3. The $150 credit will show up on your billing statement.

The holidays just got merrier. Happy shopping.

Resource - Gamasutra

HP intros mini-Q nettop with dual-core Atom CPU

HP recently used an event in Taiwan to unveil its first-ever nettop PC, the mini-Q 2030, that is powered by Intel's 1.6GHz dual-core Atom 330 processor and 2GB of DDR2 RAM. Other hardware includes a 160GB 7,200rpm SATA hard-drive with Windows Vista preloaded and a dual-layer DVD burner. It also has four USB 2.0 ports, two PS/2 ports, an Ethernet port, a VGA jack for connecting to monitors and an audio and microphone jack.

The mini-Q weighs in a maximum of just 4.4lbs and does not include a monitor or any peripherals. Along with the mini-Q 2030, HP also showed the mini-Q 2020 which sports the single-core Atom 230 rated at the same 1.6GHz, half the RAM at 1GB and the older Windows XP OS.

The HP mini-Q 2030 will be available in Taiwan for the equivalent of around $386 while the HP mini-Q 2020, will cost about $296. There is no official information on if or when the nettops will be available in North America. [via Slashgear]

Resource - Electronista

US Consumers Cutting Back on Technology Purchases

Consumers plan to cut back this holiday season on consumer technology purchases, according to a new report by the NPD Group. The report examined consumer purchase intent for popular holiday gift categories including flat-panel TVs, desktop and notebook PCs, MP3 players, digital cameras, GPS devices, and digital picture frames - although not mobile phones.

The report found that among the consumers who plan to come out and shop on Black Friday, a good deal on a specific item is what they are looking for. Fifty-four percent of consumers who said they will get up and shop early on Black Friday are more interested in deals on specific products rather than just overall bargains.

Then there are some consumers who are rethinking making a big-ticket consumer technology purchase for the holidays. Of the 23 percent of consumers who were considering buying a flat-panel TV (40”+), 33 percent said because of the economy now they definitely are not going to buy one. DSLRs were on the shopping lists of about 12 percent of consumers, but now 25 percent of that group said they probably won’t go ahead with purchasing a higher-end camera.

But there will still be plenty of consumers going ahead with planned purchases; they just may be a less expensive brand, or less expensive model from their manufacturer of choice. According to the report, brand loyalty will play a big part in DSLR purchases, but consumers said they will be looking for a less expensive model. More consumers said they won’t be as brand loyal for their digital picture frame or MP3 player purchases, with price being the driving factor.

“The extraordinary economic turmoil we have seen will have a tremendous impact this season as consumers have said that they will probably or definitely hold off on products that have grossed the highest revenue over the last several holiday seasons,” said Ross Rubin, director of industry analysis at NPD. “To take the best advantage of the consumers who still plan to buy these products, retailers will need to consider where consumers are cutting back on features and where they are switching bands or simply skimming on accessories.”

Resource - cellular-news

Bigger Isn't Always Better... But in This Case, We Believe It Is

Over the years we've heard a lot of feedback from you about what you'd like to change about YouTube, and the size of our video player is always top of mind. That's why today we're excited to announce a bigger YouTube player.

We're expanding the width of the page to 960 pixels to better reflect the quality of the videos you create and the screens that you use to watch them. This new, wider player is in a widescreen aspect ratio which we hope will provide you with a cleaner, more powerful viewing experience. And don't worry, your 4:3 aspect ratio videos will play just fine in this new player.

As always, we welcome your feedback and encourage you to share your thoughts with us on this exciting, new change happening for all videos on YouTube.

Example - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VQuFBjMk9tc&feature=dir
Resource - Official YouTube Blog

HTC Increases Google Phone Sales Forecasts

Taiwan's High Tech Computer (HTC) expects cumulative shipments of T-Mobile's G1 Google Phone to reach one million units by the end of 2008. The firm also expects to ship some three million units of its Windows Mobile based Touch Diamond smartphone.

The company had previously said that it expected sales of the T-Mobile phone to be in the region of 500,000 units by the end of this year - rising to between 1.5 and 2 million units by the end of 2009.

Recent research from Strategy Analytics reported that the Android operating system will account for 4 percent of all smartphones sold in the United States during the fourth quarter of 2008.

Neil Mawston, Director, Wireless Device Strategies at Strategy Analytics, said, “We forecast 10.5 million smartphones to be sold in the United States during Q4 2008. We estimate smartphones with Google’s Android operating system, led by HTC of Taiwan, will reach 0.4 million units in the quarter, for a 4 percent marketshare. Android is a relatively late entrant and it will join an increasingly crowded market alongside Blackberry, Microsoft, Apple, Palm, Symbian and LiMo.”

HTC's CEO Peter Chou also told DigiTimes that the company is not laying off staff - refuting some recent news reports. Chou also revealed that HTC is planning to acquire a handset design company in the USA but did not give any further details.

Resource - cellular-news

Google cutting contractor workforce

Google is in the process of paring back a contractor workforce that numbers about 10,000, the company confirmed Monday. The news, though, isn't as fresh as it might appear at first blush.

The contractor cut story made the rounds Monday after publication of a Silicon Valley WebGuild story with the alarming headline of "Google Layoffs - 10,000 Workers Affected." The 10,000 number and Google's efforts to reduce it, though, emerged in October in a San Jose Mercury News story, and it's not clear exactly how many will lose a job.

Google's solar panel-studded headquarters as viewed from the air.

(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET News)

In that article, Google co-founder Sergey Brin revealed the 10,000 number and said, "It's really high." According to the story, "He said Google began looking at the number six months ago and has a plan to significantly reduce that number through vendor management, converting some contractors to regular employees, and other approaches."

Google spokeswoman Jane Penner didn't share too many details Monday, such as how many contractors are affected, whether contracts are being canceled or just not renewed, how many contractors Google will hire, and over what time frame the changes will take place.

"We have 10,000, and we have had a plan in place for awhile to significantly reduce that number," she said. "This is something we've been thinking about for awhile--six or seven months. It predates the most acute phase of the (present economic) crisis."

Google has been slowing hiring and reportedly had 20,123 of its own employees at the end of September. The company has been working to increase revenue from YouTube and other properties, and has shut down projects such as the Lively virtual world and SearchMash experimental search site, which "has gone the way of the dinosaur" according to the page.

Layoffs are of course spreading across the world, including at direct Google competitors such as Yahoo, but Google gets more attention than most. For one thing, Google is a high-profile company with lavish benefits such as "20 percent time" in which engineers can work on projects of their own choosing. For another, the company has been relatively bullish about the extent to which its primary source of revenue, search advertising, is recession-proof.

Resource - CNET

Opera Mini browser available for Google Android

The latest version of the popular mobile browser Opera Mini is now available for the T-Mobile G1, the first phone built on Google’s Android operating system. The Android availability is part of the improvements in Opera Mini 4.2, which leaves testing mode tomorrow.

Opera Mini is the first alternative G1 users have to the phone’s built-in browser, which is based on WebKit. Matthew Miller of ZDNet spotted Mini in the Android Market this morning, and reports that it provides “very fast” internet access, and has the added benefit of synchronizing Opera bookmarks across multiple devices. It’s also just nice to have multiple browsers to choose from, similar to the freedom of choice you have on your desktop or laptop computer. If Opera Mini takes off among Android users, that would be a rebuke to Apple, which rejected the browser as a competitor to Safari on the iPhone. (I asked Opera if there are any plans to bring its higher-end Opera Mobile browser to the Android, but the company isn’t commenting.)

The latest version of Mini has been in public testing for about two weeks, and other new features include the ability to customize the browser with new skins, additional languages (including Armenian, Bengali and Urdu), improved video, and note syncing via Opera Link. When 4.2 was announced, the update didn’t seem terribly exciting, but the just-revealed Android support changes things.

With more than 20 million users worldwide, Opera says Mini it’s the world’s most popular mobile web browser.

Resource - VentureBeat

First Jaunty Jackalope (Ubuntu 9.04) alpha hops into view

The Ubuntu developers have announced the availability of Ubuntu 9.04 alpha 1, the first prerelease for this version. Ubuntu 9.04 is codenamed Jaunty Jackalope and is scheduled for official release in April.

The initial plans for Jaunty were published in September, prior to the release of Ubuntu 8.10. Ubuntu founder Mark Shuttleworth aims to boost the software experience and make the popular Linux distribution more competitive with Windows and Mac OS X on the desktop. Canonical intends to push the platform into the mainstream by putting its resources into upstream usability improvements.

In addition to the ongoing long-term usability enhancement efforts, Canonical and the Ubuntu development community are focusing on several specific technical goals for 9.04, including improving performance and boot time and integrating web services more tightly with the desktop.

A particularly exciting community-driven effort for Ubuntu 9.04 is the jump to Mono 2.0, a major update of the open source .NET implementation that was recently released by Novell. The Mono stack comes with some very complex dependencies that make it a bit challenging to package properly. Members of the community have responded by proposing a Mono 2.0 transitioning initiative that will involve close collaboration between Ubuntu and upstream Debian packagers. The goal is to transition all of the major Mono packages to 2.0 dependencies—a move that will help save space on the installable Live CD image.

Ubuntu 9.04 is still at a very early stage of development and little of that work has fallen into place yet. More specific timelines should emerge next month during the Ubuntu Developer Summit in Mountain View. The big priority during the first part of a new Ubuntu development cycle is merging in new and updated packages from Debian—this step has already been completed.

According to developer Colin Watson, who announced the alpha release on an Ubuntu mailing list on Saturday, progress has also been made on the new Ubuntu ARM port. Canonical's ARM porting effort was revealed earlier this month; it will be used to bring Ubuntu to mobile Internet devices and upcoming ARM-based netbook products. It is still a work in progress, however, and no ARM installation images are available yet.

Ubuntu 9.04 alpha 1 is available for download from the Ubuntu web site, although only the server CD image and the text-based "alternate" CD image were built for the release. If you want an installable Live CD, you can get the latest daily image. I tested the alpha by installing the alternate CD image in a VirtualBox virtual machine. The differences between 8.10 and 9.04 alpha 1 aren't really going to be apparent to regular users at this stage and it isn't ready yet for production use—it's primarily offered for testing purposes and for developers.

"This is the very first roughly working set of images off the production line, and they haven't all been tested, so you should expect some bugs," wrote Watson in the release announcement. "Prominent among these are that some of the images are oversized and can only be tested using a DVD or a virtual machine, and that the desktop CD isn't ready yet!"

The next major alpha release is scheduled for December 18, shortly after the developer summit. The final Debian package import freeze for 9.04 will be on Christmas day. Additional prereleases will follow until the final release arrives on April 23.

Resource - Ubuntu

Microsoft To Rebrand Search. Will It Be Kumo?

Microsoft will relaunch Windows Live Search under a new brand sometime early next year, says a source within the company. What we don’t know is what that new brand will be, although a few names have been thrown around. According to our source, a “final” decision has been made, but very few people inside of Microsoft are aware of it, and it could change.

Now LiveSide is saying there’s evidence the new search brand will be Kumo, which means “cloud” or “spider” in Japanese.

Why would Microsoft go through yet another rebranding effort? Live.com has a lot of different services under its umbrella (some server software, some client software) in addition to search. It’s also a burgeoning social network.

Over time, we’ve heard, Live.com will become a pure social network and personal productivity portal. You’ll go there to access email, calendar, photos, activity streams, etc. But search belongs somewhere else, and it definitely needs a fresh start.

Microsoft won’t comment on the name change, or even if there is a name change. But our sources caution us that nothing has been finalized, and the fate of Yahoo could swing this one way or another as well. So Kumo may very well be the name Microsoft is planning to use, but that decision may change.

Resource - TechCrucnh

Acquisition Dance Between Facebook And Twitter Over For Now?

It’s not the first time we’ve heard rumors about Facebook looking to acquire Twitter or about an impending deal breaking down. But this time, Kara Swisher over at BoomTown offers a bit of insight about the actual deal size. According to Kara (and her sources), Facebook was offering $500 million of its stock at the infamous (and ridiculous) $15 billion valuation to acquire Twitter up until 3 weeks ago.

Update: while Twitter CEO Evan Williams declined to comment on the rumors, we’re hearing that 20 percent of the offer that was made was in fact cash (which would mean $100 million in cash and $400 million in stock).

Apparently talks, which were reportedly initiated by privately-held Facebook, broke down because of doubts on behalf of Twitter investors and executives about the stock’s actual worth, the usual concerns that arise when acquisitions are made (like integration, duration, costs, etc.), and a strong belief that Twitter will ultimately be able to weather the economic downturn on its own. Also noted is Facebook’s concern over Twitter’s current burn rate and future revenue potential.

At the recent Web 2.0 Summit, moderator John Battelle asked Mark Zuckerberg on stage if Facebook would be interested in buying Twitter. The young Facebook CEO’s response was: “we’re really impressed by what they’ve done”, and that they have “a very elegant model”.

We’re trying to get more out of the companies and will update this post if there’s anything else to add.

For comparison: Facebook has raised $516 million in funding to date, while Twitter is backed by $20 million in investment. Twitter boasts 6 million active users, while Facebook reports more than 120 million.

Noteworthy caveat: serial entrepreneur and angel investor Marc Andreessen is sitting on both sides of the fence, being both an early investor in Twitter and a member of Facebook’s Board of Directors.

Resource - TechCrunch